A Chosen Level of Peter Hollindale’s Ideology Appeared in Joseph Jacobs’ Three Stories through The Characterization and The Frequent Elements

Peter Hollindale has explained that children literature books have three levels of ideology which are ‘made up the explicit social, political, or moral beliefs of the individual writer’, ‘imply the individual writer’s un-examined assumptions’ by recognizing the texture of language, and ‘inscribed within the words of the text.’ One of many kinds of those children literature books is a genre of fairy tale. Fairy tale in the nineteenth century was something believed by many Victorian writers as ‘an ideal vehicle for influencing the minds and morals of the reading.’ In this era, which the industrial revolution in England was happened, ‘the few at the expense of the many mass of urban poor having come into existence’, the materialistic society also founded on greed. I think by the existence of urban poor and also the greed people in this era, many writers of children literature made their characters into that stereotype. By this issue and the fact in my opinion it has relation with children literature, I will conclude which one of the three levels of ideology of Peter Hollindale appeared in the three stories of Joseph Jacobs, “Lazy Jack”, “The Three Sillies”, and “The Story of Mr. Vinegar” through their characterization of poor fellow and stupid character and the supportive frequent elements in their own story events that may imply the writer’s wish to recommend the message to children.

As in this case I will choose which Peter Hollindale’s level of ideology, I am trying to give a little explanation I understood from the three of them. In the first level, it says that the story gives an explicit view of the writer about the social, political, or moral beliefs as in the Sarah Fielding’s Governess whose character explain the moral values explicitly to the other characters in the story. Second level explains the possibility of the writer’s assumptions in the story read by the readers while the third one is about the power of the ideology itself in forcing the text to be more natural as it is inscribed within the words. I am also using the characterization of poor fellow which in Knowles’ and Malmkjær’s “Language and Control in Children’s Literature” described as ‘a very strong indication of impeding calamity’ but I find the contradictory situations in these three stories which I will explain later. Besides characterization, I use the frequency to confirm myself that may be this is the writer’s implicit intentions from these stories to tell the message to the children.

In “Lazy Jack”, a story about a boy whose name is Jack forcing himself to be hired as he is being told that if he could not find any job his mother ‘would turn him out to get his living as he could’, powers up its character since the beginning. As it is stated, ‘they [are] very poor.’ with a simple explanation of Jack who is ‘[Doing] nothing but bask in the sun in the hot weather, and sit by the corner of the hearth in the winter-time.’ and that is the reason why he is called ‘lazy’, the story somehow gives a first impression to me that it may flow by bringing out the stupidity of Jack.

The story brings its narrative events by the setting of time day-to-day. Jack who is hired by different people day by day failed to bring things as his fees to his house like penny, a jar of milk, a cream cheese, a large tom-cat, and a shoulder of mutton because he just cannot bring them in proper ways. His mother always states that he is stupid and orders him to do the proper ways based on the things he brings that day. The frequent says of Jack replying to his mother’s orders ‘I’ll do so another time’, probably keeps the story to still go on. Instead of asking how if he will be given a different thing tomorrow that it means ‘his mother’s method’ will not work anymore, he is just obedient to his mother’s orders. In this case, Jack may imply to give an image of children, at least his mother’s son, who has to be given more explanation of what his mother has told him. His mother is probably a character related to adults in real society. It is a relation between how adults must give a further explanation of what their children may face in their lives. I think that it is as same as the time when a child is given a chance to choose a reading book to be read. As in Knowles’ and Malmkjær’s “Language and Control in Children’s Literature” states:

.....it has been feared that literature might have a detrimental effect, and that it should therefore not be left to the child to choose for itself which books to read.

