Contradiction and ideology (children's books)

One important aspect around interpretation is contradiction. We see in literature again and again that characters appear to say the opposite of each other; one scene may well appear to have an outcome that contradicts another. You might even say that it's a measure of complexity of a given text. Very young children might well be less able to cope with or understand a text where characters or scenes contradict each other. 

But where do these contradictions come from? Sometimes, it's clear that the author 'intended' them. However, several writers have made the claim that a work contains contradictions that writer may not have been aware of. There is, say some, a political unconsciousness that reveals a contradiction between, say, the evident outlook of a text and what underlies it. I've made the observation that Hans Christian Andersen appears to represent contradictory views towards the aristocracy in 'The Tinder Box'. On the one hand the chief character is in love with a representative of the ruling order, on the other hand it requires their destruction. The two viewpoints co-exist within the story. And that's fine. Perhaps these co-existing contradictions can serve as examples of Keats's 'negative capability'.

Other contradictions might appear around how a problem is overcome. Traditionally in fiction, problems are overcome by individuals. This is itself problematic if the problem can in real life only be overcome collectively. Or, the way the individual overcomes the problem in the end is through the intervention of an agent who themselves is not really interested in fundamentally changing anything other than we should all be a bit nicer to each other. This is the case where the social problem is solved through the intervention of one lone good authority figure and not through any collective action on the part of those of those experiencing the 'problem'. 

Marx talked of contradictions within capitalism, and one of particular significance to writers and readers is the one about individuals and collectivities. In brief, this is an observation that in a capitalist society, everything is ultimately made (or it is possible to make it) private. Money is the means by which we can do this because it makes everything 'equivalent'. Everything has its price. In particular, the process of producing the things we need and use and want ends up with the owners making 'private' a great chunk of the value of the work that people (workers) put into making these things. In other words, the owners take the 'labour power' (hand and brain) and ultimately convert it into money which they pocket. 

However, to do this, owners and rulers have devised systems of production which bring people to act together to make things. Consider how even freelancers and the 'self-employed' (like me) still have to act together with others to get anything made, and 'out there' being sold. Marx argued that the collectivity of production ran in contradiction to the process of making everything we see and use private. And - here's the important bit - in the consciousness (or ideology) of doing things collectively - especially when we struggle or fight or campaign collectively - we envisage another way of doing things. But this 'envisaging', this ideology may well be in contradiction, co-existing with the view that we want or need or have to behave privately or as 'individuals'. 

This contradiction may well play out inside individual characters, scenes, whole books, in a variety of ways. We should also remember that in one key part of where consciousness is produced 'education' this contradiction plays out ever day. Teachers and pupils are brought together in large collectivities in order to privatise knowledge itself in the form of tests and test scores. Given that schools are a great subject for children's books, this then can be an interesting prism through which to view what we write and read and think about in relation to the 'school story'. 

Just to be clear, this is not an essay 'against' contradiction. It's a note on the fact that it exists, and we co-exist in it, and with it.

Ideology doesn't just float free of who we are and what we want...

There is a tendency for many of us, me included, to talk about ideology anywhere (but I'm talking about children's books here), as if it just exists for its own ends. A given ideology (racism, let's say) we might describe as 'doing' x or y. We might write in many ways as if 'ideology' operates by itself as if it has some kind of human power.

I may well done this myself when taking my eye off the ball. It's easily done.

It ultimately collapses as a way of talking or writing because a) ideology can't 'do' anything. People perceive the text that is 'ideologically' doing the work; they (we) read it, or hear it and in so doing go through the processes of trying to understand it, reflect on it, make it part of our thought - in other words we 'do' the ideology!  and b) ideology is not separate from those who express it. Ultimately ideologies are the viewpoint(s) of social groups, power groups, powerless groups, and classes in society.

