Boekverslag: I'm the King of the Castle
Facts
Writer: Susan Hill
Year of publication: 1996
Pages: 247 (afterword included)
Publisher: Wolters-Noordhoff
Main characters
Edmund Hooper: An boy (not yet 11 years old), who lives at Warings together with his father Joseph Hooper. Later Helena Kingshaw and her son Charles Kingshaw also lived at Warings, then Edmund terrorizes Charles to get him away.
Charles Kingshaw: The only son of Helena Kingshaw, who is terribly terrorized by Edmund Hooper. Hooper continually says he's stupid and Hooper laughed when he sees Charles is afraid of a big crow. But worse are the lies of Edmund. This finally lead to the suicide of Charles. He's is 11 years old and has red hair. Charles always had to live in somebody else's place, which he doesn't like.
Mr Joseph Hooper: He's an 51-year-old widower, who has the difficult to handle child Edmund. He first knew he had failed as a father. Joseph used to be an ambitious banker. After he heard a phone call of Helena (who lived in his house), in which she says: "I have not quite up make my mind about the future", he decided to marry quite soon with her.
Mrs Helena Kingshaw: She's a widower of 37 years old, who has the 11 years old boy Charles. She once says: "Their friendship will be cemented by playing the games!", but almost all the time Charles and Edmund are big enemies to each other. When Charles clearly says Edmund is not his friend, Helena thinks it's the way these boys should behave. She never realizes Edmund terrorizes Charles.
Genre
This is a novel of character, in which quite a lot of thriller-like element are used.
Story-outline
Joseph, Edmund (11 year old boy) and grandfather Hooper live at Warings, an ugly house built of dark red brick. At Warings there's the Red Room, where Grandfather had a lot of moths, he was famous for them. Grandfather died right in the beginning of this novel. Joseph's wife Ellen Hooper died 6 years ago. Joseph tries to find an "informal" housekeeper and he finds Mrs Helena Kingshaw. The first time she comes, she also brings her only son Charles (he's almost 11 years old), she doesn't have a husband.
Edmund doesn't like to have a new friend, therefore he he showed Charles the message: "I didn't want you to come here". Later Edmund bullies Charles terribly. For example, Edmund laughes as he sees Charles is scared of a big crow, which keeps coming to Charles. Later Edmund puts a big crow, which he found at the attic, on Charles' bed. But he does a lot more to frighten Charles dreadfully. He locked him in the Red Room (collection of dead moths), he followed Charles when he ran away, he deliberately didn't admit that Charles had rescued him when he had fallen on a stone in the stream in Hang Wood and he also said on purpose Charles had pushed him off the ruin (actually Charles tried to help him).
So inside the house of Warings, Edmund is clearly the boss, but outside Charles is. For instance, he helps Edmund when he's afraid of the thunderstorm in Hang Wood and he tries to help Edmund going down the ruin. When Charles help Edmund, he never bullies him. It's difficult for Charles to be at Warings, he remembers the days at St. Vincent's School, there everybody came to him when he was ill. Once he received a postcard from Devereux (friend from St. Vincent's) on which is written "we're sailing every day", Charles was not allowed to join him by his mother. Fortunately, Charles finds a friend (Anthony Fielding) when he prays in a church nearby. Anthony lives on a farm, so they can do a lot of funny things (e.g. looking at a calving cow). Anthony says Charles needn't to be frightened of Edmund. Unfortunaly, Edmund comes back home (he has been in the hospital). When Edmund goes together with Anthony to the farm, Charles decides to stay at home. He knows he lost his friend Anthony.
Later Edmund dropped a sheet of paper in Charles' room, on which was written "Something will happen to you". This is the start of some nightmares, he decides to go to the stream in Hang Wood. Charles realizes he has to live together with Edmund, because Joseph and Helena wanted to marry. There he breathed in a long breath, when he was laying in the water. When Edmund and the others found him dead in the stream, Edmund thought: "This is because of me". Helena Kingshaw, who never realized Charles was being bullied by Edmund, said: "Everything is all right".
see also the large summary
Narrative technique
The story is told by an omniscient narrator, who tells everything in chronological order using flash-backs and some dialogues. Generally, only the family-names are used, even the children uses them. This is perhaps to illustrate the bad relation between Edmund and Charles.
