Analysis Of Tom Jones s Mister Pip Essay - 1196 Words

The Development of Tension In Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones explores the ability of the creative space of literature to mediate transformations of culture and identity. Set during the Bougainville civil war in the early 1990s, the island’s sole white inhabitant, Mr Watts reopens a dilapidated schoolhouse and reads Great Expectations to the village children. Written in the first person retrospective narrative style, we witness how the villagers are caught in the military conflict just as inexorably as Matilda is caught between the tension between her incongruous teacher, Mr Watts, and her fiercely religious mother, Dolores. They battle for the control over the mind and soul of Matilda, developing the theme of ignorance versus education. The consequent tension between Dolores and Matilda illustrates the theme of adolescence, of challenging parental beliefs and affirming one’s values. With all foreign contact withdrawn from the besieged Bougainville, Matilda becomes infatuated with the world of Great Expectations, whose cultural unfamiliarity is exemplified through the animosity Dolores bears toward Mr Watts. Mr Watts brings new, Western ideas to the classroom and encourages the use of creativity and imagination to seek escapism and exposure through literature, â€Å"giving us all another room to lounge around in† – the room of the mind. Matilda becomes riveted by the adventures of Pip in Victorian England London, a city whose contours soon become more real than her own landscape. â€Å"I