The Realistic Novel: Anna Of The Five Towns

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A01: Developing an informed response to the text • What does Bennett show us about Anna Tellwright’s thoughts and feelings in this extract? In this extract, Bennett shows us that Anna feels she is surrounded by suppressive forces. • What impressions of Anna’s relationships with other characters does the reader from here? Here, Anna is searching for a meaning to life. She attends ‘The Revival’; a prayer meeting led by Mr Banks the evangelist and speaks to an established member of the congregation, Mrs Sutton. Despite Anna’s attempts; it becomes clear that she doesn’t feel she can be converted. One of the first signs of this is at the beginning when Anna says ‘weakly’ – “I think i do believe”, which shows she is not sure of the idea, as Mrs Sutton picks up on also: “You think? Are you sure? Are you not deceiving yourself?” To which Anna replies with: “I will go home....and think it out for myself.” The fact that she felt she needed to ‘think it out for herself’ could have well been the essence of her problem. Living in the Victorian era, as a woman especially, she was very opinionated, independent, different from the standard Victorian woman, and had a needy want for freedom. Due to this, Anna is treated like a bad person by the people of her society; when really, she is a good-hearted woman who just wants to find herself, her spirituality; to feel like she had meaning in this world. She was extremely respectful to the people of the Church, but because of the mere fact that she did not, sleep, and Anna, aroused, dropped the blind,....caging the passionate. A02: Understanding how structure, form and language shape meaning • What effects are created by Bennett’s use of an omniscient, third-person narrator in this extract? The omniscient, Godlike narrator telling the story in the third person is very effective upon the reader it is as if he is talking over
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