The moment we accept this (b), we might then ask what kind of purpose or function then does this or that ideology appear to be serving in society? Unfortunately, it's quite easy to discuss an ideology as if it is separate from these questions of purpose and function. (Purpose and function may be separate from 'aim' in that what appears to be the 'aim' or a speaker or writer, may well not neatly overlap with what it's ultimate function is.)

This notion of ideology being connected to people was expressed in schematic form by Marx when he said that social consciousness is determined by social being. In other words our awareness, our ideas, our ideologies are born out of how we exist as social beings - how we derive a living, what our position is in the processes of deriving a living, the times we live in,  how we live with the people we choose to live with or have to live with, our social groups for leisure, our places of living and so on. Marx thought that the first three on this little list were the real fate-changers or 'determinants' and everything flowed from these.

Even if people don't accept the full Marxist package here, there is still the challenge of what any ideology (let's say expressed in a Beatrix Potter book, or a 'The Hunger Games') is for. Where does it come from, who is expressing it, why, and what purpose or function does it have?

As I said in the previous blog, this is complicated by the fact that any given ideological position or expression may be 'explicit', 'implied' or 'hidden' and many positions in between. And we as readers may well resist whatever appears to be being said to us...

Explicit, implied and hidden ideology in children's books

People interested in how 'hidden ideology' works in children's books, might like to look at the chapter on 'Captain Underpants' in "Boys in Children's Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child" (New York: Routledge, 2007) by Annette Wannamaker.

Loosely speaking, we might say that there is 'explicit ideology' where authors appear to be stating what readers should believe. (Whether readers end up believing these things is another matter altogether, for the simple reason that there is no ideal 'reader' who follows meekly what appear to be the 'messages' or 'teachings' of a text.)

What's more, what might appear to be 'explicit' might possibly be 'ironic' and doing a bit of 'reverse psychology' on us. As with Jonathan Swift or books with 'unreliable narrators'.

Then people talk of 'implied' or 'implicit ideology'. This might be linked to the concept of the 'implied author'. This concept is that we never know what the author intended - and according to this theory, neither does the author. The only thing we know is the text. If we as readers or critics analyse and re-assemble the text, is it possible to see what this text 'implies'? If we think an author assembles a text then the 'person' doing that is the 'implied author'.

Then again, people talk of ideology that you or me or a lot of people or most people 'don't notice'. Indeed, some argue that the ideology you don't notice is the one that does the most work. So, if, let's say, I love a story and think I've spotted what it's got to say, but haven't 'noticed' the race hierarchy implied by the way in which different kinds of people are represented, then it's played along with my assumptions (if I have any)  that race hierarchy is OK. To take this argument further, you might say that all texts have hidden ideologies - they may well be hidden from the author - and that that is the crucial part of how what Chomsky called 'manufacturing consent' works.

Some of this challenges 'ideological criticism' from the left as much as anyone. Looking back to criticism of children's books by someone like Bob Dixon, 'Catching Them Young' (1977), at the time it was a powerful challenge to many of the assumptions that many of us in the children's book world, parenting, editing, teaching etc made. So far so good. However, what he wrote rather assumed that there is a process that runs: "author writes ideology - reader believes it; leftwing critic resists it, most other people don't." He didn't ask the question, 'if I resist it, why can't or don't others?' He didn't ask the question, 'If a text appears to be stating an unpleasant view or ideology, why can't people respond to that by finding that repulsive?' He didn't make clear distinctions between the author, the implied author, the different 'positions' taken up by characters in texts who offer different perspectives on actions, which in turn offer different readers different ways to look at the book...(that's a lot of differences, but so be it!).

So, back to Annette Wannamaker, if any of this interests you, then the chapter in her book, makes for a very interesting and challenging read.

Imagine if 6 Labour ministers voted against a Labour govt policy....

Let's pause awhile and do some imagining. Let's imagine a Labour government of any kind, and a major policy decision was taken by the prime minister. At this point, 6 cabinet ministers announce that they are going to vote against this.

