Wicked: Nanny and her perception of life.

Ophelia

Tammy wrote:

Ophelia · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject:

Nanny is a character who deserves analyzing.

She amuses me.
She is a useful and colorful tool in what I see as the author's general enterprise of criticizing almost everything and everybody in the book.

She is grumpy (we are told she is old), she is direct and down to earth.
She knows exactly how the social class system works, and who belongs where.

She has no illusions about life or morals: for example we learn from her (becauses she guesses about the past) about Melena's extra-marital affairs.
She's extremely practical about Melena's affairs, and does not preach morality and fidelity, as one might expect a nanny to do.

When she speaks, she often uses maxims, such as in the paragraph Tammy quoted "Woe is the natural end of life".
Those maxims have a way of ending on a pessimistic note and bring in some dark wit, as in:

"Woe is the natural end of life, yet we go on having babies...halt production."

What words would you use to describe such speech?

Would you say Nanny is a cynic?

By the way, what would you say about the speeches some of the characters (usually Elphaba) give?

They remind me of Oscar Wilde's theatre plays, except that the tirades and witticisms are longer.
For example, Elphaba is very quiet at first at Shiz, but when she starts talking, p125, this is intricate quasi-monologue.

I certainly wish I had conversation like this!

To return to Nanny, she usually is the one to point at weaknesses around her, but the narrator also shows her stealing from Melena, and she is laughable in the episode of the garter.

Constance963 · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:02 am Post subject:

Nanny simply doesn't sugar coat anything - Life is what it is and she doesn't make excuses for it. She seems to be the kind of person who just pushes on no matter what happens. I think she's cynical but life probably hasn't always been kind to Nanny.

tlpounds · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:05 pm Post subject: Thoughts on Life

Though Nanny did not say the below quote, I thought I would post this discussion question under this thread anyway because it does have "perception on life" in the label Wink

“All our lives are activity without meaning: we burrow ratlike into life and we squirm ratlike through it and ratlike we are flung into our graves at the end.”

This passage calls to mind, for me, the phrase “rat race,” which is often used to describe a strenuous, wearisome, and usually competitive lifestyle. Do you think you are living in a rat race? Do you like it? (The phrase has a negative connotation, but for some people, they love such a life. Even with the occasional “beatings,” don’t such challenges/hurdles/trials make one…capable? After all, change/evolution requires a catalyst, often being competition or survival…

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

Tammy wrote:

tlpounds · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:03 am Post subject:

Hi Ophelia!
I took the quote from page 23 of the book. A dwarf said it during his welcome speech to the crowd that gathered to see the Time Dragon in Rush Margins. Do you remember this event in the beginning of the book? The dwarf finished his speech by saying, “Now and then, why shouldn’t we hear a voice of prophecy, or see a miracle play? Beneath the apparent sham and indignity of our rat-like lives, a humble pattern and meaning still applies! Come nearer, my good people, and watch what a little extra knowledge augurs for your lives! The Time Dragon sees before and beyond and within the truth of your sorry span of years here! Look at what it shows you!”
I used “perception on life” from the name of the thread you gave for Wicked: Nanny and Her Perception on Life. Perception can also mean “grasp; understanding,” so I figured instead of making a new thread for this discussion question, I would post it under Wicked: Nanny and Her Perception on Life because, even though Nanny didn’t say the quoted passage, it is simply another perception (idea/understanding/grasp) on life I wanted to explore with everyone. Basically, I was just trying to justify my reason for posting this discussion question under this thread!
My reading group is simply made up of a couple of people from my work and my two roommates. We are all from different walks of life (e.g. education level, age, geography), but I somehow managed to inspire enough interest in the book to get them on a schedule to read it with me. It really helped when I made a reading schedule for us that included breaking the book into small chunks of readable parts. They were more willing to read a 500 page book when you tell them, “But we’ll only be reading less than a 100 pages a week!?” Wink

I am really not sure how or why they pick the discussion questions that inspire them and make them want to respond. Each question really does something different for each person, and sometimes I don’t receive a response for any of them. It’s just a crapshoot to find out what interests people. I just try to think of different questions that come to mind while I’m reading the book, put it out there for the group, and see what happens.
I think finding so many questions to ask has just been a result of my formal training these past two years. I just finished my Masters in Education, and pretty much all we did was learn various teaching techniques/skills, apply them in the classroom, and discuss our success and failure through group discourse and/or writing formal papers. (I have written so many these past couple of years that thinking of things to ask about Wicked is a welcomed break!)
I try to form my questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy. http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm
I start by asking questions that demand a simple cognitive function (i.e. recalling information and understanding meaning/translating) to ones that demand a more complex intellectual task (i.e. analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating/making judgments). Is this what you were asking about my questioning techniques?

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject:

tlpounds · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:55 pm Post subject:

“…If you don’t give her the weapons and armor with which she can defend herself against scorn, she’ll make your life miserable as hers will be miserable.”

What do you think of Nanny’s parenting skills, taking Elphaba into town to play with the children? Her intentions were to expose Elphaba to taunting and various abuses at an early age. Was it a good lesson for her to learn, or was it too harsh? If your child had some sort of birth defect or disability, would you expose him or her to ridicule at such an age, or would you shelter him or her as much as you could throughout life?

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:

Which page was this?

tlpounds · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:58 am Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:05 am Post subject:

Tammy, thanks for the reference and for attracting my attention to this part of the book.

I'm only going to answer one of your questions-- and very indirectly at that.

I think there is a lot to say about pages 62 to 66.

