THE INTERTEXTUALITY

I had a hard time recalling one good case of intertextuality to review. So, I am using a few and we will see what happens.

My first thought was to relate something from Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible to the actual Bible. But it has been far too long since I have read that novel. Also that is a really broad topic, seeing as how most of that book is in relation to the Bible. But as I write this I am thinking of a few good examples. The town's mass exodus during the fire ant invasion. The trying of a faithful man's patience seen in Job and Nathan Price, though Nathan's end is not the same as Job's. I would even go as far as saying that Nathan was as unsuccessful at teaching the people as Noah was before the floods.

Another thought was of John Gardner’s Grendel. The whole thing is based on the old epic poem Beowulf, it is just told in a different perspective. In Beowulf we see all these terrible things that happen and we hate this monster that is Grendel. In Grendel, we read the same stories but we know of their justifications and we feel sympathy for what we thought was the most terrible monster.

My next idea includes Catherine Marshall’s Christy, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series, and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Each one is a teacher-on-a-frontier-of-sorts story. I love that. Each main character has that great spunkiness. Each one is given challenging students and each one solves problems with these students. Each one does their best to better their community and work with what they have, which isn’t a lot.

Is it even a question that there are connections between Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? The beautiful oldest sister. The spunky and independent second sister. The sweet, quiet sister. And the ridiculous sister(s). Lizzie Bennet and Jo March really are two characters that I see hand in hand all the time. Thank goodness their mothers aren’t the same kind of character. Can you imagine?

Next we have the orphan stories. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and Johanna Spyri’s Heidi. I especially like the thought of The Secret Garden and Heidi together. The little orphan girl whose parents tragically died was brought to live with a cranky male relative that does not want to take care of her but in the end she charms her way into the man’s heart and life, never to be separated again.

I am so glad I was able to think of these things. It brought back a lot of good memories and reminded me of my love for literature and the movies of some of these great books. It is so interesting to find those little similarities, I loved it.