“Sponono” – By Alan Paton

“Sponono,” by Alan Paton, is about a boy who attends a reformatory school in South Africa. Sponono, a member of the Xhosa tribe, has a very different cultural background than those who run the school.  The reader first sees Sponono when he asks to speak the principal in order to defend and protect a fellow student.  Johannes, an older reformatory student had stolen a watch and was likely to be expelled from the school and then imprisoned.  Sponono, realizing the Principal may choose Johannes fate, tries to persuade the principal to offer the boy another chance.  Sponono argues that since the goal of the school is to reform the boys (it is, after all, a “REFORMatory”), sending Johannes to prison would in fact make him more of a criminal.  Johannes himself states:  “‘I am learning,’ he said, ‘but not yet enough.  If I come back here, I shall learn completely. But if I go to prison, I shall learn to steal more than before’” (53).  The principal is persuaded and agrees to give Johannes another chance. This early look at how reformation works sets the tone for the reader’s understanding of Sponono’s reform attempts later in the story. Throughout the rest of the story, Sponono makes mistake after mistake.  He steals and he gets in fights, but each time he misbehaves, he expects to be forgiven.  The Principal grows weary of this tomfoolery and is not as keen to repeat this cycle of constant forgiveness.  The principal and him, have very different ideas about forgiveness. Sponono, in spite of his faults and mistakes, honestly wants to reform. 

Sponono had listened carefully to his catechism lessons and liked Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness: “Jesus said that we must forgive those who offend against us, even unto seventy times seven” (61). The principal though, seems to base his ideas about forgiveness more on the Old Testament teaching  about “an eye for an eye.”  The principal feels that Sponono must be punished in some way for his mistakes/crimes.  Sponono sees his actions as mistakes on the road to reforming and the Principal sees them as crimes and signs that Sponono will never reform.  The Principal wants to punish rather than forgive because he thinks that will be a more effective way to reform Sponono.  Sponono though, doesn’t see the purpose of the punishment.  He thinks he just needs to be genuinely sorry for what he has done.  Sponono and the Principal both take the idea of reform fairly literally.  The word “re-form,” literally means to form yourself again.  The Principal thinks that can only be done through punishment.  Sponono thinks that being sorry is the way to re-make your ideals.  The Principal works with hundreds of boys in the reformatory and he wants the punishments to deter others from misbehaving.  Sponono doesn’t understand how deterrence  relates to reforming himself or others.  Sponono also doesn’t see how retribution helps.  He does give back the money he stole from the couple, thinking that it is right to compensate a victim’s loss.  He just doesn’t see how revenge or deterrence help a sinner reform.  After Sponono steals from the couple, he doesn’t understand why he can’t still work in the Principal’s garden.  He feels that he made amends and was sorry, so he doesn’t see what his punishment will accomplish.  Sponono applies these ideas to others.  He wants forgiveness for Johannes and when Tembo injures his eye, he doesn’t ask for “an eye for an eye,” he forgives him:  “He did not mean to hurt my eye. I might have hurt his eye too, if he had not hurt mine first. It was his bad luck, meneer” (60).  The one thing he can’t forgive is his Principal’s inability to forgive him:

“Are you then like other people, who, when a man has done wrong, treat him badly? I have always looked upon you as a trustworthy, but now I am ashamed… Why have you turned?  You were always a man of your word, but now you are changed.”

This seems to contradict what Sponono says about forgiveness, but maybe that’s the author’s point.  Like Penelope Lively, maybe Paton too doesn’t want to give easy answers.  He wants to leave things ambiguous.

Sponono Blog

Emily Unthank

3/24/14

Great Books

Stephanie Berry

Why does Sponono want the principle to forgive him when Sponono won’t forgive the principle?