Theme
Also children are suffering of the evil, for example in situations children bully each other. Also the fact there's often too less communication between children and their parents.
Explanation of the title
When Charles climbed on the top of Leydell Castle he finally feels superior to the others: Joseph and Helena, who don't believe Edmund behaves very badly towards Charles and Edmund, who bullies him terribly. But only outside Warings (the house they all lives in) he's superior, inside Edmund is.
My opinion
I first thought this story was set in a big, creepy castle, because on the cover a black crow is shown. Because of the dark colours, I thought it might be a dark book. I think the writer Susan Hill has well described the main characters Edmund and Charles. After finishing this novel, you really have to think about situations you have experienced about this "evil"-side of life.
Relevant information
About Drummond's school, the school of Edmund:
DRUMMOND, William Henry (1854-1907). The character of the habitant, or French- Canadian farmer and backwoodsman, is reflected in the poems of William Henry Drummond. His humorous and sympathetic dialect verses helped create a better understanding between the French-speaking and the English-speaking people of Canada.
William Henry Drummond was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, on April 13, 1854. In 1864 his family moved to Canada.
Drummond was educated at McGill University and at Bishop's University, where he received a medical degree in 1884. For several years Drummond practiced medicine in small communities. He moved to Montreal in 1888. Six years later he married May Harvey. They had four children. In 1895 Drummond was appointed professor of medical jurisprudence at Bishop's University. He died on April 6, 1907, in Cobalt, Ont. His best poems have been included in 'Habitant Poems', selections from his work.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
When Charles was locked up in a shed, he dreamed about the Punch and Judy show (puppets):
Punch and Judy. In Europe many types of puppet shows were popular, but they often shared a common star character a comic fellow known as Punch in England, Petrushka in Russia, Guignol in France, Kasperl in Germany, Jan Klaassen in the Netherlands, Christovita in Spain, and Kararkiozis in Greece.
The history of these characters as of all puppets is blurred, but the origins of the figure seem to go back to the human jester character of Pulcinella in Italy's slapstick commedia dell'arte theater. Transformed into a humpbacked, hook-nosed puppet in a jester's cap, the character was introduced to the rest of Europe by traveling Italian puppeteers, and each country adapted the character to suit its own brand of humor.
Perhaps the most famous of this host of clowns is Punch. Punch-and-Judy shows have been popular in Great Britain for centuries and are still performed to the delight of audiences in public parks and squares. The character of Punchinello was introduced to the English puppet show in about 1660, and by 1770 Punch was the clown of every puppet play. In the 18th century Punch was usually depicted by a marionette. From 1711 to 1713 Punch's Theater in London's Covent Garden was considered entertainment fashionable enough to compete with the opera. Patrons bought season tickets just as they would for other forms of theater. Punch also appeared in traveling shows. Before each performance members of the company would march through town, announcing the show with loud cries and often with the aid of a drum. Hand puppets were used to attract passersby to the marionette stage. Puppeteers found that the Punch character worked well as a hand puppet, and by 1800, when high costs forced many marionette theaters to close, hand-puppet Punch shows became a popular form of street entertainment, using a collapsible stage set up in a convenient public place. Tickets were not sold, but after each performance the puppeteer would pass the hat for whatever money the crowd might give. By 1825 Punch was noted as "the most popular performer in the world."
Punch-and-Judy shows usually have a set of fixed situations, but the dialogue varies from puppeteer to puppeteer. (Almost all puppeteers hold a "squeaker" device in their mouths to give Punch and his friends high, piercing voices.) The usual Punch situation is something like this: Punch meets his wife Judy, and they have a baby. Punch gets angry with Judy and beats her, usually to death, with a stick. Punch accidentally or purposefully throws the baby out the window. A policeman arrests Punch for the murders, and Punch is taken to be hanged, but he is usually clever enough to trick the hangman into hanging himself. The beatings and deaths are rendered funny by the witty dialogue and by the fact that the puppets have an unreal, cartoonlike nature.
