Patricia
C. Johnson
Professor J.E. Patten
English
112B: Young Adult Literature
May
15, 2000
Research Project: Dandelion
Wine
“Her hand trembled. He felt the tremble…Why? But she was bigger,
stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn’t she? Did she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of
darkness, that crouching, malignancy down below? Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult?” (42)
Step 1: Figurative Language
The best example of
figurative language in this passage is the image of the “unnamable” danger, the
dread that comes out of the ravine as an almost physical force, affecting Toms’
safe and good “summer mood”, and chilling him to the bone. This image, which, through
careful word choice on Bradburys’ part, brings to mind a creeping foe along the
lines of Tolkeins’ “Gollum” and sets the tone of the entire chapter.
Step 2: Diction
Several words in particular
assist the imagery of this passage.
“Intangible”, “groping”, and “crouching” all have connotations of
darkness and blindness, and also call up the feelings associated with being
lost in an unknown place. Malignancy
brings to mind horrific disease, or evil in the way a sorcerer would be.
Definitions of these words appear below, according to the Merriam Webster
Dictionary:
Intangible: (adj.) 1.
Incapable of being apprehended by the mind or senses. 2. Incapable of being defined.
Groping: (grope) (v.)
1. To reach about or to feel one’s way
uncertainly. 2. To search blindly or
uncertainly.
Crouching: (crouch) (v.) 1.
To stoop with the legs pulled close to the body. 2. To cringe in a servile
way. 3. To cause to bend low, as in
humility or fear.
Malignancy: (malignant)
(adj.) 1. Showing great malevolence or
evil. 2. Highly injurious. 3.
Life-threatening: virulent (as in disease).
These definitions widen the
meaning of the passage in some interesting ways. If the menace that both Tom and his mother feel is “incapable of
being apprehended by the mind or the senses”, it brings up some even bigger
questions about what exactly the source of the fear is. Of course, the ravine is wide, dark, and
unknown. There is also the painfully
tangible fear of the serial killer, The Lonely One. The subsequent use of the
words “crouching”, “groping” and “malignancy”, especially when read in a row
without being contextualized within their sentences, brings to mind a very
clear picture of a groveling, (perhaps drooling) dark and evil-eyed minion of
hell. In fact, Bradbury is quite free
with his Ravine/Hell comparisons. Word
choice is crucial in bringing about the desired implications in the readers’
mind.
Step 3: Literal Content
The two characters in this section are Tom Spaulding (Doug’s
younger brother; Tom is ten years old) and his mother. They have gone outside
on a warm summer night to look for Doug, who is late getting home. They walk by the infamous “Ravine” near
their home, where a dreadful personage known only as “The Lonely One” is
supposedly lurking. Tom is reacting to
the fact that his mother is afraid – that her hand trembles in his! He is struck with the realization (for the
first time) that adults (parents as adults being the focus here) are not immune
from fear. He must face the truth that
growing into an adult is not a total release from the heart-pounding terror
children feel of “malignant” things that “grope” and “crouch” in the dark.
Step 4: Structure
This passage describes
action. There is no discussion between
Tom and his mother. They are simply walking
in the dark, hand in hand, and he has felt the physical manifestation of her
fear: her hand trembles in his. The
rest of the passage is completely made up of his ruminations, his realizations,
and his unhappy questions to himself and to the world at large. This first-person form contributes to the
meaning in that it accurately describes the path this boy’s thoughts are taking
as he comes upon a none too heartening truth.
Step 5: Style
The main observation in
terms of style that can be made in this passage is that all of the sentences,
with the exception of the first one, are interrogative. The second sentence is the biggest, most
crucial and most popular interrogative sentence in the history of humanity:
“WHY?”. The ability to ask the question
“why?” is perhaps one of the top three things that separate human beings from
the animals. The fact that this question heads the list of questions that Tom
is asking is significant, because it is universal and “bigger than he is”. There is a helpless familiarity to the
one-word question “Why?”, and every single person who has ever lived has asked
it, (of themselves, of God, of the gods, of someone else) whether from a
despairing, philosophical, angry, or (as in Tom’s case) completely flummoxed
point of view. There is some separated alliteration, as in
“stronger…strength…solace”. Each of
these words beginning with “s” has a meaning that relates to comfort and
protection in Tom’s mind. They can be
contrasted with the repeated “m” sounds in “menace…malignancy”. In these “m” words, Tom feels fear and the
inescapable approach of the Unknown.