               

The Story Sponono by Alan Paton is about a boy named Sponono. It is in Africa and there are many different tribes of people. Sponono was from the Xhosa tribe. Sponono lived at the reformatory for a couple years. Sponono expects the principle to forgive him for many of his mistakes. Sponono goes to the principle one day and tries to help a boy named Johannes from getting into jail. The principle was impressed by Sponono’s act of kindness towards Johannes and they started a sort of relationship. Eventually Sponono becomes the principles gardener. Sponono gets in trouble for stealing money and throwing a rock at some people that where having a picnic on Christmas. The principle did forgive him for this but he could no longer be his gardener at the reformatory. The principle left the reformatory and Sponono asked if he could come with him. The principle said that he could come with him. After Sponono gets out of the reformatory he comes to the principles home. Sponono had an incident and was sent back to the reformatory. Later he asked the principle to come back but the principle found him a job that Sponono would fit in better and possibly like better. Later he was found guilty of stealing a watch and a leather jacket and was sent to prison. While he’s in prison he keeps in touch with the principle and try’s to persuade him to let him come to him. The principle is not able to forgive Sponono and Sponono doesn’t forgive the principle for not forgiving him.

Sponono always assumed that forgiveness would come easy. There were many occasions that Sponono made mistakes and the Principal did forgive him. The last incident that happened and the principal would not forgive Sponono happened while he was working at the principal’s home. Sponono came to work for the principle as his gardener when he was out of the reformatory. The principle had other workers in his home, Jane was a house keeper and Cele was a gardener. Jane and Cele where Zulu’s and Sponono felt like they never liked him. Sponono was invited to a party at Jane’s sister’s home. Sponono didn't like the food and killed one of her chickens. This was a great offense to her sister and Sponono made an advance to the host’s daughter. After that they called the police and Sponono had a choice to go to court or go back to the reformatory. He chose to go back to the reformatory because he felt the Zulu’s didn't like him. When Sponono asks again to come live with the principle he refuses. “But you” he wrote “you ought to know better. You have worked with thousands of sinners and have gained a good reputation amongst us. Also you are a white man, and have no reason to hate me. Lastly you are a writer not a gardener, and you could never lose a job to a person like myself.”   Later the principle finds Sponono a job with a friend of his. Sponono was writing a letter to the principle and wrote, “Are you then like other people, who, when a man has done wrong, treat him badly? I have always looked upon you as trustworthy, but now I am ashamed in front of my friends.” Sponono tries to obey the commandments of Christianity. Sponono wants the principle to forgive him because he looks up to him as a father. If he was the principle’s son he would forgive him. Sponono thinks of the principle as a father so that he should forgive him and not kick him out. 

Sponono Revisited

Mason Unthank
Great Books
Wednesday, March 26th, 2014
Mrs.  Stephanie Berry

     The Short Story "Sponono," by Alan Paton, does not only have a weird name, it has a good story
too. Sponono is a boy in a reformatory school in Africa for some reason or other. Sponono is not a
Christian, yet, he frequently quotes the Bible over and over again when he gets in trouble. Sponono
frequently talks about forgiveness to the principle of the reformatory school who he considers somewhat of a father figure. "Why would I make trouble in my own father's house?" Sponono gets in trouble over and over again for things that make him start over in the reformatory. He lies to talk to the principle, steals, threatens people with rocks, gets in fights, and more. Over and over again, he asks for forgiveness from the principle. When the principle doesn't forgive him for the hundredth odd time, Sponono writes him an angry letter saying: "are you then like other people, who, when a man has done wrong turn treat him badly?" Sponono may have different tribal cultures than the other people at the reformatory, because he is a Zulu. It seems like Sponono sometimes tries to reform, most of the time though, he just doesn't try very hard.
     I think Sponono wants to reform his life, he just isn't trying very hard. Sponono is an Xhosa tribesman, so he probably takes whatever he hears in English literally. This is portrayed in the way he takes the Bible. Forgiving people seventy times seven is probably an example that we should forgive often. Sponono probably thinks he can mess up four hundred and ninety times before he gets punished. Some examples that Sponono isn't trying very hard are quite easy to find. Such as the time he threatens the couple with the rock, and then steals their money. To make him admit it, the principle has to make it easy for him to acknowledge he did it.  He also lies frequently, though sometimes it is for good. "Do you think it is wrong to tell a lie?" "Not to save a person." Sponono has good morals, but he needs to practice what he preaches more. When he does though, he seems like a decent person. "I forgave him." He said. " He did not mean to hurt my eye. I might have hurt his if he did not hurt mine first. It was his bad luck, meneer." Sponono usually means well, but when a so-called, "great temptation" is put in his way, he strays from his path of goodness.