I see the interaction between "normal" children and a child with a physical handicap, but I aslo see other things woven into it, like the coming together of different social classes .
I love the artistry and the originality in these pages, the way the narrator highlights bleak realities and shows some cruel truths, but still maintaining distance , and a type of humour that goes with distance...I'm not sure how to describe it yet.

Note that the writer doesn't trouble with political correctness in describing what melena thinks of her daughter or children, or in describing Gawnette's world.

First, Nanny is an important character in these pages. It is her idea that Elphaba should mix with humans of her age - between her absentee father and a mother thinking of "dalliance"*, she is the only person who seems to care enough to take decisions of this sort.

Melena says about E, p 60 "She is boring. Some children are."
At no point in these pages do we get the impression this is going to be a pleasant encounter.

P62, their walk to Rush Margins is accompanied by a "stiff, unforgiving wind".
p 61, Melena explained why such an idea horrified her:
"How cruel, to inflict the outside world on her! A green child will be an open invitation for scorn and abuse. And children are wickeder than adults, they have no sense of restraint."

[ By the way Tammy, have you read Barbara Coloroso's The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander? I recommend it.]

Nanny explains her choice with "Elphaba must learn who she is and must face cruelty early."

Melena "And the weapons and armour she'll learn from the dirty urchins of Rush Margins?".
Nanny: "Laughter. Fun . Teasing . Smiling."

So my question is: From what we see of Elphaba when we next meet her (at Shiz, then in the Emeralds City), did she get " weapons and armour" from Gawnette's children?

If so, which weapons did she gain?

Were they those Nanny had predicted: laughter, teasing...

And incidentally, did Elphaba learn to have a sense of humour?

Note that, although Elphaba walked all the way to Rush Margins, she was not yet two and had yet to speak her first word.
(p 70 "It was her first word. (...) She was nearly two years old.")

How do you interpret the fact that Elphaba's first word was "horrors" ?

a- Turtle Heart had just said it, and she thought it sounded important, and she liked the sound of the word?

b- it reflected her life with the "divine children" of Rush Margins ?

c- it reflected her life at home?

tlpounds · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject:

Ophelia, you quoted the following passage in your last post:

Melena says about E, p 60 "She is boring. Some children are."
p 61, Melena explained why such an idea [taking Elphaba into Rush Margins to play with the town's children] horrified her:
"How cruel, to inflict the outside world on her! A green child will be an open invitation for scorn and abuse. And children are wickeder than adults; they have no sense of restraint."
Nanny explains her choice with "Elphaba must learn who she is and must face cruelty early."
Melena "And the weapons and armour she'll learn from the dirty urchins of Rush Margins?"
Nanny: "Laughter. Fun. Teasing. Smiling."

I think this situation is simply one of the many examples of why Melena comes across to readers as a terribly selfish and self-serving person (which makes the idea of her being a mother simply repugnant because being a mother is about generosity and self-sacrifice). Nanny is the only one who actually cares about what’s best for Elphaba and works to ensure that she’s given somewhat of a normal childhood, regardless if her own mother likes it or not . For Nanny, the focus is always on what’s best for the child. It’s her life’s purpose (taking care of children); she even takes care of Melena up until her end and continues to take on Melena’s burden of parenting two deformed children after she dies. Unfortunately for Melena, her parenting skills have always juxtaposed to those of Nanny’s in the book, and she just could never live up to the bar Nanny set. Perhaps for someone too immature to be a parent, but one nonetheless, and who had a deformed child as her firstborn, she did about as good as could be expected if compared to other first-time mothers.

You asked me if I have you read Barbara Coloroso's The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander? I'm sorry, but I can’t say that I have. I'm marking it down as a future read now, though Wink

Your next questions were, "From what we see of Elphaba when we next meet her (at Shiz, then in the Emerald City), did she get "weapons and armor" from Gawnette's children? If so, which weapons did she gain? Were they those Nanny had predicted: laughter, teasing... And incidentally, did Elphaba learn to have a sense of humor?

When Elphaba was a child, she spent most of her time among adults. As I read Wicked, Elphaba has always seemed to me more like an adult than a child. Therefore, I think Elphaba gained her greatest weapons from the company and interaction among adults (logic, critical thinking, curiosity, sense of duty) and the armor from the forced interaction with the children of Rush Margins. By armor, I mean that she received exposure to other people’s reaction to her outside and appearance and their hateful treatment towards her because of it. From this exposure, she had to learn to “toughen up” –to learn how to deal with abuses and strike back at the world in return.

As for your last question, “How do you interpret the fact that Elphaba's first word was "horrors?"

That was actually one of the questions my reading group discussed in Week 1! (“What do you think is the significance, if any, of Elphaba’s first word being “horrors?”) I believe this question will elicit several responses, so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to make a new thread on Elphaba and make this the first question we will discuss about her Smile

tlpounds · Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:27 pm Post subject: Perception

During the second biology class with Dr. Nikidik on page 187, he posed the following question to the class:
“…Do you think that if we could cauterize that part of the brain that develops language, we could eliminate the notion of pain and thus its existence?”

This question reminded me of the old classic, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a noise?
One argument is that a falling tree makes a noise because a noise is simply a vibration of air. Just because no one heard, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
On the other hand, one could also argue that a sound is simply our perception of the vibration of the air. Thus, if no one heard it, then it didn’t really make a sound…

So, do you think pain could cease to exist if we lost the capacity to identify and describe it? Or, does it exist regardless of whether or not we are capable of recognizing it?

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

Tammy, I've written my answer in the "Animal Rights" thread.


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