c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book

This characters name is Nickolas Ickle, and this essay is about how he is constructed as the child protagonist of The Wrong Book. The ideology which The Wrong Book incorporates into the way it constructs the child is evidently contextual and selective; especially the ways that it depicts a childs mental process of imagination, sense of control and colonisation and reactions to adversity, through the particular ways the stylistic and linguistic features of the genre of the picture book as used in this book can be analysed. The way in which Nickolas Ickle and his fellow characters of The Wrong Book are constructed both implicitly and explicitly support the argument that picture books like The Wrong Book are deceptively simplistic on first encounter, but an analysis of the composition reveals that picture books contain within them concrete ideas of what it is to be a child, how to speak to and entertain children, and what is appropriate and important material for children; it supports Roses argument that it speaks to a mythical, adult idea of the child, one it constructs through the book and in this case, its depiction of Nickolas Ickle. 1

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book

The Wrong Book subverts the notion that a books protagonist is both central to and in control of the plot and order of the text, constructing the small, white male child as a inferior and disempowered member of a wider society that has the power to invade and influence their sense of control and colonisation. Nickolas powerless position in The Wrong Book is established as early as the cover and is sustained throughout the entire text, a deliberate technique that implies that white male children, despite their supposed ability to explore and conquer, are unable to control certain aspects of their own psyche. This is evident in how the book illustrates Nickolas Ickle consistently in positions of obstruction or marginalisation. This is in contrast to the other characters of the book, who always manage to overwhelm Nickolas Ickles place on the page as well as the written word which represents his dialogue, which is constantly squashed into side corners and implied page margins. This is all to the effect of emphasising the protagonists position of powerlessness. It arises as early as the front cover, where, although Nickolas Ickle is in a front, centre position; traditionally one associated with power or importance, (Sipe) this is thwarted by the fact that his figure is partially obstructing the title of the book, known to be the most important part of a books cover as its identification. Sipe argues that the beginning and ending of a narrative are especially important when it comes to critically understanding the text and its narrative structure, (37) and in this case Nickolas Ickles disruptive position in this cover image is especially important in the way it suggests that although this boy may be an important part of the narrative to follow, there is something wrong about this. It is important to note, however, that his position does in no way prevent the reader from understanding what the title of the book is, simply due to its dominant size in contrast to the small boy; a proportional difference that is constantly echoed and exploited 2

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book throughout the whole book. This consistent conflict between Nickolas Ickles supposed role as protagonist and his lack of ability to control the narrative in the world of the book implies that the pages are a manifestation of the boys thought process in the form of a book; the quote this book absolutely does NOT need(Bland, 2009) is exemplary of how Nickolas Ickles feels he should have control of what should or should not be in his thoughts. The Wrong Book therefore depicts a young white boys psyche as one which is inevitably shaped and influenced by forces that to the child are unknown and unidentifiable (adulthood.) These forces control his thoughts, in particular his identification of the other and his reactions to their presence.

The Wrong Book overtly uses psycho-narration; a concept defined as a narrators discourse about a characters consciousness (Wyile, 2003) to construct a particular perspective of children and their assumed reactions to adversity. The use of dialogue as the only written word in The Wrong Book would deceptively suggest that Nickolas Ickle is the sole narrator, but he is obviously not; unlike a narrator, he has limited control over the events of the book. There is, in The Wrong Book a silent, apparently omnipotent and invasive narrator who controls the incidents in the book through the sustained stream of unwanted characters into the pages of the text, whose presence, although supposedly unnecessary, forms the essential material of the narrative. Despite Nickolas Ickles consistent claims that everyone else is in the wrong book, his ineffectively repeated

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book only serves to suggest that it is he who is in an awkward and obstructive role in the text, and this is only part of the books use of the stylistic features of the picture book to create a specific construction of the child. In extended reference to Bangs Picture This,1 Sipe (30) acknowledges the various connotations behind the positioning of illustrations across the opening of a picture book spread. The Wrong Books utilisation of space is very significant to understanding the books construction of the child, through its replacement of a physical sphere with one that is somewhat insubstantial. The lack of illustrations symbolising either floor or wall empowers the characters to inexplicably stand or sit at any vertical position on the page; a small shadow at their feet being the only semblance of solidity. This is to the effect of the books removal of reality through the elimination of a recognisable physical dimension. This blank white of the page is used to explicitly suggest that this is just a book, but a book in which the protagonist speaks directly to the reader, and the characters magically appear from the side and above on cue in an imitation kind of theatre space. Unframed, the illustration[s] (of a book) constitute a total experience, [a] view from within(Moebius, 1986)The construction of the pages of The Wrong Book as some kind of theatre suggests not only that the books setting could be interpreted as the mental space of the protagonist Nickolas Ickle, but also that the events of the book are a performance conducted in this space; some kind of mental, internal struggle of Nickolas Ickles with adversaries represented by the various characters. The elephant is the older, larger and ignorant adversary; possibly Nickolas Ickles view of his relationship with an older sibling or an obnoxious adult.

