1. How are family relationships presented in Korea and Chemistry?
Telling Tales
How are family relationships presented in Korea and Chemistry?

2. NVP/tense/setting/ context
First person retrospective narration – written with the emotional insight of a grown man recollecting bring 16/17 and working with his fisherman/potato farmer father
Set between during the Korean war about Irish young men going to fight for the US on behalf of South Korea. But it starts with a reference to the 1919 Irish War of Independence . And was written during the Vietnam War – at a time of anti-war sentiment and strong opposition. Writer’s attitude to war?
Rural elegy – reflection on the dying rural economy and cultural traditions of Ireland

4. Context
Written in 1970, likely that some of the experiences described could be loosely autobiographical as McGahern’s father fought in the Irish war. Set in early 1950s.
Irish War of Independence ( ). The execution described at the beginning of the story occurs at the beginning of the war. The execution of prisoners was random and this is the only reason that the father in the story is saved. Father’s bitter attitude towards the war is expressed later in the story when he calls Ireland a “fool of a country” and explains his belief that he would be “better off” if he had fought his own battles rather than for his country. The story also describes the aftermath of poverty in Ireland for rural families dependent on agricultural and fishing for their incomes.
Korean War ( )
Generation gap between man and boy – difference in attitudes towards the son’s future. Son’s guilty realisation that he “was discarding his life to assume my own”.
Modern readers might be horrified by the casual, mercenary attitude the father has towards sending his son to fight in the Korean war, yet McGahern is likely trying to convey the desperateness of his father’s situation and impending poverty.

5. Key Themes
Death: execution scene, metaphorical death of childhood and Irish rural way of life
Growing up and the future, formative experience
Hardship and poverty
Father/son relationship
Futility of war
Conflict
Importance of the past
Age: contrast of youth and experience
Identify/highlight/annotate quotes for all the above as you read in your groups

6. The father
In the character of the father, McGahern has created a man who has a sense of failure. He is about to lose his fishing licence so that foreign tourists can fish the river in his place and he will not be able to survive on potato crop alone. He fought for an independent Ireland; he might have died for it, but the random nature of the reprisal executions saved him. His son is leaving him to pursue his own life.
Quick quiz:
Why do you think he decides to tell his son about the executions?
Why does he say ‘There’s no room for ambition is this poky place?’
What does he think of his country?
What does he think about his son?
What does he think about himself?

7. Impact of War
"I looked down and saw the furze pods bursting, and the way they burst in all directions seemed shocking like the buttons when he started to tear at his tunic. [...] it destroyed the day“ (AO2)
The memory of the execution is embedded in his mind and resurfaces to destroy a natural image of happiness on his honeymoon.
"he'd draw fingers across his eyes as if to tear a spider web away“ Father’s emotional trauma/wants to forget but unable to take away the horrifying and lasting consequence of war.

8. Growing Up
The guilt of leaving came: I was discarding his life to assume my own"
"It's the land of opportunity, isn't it, a big, expanding country? There's no room for ambition in this poky place."
"...was the shock I was to feel later when I made some social blunder, the splintering of self-esteem and the need to crawl into a lavatory to think."
"It'll be your own funeral."
"Each move he made I watched as closely as if I too had to prepare myself to murder."

9. In the story’s exposition – close father son relationship ; confessional, emotional war tales are shared
“You saw an execution then too, didn’t you? I asked my father, and he started to tell as he rowed.” Question and answer Direct address ‘you’ Tag question ‘didn’t you?’ Adverbial phrase ‘as he rowed’ Symbolism the two soldiers mirror the narrator and his father : the ‘blindfolded’ boy is the narrator in his naivety; the man who ‘refused the blindfold’ is his father who has moved into cynical adulthood, haunted and hardened by war. This foreshadows the father’s betrayal later.

10. In the story’s climax – death of childhood and realisation of his father’s mercenary nature
It was my father’s voice . “Every American soldier’s life is insured to the tune of ten thousand dollars.” idiomatic, informal language The smell of shit and piss. – setting of the lavatory / taboo language / semantic field of human waste The shock I felt was the shock I was to feel later when I made some social blunder, the splintering of a self-esteem and the need to crawl into a lavatory to thing. Verb / abstract noun made tangible He’d scrape the fare, I’d be conscripted there, each month he’s get so many dollars while I served, and he’d get ten thousand if I was killed.simple declarative statements / detached tone of restrospective narration

11. In the story’s falling action…
“Have you thought about what I said about going to America?” he asked without lifting his eyes’ adverbial phrase “I have.” “No. I’m not going.” Stichomythia ( short single lines alternate speakers) / clipped utterances

12. In the story’s denouement
I’d never felt so close to him before ironic
Each move he made I watched as closely as if I too had to prepare myself to murder simile
Cyclical structure – ends with idea of execution as it started

13. Word wall –father in Korea
Father is duplicitous / mercenary / cruel / detached / business like / traumatised by war / conniving / despicable / deceitful / emotionally stunted / resentful / cynical / cold

14. H/W to identify 4-6 perfect quotes for A01/2/3 from Chemistry for the question ‘How do two authors present family relationships?’ Suggestions below………….
Exposition - closeness of the mother, grandfather and son (Like Korea, it also shows closeness at the start and uses symbolism)
Climax - dinner confrontation and sending granddad to the shed (Like Korea, disloyalty is shown that causes a rift ....)
Falling action - Grandfather's suicide (dialogue ) (Like Korea, stichomythia is used to reveal secrecy within relationships)
Denouement - Return to pond and reunion with grandfather (like Korea - cyclical ending but more positive)
You must bring your quotes on Monday – written in your book with space around them for annotating on Monday.