Now let's imagine the reaction of the major press, TV and radio outlets. Let's just imagine the chorus of screaming headlines and interviewers saying e.g. 'the prime minister's position is surely untenable', 'the markets will react to this surely', 'the country can't tolerate divided government, surely', 'remember Churchill surely,' [they always do that, whether it's relevant or not]...and a whole stream of superannuated back bench MPs, discredited tossers, constitutional 'experts', tax dodgers and assorted billionaires would be wheeled out on TV to stare at us balefully from our screens warning us that this is what you get with socialists in power (whether of course it's right wing nut jobs like Blair or a contorted presbyterian like Brown or whoever whichever not particularly socialist person was in power)...


Oh yes, we have a headline saying the government is 'split' at the moment, (Telegraph today) but none of the united force of 'Fleet Street' and the BBC driving in the tanks to destroy the lot of them....

In fact, the opposite: the combined force of print and TV will do all they can to enjoy the tittle tattle of dissent whilst doing all they can to shore up the cracked edifice. The main function of that in the short term of course is to keep out Corbyn. After all, he's in favour of a fully public NHS, the bastard.

Jeremy Hunt says, Collected Vol 3

Jeremy Hunt says doctors are the middle man between life and death and he's just trying to cut out the middle man.

Jeremy Hunt says if you have a pint of water in 5 bottles, then put the pint into 7 bottles, the pint becomes more than a pint.

Jeremy Hunt says if the Junior Doctors don't accept the deal he'll get unemployed school leavers do their job.

For the NHS; for the Junior Doctors

As ever - for the NHS and today for the Junior Doctors in support and solidarity with your action:

These are the hands
That touch us first
Feel your head
Find the pulse
And make your bed.


These are the hands
That tap your back
Test the skin
Hold your arm
Wheel the bin

Change the bulb
Fix the drip
Pour the jug
Replace your hip

These are the hands
That fill the bath
Mop the floor
Flick the switch
Soothe the sore

Burn the swabs
Give us a jab
Throw out sharps
Design the lab.

And these are the hands
That stop the leaks
Empty the pan
Wipe the pipes
Carry the can
Clamp the veins
Make the cast
Log the dose
And touch us last.

Jeremy Hunt says...Collected Vol 2

Jeremy Hunt's contract says he doesn't have to work at weekends.

Jeremy Hunt says everyone knows he'll be running the NHS long after all the Junior Doctors have become hedge fund managers and estate agents

Jeremy Hunt says he doesn't want to be guilty of misrepresentation but he would just like to point out junior doctors are mass murderers.


Jeremy Hunt says making a contract doesn't have to be between two parties. He likes doing it with himself.

Jeremy Hunt says he's had another look at the stats and discovered that no one dies between Monday and Friday.

Jeremy Hunt says that lots of poor people aren't safe where they live so why should they have safety if they are patients in hospital?

Jeremy Hunt says that when Britain was great, barbers were surgeons, so he's asking barbers and hairdressers to be doctors.


Jeremy Hunt says the NHS was a socialist plot to undermine Winston Churchill

Jeremy Hunt says this cradle to the grave malarkey is a bit sentimental. He says he's not in a cradle or a grave and he's getting along fine

Jeremy Hunt says the Junior Doctors are unpopular because no sick person really wants a doctor to help make them better.


Jeremy Hunt says at least Hitler made the doctors run on time.

Jeremy Hunt says what is all this childish attachment to a National Health Service? Why not a Branson Health Service? Or a Murdoch one?

Jeremy Hunt says what is all this childish attachment to a national healrh service? Why not a Branson Health Service? Or a Murdoch one?

Jeremy Hunt says why in heaven's name would doctors know anything about the health service?

Jeremy Hunt says too many doctors behave as if they have a mind of their own.

Jeremy Hunt says any Junior Doctor breaking his contract will be dismissed and if that means sacking all of them so much the better.

Jeremy Hunt says he was born to lead and Junior Doctors were born to follow.

Jeremy Hunt says Junior Doctors are like dogs and can and must be brought to heel.