Department of English                               Gymnasium Steglitz Berlin

Contact

Member of the intermediate course 2002 - 2003.

Home

Table of Contents

"Love Story": Book and Movie

If Erich Segal´s book "Love Story" and the movie (co-script writer: Erich Segal) are compared, several differences will be noticeable. The script of the movie added, changed and left scenes, so the watcher of the movie will receive, in some parts, other information than the reader of the book. The main characters of the story are Oliver Barrett, the narrator, Jennifer Cavillery, Mr Barrett and Phil Cavillery. Oliver tells in his "Love Sory" about the relationship to his girlfriend Jenny, how they met and lived together, how they got married and how she died.

Jenny

In the book Oliver describes Jenny as a beautiful and brilliant girl. The way she behaves and talks, when he writes about her, makes the reader see how self-confident, charming and saucy she is. One can also notice her strength when she is very ill and about to die.The movie shows in a more detailed way how full of joy Jenny is, how humorous and silly she can be: There are additional scenes, in which she and Oliver are playing in the snow or moving into their new house and he has to carry her in. In another scene they are arguing on board a ship and she makes fun of the rich, spoilt Oliver who does not know how to repair a boat. The movie also has additional scenes about Jenny´s social life, how she communicates and how popular she is: One sees her teaching a children´s choir and supervising children on the beach. In another scene Jenny watches Oliver ice-skating and tells him not to stop. As a student Oliver used to be one of the best ice-hockey players and Jenny was very proud of him. At this point of the movie Jenny is already very ill and wants to see him skating one last time. Through this and all the other additional scenes one receives more sympathetic characteristics of Jenny and one gets even more unhappy when she dies. In my opinion the movie seems to be more emotional.

Love Story (1970): Ryan O´Neal and Ray Millard

Mr Oliver Barrett III Mr Barrett, Oliver´s father, represents a member of a wealthy, successful and tradition-conscious generation. He is very hard on his son and tries to plan Oliver´s future. Oliver finally stops the contact to him. He describes his father as conservative, strict and unemotional. In the movie Mr Barrett seems to be even more formal and insensitive: He always wears long, dark clothes and a hat and when he greets Oliver, they only shake hands. In the book as well as in the movie Mr Barrett tries to become reconciled to his son. He is willing to lend Oliver a lot of money and wants to help him when he finds out that Jenny is very ill. He seems to be very tough, but he is good at heart. After Jenny has died, Mr Barrett arrives in the hospital. In the book Oliver forgets how much he despises his father, recognizes perhaps his hidden, still loving kind and cries in his arms. In the movie the scene is different: Oliver does not care that his father is present, not even in this emotional situation he is willing to hug his father and become reconciled. The movie shows much more how Mr Barrett is hated by Oliver.

Phil Cavillery

Phil is Jenny´s father and a simple and modest man. He and Jenny have a very good father-daughter relationship. Phil even loves Jenny so much that he forgets his strict religious convictions and agrees to a wedding of Jenny without church. The book describes Phil´s love to Jenny in a more detailed way: He moves in with Oliver while Jenny is in hospital; he acts very nervously and finally gets crazy because his daughter is going to die.

Conclusion

First the movie has more information about Jenny, then changes facts about Mr Barrett and it even leaves out parts about Phil, so the differences change the story in a way: The movie is a real tragedy, but the book has a more reconciling ending, because Oliver loses Jenny but gets his father back.

Is there such a thing as society ?

Perfect societies only exist in dreams

J. B. Priestley wrote the play "An Inspector Calls" in 1946 because he felt a need for a social change. The play shows how each member of the wealthy entrepreneurial Birling family destroys a young woman’s life through his selfish acting that results in her death. An inspector tries to make the family clear that each uncaring behaviour can produce serious consequences. While the children Sheila and Erik notice and then confess their callous acting, their parents just see their legal innocence and do not accept any moral guilt.
Priestley wants to say that selfishness and greed might continue to destroy if we do not change our way of living. The play runs parallel to what was happening to society at that time. It takes place in 1912, just before World War I, and was written in 1945, at the end of World War II. Priestley wants to show that the egoistic and greedy thinking like that of the Birlings can end up in wars. In 1945 the message of Priestley’s play is to look back on the past and not to carry on the same way as before. He hopes younger generations will change society. That is why he lets Sheila and Erik and not their parents learn from their mistakes.