Step 6: Characterization
This passage provides
significant insight into Tom’s character.
He is technically a secondary character; his brother Doug (who is the
semi-autobiographical representation of Bradbury himself) is the main character
throughout most of the book. However,
through this passage the reader comes to understand not only some of Tom’s
deepest fears, but also how he relates and fits in to the family as a whole. There is little that we are shown about Tom
and Doug’s mother, beyond short passages like this. Both boys look up to her with the normal adoration of young sons
for their mothers, which makes their realization that she is ultimately no less
and no more than they are in terms of strength and humanity all the more
wrenching. As Tom asks himself this
series of questions, mainly hinging on the fact that his mother is “bigger,
stronger, and more intelligent” than he is, he shows himself to be just as
observant and intellectually curious as his older brother, and just as afraid
of this journey called “growing up”.
Step 7: Tone
The tone of this passage is
dark and fearful. The characters and
the reader feel the same sense of being watched and of being hunted. At the same time, Tom’s sense of pure outrage at his discovery that his parent
is just as afraid as he is (despite her greater “intelligence” and size) comes
through loud and clear. Some irony
comes out in the language, especially in Tom’s somewhat bewildered question:
“Was there, then, no strength in growing up?”.
Step 8: Assessment
This passage gives
significant insight into the work as a whole. Doug, in his careless but not
malicious forgetfulness of time, allows the reader to see into the deepest fears
of a parent and of a ten-year-old simultaneously. Tom is characterized as a very intelligent, observant little
brother, and he feels a certain sense of responsibility for his older brother,
as well, which is unusual in terms of sibling relationships, considering he is
the younger of the two. This passage
gives clarity to several of the important relationships in the book: Mother and
Tom, Mother and Doug, Mother and Father, and the boys and Father. Their roles extend, move and change in
reference to each other and the context of the moment, just as relationships
among people in the “real” world do.
Step 9: Context
This passage is part of a
chapter that begins with a bit of foreshadowing: Grandpa reminds Doug, “Don’t
get lost, son!” as the boy rushes out into the darkness of the ravine with two
friends. The tension builds as Mother
begins to wonder where he is, and there are several instances in which she
calls out from the porch, “Douglas! Doug?” then a line (to build tension), and
finally a very short, ominous sentence: “Silence.”. After Doug finally comes home (not, of course, realizing the
panic he has caused), the chapter slides down what had been a rising peak of
tension with Mother calling softly to the boys after everyone is in bed, “
‘That’s your father.’ ”, and then the short declarative sentence, “It
was.” This (seemingly) simple sentence
reflects the feelings of safety and peace that have gently returned to the
house, and there is a sense of completeness in the family being together once more.
Step 10: Texture
The structure, imagery, and
figuration of the novel Dandelion Wine are all encapsulated rather neatly in
the passage which I have chosen to explicate here. There is a general building of tension in the passage that
mirrors and echoes that of the novel as a whole. The structure, a rambling first-person narrative form, is
representative of the overall style of the novel.
Step 11: Themes
Dandelion Wine in general explores themes
such as the fear of the journey from safe, interesting childhood to unknown,
“responsible” adulthood, fear of the unknown, the origin and elusiveness of
happiness, family structure (the novel features a couple of brothers, a mother,
a father, two grandparents and a great-grandmother in the Spaulding family alone),
the randomness of violence, and the strength of love as it mixes joyfully with
the overpowering beauty of life. The
passage in particular is representative of the rest of the novel in that, even
in a few short sentences, it touches on the two most oft-repeated and important
themes of the book: fear (in general), and growing up.
Step 12: Thesis
One of the most traumatic
and fearful realizations a young adult comes to is that his mother and father
are bundles of weaknesses and failings along with their strengths and talents,
and that truth makes parents just like all people, and most terrifying of
all, just like him.
