Wednesday 29th April 2026
Blog Page 816

Working-class students pay more for university, NUS report says

Ryan Gould
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Working-class students pay more for university, NUS report says

Working-class university students are penalised by a “poverty premium”, facing higher living costs than their peers, that makes maintenance loans insufficient for student survival.

The report, published by the National Union of Students (NUS), found that student expenditure routinely surpasses income from loans, and leaves many parents who cannot afford to subsidise their children without the means to pay for necessities like food and heating.

It suggests that accommodation fees are often unaffordable for those on maintenance loans, as many universities raise rents above inflation to generate income.

A freedom of information request by the University of East Anglia students’ union, cited in the report, found that more than 20 universities generated more than £1,000 profit per bed space a year.

One student said they had to find an additional £700 on top of their maintenance loan to pay for their accommodation.

In England, the top bracket maintenance loan for students living away from home outside London is £8,430 for the 2017-18 academic year.

“The report, titled “Class Dismissed: Getting in and Getting on in Further and Higher Education”, suggests that dropout rates from university are highest among working-class students, who are likely to be more concerned about debt than their wealthier peers.

This pricing policy risks segregating working-class students in lower-cost accommodation from others who have access to additional funds from their families,” the report states.

Another student voiced concern over the struggle to afford to participate in social events, being charged £200 to join a junior common room (JCR).

Access courses, which are run by many universities including Oxford to further equality in the sector, often require students to pay an additional year of fees to gain qualifications.

The report also suggests that working-class students struggle to find a guarantor to rent a property in the private sector, and are forced to use private schemes with higher interest rates and fees.

The NUS calls for an introduction of a minimum living income for students in further and higher education, and recommends the restoration of maintenance grants, the education maintenance allowance (EMA), and NHS bursaries for healthcare students.

The West needs to focus on the act, not the method, of killing

Christopher Smart
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The West needs to focus on the act, not the method, of killing

The recent strike on Syria sits upon a long-established pedestal of western intervention, based on technological superiority and moral certainty, and an apparent inability to actually change anything on the ground at all, beyond significantly denting it.

The moral fibre implicit in preventing the use of chemical weapons may be admirable and applaudable, but this retaliatory gesture was neither of those things. In fact the recent missile strike was an incredibly expensive assuaging of guilt for all of us in the west, and at the price of a British industry built cruise missile it’s one this government is willing to pay, at the expense of however many Syrian lives of either or no side it will undoubtedly cost.

Western powers and the UK specifically, chose not to intervene in the civil war three years ago after lengthy debate. At this point Russia was not involved, the rebels held ground in several major cities and were in a sustainable position. Rightly or wrongly it was decided we would not act. Yet Obama’s (later abandoned) red line on chemical weapons was then, as it has been today, seen as a moral standpoint which, in our Western epistemology, seemed credible. Essentially the West’s line went (and goes) something like this:
‘We won’t intervene unless innocent people and people fighting oppression are killed really, really horribly, rather than just through the everyday brutality of barrel bombs and snipers.’

Of course last time chemical weapons were used the red line wasn’t actually enough. Given that it was crossed without rebuke, it seems we’ve apparently tried to ignore Syria and all of its horrible discontents. We’ve all seen but scrolled past a news story about an embattled siege, an aid convoy held up and plundered of much needed medical supplies to prevent the recovery of civilians or fighters, or changed channel or looked away as a report of heavy civilian losses in a Syrian city, like any city in Britain, is pulverised from the air by its own government. We have chosen to ignore these under the precedent that it’s war, it’s a civil war and on some basis, we can allow these abject crimes against civilian populations because they are inflicted with the more mechnical materials of steel and high explosives.  