Hand puppets work especially well for this type of show because they can easily hold such props as Punch's stick and Judy's baby. The puppeteer can run the whole show alone by keeping Punch constantly on stage with one hand in order to entertain the audience, while switching characters, who then pop in on Punch, with the other hand. Characters are added to or deleted from the Punch-and-Judy shows according to the fashions and news of the time. During World War II, for example, Punch often earned the laughs of the audience at the expense of a nasty Adolf Hitler puppet.
Europe also sported productions more elaborate than the simple Punch-and-Judy shows. In Rome a puppet theater that staged legitimate operas opened in 1708. World-renowned composer Joseph Haydn composed operas for the puppet stage in Austria. In the 1800s literary puppet shows became popular in France. They relied on the artistry of the scripts as much as on the amusement of the puppets. In the early 20th century artists were still attempting innovative puppet theater but were hampered by dwindling adult audiences and growing expenses.
Modern puppetry.
In the late 20th century puppets served many purposes. They were sometimes used to advertise products, and they served a great purpose in psychotherapy by helping children to act out what was bothering them. Nevertheless, puppets were still seen mainly as a form of entertainment.
Traditional puppets such as Punch and Judy in England, Guignol in France, and bunraku in Japan continued to enjoy enthusiastic audiences. In Eastern Europe and Asia, puppet theaters thrived with the aid of government support. In post-World War II Eastern Europe especially there was growing interest in puppetry, and state theaters could comfortably support more than 50 artists and technicians. In the West, however, theaters were not state supported, and puppet shows were increasingly seen as entertainment for children. Most puppet theaters therefore faced great economic difficulties.
An upswing in puppet popularity in the West came with the advent of television. By 1946 television had made Muffin the Mule a household name in England. A year later in the United States, puppeteer Burr Tillstrom created the Kuklapolitans, an unusual mix of hand puppets that included a boy named Kukla and a dragon named Ollie. Together with actress Fran Allison they made the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie television series a hit for ten years.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s a popular television team was Shari Lewis and her lovable hand puppet Lamb Chop. Lewis varied from most traditional puppeteers in appearing on- screen with her puppet, using ventriloquism to mask her manipulation of the lamb's voice. The ventriloquist's technique had been used earlier by Edgar Bergen with his wooden dummy, Charlie McCarthy. Their network radio show ran from 1937 to 1957, and they appeared in movies and on television. (Buffalo) Bob Smith, another ventriloquist, performed with Howdy Doody a grinning, freckle-faced, 4-foot- (1.2-meter-) tall marionette on weekday television from 1947 to 1960. Their supporting cast included puppets and humans.
Perhaps the biggest boost for puppetry in the West was the creative genius of American puppeteer Jim Henson and the overwhelming popularity of his Muppets. As a teenager, Henson started by creating a hand puppet from his mother's coat in order to audition for a television station. Thirty years later, by the late 1980s, he directed a puppet workshop in London with more than 100 employees. The workshop produced programs for network, cable, and public-broadcasting television stations and for feature films. Henson's characters, such as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, delighted children and adults around the world. The hallmark of Henson and his collaborators was creativity. He mastered the hand-rod puppet in Kermit and the larger-than-life puppet in Big Bird, and he pioneered the new era of radio-operated animatronic figures. His first big success was with the Muppet characters of public television's Sesame Street, which for more than two decades educated children while entertaining them. Finding that adult audiences also enjoyed the antics of these characters, Henson created The Muppet Show, which brought puppetry back to adult audiences through prime-time television and enjoyed resounding success.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
Joseph and Helena planned to marry in Milford:
Milford, Del., city on Mispillion River 18 mi (29 km) s.e. of Dover; food processing, dental and pharmaceutical products; pop. 6,040.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
Writer: Susan Hill
Year of publication: 1996
Pages: 247 (afterword included)
Publisher: Wolters-Noordhoff
Main characters
Edmund Hooper: An boy (not yet 11 years old), who lives at Warings together with his father Joseph Hooper. Later Helena Kingshaw and her son Charles Kingshaw also lived at Warings, then Edmund terrorizes Charles to get him away.
