Setting, Values and Tensions in The Shipping News
Setting:
Newfoundland - The people, the place and its characteristics - The influence of outside forces of Newfoundland - A place of beauty, hardship, memory, reverie - The landscape is a literal thing and exists in a real fashion in the novel and in the lives of the characters. - Beauty and vibrancy of the landscape are depicted, a landscape which is also brutal, cold, isolated and rugged. Think about how Newfoundland is compared and contrasted to the setting of New York. What is Proulx representing? |
Values:
- Local values of traditions - Importance of history - Bonds of community - Local lore - Self-sufficiency and subsistence living - Conservation and preservation - Social principles over economic priority - Experience and wisdom over intellectualism - Skill, hard work, loyalty - Marriage and family values - Individualism - Resilience of the local How do the characters in Newfoundland embody these values? What is being represented by these choices? How do the values in New York differ? |
Tensions:
You need to think about what values of the ‘old ways’ and ‘new ways’ are in the novel and who represents them, as this is a source of tension on the novel. What persists? What changes? - The contrast between Tert Card and Billy Pretty. - The representation of the old ways through cultural practices ad oral literature/storytelling, history - Chapter 32: The stories tell more about a people and place than giving factual information. These stories add to the regionalism theme - Agnis: a businesswoman, lesbian, successful. Is she a mixture of the old and the new? |