Section 2:
Questions and Answers
1.
List
each member of the Spaulding family. Briefly describe important relationships
among the family members.
Answer: The Spaulding family
includes Mother, Father, Douglas (age twelve), Tom (age ten), Grandma, Grandpa,
and Great-Grandma. Doug and Tom are
energetic boys who have just begun their summer vacation. They have a very close relationship with
each other – most notably, Grandpa oversees the making of the Dandelion wine,
and Father takes the boys out on their hikes to gather berries and knowledge.
There are also several boarders living in the Spaulding household.
2.
Discuss
Leo Auffman’s “Happiness Machine”. Does
his creation bring happiness to those who try it? Discuss why or why not.
Answer: Leo Auffman decides to make a “Happiness
Machine”, and ultimately he creates a bright yellow box in which a person sits
to experience “happiness”. He tries to
gather all exciting and pleasurable things and experiences and place them in
this box to be felt by the occupant: travel, color, light, sweet smells, music,
good food, dancing, knowledge. However,
it is a complete failure. First, Leo’s
son tries the Machine in secret one night and comes back into the house in
tears. Leo’s wife is furious with her
husband for bringing this about – she was never happy about the idea in the
first place – and Leo talks her into trying it herself. Her initial reaction to the “journey” is
wonderment and excitement, but she comes out of the bright box in tears. In explaining to her husband, she tells him
that the experiences shown to her in the box are bits and pieces of other people’s
happiness, and did nothing for her but show her all she had NOT done, NOT seen,
NOT tasted and NOT experienced. She
knew loss, loss that had never been loss to her before. She had been quite
happy in her life of caring for her family and living this small town life, but
in seeing the world’s temptations, pleasures, and titillations, she feels a
sudden and overwhelming dissatisfaction with her life.
3.
Illustrate
at least two ways in which Doug and Tom intend to “preserve” their experiences
of the summer.
Answer: Doug and Tom are
intent upon “saving” some of the most important gems of the summers’
experiences, and they go about it in several ways. Two examples of this are: the making of the dandelion wine, and
the list they keep of “Firsts”. In
assisting with the making of the yearly dandelion wine, they feel that they
will have a tangible bit of the summer left to enjoy when the snow falls and
the wind blows again outside. These
bottles are kept safely in the basement, where they can be visited on the
darkest winter evenings. Secondly, Tom
keeps a list of “firsts” for the summer: first swim, first ice cream cone,
first grass tumble, and so on. Through
this list, he is attempting to savor and somehow keep the experiences of this
particular season intact, so that he will never ever forget. Both of these actions show the boys’ desire
to hold on to the beauty of the summer, and to their youth.
4.
Explain
the significance of the relationship between the children and Mrs.
Bentley. How does that relationship
change?
Answer: Mrs. Bentley is a ninety-two
year old woman who receives a visit from some young children one day. They do not believe that she was ever young
like they are, and are almost rabid on the subject. Not only do they laugh at her when she tells them what a pretty
young girl she was once, they are downright offended and hurt by her
assertions. Even when she brings out a
picture of herself at about their age, they insist that she could have stolen
the picture from someone, and refuse to believe that it was she. After a long and sleepless night during
which Mrs. Bentley examines her love of “saving”, “scrapbooking” and
“collecting”, she meets the children the next day with a very different
approach. Having come to the conclusion
that she needs to live in the present and discard the past like outgrown
clothing, she answers the childrens’ questions about her by informing them that
she was mistaken, she was “never young” and most decidedly “never pretty”.
5.
Infer
from what you know about the respective ages and situations of Miss Helen
Loomis and William Forrester what they believed about how their lives together
could have been different.
Answer: Mr. Forrester was in his early thirties, and
Miss Loomis in her nineties. They met
and enjoyed an extremely fulfilling friendship on Miss Loomis’ front porch for
the several weeks before her death. There was a deep spiritual understanding
between them, and they both believed that their souls were somehow connected
and would meet again in the future, hopefully at the right respective ages to carry
on a romantic relationship, as opposed to simply a friendship alone. This theme of the elusiveness of time and
happiness corresponds perfectly with the chapter about Mrs. Bentley.
