kellen’s Blog

Malfoy is as bad as many other boys who live in the real world. He reminds us all those terrible behaviours from people who think are superior than others. This kind of people do not mind in humiliating, snobing and treating badly anyone. Malfoy exemplifies very well those people that we find here in the real world: he humiliates Ron and his family because they are poor, acts terribly about Harry for being raised by the muggles etc… There are some teachers in this magical world that remind us of some teachers we still find in our world. they give lots of homework and demand lot of memorization to do tests. Anyway, it is possible to see many bad things in the magical world that make us remember of our own bad things found in our world.

The magical world is much better for Harry Potter in every way. As examples to prove that, I will describe four differences between these two worlds:

1. Being somebody
In the real world, Harry is nobody. He’s just a poor cousin who lives with the Dudleys and sleeps in a cupboard. In the magical world, he is a special child who is the son of well known parents.

2. Friends
Living with a selfish mean cousin, Harry Potter is not able to make any good friends. That is different in Hogwatts, where he makes great and true friends: Ron and Hermione for example.

3. Way he is treated
With the muggles he is seen as a servant. He hás to do the dishes, clean the house, get the mails. In the magical world he is treated like the others. No one is sen as better or worse than him, although they expect good things from him (more than the others since he survived Voldermont).

4. Presents
To Harry Potter nothing is given but worn clothes in the real world. In the magical one, he gets great gifts such as the nimble 2000.

As we can see through these examples, which are not all of them, Harry Potter is lucky to be able to leave the real world and go to another one that is much more colorful and magical.

Bilbo is a Hobbit. Kellen is a human being. It is not very difficult to find similarities between these two creatures. They both love the security a cozy home can give. They both love seeing their homes and their lives well organized with things in the right place. I can also see that they both love eating… and how bad they feel when they have their bellies empty.
Bilbo and Kellen have people who believe they are not ordinaries and this keep them on doing things. Because of these people (Gandalf for Bilbo and the family for Kellen), they have been facing the unknown and discovering that they can do things they thought they couldn’t.
These two creatures have found a “talismã”, a tool that gives them power to face their fears. The hobbit found a ring, and this ring makes it invisible and then he is able to go further and further with its objective. The human has found her children’s love which gives her all the strength to face any problems that comes to her. She fears nothing, although she complains A LOT…
As we can see, similarities are easy to find in these two different characters. Now, I ask: is Kellen happy to see that? I think she would be happier to see herself in Aslan, who is independent, strong, knows the deeper magic, fast runner, powerful etc… but she only sees herself in Bilbo, who is dependent on people and things, who has fear, who needs a “talismã”, who likes to feel confortable and protected etc… But, that is life!

I don’t know if it happens to readers of “the Hobbit”, but I am tired of so much adventure… there is no rest in this story… I was very excited at first, but now I want to skip some pages… I just don’t do it because I have a “toque”… (rs)

There is a deeper magic than the deep one in Narnia. it is known by those who can look futher back of the dawn of time. the white witch could not, and that was her biggest mistake. she was not able to know that when an innocent victim (can a victim not be innocent?) was “killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward”. this part of the story teaches me that evil will show its stupidity sooner or later. there will always be a moment that evil will fail in its own way. in Narnia, the witch received what she wanted to others: death.

It seems to me that Narnia is a very dangerous place. Creatures there are living in hell, since they are submitted to the White Witch’s terrible commands, otherwise, they would suffer incredible consequences, like be turned into stones. We can see that evil is part of this world. It is being ruled by a kind of “demon” who punishes whoever goes against her. As an intelligent evil thing, she knows how to bring out the bad parts of many of the creatures that live or go there, as examples for that we have some trees which are her spies and Edmund who is easy controlled by his jealousy and vanity.
The atmosphere of this “country” contributes for this violent scenery. It is always winter and there is no Christmas’ eve. Although we know that someday and somehow beautiful days will come up, and the good will win… we know that a lot of things will happen to the children, a lot of bad moments… the fear will be with us until the last moment… we feel the fear with the kids, differently from Neverland which violence is only make-believe, just like Luciana and Julielly pointed out…
In summary, we know the good will win, but until then, we see that choosing the good side is not a guarantee that we will not suffer… actually, violence is present in the first page of the book… 