Today the play also has political impact: People are discussing war against the Iraqi or even already preparing an invasion. So we might be in a similar situation like in around 1912. Should we really not try this time to solve this conflict in a different way? Is there still no hope to cooperate without war, no way of working together, no will to compromise and come to agreements?

The inspector calls a society members of one body. I think this is true concerning the behaviour of the participants: Employers and employees of enterprises produce and sell goods or offer specific services to earn money in order to be able to afford things they need and want, which other people produce. This system of buying and selling, helping each other to survive, has spread all over the world.
But peoples or countries are often only willing to cooperate, deal and compromise with each other as long as the individual needs are satisfied.
The own country, enterprise or oneself always comes first, only then the others. This acting could be called instinct or will to survive. So I agree in some way with Margaret Thatcher when she said in 1987: "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." It might even be harder to show humanity in a world of capitalism, where everybody tries to get to the top of success without caring of eliminating others. There have been attempts of other political systems like communism, but very often they did not work.

Many other stories, plays and films have political and social messages. Several deal with the aspect of "society" like "An Inspector Calls". Some of those are based on historical events. Western movies like "Dances with Wolves" contast human society and behaviour in two ways: On the hand a very well working community of Native Americans is shown and on the other hand there are egoistic, disrespectful and callous people, fighting and eliminating the locals. A rather modern film called "The Beach" deals with the question if a harmonious society can exist. It shows how people on a hidden island try to live a quiet life in peace without any outside influences. The idea of building a paradise fails because of inner conflicts. Also in Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" a perfect society is only possible in a dream.

So I think the lesson of "An Inspector Calls", building a society which works together harmoniously, is not easy to turn into reality.

"I am a Rock" by Paul Simon

In the two extra lines at the end the author explains why he chooses to identify himself with a "rock" and an "island". He says:" And a rock feels no pain" (line25). As his heart seems to be so hard that he does not feel anything, he personifies himself with a rock. He describes islands as never crying. He compares his isolation with that of an island. What is going on cannot be reached or seen neither on the island nor in his heart. So why should they cry?

People like the singer of this song think that they have found a way to get over their grief. They just let their feelings die or hide them behind pretended actions.
Paul Simon wants to show those actions by presenting a serious theme with a joyful melody.

Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?
What is best for America?

In the Berlin newspaper "Der Tagesspiegel" (Monday, 10.03.03) a long report with the headline "Lockruf aus South Dakota" (Invitation from South Dakota) shows that even today America tries to entice people, in this case European farmers, to settle down in South Dakota.

Since the end of the 18th century America as the "land of unlimited opportunities" has attracted generations of immigrants of different nationalities, ethnic groups and various religions.They all came in search of a better life that promised work, freedom and equal rights. How does the American society look like? In 1782 M.- G. Jean de Crevecoeur wrote: "Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world."  The famous myth of the melting pot was born and with it the dream that all different national traits could melt and fuse to form a new American culture. About 200 hundred years later Carl N. Degler pointed out in his essay about American society from 1970 that "… the metaphor of the melting pot is unfortunate and misleading. A more accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, for though the salad is an entity, the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage." left: Emigrants going on board. The four-stacker steamship "KAISER WILHELM DER GROSSE" in the "Kaiserschleuse" lock in front of the new Lloyd´s waiting room in Bremerhaven, around 1898 (Photo, Historisches Museum Bremerhaven)

What’s now best for America: melting pot or salad bowl?
Melting pot means a uniform society and homogeneous without many differences or characteristics. A salad bowl represents a society where people do not melt and fuse but live together and keep their national identity, their culture, their religions, their habits and their language.
I prefer the picture of a salad bowl and its realization for America because such a society is pluralistic, more interesting, more colourful and lively.
But it also requires the respect of the interests of different ethnic groups and their way of living.