Sponono (Read This)

Alan Paton

"Sponono", by Alan Paton, is about a boy named Sponono who lives in a reformatory that is located in South Africa. This story is also about the Principal of the reformatory, which Alan Paton wrote so the Principal is narrating the story. This story begins when Sponono sees the Principal in order to save someone named Johannes Mofoking from going to prison. After Sponono's persuasion, Johannes is set free. Sponono soon returns to the Principal with an irregular request to work in the Principal's garden, which I thought was very peculiar. After the Principal agrees to let him work in it, Sponono quarrels with the previous worker, William, and they get two separate sections to work with. When Christmas Day comes around, a boy from the reformatory does something terrible to some guests named Mr. Anderson and Mrs. Anderson.

(55)"This boy menaced them with a large stone and had snatched up Mrs. Anderson's handbag from the grass and made off into the bushes. In the bag was sixty pounds, in twelve five-pound notes, a whole month's earnings, and the distress of the husband and wife was painful to see." the Principal says. 

Later he finds out it was Sponono that terrorized this couple and stole the money. His consequences were serious; he lost his free privileges and has to start his term in the reformatory all over again. But that wasn't all. He also later got into a fight with a boy named Tembo and got whipped in the eye with a metal belt. But, with his forgiving heart, Sponono forgave Tembo and hoped to move on. When he is asked where he got the  idea of forgiving, Sponono said it was a teaching of Jesus. He isn't a Christian, for he said, (61)"'I am not good enough, but I like to obey the commandments.'" I thought this was odd.

He was banned form working in the Principal's garden, which didn't satisfy him. Sponono assumes that once someone is forgiven, they can wipe out the memory of their bad-doing and act like it never happened. He made the Principal promise he could work in his garden again and the Principal gave his obliges. This promise backfired on him because, when he quit his job as a principal to move to Natal, he was forced to allow Sponono to come  because of a silly promise. After a few days of working in the Principal's garden, he got invited to a party, killed and ate a chicken from dissatisfaction for the food, and threatened the host. He was sent back to the reformatory the next day. 

Reformatory

Even though he pleaded and begged the Principal to come back and work in his garden, the Principal never let him.

One  thing in Sponono that can set several of the readers off is the fact that Sponono quoted the Bible, even though he isn't Christian. Back in the story when he forgives Tembo so easily, Mr. van Dyk asks him why he forgives people so easily and where he got this idea from. He claims that Jesus forgives everyone, even if they wrong him seventy times seven. Sponono also believes that if someone is forgive, they can forget their wrong like it never happened.

(60)"'Do you think,' I asked, 'that if a person is forgiven, his offence is wiped out like it had never been done?' 'Yes,' Sponono said."

I think that Sponono wants the Principal to forgive his offences so he doesn't have to keep thinking about them. he uses the quote form the Bible about forgiving people seventy times seven so the Principal might start forgiving him, thus relieving him of his crimes.

Sponono Homework

Sponono – Alan Paton     3/24/14
Homework:
Write a minimum of 2 paragraphs (minimum of 10 sentences in each paragraph)  discussing one of the following topics.   Make sure your first paragraph introduces the short story name and author, and then provides an overview that relates to the topic you will be discussing.   Also make sure you let us know what topic you will be writing about and what your viewpoint is!   In your 2nd paragraph, provide evidence that supports your viewpoint from the source material.   Please use direct quotes or passages from the story and indicate the page number where you found the source.  
Questions you can answer:
1.    Why does Sponono quote the Bible so much when he is not a Christian?
2.    Do you think Sponono wants to reform his life?
3.    Why does Sponono expect the Principal’s conduct toward him to surpass “in superhuman degree” (50) his own conduct toward the Principle?
Honors:   2 pages (MLA format) answering one of  the above questions.

"At the Pitt Rivers" -- By Penelope Lively

“At the Pitt Rivers” by Penelope Lively is a short story about a boy who realizes that although he thought he knew a lot about love, he really knows very little.  At the beginning of the story, the boy describes how he enjoys wandering around in the Pitt Rivers museum.  He goes there almost every day to work on a poem he has been writing. The poem is about an old man and a young boy who have a conversation about life:

They swap opinions and observations (it’s all dialogue, this poem, like a long conversation) and it’s not till the end you realise they’re the same person.  It sounds either corny or pretentious, I know; and what I could never decide was whether to have it as though the old man’s looking back, or the boy’s kind of projecting forward -- imagining himself, as it were (30).