I think that the most difficult exercise in life is to help our kids find meanings in life. We can’t do that just by telling them YOUR meanings, if you do that, it wouldn’t be their meanings but yours. In my opinion, it is the literature, which can help us the most. I do not think that the story should have only beautiful things just because it is for children… It definitely needs to show some kinds of problems in order to make the child think and see that the world is full of them and if we fight against them, we might succeed. Bettelheim claims that “uma luta contra dificuldade graves na vida é inevitável, é parte intrínseca da existência humana – mas que se a pessoa não se intimida mas se defronta de modo firme com as oprressões inesperadas e muitas vezes injustas, ela dominará todos os obstáculos e, ao fim, emergirá vitoriosa”. Children need very much that we give them, in a symbolic way, suggestions about how they can deal with these questions and grow safely to their maturity.
Neverland is a dangerous place. We all came to this conclusion. This is not a bad point to find in children’s literature, actually, it is positive, since there are a lot to discuss with them… imagine if Neverland was just the way we thought it was in the beginning of our reading? We all thought it was such a nice and beautiful place… how naïve… Now, seeing Neverland just the way it really is… we can have more profound talks…
I can’t imagine Wendy coming back home with no changes in her personality after living a crazy adventure in the island. She faced fear, she saw anger in the Pirate’s eyes, she saw that people are so “carente” of love and care… anyway, she definitely got more mature, just as Alice did… the trips these two girls went through mean a great step in their view of the world.
But many violent things happened in Neverland… Peter Pan even kills people… Well, so did Emilia in A chave do tamanho, what about O gato de botas? I know many of you do not like Peter Pan… but I do… I think he helps a lot of “difficult” children by identification. Children know that they are not always good; and frequently, even when they are, they would prefer not to be. And this contradicts what we parents tell them, and it would make our children feel like monsters. We might feel surprise to see that there are many children like Peter Pan in the world… hide them, or pretend not to see them, it is what I call VIOLENCE…

In my opinion, Wendy represents Victorian women in general. We can say that she was raised to be a “very good mommy”. She was taught all the rules for that: “before I put you to bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella”; “she had strict rules about every one being in bed by seven.”; “they were not to speak at once”; “I am going to give you your medicine before you go.”; “You will remember about changing your flannels?”
Somehow, she seems to have lost her identity, since she is too submissive towards what she is expected to be. We can notice that when she was pretending to be Peter’s wife and thinks that “she was far too loyal a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. ‘Father knows best,’ she always said, whatever her private opinion must be.” Like mothers of that time, she worried too much about the father’s comfort and satisfaction: “Children, I hear your father’s step. He likes you to meet him at the door.”
She is the kind of girl that loves the idea of a “happy family” with a lovely mother always ready to help her kids out. We do not see, in this book, through Wendy’s point of view, a mother that loses her temper, goes mad with her children or shows any kind of frustration. On the contrary, Wendy gives us the idea that mothers are perfect, like this sentence she says: “If you knew how great is a mother’s love”, Wendy told them triumphantly, “you would have no fear”. I wanted so much to agree with her 100%, but the reality is quite cruel. We, mothers, sometimes, instead of taking all their fears away from our kids, we put even more… (I hope my kids forgive me for that!)
In summary, Wendy loved the idea of being the lost boys’ “mother” because she was ready for that, and wanted very much, since that what she only want in life was to be a housewife mother.