6.
Summarize
your understanding of the “Lonely One”.
Make some likely conclusions about what happened to him.
Answer: After the Lonely One had his last
unfortunate run-in, we know that he was arrested and taken away because in a
following chapter some of the boys are talking about the fact that he didn’t
look anything like they expected him to look.
They thought, perhaps that he would be dark and sinister, and in fact he
was short, blond and balding.
7.
In
the story there is an older gentleman who secretly calls a place and does
what? Name the person, the place he
calls and what he does once he has been patched through?
Answer: Colonel Freeleigh
calls Mexico City and once he has made the connection, he simply listens to the sounds and life going on
on the other side of the world.
8.
Why
does the person in question 7 do this? Describe and interpret his nurses’ reaction when she finds him
out.
Answer: The Colonel wants to have a last taste (for
he knows that he is near death) of that hot and lively existence in Mexico
City. It is fairly obvious that he has
spent some time there in the past, and his friend Jorge who puts the receiver
of the telephone near the window so he may hear everything is obviously aware
of his indulgence. The Colonel’s nurse
is quite upset when she finds him out.
She threatens all sorts of things if she catches him doing it again, but
he cannot stop himself. The last time
he manages to get through he passes away with the phone and the sounds of
Mexico City Life buzzing in his ear.
9.
In
the beginning of the novel, something is chasing Douglas. What is it?
Answer: The knowledge that he is ALIVE is chasing
Douglas in the beginning of the novel.
10.
Explain
why the knowledge that Douglas comes upon in the beginning of the novel is
crucial to the rest of the novel as a whole.
Answer: Douglas’s realization that he is ALIVE is
crucial in relation to the rest of the novel because the novel is, as a whole,
a poem and song in honor of the beauty (with troubles and horrors included) of
life. Some of the most important things
that young adults must learn are that life is rarely fair, never perfect, and
always perplexing. On top of these
truths, however, lies the realization that Doug comes to: we are each of us
alive and under an obligation of sorts to make the most of it: that is, to act,
to love, to take risks. Everything else
will follow.
Question Rationale (In
Relation to Bloom’s Taxonomy):
Question 1 falls under the
“Knowledge” competence in Bloom’s Taxonomy, and by asking it I would hope to
verify the student’s thorough understanding of the important familial
relationships among the main characters in the novel.
Question 2 shows Comprehension on the part of the student
of one of the main themes of the novel: happiness and its elusiveness. In order to effectively answer the question,
the student must have grasped this theme and understand why the Happiness
Machine did not work. In describing the
well-meaning failure, I would hope to see an understanding in the student’s
writing of the themes of experience, simple pleasures, and
Question 3 falls under the “Application” section of
Bloom’s. In answering it a student
shows that he or she can use information in the story, information as seemingly
simple as the fact that Doug keeps a list of “firsts”, for example, to refer to
the themes of the story as a whole.
Question 4 demonstrates the student’s skill in the
Analysis area. In answering the
question, a student must show that he or she understands a particular exchange
between some of the secondary characters and can explain its significance.
Question 5 shows competence in the “Synthesis” section of
Bloom’s. The student should be able not
only to draw conclusions about the unique relationship between Mr. Forrester
and Miss Loomis, but also to relate knowledge from several areas of the novel.
Question 6 shows understanding of the
“Evaluation” section of Bloom’s. The
student should be able to draw conclusions about a situation in which the
outcome was not clearly mapped out for them.
Question 7 refers again to the simple “Knowledge”
section; see question 8.
Question 8 takes up the theme of Question 7 but carries
it further into the “Comprehension” section.
The student is now required to “translate knowledge into new context”.
Question 9 asks a very simple “Knowledge”-based question,
and really requires the student to have read the first chapter of the
book. However, it also demands a fairly
close reading, because if he or she has just skimmed, there might be a simple
recall of the facts but no true understanding, which is required for Question
10.