However, it seems using chemical weapons is different, a war crime using these is a war crime worth half-heartedly ticking off with a few choicely picked specialist centres and shady looking science buildings. Chemical weapons are of course illegal and a cruel and indiscriminate form of killing and their use in the world is against everyone’s interest. But in this theatre of war to suggest that their use somehow crosses a line now worthy of our attention is symtompatic of distorted Western standards that scrutinise the principal means of killing rather than the principle of killing itself. We are loathe to look at the appalling suffering of people far away unless it breaches some level of suffering which acts as a threshold to our guilt and concern. Personally I don’t think such a threshold exists in Syria, where such high levels of systematic violence and cruelty has taken place daily for so many years without outcry.

Evidently the last straw for us isn’t that innocent people are killed every day. This is ostensibily within the apparent boundaries of mechanical war-civility. Because in fact these deaths are implicitly acceptable if we retaliate against the use of chemical weapons while ignoring all other war crimes that have taken place in Syria. The strike assuaged the moral guilt of war crime by chemicals, while implicitly condoning war crimes by other means as they have gone unchallenged. This isn’t an argument for more strikes or missed strikes, indeed intervening in a conflict now so marred in international tension is a deeply questionable move and one that should require better justification than a ‘principle of the thing’ reaction that showed no concern for the cost of human lives but only the method of their loss. It isn’t a call for anything, it’s a questioning of what we now mean when we intervene in Syria – what are the implicit statements behind our bombs?
If the West genuinely desired to prevent the deaths of people through the use of chemical weapons they could have struck at those stockpiles when they found them, not waited a week or so from the Douma attack. They chose not to. We chose to strike against the use of chemical weapons rather than the killings they exact. The strikes demonstrate that the US, Britain and France cared enough to not be recorded as failing to act on the use of chemical weapons, but did not care enough to prevent either their use in the first place or act to condemn or discipline (diplomatically or otherwise) any non-chemical war crime in Syria.
It shows that we are prepared to symbolically intervene when the grotesque violence shown on Western newsfeeds exceeds an agreed level of cruelty. These strikes attacked only the type of weaponry available to a dictatorship engaged in murdering of its own people. They might well have ‘sent a message’ but they were of no help to the cause of basic humanity that we have consciously let wither in Syria until, eventually, the means of civilian murder was too much to bear for our weary eyes watching the News at Ten.

Keble ‘celebrate diversity’ with new portrait

Greg Ritchie
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Keble ‘celebrate diversity’ with new portrait

A new portrait of the first student of African-Caribbean descent to be elected president of the Oxford Union has been unveiled at Keble College.

Sir James Cameron Tudor, who was president for Michaelmas 1942, is an alumnus of the college, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

He went on to become a prominent Barbadian politician and a founding member of the country’s Democratic Labour Party in 1955 – which led the country to independence in 1966.

The warden of Keble, Sir Jonathan Phillips, said it showed the college’s “wish to celebrate the diversity of its alumni and student body”.

He said: “The college is very pleased that the achievements of such a distinguished individual are being recognised in this way.”

Tudor also led Keble’s Junior Common Room committee for a period during the war, where the college was requisitioned for war purposes and students re-housed in other colleges.

The portrait was unveiled to mark St Mark’s day, which also marks the date of John Keble’s birth in 1792 and the laying of the Keble Foundation Stone in 1868.

The art of painting like a child

Meha Razdan
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The art of painting like a child

“It took me four years to paint like Rembrandt, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” This declaration by Picasso is reflective of a synonymy often bestowed between creative freedom and childishness. Coming from an artist whose genius is now near-universally acknowledged, the philosophy seems a wise one. It’s an oft-cited idea, after all, that someone who has mastered their craft can make it seem as effortless as a child would.

But this idealisation of childlike freedom in the creative process overlooks the natural penchant many of us have to judge a work by its perceived skill.

In 2015, a viral news story circulated surrounding a modern art installation in Rome that had to be shut down for three days because cleaning staff at the Museion Bozen-Bolzano mistook the exhibit, which consisted of empty champagne bottles and party poppers, for rubbish and binned it.