It is also supported when Jack does not ask for another explanation for his mother’s orders, he fails for over and over. The burden to ask is not just the only thing that is meant to be concerned, as in the case which-book-should-I-choose it ‘should be taught to consider it a duty, to consult their parents in this momentous concern.’ The mother’s orders done to him may also imply didactic method that children’s literature has. Its purpose to tell children that this is good and another is bad comes to the surface implicitly although it is being told by not-so-good way like telling Jack is stupid. In the end of this story, Jack can surprisingly get a beautiful girl recovered from deaf and dumb because he can make her ‘burst out into a great fit of laughter’ when she looks out the window seeing Jack is carrying a donkey on his shoulders going back to home from work. His stupidity leads him to his fortune to marry the girl whose father is rich. Again, the case that children can ‘must form their own mental representation of characters, places and actions’ with the upcoming fact that they are also unable to be abandoned and should directed by their parents, the moral value gets my attention. Children still have less experience that it possibly makes them miss to get what should have really taken from a story. Moreover, this story implicitly tells that being stupid is something fine that the character finally finds his true happiness in the end.

The second story is The Three Sillies which is about a gentleman who travels a long way to find people who are sillier than a farmer family whose daughter has been courted by him. The story begins when the daughter of the family is always being sent to draw a beer in the cellar for supper. She begins to feel afraid when she looks a mallet stuck in one of the beams. She is eaten by her over thoughts that she supposes something in her mind. She states:

Suppose him and me was to be married, and we was to have a son, and he was to grow up to be a man, and come down into the cellar to draw the beer, like as I'm doing now, and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him, what a dreadful thing it would be!

The frequent says of the daughter is repeated by her mother and her father when they wonder that she does not come back after looking for a beer in the cellar. Her mother and father also do the same thing with her that they repeat the same statement. The frequent says in this case makes the other characters do the same thing that probably if the daughter does not say any words of it, it does not happen for all members of the family find themselves end in a miserable cellar. The frequent events of saying also perhaps become the supportive argument to get the reader in believing family’s stupidity. The fact that finally the gentleman is succeed in finding the other sillies people than this family powers up the nothingness thing that should be taken from this story as a moral value. In addition, I think not every folktale has to explain something, but maybe it is just a matter of entertainment since the title is interesting for children.

From the beginning of the story, the indication of a poor fellow does not appear but since the gentleman travels searching for other sillies people, the environment is quite describing that it is a poor fellow environment like when the gentleman met the woman in her cottage trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to get the grass, then in another time he found another silly person who cannot put his trousers on in inn, and he also met the group that assumed moon was on the pond instead of thinking it is just its reflection. The thought that may be this family is poor is somehow supported with the fact that the daughter and her mother and father do stupid thing worrying something stupid.

Meanwhile in the last story “The Story of Mr. Vinegar”, I find a term ‘poor fellow’ when Mr. Vinegar and Mrs. Vinegar just have to move to another place because their house, which is a vinegar bottle, was broken. They have to move to thick forest and have to climb the tree. The frequent statement of Mr. Vinegar “I should be the happiest man alive.” is stated when he has not felt satisfied yet with he has had with him since he found forty guineas left by a band of thieves from the start. His stupidity and greedy allow him to have more and more things worn or brought by people he just met in the street although the things that he bargains are unfair compared to the value he gives to those people. This frequency perhaps keeps him doing what he believes or hopes that he could be the happiest man alive.

The story is different from the two former above. If those two implicitly makes us think that being stupid does not matter and apparently gives a good ending, in this story being stupid is just a matter of stupid. Moreover, I also find the didactic role of this story which is when Mr. Vinegar is being told by a parrot on the tree that he just has done some mistakes when he exchanged his belonging to something that is less-valuable than what he has had before.

In conclusion from these three stories of Joseph Jacobs, I find that the characterization of poor fellow and stupid character may influence how the characters are being described in doing actions. By knowing how this character is being described in doing actions, I know the possibility of why this story has the frequent statements and events. These frequent statements and events lead to the writer’s un-examined assumptions in making these stories, which is Peter Hollindale’s second level ideology. Although it is ‘impossible to confine ideology to a writer’s conscious intentions or articulated messages’, this is just a merely matter of accepting that ‘writers for children cannot hide what their values are.’ supported with the fact that adults still have to demonstrate the value or the message of the story with some training in critical skills. By these kinds of frequency that I mentioned before within the three stories, ‘the texture of language and story will reveal them and communicate them.’