Charles Kingshaw: The only son of Helena Kingshaw, who is terribly terrorized by Edmund Hooper. Hooper continually says he's stupid and Hooper laughed when he sees Charles is afraid of a big crow. But worse are the lies of Edmund. This finally lead to the suicide of Charles. He's is 11 years old and has red hair. Charles always had to live in somebody else's place, which he doesn't like.
Mr Joseph Hooper: He's an 51-year-old widower, who has the difficult to handle child Edmund. He first knew he had failed as a father. Joseph used to be an ambitious banker. After he heard a phone call of Helena (who lived in his house), in which she says: "I have not quite up make my mind about the future", he decided to marry quite soon with her.
Mrs Helena Kingshaw: She's a widower of 37 years old, who has the 11 years old boy Charles. She once says: "Their friendship will be cemented by playing the games!", but almost all the time Charles and Edmund are big enemies to each other. When Charles clearly says Edmund is not his friend, Helena thinks it's the way these boys should behave. She never realizes Edmund terrorizes Charles.
Genre
This is a novel of character, in which quite a lot of thriller-like element are used.
Story-outline
Joseph, Edmund (11 year old boy) and grandfather Hooper live at Warings, an ugly house built of dark red brick. At Warings there's the Red Room, where Grandfather had a lot of moths, he was famous for them. Grandfather died right in the beginning of this novel. Joseph's wife Ellen Hooper died 6 years ago. Joseph tries to find an "informal" housekeeper and he finds Mrs Helena Kingshaw. The first time she comes, she also brings her only son Charles (he's almost 11 years old), she doesn't have a husband.
Edmund doesn't like to have a new friend, therefore he he showed Charles the message: "I didn't want you to come here". Later Edmund bullies Charles terribly. For example, Edmund laughes as he sees Charles is scared of a big crow, which keeps coming to Charles. Later Edmund puts a big crow, which he found at the attic, on Charles' bed. But he does a lot more to frighten Charles dreadfully. He locked him in the Red Room (collection of dead moths), he followed Charles when he ran away, he deliberately didn't admit that Charles had rescued him when he had fallen on a stone in the stream in Hang Wood and he also said on purpose Charles had pushed him off the ruin (actually Charles tried to help him).
So inside the house of Warings, Edmund is clearly the boss, but outside Charles is. For instance, he helps Edmund when he's afraid of the thunderstorm in Hang Wood and he tries to help Edmund going down the ruin. When Charles help Edmund, he never bullies him. It's difficult for Charles to be at Warings, he remembers the days at St. Vincent's School, there everybody came to him when he was ill. Once he received a postcard from Devereux (friend from St. Vincent's) on which is written "we're sailing every day", Charles was not allowed to join him by his mother. Fortunately, Charles finds a friend (Anthony Fielding) when he prays in a church nearby. Anthony lives on a farm, so they can do a lot of funny things (e.g. looking at a calving cow). Anthony says Charles needn't to be frightened of Edmund. Unfortunaly, Edmund comes back home (he has been in the hospital). When Edmund goes together with Anthony to the farm, Charles decides to stay at home. He knows he lost his friend Anthony.
Later Edmund dropped a sheet of paper in Charles' room, on which was written "Something will happen to you". This is the start of some nightmares, he decides to go to the stream in Hang Wood. Charles realizes he has to live together with Edmund, because Joseph and Helena wanted to marry. There he breathed in a long breath, when he was laying in the water. When Edmund and the others found him dead in the stream, Edmund thought: "This is because of me". Helena Kingshaw, who never realized Charles was being bullied by Edmund, said: "Everything is all right".
see also the large summary
Narrative technique
The story is told by an omniscient narrator, who tells everything in chronological order using flash-backs and some dialogues. Generally, only the family-names are used, even the children uses them. This is perhaps to illustrate the bad relation between Edmund and Charles.