Upon discovering the mistake, museum staff hastily retrieved the parts of the exhibition from the bin and reassembled it, but less easily cleaned up was the dialogue the incident sparked about the role of modern art.

Many saw the incident as a kind of vindication for their inability to understand how something so easily misconstrued as garbage, a mess a toddler might have made, could possibly be presented as art. It’s a frustration many have probably echoed when looking upon paintings hung in galleries, paintings that appear to be no more than two swatches of colour splattered across a canvas.

Such criticism of an apparent lack of skill is not limited to visual art; the relatively recent phenomenon of ‘insta-poets’ such as Rupi Kaur, Lang Leav, and Nikita Gill who have garnered popularity by posting their poetry to various social media platforms have, amidst their fans, drawn some skeptics. These people claim that the poems are more the product of a few clichéd nature metaphors and some aesthetically motivated use of the enter key in formatting their pieces as opposed to actual feats of literary technique and artistry.

More often than not, people make at least a mental differentiation between ‘authors’ and ‘children’s authors’. Two people may both be voracious readers, but if one person reads mainly canonical works whereas another favours young adult novels, typically only the former will receive any kind of intellectual credibility for it. The fact is, there appears to be a pervasive social disdain for anything we perceive as ‘easy’. As much we like to say that all art is subjective and meant for self-expression, there’s a reason that the concept of being ‘cultured’ is considered synonymous with sophistry and some fundamental intellectual or social sense of superiority. We want, on some level, art to do something we cannot.

What’s the point of going to look at paintings we think we could have easily recreated, of reading poems we could imitate in a second?

Try questioning an adult’s enthusiasm for a franchise such as Harry Potter or Star Wars – chances are, the phrase “it’s not just for kids!” will at some point be thrown up in defence. The idea of enjoying something at all linked to childhood is apparently inherently shameful.

But the fact remains, however much we may appear to want our culture to be suitably highbrow and difficult, there’s still an emotional appreciation for works with the air of childishness threaded throughout our cultural consciousness.

Of the Top Ten highest grossing films of all time, seven (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Black Panther) can be classified on some level as “kids films”. Walt Disney Pictures, the bastion of childhood nostalgia for much of modern society, may be best loved for creating an iconic line up of Princesses and some classic sing-along tracks, but it’s also a studio that revolutionised the film industry. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature film. Since the creation of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001, twelve of the winners have been by Disney or Disney Pixar, and every single winner has been classified as ‘children’s entertainment’.

In literature too, there’s an inextricable fondness for children’s literature at large. Works such as Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland have held their appeal as enduringly as Austen or Dickens, and the BBC’s 2003 survey “The Big Read” determined that the most beloved book in Britain was Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, popular with children and adults alike.

We can accept Picasso’s ruminations on the value of childishness fairly easily, because no one’s refinement of taste is in question if they throw their hat behind Picasso. However, popular culture is popular for a reason, and it’s indicative of the overarching moods and tastes of society at a time.

We may hesitate to fully appreciate ‘childish’ things as art until they’ve stood the trials of time long enough to be deemed ‘classic’ or ‘vintage,’ but the fact remains, the freedom of creative exploration afforded by works that are unafraid of their childishness remains inherently appealing to us.

What is childish may struggle to be classified as great or even as real art in our understanding of what art is, but it’s appeal is untarnished, and perhaps its ability to inspire popular enjoyment and affection is what makes ‘childish’ art great in its own unique right.

Letter to: My Porters

Rob Lentz
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Letter to: My Porters

To the unsung heroes of Oxford’s colleges,

I can’t begin to fathom the things that you must have seen over the years you’ve spent scrupulously monitoring the goings-on in our colleges. Your efforts to try and maintain some level of law and order are admirable, especially in the face of our best attempts to cause havoc after a particularly heavy Park End Wednesday or Bridge Thursday.

When you first saw the flock of fresh-faced freshers en route to the Sheldonian, decked out in their newly purchased sub fusc and still full of that nervous excitement, you must have thought maybe this year, maybe this year they won’t turn out to be little demons. Your hopes were quickly dashed.

