TLB: Context Flashcards
Fantasy
The Gothic - horror, violence, the supernatural
Magic realism - fantasy elements intruding into reality
Science fiction - time travel, subverted rules of time and space.
Rosemary Jackson’s theories of fantasy - repressed desire, theme of transformation.
Brian Attenbery’s theory of fantasy.- violation of what is possible in real word, narrative structure from problem to resolution.
Biological
Sebold was the victim of a violence rape as a college student. She was a virgin at the time of the rape. The police were unhelpful and her family struggled to come to terms with he experience and reactions towards it. Joining a creative writing class and writing about her experienced was one factor which helped her. eventually;;y the rapist was caught , brought to trial ad convicted .
Social/historical contact of production (2000-2001)
Media coverage of a series of child abductions and killings cased widespread paranoia among American parents at the time Sebold was wring the book.
The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre traumatised America, bringing fear and insecurity and violating the America dream.
Literary
in 1999 Sebold published a memoir, ‘Lucky’ about her experience of rape (she was told she was ‘lucky to survive). The memoir described the traumatic and long-lasting effects o her ordeal on her and her family. ‘The Lovely Bones’ could be seen as a fictional re-telling of ‘Lucky’.
The 1970s setting
Americans ‘loss of innocence’ - Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation, Vietnam war. A time before technology was paramount gender roles were starring to be questioned as part of the growing women’s movement.