He is writing the poem as both the young boy and the old man, as though he already had the wisdom of someone much older and wiser.  He realizes that this is pretentious, but he still attempts it.  He thinks he knows a lot, and even says at one point, “I’ve seen films and I’ve read books and I know a bit about things” (25).  One day, however, he sees a woman at the museum.  Because he always notices girls, he observes that, "this girl was definitely not attractive. In the first place she was in fact quite old, not far off thirty, I should think, and in the second she hadn't got a nice figure; her legs were kind of dumpy and she didn't have pretty hair or anything like that"(24-25).  He is dumbfounded when she meets an older man, somewhere in his fifties, and they seem genuinely in love.  He at first is disgusted by the couple, but as he sees them more, (they are together at the museum almost every week), he begins to like the idea of them.  Their relationship goes against everything he thinks he knows about love.  He thinks only attractive people should date each other and that they should be the same age. Even he, a 16 year old boy, with a deluded view of love, can tell that despite their big age difference, they are in love.

One day, the boy is confused because the couple seems detached and sad. They don’t talk; they just look at each other. At one point, she takes out a comb and brushes her hair, most likely because she is stressed. When she drops it, she doesn’t bother to pick it up. In fact, she ignores it. The young boy observes this and is terribly affected by this sudden change of heart. He goes home and tears up the poem he had been working on. Lively does not make it clear why in fact the young boy tears up the poem. She, instead, lets the mind wander. This is intentional.  Her view of fiction’s job is that is should “illuminate” life’s “conflicts and ambiguities.” The boy tears up the poem because he feels conflicted about watching what he had come to think actually was true love, come to an end.  He realizes that just as he couldn’t understand why they were together, he can’t understand why they are apart.  He realizes he knows very little, if anything, about love.  Trying to write his poem, as though he had all the wisdom of the old man, is ridiculous. He realizes that this is a poem that should only be written by an older man or woman who has been through life’s troubles and truly knows how to deal with the ambiguity of love.

At The Pitt-Rivers (x2)

The short story, 'At The Pitt-Rivers', by Penelope Lively, takes place at a museum called Pitt Rivers.

 

The main character of the story is a boy that often visits the Pitt-Rivers because he likes to work on his poetry. One day, while walking up the steps to the museum, he notices a woman sitting on the bench. This woman is not particularly pretty, according to him.

"This girl was definitely not attractive. In the first place she was in fact quite old, not far off thirty, I should think, and in the second she hadn't got a nice figure; her legs were kind of dumpy and she didn't have pretty hair or anything like that."(pg. 24-25)

When he walks nearer to the woman, he realizes that, even though her figure wasn't gorgeous, he face expression was "the most beautiful expression I've ever seen in my life."(pg. 25)He eventually leaves after staying a while to see who she was meeting. Later, he finds the woman again and realizes the "bloke" she was with appeared to be a man who looked over 50  years. He found this rather disgusting because of the wide age difference and how dumpy the old man looked.

"He might have been a schoolmastser or something, he wore those kind of clothes, old trousers and sweater, and he had greyish hair,a bit long.(pg.27)

He was thoroughly disgusted with this and left with a huff. Later in the story, though, his feelings about the couple change rapidly when he sees them again at the museum. He sees that the old man  is the person who gives the girl her delectable expression. He also starts to see that two people don't have to be attractive to be together. As the story goes on, he finds the girl again, only to find out how unhappy she was. When they exited the museum, the old man leaves and the lady sits on the bench, looking miserable and "out-of-it".

"I could see her face then, and I hope I don't ever see anyone look so unhappy again. I truly hope that."(pg. 31)

Because of this, he tears up  his poem, even though he has been working on it forever.

I think he tore up his poem because he may have realized that not every true love has a happy ending. The story states that he has been in love twice. The first time was with a girl in a class at his school, but it only turned out it was a bit of a trial run and he faded away.

"The second time was last year, when I was fifteen. She came to stay with her married sister who lives round the corner from us and though it's months and months ago now I still feel quite faint and weak when I go past the house."(pg.25)

When he took the second girl out, he realized they had nothing to talk about and decided that he preferred just thinking about her. Both the times he has fallen in love, they turned out to be all right or better, so he assumes when you fall in love, there's always a solution and you're never really unhappy. When he sees the girl and the old man part, he could apprehend the true meaning of true love and that it doesn't always work out. After that, he rips up his poem about an old man and a boy trading ideas and find out in the end that they're the same person in order to write about this experience instead of his first idea, since the couple is all he probably can think about now.