Theme
Also children are suffering of the evil, for example in situations children bully each other. Also the fact there's often too less communication between children and their parents.
Explanation of the title
When Charles climbed on the top of Leydell Castle he finally feels superior to the others: Joseph and Helena, who don't believe Edmund behaves very badly towards Charles and Edmund, who bullies him terribly. But only outside Warings (the house they all lives in) he's superior, inside Edmund is.
My opinion
I first thought this story was set in a big, creepy castle, because on the cover a black crow is shown. Because of the dark colours, I thought it might be a dark book. I think the writer Susan Hill has well described the main characters Edmund and Charles. After finishing this novel, you really have to think about situations you have experienced about this "evil"-side of life.
Relevant information
About Drummond's school, the school of Edmund:
DRUMMOND, William Henry (1854-1907). The character of the habitant, or French- Canadian farmer and backwoodsman, is reflected in the poems of William Henry Drummond. His humorous and sympathetic dialect verses helped create a better understanding between the French-speaking and the English-speaking people of Canada.
William Henry Drummond was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, on April 13, 1854. In 1864 his family moved to Canada.
Drummond was educated at McGill University and at Bishop's University, where he received a medical degree in 1884. For several years Drummond practiced medicine in small communities. He moved to Montreal in 1888. Six years later he married May Harvey. They had four children. In 1895 Drummond was appointed professor of medical jurisprudence at Bishop's University. He died on April 6, 1907, in Cobalt, Ont. His best poems have been included in 'Habitant Poems', selections from his work.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
When Charles was locked up in a shed, he dreamed about the Punch and Judy show (puppets):
Punch and Judy. In Europe many types of puppet shows were popular, but they often shared a common star character a comic fellow known as Punch in England, Petrushka in Russia, Guignol in France, Kasperl in Germany, Jan Klaassen in the Netherlands, Christovita in Spain, and Kararkiozis in Greece.
The history of these characters as of all puppets is blurred, but the origins of the figure seem to go back to the human jester character of Pulcinella in Italy's slapstick commedia dell'arte theater. Transformed into a humpbacked, hook-nosed puppet in a jester's cap, the character was introduced to the rest of Europe by traveling Italian puppeteers, and each country adapted the character to suit its own brand of humor.
Perhaps the most famous of this host of clowns is Punch. Punch-and-Judy shows have been popular in Great Britain for centuries and are still performed to the delight of audiences in public parks and squares. The character of Punchinello was introduced to the English puppet show in about 1660, and by 1770 Punch was the clown of every puppet play. In the 18th century Punch was usually depicted by a marionette. From 1711 to 1713 Punch's Theater in London's Covent Garden was considered entertainment fashionable enough to compete with the opera. Patrons bought season tickets just as they would for other forms of theater. Punch also appeared in traveling shows. Before each performance members of the company would march through town, announcing the show with loud cries and often with the aid of a drum. Hand puppets were used to attract passersby to the marionette stage. Puppeteers found that the Punch character worked well as a hand puppet, and by 1800, when high costs forced many marionette theaters to close, hand-puppet Punch shows became a popular form of street entertainment, using a collapsible stage set up in a convenient public place. Tickets were not sold, but after each performance the puppeteer would pass the hat for whatever money the crowd might give. By 1825 Punch was noted as "the most popular performer in the world."
Punch-and-Judy shows usually have a set of fixed situations, but the dialogue varies from puppeteer to puppeteer. (Almost all puppeteers hold a "squeaker" device in their mouths to give Punch and his friends high, piercing voices.) The usual Punch situation is something like this: Punch meets his wife Judy, and they have a baby. Punch gets angry with Judy and beats her, usually to death, with a stick. Punch accidentally or purposefully throws the baby out the window. A policeman arrests Punch for the murders, and Punch is taken to be hanged, but he is usually clever enough to trick the hangman into hanging himself. The beatings and deaths are rendered funny by the witty dialogue and by the fact that the puppets have an unreal, cartoonlike nature.