Included in reference list (Bang, 1991)

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book

The monsters are the similarly proportioned (and perhaps aged) irritating opponents suggestively Nickolas Ickles opinion of peers or friends:

The pirate is a threat because of his superior skill and definitive characterisation potentially a personal rival of Nickolas Ickle, and the queen is most explicitly the unwanted aspects of a maternal figure of authority:

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book The culmination of this is Nickolas Ickles interaction with the puppet, clearly a brief encounter with the socially controlled characteristics of himself which the boy would like to reject. This is evident through a combination of the puppets similar physical appearance with the addition of strings connecting him to the unseen narrator and the connotations behind the label Nickolas Ickle gives him of puppet. This effort is apparently unsuccessful when Nickolas Ickle manages to still use the cultural convention of manners despite his strained frustration, when he soon after says will you please Go Away!(Bland, 2009)

This symbolism of The Wrong Book is exemplary of the presence of ideology within the text, as defined as the espousal, assumption, consideration, and discussion of social and cultural values, whether overt or covertthe values and underlying assumptions of our everyday lives. (Sarland, 1999) These social and cultural values are both explicit and imbedded within The Wrong Book, and as Sarland argues in reference to Volosinovs

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book argument2 that all sign systemshave not only a simple denotative role; they are also and at one and the same time, evaluative, and thus ideological.(41) The Wrong Book certainly evaluates the social and culturally determined concepts of authority, power and privacy.

The way in which The Wrong Book depicts a childs mental process of imagination; as something fantastical, with animals, pirates, rats, stereotypical queens, is a result of the books construction of the child. Doonan claims that pictures are able to express and metaphorically display what cannot be pictured directly ideas, moods, abstract notions and qualities (Doonan, 1993) and in The Wrong Book, pictures serve these very functions both consciously and unconsciously in how they are laden with constructions of the child and a particular perspective on the operation of a childs psyche. Each opening of the text in some way through illustration expresses ideas and moods that support the texts whole implicit ideology. The abstract notions within the text of a powerless, internally tormented childhood and its conflict with implied masculine authority and white supremacy are most symbolically display through the pictures and their constructional connotations. The protagonists attempt to assert control over the books space and its narrative is a representation of his attempt to gain control over his internal thoughts in opposition to the silent opposition of adult authority; this is how The Wrong Book depicts a childs mental process of imagination, as something that is controllable and conquerable despite a childs feeble attempts at resistance. It suggests that the mental process of children is something they have the potential to colonise and control, but intrinsically it is still beyond their power. The Wrong Book constructs the
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In Marxism and the philosophy of language (Volosinov, 1929)

c3109550 ENGL3007 Analytical Review The Wrong Book child as a powerless figure and establishes their psyche as a place that is mistakenly interpreted as a place of escape from the inevitable influence of wider society, when in essence it is not.

References Bang, Molly (1991). Picture This: Perceptions and Composition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Bland, Nick (2009). The Wrong Book. Sydney: Scholastic Australia. Doonan, Jane (1993). Looking at Pictures in Picture books. Gloucester: The Thimble Press. Moebius, W (1986). Introduction to picturebook codes. Word and Image, 2(2), 141-158. Sarland, Charles (1999). The Impossibility of Innocence: Ideology, Politics, and Children's Literature. In Peter Hunt (Ed.), Understanding Children's Literature (pp. 39-55). London: Routledge. Sipe, Lawrence R. Picturebooks as Aesthetic Objects. Literacy Teaching and Learning, 6(1), 23-42. Volosinov, V.N. (1929). Marxism and the philosophy of language (Ladislav Matejka & I. R. Titunik, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wyile, Andrea Schwenke (2003). The Value of Singularity in First- and Restricted ThirdPerson Engaging Narration. Children's Literature, 31, 116-141.