A Critical Analysis of The Snowman

Résumé du document

Children's literature essay title: A close reading of The Snowman: The book of the classic film by Raymond Briggs.

Extraits

[...] In contrast to this there is no discernable crisis in The Snowman apart from the melting of said Snowman, which occurs at the very end of the story and thus has no resolution. The plot therefore differs greatly in relation to its structure, when compared to conventional children's literature, due to this slow pacing and the delay of any crisis. Following on from the death of the Snowman, and linking back to the statement made by Briggs, it can be construed that The Snowman and all subsequent related works are ultimately meant to educate their young readers on the concept of mortality. [...]

[...] Lost and Found. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAIBmKXqpDM Melrose, A. (2002). Write for Children. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Sendak, M. (2000). Where the Wild Things Are. [...]

[...] What ultimately matter is the receptive ability and the experience of the reader" (2002, p.83). Ergo parental readers, who enjoyed The Snowman as children in the 1970s and 80s, can enjoy the story while sharing it with a new generation of consumer, their children, who are at the age for which the picture book is designed. With regards to the structure of the plot, The Snowman: The Book of the Classic Film differs significantly as it is much more slowly paced than a typical children's book. [...]

[...] It's a fact of life. (Sherwin, 2012) Therefore inclusion of "the Christmas tree" (Briggs p.15) and "Father Christmas" (Briggs p.25) may be interpreted as taking advantage of the season in which the short film was to be released. Moreover, it can be assumed that the over-arching message of mortality is too harsh and realistic to be enjoyed by young children and, as a result, the festive theme was incorporated as a means of distracting them while subtly allowing the fundamental premise of death to subconsciously sink in. [...]

[...] Furthermore, the illustrations and text on each page, throughout the book, are comparably arranged to tiles in a comic book, suggesting that it is a piece of progressive literature which tries to introduce the reader to a more mature form of picture book, irrespective of the lack of features like peri-text. This is achieved by increasing the number of illustrations on each page as the book progresses, building towards busier pages with lots of images in a wave like effect. [...]