Power, Language, and Literacy in The Great Gilly Hopkins |
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Authors: | Sue Ann Cairns |
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Institution: | (1) Kwantlen University College, Surrey, BC, Canada;(2) 30 Wagon Wheel Cr., R. R. 13, Langley, BC, Canada, V2Z 2R1 |
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Abstract: | To compensate for her feelings of anger and helplessness over her mother’s abandonment and subsequent displacements, the foster
child Gilly Hopkins seeks power and agency through the primary means at her disposal: through the use of language and fairy
tales. She constructs a Cinderella fantasy of an idealized mother who will rescue her. She also resonates strongly with the
Rumpelstiltskin story, as it is a story about the power of language, and highlights a dynamic of exploitation that seems familiar
to her. Through relationships with William Ernest, Trotter, Mr. Randolph, and Miss Harris, Gillie learns, however, to move
beyond the habit of exploiting others as objects, and to experience the beauty of language for its own sake. Her emotional
and psychological development can be charted through her changing relationship to the imaginative and expressive potentialities
of language. Most importantly, literacy becomes not a basis for illusory control and manipulative power, but for the kind
of human relationships that make possible the building of a self. Language becomes a rich inner resource, not simply a means
for power over others.
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Keywords: | Power Language Fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin Literacy |
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