 

At the Pitt-Rivers 2.0

     In the story, "At the Pitt-Rivers" by Penelope Lively, the narrator is a sixteen year old who visits a museum almost every week. While he is there, he notices an older woman that he doesn't find especially pretty. He also noticed that she had an expression on her face that simply made her glow. He didn't see what was making her so happy until he came up alongside her and saw an older man, very drab, about 50 or more, who she was looking at. He starts off with a contorted view of love: "All the girls I know, at school or round where I live-are either attractive or they're not. If they're attractive the have a lot of blokes after them and if they're not they don't." He goes to the museum quite often after that, and does a half-writing, half-following routine. He had been writing a poem about an old man and a young boy swapping opinions and observations, and then they find out they're the same person. While he is writing, he notices the old man and the woman break up. For no apparent reason, he tears up his poem and storms out of the museum. There are probably a lot of reasons he tore up the poem.
     In the end of "At the Pitt-Rivers," the boy/narrator shreds up the poem he'd been working on and storms out of the museum in a huff. The poem was about an old man talking with a boy when they find out they're the same person. I think there are many reasons the boy tears up his poem. One of the reasons is possibly because he had a new outlook on love, because of the age difference made him think that not only two good-looking people could be together. "I thought he wouldn't be much because of her not being pretty, I mean, in films you can always tell who's going to fall for who because they'll be the two-good lookers." Another possible reason is that maybe he needed to get past his youthful arrogance of I-know-it-all-about-and-life. "And that time is was shocked. Really shocked. I don't mind telling you that I thought it was disgusting." Or maybe he realized that love and life aren't all hard fast rules. "I suppose you could say I'd learned something else in the Pitt-Rivers by accident. Lively left some ambiguities in "At the Pitt-Rivers and does what she wants fiction to do.

Pitt RIver 2nd edition

Pitt Rivers 2nd edition

The short story At the Pitt Rivers by Penelope Lively was about a fifteen year old boy. He goes to a museum very often, called The Pitt Rivers. He thinks that he know a lot about love. One day he notices a woman sitting on a bench in the museum watching the entrance. “She wasn’t specially ugly; just very ordinary—you wouldn’t look at her twice. She was sitting on a bench, watching the entrance.” Later this woman meets up with and old man and the boy would see them almost every time he would go to the museum. The boy started to get interested in the couple and starts to watch them every time he sees them. At first he thinks that it is disgusting that an old man and a thirty year old woman could fall in love. Later he completely changes his attitude. In the end of the book the woman and man part and he rips up his poem that he had been working on for about a month. He probably ripped up the poem because he figured out that there is way more to love than he really thought. That an old man can fall in love with a middle aged woman. He thought that all goes well in love but in the end the old man leaves her.  He says “I hope I don’t see anybody that unhappy again.”

                He probably tore up the poem because there was much more to love than he had thought. That an unattractive woman and a good looking man could fall in love. He thinks that “I mean in films you can always tell who’s going to fall for who because they’ll be two good-lookers.” This is what he thought of love, that only two good lookers could fall in love or that people have to be about the same age. This couple showed him that anyone could fall in love no matter what they look like or what their age is. The woman was a plain woman that “you wouldn’t look at twice” and the man was just an average man too. he thought that he a lot at the young age of fifteen “I suppose that you could say I’d learned something else in the Pitt Rivers, by accident.”  He also thought that in love everything is right and nothing can go wrong. But this showed him that it can, “I saw them go past—just their heads, above the glass cases—and something wasn’t—right… she was miserable.” Maybe the poem he wrote was about an old man and boy talking about love that he thought and that he realized that it wasn’t right he just ripped it up and threw it away. “I never did go on with that poem. I tore it up, as far as it had got; I wasn’t so sure about that conversation, that there could ever be one, or not like I’d been imagining, anyway.” He had thought that he had known everything about love but in the end he realized that he had known basically nothing.