WHAT

It is an island. I mean, “more or less an island”. A place where I went many times when I was a young girl and I still go once in a while, so I can describe it for you… In Neverland there are many of the children story characters that used to be always in my mind, they are all there… living in this place where there are “astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers…” doesn’t it look just a perfect place? Yes, but there are also some sorts of reality too, like schools, religions, fathers, and many other things that mix with this magical kind of world…

WHERE

According to my crazy friend Peter Pan, it is “second to the right, and straight on till morning”. Did you get it? No! So, you can’t go there! Only those who are capable of understanding this kind of address can go there. If you think it is nonsense… then, it is for sure that the child inside of you died long ago… Just to help you out… one thing is certain: Neverland is not under the real world like in Alice’s Wonderland, but far above it. Can be in the sky, can be an invisible world… it’s up to you do decide it. Just remember! It is a magical world.

WHEN

Because I still have the “little” Kellen inside of me yelling and calling me to play with her all the time, I sometimes visit Neverland when I go to sleep. In other words, Neverland happens when the mysterious atmosphere of the night makes you sleepy and allows Peter Pan enter the real world to take you there. Once again, if you don’t believe in any of these things I am telling you… so, I am sorry. You can not go because the fairy dust wouldn’t work on you…

A Mad Tea-Party is the craziest chapter that I have read up to now – I am in chapter 10… I have read it three times. the first time I was so puzzled that I gave time for myself to get my “pieces” together again. the second time, I laughed and could identify myself with the author, since I invent crazy stories myself too. the last time I started to wonder if I could play with the words just the way the characters did. Let me explain all the steps above:

the first reading: I didn’t have much fun with all those nonsense… as a sceptic adult, I read it with too much criticism, how could a riddle be thrown out without an answer? What can be so funny with a watch telling the days of the month and not the “o’clock”? How can a child get the part of the time? “He (the time) won’t stand beating.” Then came that really crazy story the Dormouse told about the three little sisters living at the bottom of a well… I was too tired of nonsense… so I read fast in order to get to the end… I felt bad though… I thought: It must have something more in this chapter… but I was certain that I had enough of it and went to put my kids to sleep… my daughter asked me to tell her a story… I took a book and she complained: Mom, I’d rather you invent stories… they are much more fun!!!! After that, I decided to return to the chapter…

second reading: this time I had a lot of fun reading it… starting with the characters chosen: a hatter, a hare and a Dormouse… they were too excentric and funny. the first two making the Dormouse as a cushion and the Dormouse sleeping? I looked for the meaning of its sleepness: I found out that this animal stays awake during the night that’s why it was sleepy during the day (remembering that it was always 6 o’clock); I thought it was hillarious when they offered wine to Alice since it had only tea… and when the Hatter advised Alice to have a hair cut? Maybe Carroll had been asked a lot this kind of question – he had a long hair himself: “seu cabelo era cinza prateato, bem mais long do que era moda usar” that’s what I read in Gardner’s book. Needless to say the fun I had with the expressions they played with: “I breath when I sleep (…) I sleep when I breath” or “I see what I eat – I eat what I see” It seems too logic for me now that they said them… or “I know I have to beat time when I learn music (…) He won’t stand beating” here we see how the author is good at playing with the language – children love that. “twinkle, twinkle little bat!” or even “so I can’t take more. (…) You mean you can’t take less…” and this last one: “Why with an M? (…) Why not?” Isn’t that what we have been studying in this course: why table is called table? was that chosen by random? Pure Linguistics…

third reading: I can’t continue writing because the time has beaten me so hard… I am very tired and sleepy… I had a tough day! I just wished (like March Hare wished too) that I could keep on good terms with time, you know, so he would do anything I liked with the clock… for instance, I would whisper to him and “round goes the clock in a twinkling!” it’s the last day of our classes and we are graduating and saying good bye to all our teachers… (rs)

See you back to real life…

P.S.: Have you notice that if you take the “H” out in “Hatter” we would get a word similar to “adder”? and that’s what Carroll was: a mathematician!!! Am I getting too weird????