Unraveling the Complexities of Time Slip in Philippa Pearce's 		 Tom's Midnight Garden

Hussein Abdullah Hussein, Elham

doi:10.21608/aafu.2017.29797

Unraveling the Complexities of Time Slip in Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Elham Hussein Abdullah Hussein

A lecturer and Head of English Dept., Cairo Higher Institutes for Languages and Translation

10.21608/aafu.2017.29797

Abstract

Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) by Pearce (1920- 2006) is an exemplary novel of time slip device, blending fantasy and realism, through the spatiotemporal journey, by Tom of the title from the polluted present of 1950s, into a Victorian garden, standing for rural utopian past. The story is stimulated by the biographical childhood memory of the author. The text is closely linked to the context of its production on the socio-political, historical and cultural levels. The book was published after World War II at hard times owing to the loss of empire and a series of political failures, leading to economic decline and social discontent. Frustration prevailed among people. Like other writers, Pearce attempted to remind her readers of their glorious past as to enhance their national sense of identity. It is didactic book that is imbued with conservative ideology. The book integrates various complex themes and genres.
Purpose of study: To refute the claim that children's literature is simple, intended only for entertainment. Instead, the book reveals the fact that children's literature can be socio-politically committed, aimed to construct docile subjects, imbued with inherent ideologies.
Methodologies: The paper employs Marxist, historic, psychoanalytic, in addition to formalist approaches to the text.

Keywords