A/A* resource providing an exceptional guide for understanding Hartley's novel, 'The Go-Between' - covering every assessment objective required for A Level English Literature! It offers perceptive, assured, and sophisticated notes. The resource delves deeply into Hartley's authorial methods, offeri...
‘The Go-Between’ Revision by Jenny He
AO5
Buckingham overlooks the importance of the magic and Zodiac symbolism by describing
their use as ‘pretentious’; adult Leo ‘knowing’ and younger Leo ‘ignorant’; Through adult
Leo’s reconstruction of the events at Brandham Hall in the eyes of young Leo on the cusp of
adolescence, the novel transforms into a ‘coming of age’ story, where the characters are
unaware of the impending Second World War; Leo’s diary and the interpretation of it is not
‘reliable’
2015 BBC adaptation evokes nostalgia and a profound sentimental feeling through the
wistful piano and violin music; image of rebirth is depicted through the evocative ending
where Jim Broadbent (playing adult Leo) and Jack Hollington (playing younger Leo) walk
towards Brandham Hall holding hands
Novel’s ‘combination of knowing and not-knowing’ is the ‘driving force’ of the narrative; Leo
cannot ‘remember anything except a sense of baleful loss’ without the guidance of his diary;
Leo is ‘defeated by repression’ of his homosexuality (Ali Smith)
‘Though it is a fictional construct, however, the story is still validated by its truth of
correspondence to historical, social and human reality.’ (Hillis Miller)
‘Leo’s return as a stranger merely echoes his marginality to the social world of the Hall way
back in 1900.’ (Brooks-Davies)
AO4
Rupert Brooke can be seen to romanticise the war in his poem ‘Peace’.
Philip Larkin’s ‘Annus Mirabilis’ (remarkable year) shows the considerable societal shift and
sexual revolution with introduction of hormonal birth control pills / ‘annus horribilis’
The class-defying affair itself - an upper-class woman, soon to be the viscount’s wife,
passionately involved with one of his tenant farmers - inevitably recalls that of D.H.
Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley, whose husband, Clifford, has been left crippled by the First
World War
Pip’s ‘Great Expectations’ (bildungsroman)
, 2
Agatha Christie utilised Belladonna in her novels, including as a nightmare-inducing plot
device in ‘A Caribbean Mystery’
Greek myth of Icarus
CH23 ‘the still air presaged thunder’, which warns reader of an imminent event and drop in
temperature builds up tension, which is released at the end of chapter in the form of a
‘storm’, as a means of catharsis, which parallels the union of Dido and Aeneas during a
thunderstorm
Unlike Miss Havisham buried in her house in ‘Great Expectations’, Marian remembers the
past in terms of love fulfilled
Bronte’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ - love and betrayal; Helen asserts her own agency
Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ - Nora’s struggle for freedom
Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ - in 19th century, family structure served as a microcosm of the
British Empire - Mrs Maudsley’s colonial mentality
James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’ - repressed desires causing self-doubt + hallucination
AO3
The year in which the novel is set, 1900, was a ‘golden year’, the turn of the century and full
of possibilities for an equally golden future. Leo is a member of the lost generation.
Brandham Hall is immediately disqualified as the site of a returned Golden Age because,
despite Marian’s Virgo presence, its existence is predicated on class difference, as
demonstrated in the affair with Ted.
Second Boer War: 1899-1902 provides an important backdrop to the novel’s action + is
prophetic of the wars to follow
Many people viewed the Edwardian era as dull and shameful with its strikes, suffragette riots
and its extremes of wealth and poverty. Thus in August 1914, to some, war seemed a
glorious adventure.
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