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Penelope Lively's "Moon Tiger" employs varying narrative perspectives in a passage where two children, Claudia and Gordon, hunt for fossils on a cliffside. This narrative technique shapes meaning by revealing the children's inner worlds, the dynamics of their relationship, and their interaction with the environment. The shifting viewpoints enhance the reader's understanding of the characters' emotions, motivations, and the consequences of their actions. This analysis will explore how these varying perspectives enrich the narrative and create a multi-dimensional portrayal of the scene.
The passage begins with a third-person limited perspective focusing on Claudia. This viewpoint allows the reader to delve into her intense enthusiasm and competitiveness as she searches for fossils. The description of her actions, "squats searching furiously," conveys her determination and excitement. The narrative closely follows her thoughts, particularly her suspicion and rivalry towards Gordon. This internal focus reveals her competitive nature and the depth of her engagement with the task at hand. By portraying Claudia's thoughts and emotions, the narrative establishes her character as passionate and fiercely independent. Note the phrase that reads, “out of the corner of her eye she watches Gordon” which further indicates her competitiveness. When she sees Gordon “examining something,” Lively writes, “What has he got?” which articulates what Claudia's thinking as “suspicion and rivalry burn her up.” That question is noteworthy as it provides a narrative style where the minds of the readers, that of Claudia, and the voice the narrator seamlessly intersect, thus blurring the lines between the character's internal monologue and the narrative voice. This technique immerses the reader into Claudia's perspective, allowing them to experience her emotions directly and understand her motivations on a deeper level.
The perspective then shifts subtly to include Gordon’s actions and reactions. The narrative describes Gordon "tap-tapping at an outcrop," and his examination of a find, which heightens Claudia's sense of competition. This shift in focus introduces Gordon's presence and his role in the sibling rivalry. The reader becomes aware of the silent, ongoing competition between the siblings, intensifying the tension of the scene. Gordon's protective claim over "his bit" and Claudia's defiant response further emphasize their competitive dynamic. This dual focus not only highlights the children's rivalry but also underscores their individual determination and desire for achievement. Note how as the scene progresses, the narrative perspective shifts again, providing a more balanced view of both children's actions and interactions. This shift is evident when Claudia climbs higher and encounters Gordon. Their physical struggle and verbal exchanges are described from an external viewpoint, allowing the reader to witness the immediacy and intensity of their conflict. The alternating perspectives during their argument, with Gordon's leg blocking Claudia's path and Claudia’s determination to climb higher, create a vivid depiction of their physical and emotional struggle. This balanced perspective underscores the equal intensity of their desires and the friction between their competitive spirits as evidenced by the way Gordon grumbles, “Don’t shove…Anyway you can’t come here,” which accentuates the tension between the siblings. This dialogue showcases their struggle for dominance and space, reflecting their desire for recognition and success, especially with their mother watching.
The climactic moment of the passage occurs when Claudia falls from the cliff. The narrative perspective shifts to a more omniscient viewpoint, describing the event in a detached manner: "a piece of cliff, of the solid world which evidently is not so solid after all, shifts under her clutching hands... crumbles... and she is falling." This shift to an almost impersonal description of the fall contrasts sharply with the previous focus on the children's intense emotions, emphasizing the sudden and uncontrollable nature of the accident. The detachment underscores the fragility of their world and the unforeseen consequences of their rivalry. After Claudia's fall, the narrative perspective shifts to Gordon's viewpoint, capturing his shock and perverse yet competition-driven gratification as Lively writes, “And suddenly there are awful tearing noises and thumps and she is gone, sliding and hurtling down, and in horror and satisfaction he stares.” "This shift allows the reader to understand Gordon's complex emotions, including his initial triumph at reclaiming his territory and his subsequent disbelief at the severity of Claudia’s fall.The internal conflict here humanizes Gordon, showing his actions as a mix of competitiveness and unintended harm while highlighting the complexity of sibling relationships, where rivalry and concern coexist.
The final shift in perspective occurs when the narrative broadens to include the reaction of Edith Hampton, the children's mother. This perspective provides a contrast to the children's intense emotions by introducing a more composed, yet worried, viewpoint. Edith’s ability to "marvel at the furious tenacity of her children" amid the commotion highlights her recognition of their strong-willed nature. Her simultaneous concern for Claudia’s injury and attempt to manage the situation reflect the challenges of parenting spirited children. As Lively writes, “Her head aches; she tries to quell the children and respond to advice and sympathy; she blames the perilous world, so unreliable, so malevolent,” Edith’s internal conflict is depicted as she must strike a balance between empathy and toughness in parenting as her children must learn to be resilient and self-reliant in a world filled with peril and competition. In this fashion, Lively shows the impact of the children’s actions on their mother, thus adding depth to the narrative.
As examined, Penelope Lively uses shifting narrative perspectives to reveal the dynamics of sibling rivalry and familial relationships during a fossil-hunting expedition. Through Claudia's enthusiasm, Gordon's reactions, and their mother Edith’s concern, Lively paints a vivid picture of the scene, enriching the reader's understanding of the characters' emotions and motivations. This technique immerses readers in the complexities of human interactions, highlighting the tensions and challenges of family life.