 

At the Pitt-Rivers

     In the short story, "At the Pitt Rivers," the plot consists of a sixteen year old boy who goes to a museum almost every week to "mooch around and be on your own." One of the days he is there, he notices a positively happy older lady. At first he doesn't realize why she is so happy, but then he notices a man of about 50 years of age who was making her "radiant." The boy has sort of a strange sense of love. He says in the story: "I mean, in films, you can always tell who's going to fall for who, because they'll be the two good lookers, and while I'm not saying real life's like that there is a way people match each other." The boy is a big fan of poetry and decides to write a poem one of the days he is at the museum. The poem is about a boy that is having a conversation with an old man, when they realize they're the same people. While he is writing the poem, the boy notices the old man and the woman are somewhat depressed. Penelope does not say why, but the old man and the woman were obviously having a breakup. At this point the boy tears up the poem he was writing into tiny pieces and threw them away. I think the reason for this was that he didn't have the knowledge of love or life of the old man in his poem.
     In the beginning of the story, the boy has a contorted version of love built up in his mind. Originally, he thinks people have to have about the same looks to be together. (e.g. A- and A-.) When he sees the old man and woman, the first thing he notices is a huge age difference. (About 20 years.) He is quite arrogant and he thinks he knows a lot about life and love. The thing that startled him about the woman was that she was not at all pretty, but she had "the most beautiful expression I've ever seen in my life." The boy had been in love twice himself. Once was "a bit of a trial run," and on the other date, the best part for him was taking the girl home. So from this information, we can safely conclude the boy doesn't know much about love.

why did he tear up the poem

     The story At The Pitt Rivers by Penelope Lively, is narrated by a fifteen year old boy. This boy thinks that he knows a lot about life and love. He has an idea that people fall in love based on how they look. He thinks that it is very important on the way that people look. "All the girls I know-- at school or round where I live-- are either attractive or they're not if their attractive they have lots of blokes after them and if they're not they don't. Its as simple as that." He states that he always looks at girls to see if their pretty or not but he never talks about their personality's he is always talking about their physical appearance. He thinks that he is an expert at love because he had been in love twice. when he went out with a girl the best part was taking her home. he also liked to just think about her because he could make her what he wanted her to be. It is ridicules how he thought he was in love twice and decided that he was an expert at love.

     When he was at the Pitt Rivers he sees this couple at the museum and starts to watch them. These people were not his idea of love. The boy was an old man and the woman was about thirty years old he didn't consider her beautiful or even pretty. When he saw her face he said that she almost glowed. This glow was love radiating off of her. At the end of the story the couple parts and he sees the pain and sadness in her face. When he rips up the poem he sees his observations and everything that he knows about love aren't accurate and then he just tears it up. He realizes that he is just fifteen and doesn't know what love really is and has to start over again. He says that he thinks that the couple will never see each other again. He also says that he learned something at the Pitt Rivers at the end of the story, that love could be different than what he thought of it.

At The Pitt-Rivers

"At The Pitt-Rivers", by Penelope  Lively, is about a boy around the age of 16 who loves poetry. He always visits the museum called Pitt-Rivers because "it was a nice place to mooch around and be on my own, Saturdays, or after school."(pg. 23) One day,when entering the museum like he usually does, he noticed a precarious thing: a girl, whom was sitting on a bench. The boy thinks in his head that "good-looking girls have a better deal than bad-looking ones, you've only got to observe a bit to see that"(pg. 24) This girl he notices was definitely not attractive, didn't have nice hair, and didn't have a nice figure. She also seems to be in her thirties. He didn't pay attention to her at first.

"Until I came alongside, where I could see her face clearly, and then I looked again. And again.She still wasn't pretty, but she had the most beautiful expression I've ever seen in my life.  She glowed; that's the only way to put it."(pg. 25)

The boy was curious to see who the "bloke" that she'd be meeting was. After a while no one showed up for the girl and he left. Later in the story the man she was with was a guy who seemed to be in his fifties. This made the boy mad.

"I thought it was disgusting. He was an ordinary-looking person- he might have been a schoolmaster or something, he wore those kinds of clothes, old trousers and a sweater, and  he had greyish hair, a bit long. And there she was, and as I've said she wasn't pretty, not at all, but she had this marvelous look about her, and she was years and years younger."(pg. 27)

 Farther in "At The Pitt-Rivers", he saw them together again and realized that the girl didn't look very happy. When they go outside to the entrance of the museum, the man leaves her and the girl was seemingly devastated.

