Word: directing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...John Updike reaches back 200 years to put himself in direct dialogue with another great realist. New England Puritan writer, Nathaniel Hawthrone. Though the pastoral New England village of The Scarlet Letter belongs to history, Updike explores the same questions which perplexed that less permissive landscape. The notions of tradition, morality, religion and womanhood that dominate Hawthrone's 18th century world are also Updike's concerns...
...Updike plays with the narrative ofThe Scarlet Letter, he also experiments with its voice. Hawthorne spoke about Hester Prynne by narrating her story. Updike allows Sarah to speak for herself by assuming her voice in as direct a way as possible. As an epistolary novel, S. enables Updike to be privy to Sarah's psyche, whether she is addressing her accountant, her dentist, her hairdresser or her family...
...last novel, Witches of Eastwick, Updike eschewed the first person, using the next best thing: restricted third person narration. Feminists objected to the complete mystification Updike demonstrated towards women in that novel, as he ascribed to them all manner of extraordinary, supernatural abilities. Updike's direct assumption of the female voice in S. is at the very least a gutsy move, a bridging of what Marilynne Robinson called his "perplexed and fascinated distance," from the lives of women...
...many of the programs direct beneficiaries. One child recently wrote a letter to Wills--in Spanish--in which he says, "Ted, you are more than a friend to me because you taught me many things and how to face everything. Thank you for your friendship Ted, it's the best thing we all have...
...Stern, the good mother who was presented in direct examination, goes to "Gymboree" on Monday mornings, "Tots and Toddlers" on Tuesday, "Mother's Day Off" on Wednesday, and has an informal play group for neighborhood children on Thursday. Her schedule is organized around attending these cleverly-named play groups, supervising naptimes, providing balanced meals and recording landmark achievements in her "little Melissa's" growth. The classic lawyerly question--Where were you on the night of June 4th?--in this case was transposed to. How tall was your little Melissa as of June 10th? Mrs. Stern was quick with the answer...