Text A
Grade 5
Grade 6

Grade 7

In the extract from ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’, Amit Chaudhuri chronicles a Calcuttan family’s afternoon nap in the context of a languishing city. The passage opens with a relaxed atmosphere, created through vivid figurative imagery and metaphors. Chaudhuri gradually expands the scope of the scene from individual characters to the surrounding room; his temporal descriptions create an atmosphere of nostalgia, which hints at the decaying nature of Calcutta. By switching the extract’s narrative perspective to third person omniscient, Chaudhuri inserts himself as a narrator to cultivate an atmosphere of resignation toward government inefficiencies.
Vivid, hyperbolic imagery introduced early on in the extract conveys the extent of the characters’ relaxation after lunch, such that they imagine themselves to occupy other environments and bodily forms entirely. Chaudhuri metaphorically describes Sandeep and Mamima’s conversation after lunch as “a transparent stream that occasionally trickled into desert patches of silence.” The verb “trickled” denotes a very slight stream of water, suggesting how scarce the conversation is. However, in describing the stream petering out as “occasional”, Chaudhuri suggests that silence falls very rarely, and that, for the most part, the characters are engaging in small talk.
Furthermore, the scarcity denoted by “trickle” lends the characters’ conversation a sense of rarity of spoken words. From this, it can be inferred that the characters value and enjoy good conversations and how those exchanges come to an end from time to time, resulting in a peaceful silence. Meanwhile, Chhotomama is falling asleep, his “face and arms drowning in the black and white ocean of the newspaper, surfacing intermittently.” By describing the process of falling asleep as “drowning”, a verb that connotes relinquishing control to the natural elements, Chaudhuri depicts falling asleep as freeing for Chhotomama, perhaps a release from worldly troubles, thus adding to the sense of relaxation.
Also, the recurring motif of dust serves as a powerful symbol of decay and neglect, reflecting broader themes of urban decline and societal stagnation. Chaudhuri's description of Kolkata as "a city of dust" paints a vivid picture of the city's physical decay, while also hinting at deeper layers of metaphorical meaning. The image of "mounds of dust like sand-dunes" conveys a sense of desolation and abandonment, suggesting that the city itself is crumbling under the weight of its own history and neglect. In the extract’s final paragraph, Chaudhuri switches to a third person omniscient voice to provide a political commentary on the neglected state of Calcutta, creating an atmosphere of frustration toward the lack of mechanisms to spur residents to productivity. Chaudhuri’s overarching characterization of Calcutta is arid, a stark juxtaposition with the water symbolism he used earlier in the extract. Thus, Calcutta is presented as the diametric opposite of its residents’ hopes and dreams, precisely the sort of city that people wish to escape from. Specifically, Chaudhuri uses hyperbole to convey how severely wanting the city is for maintenance. His simile of “mounds of dust like sand-dunes” equates everyday piles of waste to towering natural structures, emphasizing just how mammoth the dust mounds have become, presumably because they have gone unattended to by the government. Additionally, he deploys a resigned tone when noting that Calcutta’s roads are constantly refurbished for “some other obscure reason, such as replacing a pipe that doesn’t work with another pipe that doesn’t work.” The vagueness of “some other reason”, and Chaudhuri’s inability to pinpoint the exact reason for Calcutta’s decay, reflects his helplessness to halt the inevitable. Furthermore, Chaudhuri’s repetition of “doesn’t work” creates a sarcastic tone, suggesting that so uninterested is the government in renewing the area, one faulty works project is simply replaced with another.
Furthermore, Chaudhuri not only presents infrastructural projects in the city as dysfunctional, but altogether insensible. He writes, “Calcutta is like a work of modern art that neither makes sense nor has utility.” Readers may be aware that modern art is popularly decried as foolish. In the same vein, Chaudhuri suggests that many aspects of the city lack utility for its citizens; the government has let down the very people it represents. Chaudhuri proceeds to use anaphora in his observation that “the buildings are becoming dust, the roads are becoming dust.” This places emphasis on the process of “becoming”, depicting Calcutta as a place of continual deterioration in quality of infrastructure. Such is the manner in which Chaudhuri highlights his powerlessness to rejuvenate his city as one individual, creating a sorrowful atmosphere. However, readers are prevented from feeling complete disapproval towards Calcutta’s indolent residents when Chaudhuri offers an argument for their not bothering to work. He describes the common scene of “sweating labourers digging into the macadam”, suggesting that when people do put in effort to revitalize the city, it is for naught – for pointless projects that do not benefit the citizenry. Such is how Chaudhuri inserts himself into the narrative to lament that the city has lost its relevance and sense of purpose.
In conclusion, Chaudhuri uses similes, metaphors, and personification to cultivate an atmosphere that is seemingly benign – one of repose and imaginative tranquility. However, by expanding the extract’s setting from the family’s four walls to encompass wider Calcutta, and deploying sarcasm and despondent visual imagery, Chaudhuri cultivates an atmosphere of reproach toward the government. Sandeep’s family is characterized as a microcosm of wider Calcutta to convey how individuals are inseparable from the societies in which they operate. In this respect, readers are left to wonder whether institutions or their subjects ought to be held responsible for their city’s decaying conditions.
Text B