You and our beloved scouts are tied neck-and-neck for who has seen us at our lowest. From stumbling head first into the lodge, to trying to avoid redecorating the perfectly kept quad with a hastily eaten Hassan’s lamb doner, you’ve always been forgiving and understanding – for this we can’t thank you enough.

Your watchful and all-seeing eye protects us all from the heinous crime of tourist tailgating. You’ve also rescued swathes of us in Freshers’ week, when we locked ourselves out of our rooms. And the look of deepest sympathy you give us when you find us in the library at 3:30am, broken in mind and spirit, is enough to give anyone hope of brighter days to come.

Even in my darkest hour, when I timidly asked for cleaning equipment after a mortifyingly messy Wednesday night, you didn’t hesitate to arm me with carpet stain remover and a mop – all without so much as a hint of judgement.

A series of apologies are also in order. For the feeling of dread that consumes you as we pass through the lodge, buoyed by a hearty pre-drinking session in the college bar and prepped for the awaiting chaos. Not to forget our nocturnal escapades on the way back. When we try to open our room doors with our Bod card, or think it’s a smart idea to try and climb onto the roof, you are the voice of reason that tells us it’s probably best to go to bed.

That you’ve born witness to so much, yet still greet us all with unfaltering good humour and charm is beggars belief. Maybe your early morning fire alarm tests, which are just long enough to have me running down the stairs in pyjamas, provide you with some amusement as recompense for the trouble we cause you.

The CCTV around college may occasionally seem a tad Orwellian, but the thought you are at its control room reassures us we are in safe hands.

Yours gratefully (and apologetically),

Rob

Bops are for everyone – the themes we choose should be too

Joe Sibley
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Bops are for everyone – the themes we choose should be too

A recent decision by Mansfield Entz to host a 4/20 bop seems in best case misguided and in the worst exclusive, and the decision of the Entz reps to rethink the bop is a welcome one.

A 4/20 bop sounds, to many, great fun, and this article is not an endorsement of some prohibitive stance against drug culture, nor an endorsement of any sort of drug culture – what adults choose to do in their spare time is completely up to them. However, a bop is an event in which the whole college community comes together, and in which every member of the college should be made to feel not only welcome, but accepted. College is a student’s home. As a proud member of `the friendliest college in Oxford`, I do not think that a 4/20 bop is inclusive and welcoming, as every bop should be. Bops are an event that should involve all members of the college, from students who seldom go out to the Cellar regulars.

However, by proposing an event which seems somewhat exclusory, essentially available only to those who feel comfortable in an event based on this culture, the Entz reps who chose this theme have ignored the inclusivity that makes bops such great college events.

Firstly, those who disagree with drug culture are likely to avoid the bop on principle, rightly or wrongly, as a glorification of a culture that they disagree with. But even if the bop is not avoided on the basis of some strong principle, many students, I am sure, will feel uncomfortable in an environment which encourages and seemingly endorses a pro-drugs culture. The response of some Mansfield students shows that the bop was met with a negative reaction from at least some quarters, and this is clearly not in keeping with the inclusivity that a bop should be built upon. An addendum to the original email states that the bop was intended to celebrate 4/20, in part, as a recognised day of protest for legalisation. Yet, it seems clear to me that bops should be entirely apolitical, in order to allow the whole college community to be involved. Those who don’t want to celebrate the protest for legalisation, or feel that it is misguided to describe 4/20 as `an iconic aspect of pop culture for our generation`, are left being excluded.

Of course, as with every bop, those who came up with the theme thought it would be light-hearted fun, I am sure, and let’s not blow this out of proportion – it is not a particularly offensive theme. Those who criticise the theme on the grounds that it may lead to some sort of cultural appropriation are being somewhat hasty. If we start banning events because of pre-emptive concerns that someone might dress inappropriately, we wouldn’t have any bops left. The Entz reps haven’t really done anything seriously wrong, and although an apology is the right action to take, I am sure they didn’t cause too much offense or distress. What they did do was fail to understand the needs of the college community as a whole, and this is a mistake which they correctly rectified.