Question 10 requires that the student “Analyze” the facts
surrounding the experience of Doug finding that he is ALIVE. The student must recognize the hidden
meanings buried there and extrapolate from them some kind of truth.
Section 3:
Developmental Issues
Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs
is particularly relevant to this discussion of Dandelion Wine. Children have, first of all, a need for
physical well-being. Doug and Tom are
cared for in the very loving family that they have been blessed with. This is the kind of family and most children
only wish they could have had. Not only
is there a multi-generational support system (who is lucky enough to have known
his or her great-grandparents?), but there is no uncertainty in the lives of
these boys concerning where their next meal will come from. The Spaulding family is certainly not
extremely well-off, but they are able to provide the children with more than
adequate food, clothing, and shelter.
These are details that do not seem important unless one is without
them. Unfortunately, children can
easily become complacent about what they have been given, unless they are
somehow made to understand the difficulty of a life without new clothes, a bed
and bedroom, and a certain meal and mealtimes.
Children perceive and begin
to create their own ideas about relationships, friendship, and romance in
relation to their need to love and be loved.
As they develop and grow into young adults, children either create or re-create
the love and trust and understanding that they may or may not have found in
their familial relationships. Since a child’s relationship with his various
family members is his first glimpse into what a relationship is like in
general, he will most likely model his behavior within his first relationship
outside of the family on an internal
set of behaviors. Tom, for example,
feels loved by his family, and in response he feels love and respect for
them. It is not difficult for him to
express that same care and respect for people outside of the family who
communicate with him or initiate friendships.
It is also interesting to note that he is a part of the “run-in” with
Mrs. Bentley. He is with two other
children, who are each rude to Mrs. Bentley in their own ways, accusing her of
lying about her past and stealing a picture of another little girl when she
produces a photograph of herself in order to prove that she was once young. At
the climax of the scene, in which the two girls run off with a ring and a comb
that were Mrs. Bentley’s and which fit them perfectly, Tom calls to them to
return the things, and they refuse. He
then stays long enough to apologize to Mrs. Bentley. He sees that she is tremendously hurt and affected more by the
insulting manner of the girls than by the theft of her trinkets.
Children’s need to belong is also a crucial issue in Dandelion
Wine. Doug’s group of friends in
particular is described in some detail.
In particular, Doug is close to John Huff, who moves away halfway
through the novel, in a very traumatic and meaningful scene. The boys are playing hide-and-go-seek and
Doug commands them to “FREEZE!”. John,
with all the others, must freeze in place, and Doug is given a chance to see
him – really see him – for perhaps
the first time. These groups of friends
are important to any young person, and the loss of a member of the group with
whom one particularly identified with is especially traumatic. Another example of this idea within the
novel can be seen in the case of Elmira Brown and Clara Goodwater (of course, one can point out to the
students the reference in the last name “Goodwater” to the witchtrials
depicted, among other places, in the play The Crucible. They should also
be aware of the common Puritan address “Goodwife”). Although Elmira and Clara are not, of course, children, the same
ideas can be seen very clearly in their behavior – Elmira wants very much to
belong, to be seen as a part of the Club.
The chapter ends happily with her gaining a friend in one she considered
her enemy, and children reading this might take from it some lessons about
belonging, as well as another reiteration of the truth that adults go through
some of the same complications and trials as young adults do.
The need to know, as
described by Maslov, is shown here through the actions and thoughts of several
characters, but particularly Douglas.
He starts the novel with the rather amazing and almost violent
realization that HE IS ALIVE. Again, this
might seem like an obvious or painfully clear truth, but Doug comes to understand
it principally through the interaction with his lively brother and his
attentive father.
Children’s need for beauty
and order is the most important truth to be shown through this novel. The style of the novel is written entirely
for the benefit of the child who recognizes beauty and order to be of the
utmost importance.
In general, development of
the mind of the child into the mind of the young adult and ultimately, into the
mind of the mature adult, are all explored in this novel. The whole is seen as a journey, and yet
adulthood is not presented as a state of being in which all questions have been
answered and all doubts have been quieted.
Section 4:
Synopsis (already done)
Section 5A:
Biographical Investigation 5 pages