Penelope Lively & Going Back Essay

Jane retells the book ‘Going Back’ for us, and how she, now an adult with a family of her own, is looking back into her childhood memories, she has had to revisit Medleycott, as now her child home is being sold. She recalls her childhood memories of Medleycott, where â€Å"all summers are one hay making and raspberry time† and â€Å"all winters are one scramble across glass-cold lino to dress quickly. † Jane and her elder brother, Edward, live a peaceful life in the country. Their misunderstood father has been sent away to fight in the war and they are loved and cared for by Betty, their motherly figure. The children’s mother died whilst they were young and their father finds it difficult to understand their innocent childish ways. This shows us a strong border between the adult and children world. Lively has also displayed this border through Jane’s different perspective, how her images of live have changed now she is an adult. Lively has expressed this by describing the different characteristics belonging to child and adult, the different ways in which they speak, the differences in their languages and how adults and children both enjoy different surrounds. â€Å"We lived in the playroom and in the Garden† The way in which Lively uses different territories belonging to different characters, represents a strong border between the Adult and Child worlds. The children like to spend most of their time, when at Medleycott, in the garden. It is a place where they can retreat and live a world of their own. To Jane and Edward their garden is their paradise. Their innocence and naivety makes it seem like the perfect haven, The Garden of Eden. It is a safe place, where they have everything they need and they are free to do what they wish, within the garden borders. The adults within the book also have their territory. Betty has her kitchen, which is where she spends her time cooking, cleaning, washing and other household chores. Lively describes the Father’s territory in terms of the furniture within it. â€Å"His part of the house, beyond the glass door on the upstairs landing, had thick carpets and smelt of polish, you had to be careful not the knock over flowers† There is a substantial difference between his area and the children’s area compared to Betty’s kitchen and the children’s territory. The children find it easy to relax when they are in the Kitchen, but they have to be careful and smart when around their father. Lively has done this to show that there is a closer bond between Jane, Edward and Betty than with the Father and his children. This may be due to the death of the children’s mother, but Jane and Edwards father finds it difficult to communicate with them. With the war on, all of the adults are worried and careful, yet the children only see it as a game. â€Å"Standing on the lawn, staring up at those blue and white skies out of which Germans would come. We would misdirect them. Ah, we’d scupper them – London – pointing west, and send them storming. † The children see the war in the one-dimensional view that children do. They take every thing they hear literally, basically believing anything that they have been told. Jane and Edward do not understand the seriousness of the situation around them; all they have noticed is that â€Å"the war put an end to Betty’s Saturdays at the cinema. There was a war on, so you couldn’t have lots of sweets anymore, just one sixpenny bar of chocolate a week, and no more oranges or bananas. † Jane and Edward are not worried if they get a chocolate bar or not, they have their garden to play in, it is natural and simple, they don’t understand why the Adults are worried. The adult world is a very materialistic and ordered world, and they care about what will happen and that everything has to be right.