Thomas Jefferson

What is the best education ? The only way out of the ghetto is through knowledge Throughout the centuries educators in Britain and the USA have developed different school systems to convey their ideas of a decent education. Since American independence education has been of major significance for the USA. Distinctive elements have shaped the character of schooling. For example the American educator and president Thomas Jefferson formulated that the poor should have the same chance of education in order to "avail the state of those talents which nature has sown" (1) already in 1790.

In the 20th century the USA moved towards their goal: education for all. Britain however still relied on its small private schools and the majority of the population received only the most basic teaching. In addition to the little imparting of knowlegde an inhuman strictness characterized the public schools. Charles Dickens, the famous novelist of the 19th century, gives view into such school life when he describes in an ironic and sarcastic way how "nothing but facts" (2) were taught at British schools and how the school reminded him more of jails than seats of learning.
The Education Act in 1870 finally was the first step to an improvement of the British school system. The government promised to help out in
establishing elementary schools by public funding. In the following fifty years the government increased its grants to schools and made elementary education compulsory. In 1918 the school leaving age was raised to 14. The most remarkable step forward in British school history was the establishment of a secondary education in the 1920s. From then until to the 1970s every child received an extensive education at a secondary school after leaving elementary school. This education should be a foundation for a later specialization when entering work.
The secondary education in Britain was divided into three separate branches: Grammar Schools, Secondary Modern Schools and Technical Schools. This system, which separated children into bright and less talented, had many critics, especially from the Labour Party, in the course of time.
Anthony Crossland, the secretary of State for Education in the 1960’s, talked of "three clearly- marked types of child, which can be neatly sorted and labelled" (3), when he wanted to attack the system. The USA, at that time, had already a scheme of a comprehensive school as Britain aspired one, where children of all abilities were taught together. When the Labour Party replaced the Conservatives in Britain in the 1960’s the secondary schools were finally reorganized on comprehensive lines. These schools should neither divide students into intelligent nor into poor and wealthy ones. But all competition and all envy should not be abolished. A declining economy made people wonder if the new schools were working. As soon as the Conservatives were reelected in 1979 many asked for a return to the old system. The comprehensive schools, however, remained in Britain because of argumentations like the one by Paul Johnson in 1987 when he stated: "We must identify the best in our midst, from whatever background they come, at the earliest possible age, equip them to lead, bring them forward, promote them, reward them, bind them to us. … the only way out of the ghetto is through knowledge, skills and hard-edged qualifications." (4)

I agree with the opinion of Paul Johnson and I think that despite of all different school systems the main goal of school education should be the
provision of a basic knowledge like reading, writing and calculating up to an extensive knowlegde of world issues and other specified areas. The students should be prepared for their later lives, mainly for the world of work but also for their life in society. Therefore they do not only have to be taught a certain knowlegde and skills, but they also have to learn how to treat other people and accept rules and human values.

The question "Education – What’s it all about?" is answered by Mr. Antolini, a former teacher of Holden Caulfield in the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger. He tells his former student the following: " ‘Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it’ll begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What it’ll fit and, maybe, what it won’t. After a while, you’ll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don’t suit you, aren’t becoming to you. You’ll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.’ " (5)

Mr. Antolini’s advice contains the idea that at school you learn who you are, what your potential is, what goals you could or should not pursue.
And this is what is important about school in my view. You learn to define your identity and your horizons are widenened so that you are able to master life.

___________________
(1) from "Notes on the State of Virginia" by Thomas Jefferson, in: Public Education in the United States: From Revolution to Reform by R. Freeman Butts, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978, p. 28
(2) from Hard Times by Charles Dickens, 1854
(3) from The Future of Socialism by C.A.R. Crossland; London: Jonathan Cape, 1956, pp. 188 - 90
(4) from "An Unashamed Pursuit of Elitism" by Paul Johnson, in: The Daily Telegraph, 6 Jan 1987, p. 10
(5) from J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in The Rye, Penguin Books, London 1994, p.171