"I suppose you could say I'd learned something else in the Pitt-Rivers, by accident. I never did goon with that poem. I tore it up, as far as it got; I wasn't so sure anymore about that conversation, that there could even be one, or not like I'd been imagining, anyway."(pg.31)

The poem was about an old man sitting on a bench and having a conversation with a boy. They were switching ideas and found out, in the end, that they were the same person. 

He made so much progress and he ended up tearing it up. He was very upset with that couple he saw and it troubled him to see them separate. Even though it was sad to see the girl and the old man separate, ripping up the poem was a rash thing to do.I think he ripped it up because he realized not every "true love" has a happy ending. Maybe  he truly discovered what love really is and is wasn't what hethought, because the book say's, "I suppose you could say I'd learned something else in  the Pitt-Rivers,"(pg. 31)

Maybe he was making the poem absently about the couple and seeing them part ruined the whole idea. Maybe you will never know, because Penelope Lively is such a great author and had a success making "At The Pitt-Rivers"

                                     ''At the Pitt-Rivers"

                                                 by Penelope Lively 

   "At the Pitt-Rivers' is a story about a sixteen year old boy that goes to a museum for a little peace and quiet. He writes his poems there. One day a middle aged woman comes in waiting for a man that is about thirty years older than her. Seeing the relationship between them disgusted the boy. In the story the boy says that he has already been in love twice. He thinks that because of the age differences between the old man and the woman, it is wrong for them to be in a relationship in that way. As the story goes on, the couple continues to come back. The boy begins to enjoy watching them and starts to see the true meaning of love. At the end of the story, the couple walks around the museum over and over again and then walk out. The next thing the boy sees is the woman combing her hair in nervousness as the man walks away.

      The moral of the story teaches the boy about the true meaning of  love. At first he thinks he knows about love because he claims that he has been in love two times. In reality, the boy is too young to know what love really is. That is what the couple teaches him. He realizes that age is just a number and if you truly love someone, it doesn't matter what other people think. That is why the boy starts to like and understand the man and the woman. By the end of the story he tears up the poem he was working on for the past few months. The poem he tore up was about a young boy and an older man sitting on a bench together, talking. The young boy in the poem is actually also the older man. No one knows why he tears it up. I think it's because he does not  need it anymore because he learned the true meaning of love.

"At the Pitt Rivers" -- Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively

         Penelope Lively, the author of “At the Pitt Rivers” and many other short stories and novelizations once said, “I have never come to terms with life, and I wouldn't wish anyone else to do so; if fiction is to help at all in the process of living, it is by illuminating its conflicts and ambiguities.” In other words, fiction can highlight what takes some a lifetime to figure out. The story “At the Pitt Rivers” starts out with a young boy with a deluded view of love. He thinks only two attractive people, who are the same, young, age can be happy and in love together. He sees a woman, not particularly pretty, with an older man. The boy is, at first, disgusted by the couple and doesn't think they should be together. He sees them, almost every day, at his museum (the Pitt Rivers) and slowly, begins to be more comfortable with the relationship. One day, something happens. They aren't happy together and that makes the young boy not as happy. The author highlights these lessons, which love isn't all about looks that it can be about love. This lesson, which might take a lifetime to learn, can be learned in 20 minutes or less reading this story. This is what Lively is talking about when she says, “by illuminating it’s conflicts and ambiguities.”

The Pitt Rivers Museum

         In “At the Pitt Rivers,” the young boy who watches the couple decides to write a poem about an old man and a young boy who is actually the old man. He had been writing it for the past few months, but then he teared it up towards the end of the short story. Lively never makes it clear why the character tears it up, but simply leaves it in the air. After the couple stops going to the museum, he decides to rip up his poem. The boy does this because he no longer has that younger person inside of him telling him what to and not to think. He tears up the poem, because he knows what love is. 