Hand puppets work especially well for this type of show because they can easily hold such props as Punch's stick and Judy's baby. The puppeteer can run the whole show alone by keeping Punch constantly on stage with one hand in order to entertain the audience, while switching characters, who then pop in on Punch, with the other hand. Characters are added to or deleted from the Punch-and-Judy shows according to the fashions and news of the time. During World War II, for example, Punch often earned the laughs of the audience at the expense of a nasty Adolf Hitler puppet.
Europe also sported productions more elaborate than the simple Punch-and-Judy shows. In Rome a puppet theater that staged legitimate operas opened in 1708. World-renowned composer Joseph Haydn composed operas for the puppet stage in Austria. In the 1800s literary puppet shows became popular in France. They relied on the artistry of the scripts as much as on the amusement of the puppets. In the early 20th century artists were still attempting innovative puppet theater but were hampered by dwindling adult audiences and growing expenses.
Modern puppetry.
In the late 20th century puppets served many purposes. They were sometimes used to advertise products, and they served a great purpose in psychotherapy by helping children to act out what was bothering them. Nevertheless, puppets were still seen mainly as a form of entertainment.
Traditional puppets such as Punch and Judy in England, Guignol in France, and bunraku in Japan continued to enjoy enthusiastic audiences. In Eastern Europe and Asia, puppet theaters thrived with the aid of government support. In post-World War II Eastern Europe especially there was growing interest in puppetry, and state theaters could comfortably support more than 50 artists and technicians. In the West, however, theaters were not state supported, and puppet shows were increasingly seen as entertainment for children. Most puppet theaters therefore faced great economic difficulties.
An upswing in puppet popularity in the West came with the advent of television. By 1946 television had made Muffin the Mule a household name in England. A year later in the United States, puppeteer Burr Tillstrom created the Kuklapolitans, an unusual mix of hand puppets that included a boy named Kukla and a dragon named Ollie. Together with actress Fran Allison they made the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie television series a hit for ten years.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s a popular television team was Shari Lewis and her lovable hand puppet Lamb Chop. Lewis varied from most traditional puppeteers in appearing on- screen with her puppet, using ventriloquism to mask her manipulation of the lamb's voice. The ventriloquist's technique had been used earlier by Edgar Bergen with his wooden dummy, Charlie McCarthy. Their network radio show ran from 1937 to 1957, and they appeared in movies and on television. (Buffalo) Bob Smith, another ventriloquist, performed with Howdy Doody a grinning, freckle-faced, 4-foot- (1.2-meter-) tall marionette on weekday television from 1947 to 1960. Their supporting cast included puppets and humans.
Perhaps the biggest boost for puppetry in the West was the creative genius of American puppeteer Jim Henson and the overwhelming popularity of his Muppets. As a teenager, Henson started by creating a hand puppet from his mother's coat in order to audition for a television station. Thirty years later, by the late 1980s, he directed a puppet workshop in London with more than 100 employees. The workshop produced programs for network, cable, and public-broadcasting television stations and for feature films. Henson's characters, such as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, delighted children and adults around the world. The hallmark of Henson and his collaborators was creativity. He mastered the hand-rod puppet in Kermit and the larger-than-life puppet in Big Bird, and he pioneered the new era of radio-operated animatronic figures. His first big success was with the Muppet characters of public television's Sesame Street, which for more than two decades educated children while entertaining them. Finding that adult audiences also enjoyed the antics of these characters, Henson created The Muppet Show, which brought puppetry back to adult audiences through prime-time television and enjoyed resounding success.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
Joseph and Helena planned to marry in Milford:
Milford, Del., city on Mispillion River 18 mi (29 km) s.e. of Dover; food processing, dental and pharmaceutical products; pop. 6,040.
(Compton's Interactive Encylopedia, CD-ROM, Lead developer Alan Finke, 1992)
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- I'm the King of the Castle
- Susan Hill
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