1. Anthology B – the short stories CHARLOTTE GRAY
Wednesday, 19 September 2018

2. From: Charlotte Gray Read the story.
In 5 minutes, make a list of all the “facts” this quick reading has enabled you to recognise about the story – setting, characters, ideas, images, language and so on.
Share these with your neighbour and expand your lists.

3. Thoughts, feelings and atmosphere...
Detail
Response
The deportees have a postcard on which to write a final message
Final – before departure or before death?
Camp orders prohibit posting the cards, so they must be thrown out of the train
Only two or three pencils survived the barracks search
The conditions in which these children are living are barely fit for animals
Obviously there are many examples. Explore the whole text and do not restrict yourselves to these five choices.

4. People How many main groups of people are there in the story?
What role does each group play in the story?
Complete the table on the next slide to help you to understand the roles of the characters in the story.

5. People Key Question Comment Key quotation Andre – the older child.
What is his importance to the passage?
Faulks focuses on what he sees and hears – he begins to understand...
“It came to Andre that she was not looking in hatred”
Jacob and the other younger children
How does the way they are described and the way they act affect the reader?
Adult deportees
Do the y behave differently to the children?
The Jewish orderly
Betrayer or helper?
Bread women
Who are these women?
Mothers who have not been deported?
Terrible ferocity woman – a mother of a child deportee
What does her look mean?
French police
What responsibility do they bear?
Bus driver
Just doing his job?

6. Language
Does the writing reflect the anger and pain felt in the story?
Are there large quantities of emotive language choices?
What might the effect be of a more understated approach to this subject matter?
I have provided you with four examples on the next slide... Increase this list.

7. Use of language
Example
Effect
Contrasting words
“... The soft bloom of his cheek laid, uncaring, in the dung.”
Emphasises the difference between the children and the conditions... Consider also the effect of “uncaring”
Weighty words
“trembling” (used of the buses)
Ironically applies to the people and foreshadows the terrors ahead
Movement
“A sudden ripple, a quickening of muscle and nerve”
The ripple implies fast movement and quickening picks this up – also, remember that quickening has a second meaning – coming alive.
Complex and heightened
The look of “terrible ferocity”
Emphasises the depth of feeling felt by the woman.

8. Typical questions
How does the writer build up strong feelings of fear and uncertainty?
You should write about:
What the adults who are being deported do
What Andre does and thinks
What the other people do
The way language is used to create effect.
Refer closely to the text and use brief quotations.