Children’s Literature

Order Description

Select two of the following questions and answer them in 400 words each. In order to receive full credit (maximum five points for each answer), you must include relevant direct quotations from the books.

1. Show how Kipling reflects the social and imperialist theories of his time in The Jungle Book. You may of course focus on the Mowgli stories, but cite at least one of the non-Mowgli stories too.
2. In his introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum asserts that his story is a modern American fairy tale, without the morals, the cruelty, and the conventional creatures of Grimm and Andersen. What elements make the story “modern” and American? Despite his stated intention, does it have a moral?
3. In Peter Pan J. M. Barrie suggests some ambivalence over his era’s social construction of men, women, and children. Through the main characters, show how he contrasts the roles of male and female, child and adult.