"Zoo Island" -- Tomas Rivera

Migrant Workers

           Tomas Rivera’s short story, “Zoo Island,” describes how Mexican immigrants suffered in the 1920s and 1930s, but it also offers a bit of hope. The immigrants and their children work in the fields, day after day.  When it’s dark, they go to the market and then back to their meager camp to sleep.  They wake the next day and endlessly repeat the same, excruciatingly boring, cycle. One of the children, Jose, decides to ward off boredom by taking a census (a population count) to see how many people are in their community.  Jose is a fifteen year old boy who lives in the migrant work camp with many other Mexicans.  The camp is on a farm owned by an American.  Jose’s census reveals that there are more people in his “town” than in the nearby town where they get their groceries.   Despite their greater population, the other town has far more wealth.  It has churches, schools and other standard facilities that Americans too often take for granted. Rivera’s story describes both the pain and pride that the young Jose feels at realizing his community is larger Knowing this gives the boy and his community a bit of hope.  Rivera’s story highlights the inequity and poverty of immigrants during this time, but it also points toward a future where things might change.

Because these immigrants are treated, literally, like animals, one of the older workerssuggests Jose give the immigrant camp the name “Zoo Island.” Jose and his friends and familylive in chicken coops.  Because these coops are like cages, the town’s new title suggests the workers themselves might as well be zoo animals since they are treated no better than animals.  The people point at them and gawk at them just as visitors at a zoo might do:

“I think they want to feel like we’re a whole lot of people. In that little town where we buy our food there are only 83 souls […] they have a church, a dance hall, a filling station, a grocery store and even a little school. Here we’re more than 83, I’ll bet, and we don’t have any of that. Why, we only have a water pump and four outhouses[!]”

 The Mexican workers are isolated on their camp, just as if they were on an island.  It seems there’s no way out for these workers.  But Jose’s census hints that there is power in numbers and that one day, the workers will count.  They will escape the cage they’re trapped in now and make themselves heard.

Tomas Rivera's own history reflects the situation of his characters.  His parents were Mexican immigrants and he was born in Texas, 1935.  His dream was always to break out of his migrant shell and he did. He got his PhD in Philosophy at The University of Oklahoma and later taught at high schools. He was so highly regarded that he became the chancellor of UC Riverside and he was the first Mexican American to hold such a position in the UC system. The character Jose was most likely based upon himself. Rivera worked on farms in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota before he got his degree in Oklahoma. He wrote his first short story after he was in a car accident in 1946.  This prompted him to continue his career as an author until he died in 1984 of a heart attack.  As an author, Rivera copied the dialect of the people he farmed with, giving a realistic feel to his characters and their perspectives.  He chose to write "Zoo Island" in the third person because it puts the reader in the position of looking in at the characters.  This emphasizes his theme of a zoo and his characters as the animals.  Rivera uses his skills as an author and his own background to enhance his stories.

Don Simon, one of the characters in the short story is a very important character to the story because he adds resistance, a conflict and gives the title to the story. He is introduced towards the end of the story as the grumpy old man who doesn't like children and is sometimes violent. He is asked the Census questions and answers them with sarcastic and witty responses. This problem gives the story its conflict. This character shows Jose about just how racist some of the other people can be. Although these highly emphasized facts/comments go over Jose’s head and go to their sign, it still shows through to the reader’s perspective.

          Don Simon, one of the characters in the short story “Zoo Island,” is one of the most important characters. His part is large for a short story, making everything even he says more important. At a first glance he may seem like an old man with anger management problems, but on the second or third reading, his character is opened up and you can see the importance of his role. He came up with the name for their farm, “Zoo Island,” which, because they live in an immigration farm where people come to gawk at them, fits as a title. Although this originally goes over the young Jose’s head, he still likes the sound of it and makes a sign.

In the first half of Don Simons monologue, he is uncharismatic and almost mean, but halfway in there, his character shifts and tells him that he is giving their community hope and agrees with the choices Jose makes. He tells Jose, "in the world, when you count yourself, you begin everything, that way you know you're not only here, but you're alive." He uses the metaphor “Alive” meaning having a good time and LIVING your best day. Before, their lives were so boring that even a census count can make people get excited and make them think that they “Count.” With Don Simon’s blessing, Jose makes a sign and feels good about what he did for his community.

The young people in “Zoo Island” are so desperate for something to do, that even something as small as a simple Census count can make them feel like they matter. The young Jose and his friends go to each house and ask a few questions while counting everyone else in the homes. They count everyone, even the 2 unborn babies and they manage to get 86 people. Having more in their town then the one they get their groceries at, they feel like they “count.” Even a Census can make a town full of nobody’s, feel like they are somebody’s.