Don’t silence Powell – deconstruct him

Atty Abhyankar
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Don’t silence Powell – deconstruct him

It is no surprise that the BBC’s announcement that Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech would be read on Radio 4 generated controversy. There have been calls for the BBC to pull the segment, given the incendiary nature of the address which Powell made at a Conservative meeting in Birmingham in 1968. Others think that the views expressed in the speech should be repudiated, but that it still holds historical and social value as an educational tool. A third minority, usually only vocal behind veils of anonymity on Twitter, would like the speech to be aired because they believe that Powell’s words were true.

The segment did air, with the speech cut into portions and commented on by various commentators across the political spectrum. Admittedly, the crass manner in which Media Editor Amol Rajan announced the reading (“the first EVER”) on Twitter was distasteful – a more reasoned method of promotion would have been preferable. However, the airing of the segment was the right thing to do.

The speech is a template for any would-be demagogue. It contains patriotic fervour, with Powell emphasising his “duty” to warn of Britain’s impending demise. It includes an anecdote, unverified and likely embellished, of a white pensioner being harassed by immigrants. Another statement, attributed to a constituent, makes the stark claim that “in 15 or 20 years’ time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” A man of Powell’s intellect would not have used this phrase without realising the offence the word “whip” carries in this context. The speech is filled with urgency, citing the dangers posed to the NHS and to British jobs. Paranoid visions of immigrants exercising “domination” over the British population ramp the apocalyptic tone of the speech to a climax, where Powell quotes Virgil’s Aeneid, stating that “[he seems] to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”

This is a speech dripping with ill-disguised malice and xenophobia. I am sure there is more to the man than his address suggests, but there is no reading that absolves Powell from racism here. He fails to explain why an influx of darker-skinned migrants should be so alarming – it seems to be taken as a given that Commonwealth immigration is something that Britons should be duty-bound to rail against, an “evil” that is self-explanatory. A particularly unedifying portion of the speech discusses the “tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic”, referring to the civil rights movements and race riots occurring in the USA at the time. Consider what prompted this declaration of seeing Britain “heaping up its own funeral pyre”. Powell was responding to the 1968 Race Relations Act, an amendment to its 1965 predecessor that made racial discrimination in some businesses a civil offence. Essentially, his paranoia was sparked by racial parity becoming a law – he states that its supporters were akin to the appeasers of the 1930s.

Powell addressed a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in 1968

Against this backdrop, the controversy around the decision to air the speech is understandable. Powell shows disregard for the vital role immigrants played in post-war Britain and denies them any agency or credit for Britain’s standing. Yet, this speech had a deep and long-lasting impact. Tropes painting immigrants as burdensome, anti-social, and incompatible with British values rear their heads repeatedly in contemporary politics. The focus may have shifted to migrants from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but the subject matter is broadly similar. Understanding Powell’s speech, analysing it, and laying bare the racism under the surface offers a greater insight into challenging demagoguery of a similar kind seen in the modern day.

A successful aspect of the Radio 4 segment involved commentators describing the impact of this speech on their families, both at the time and thereafter. It was a reminder that words like these have serious consequences. Racially aggravated violence cannot be fully separated from speeches that denigrate the humanity of those of foreign origin. Picking apart the words of Powell not only offers a historical understanding of the tribulations suffered by immigrants over the half-century, but also provides a deeper insight into the effects of similar language directed at other groups today.

It is a myth that Britain is a post-racial society. Cases of serious, overt racism, as seen in film on social media, have occurred at universities in the last few months alone. Contrary to Powell’s premonition, the “whip” has not changed hands and institutional racism still exists in some quarters today. Challenging the words of Powell, whose words underpin modern-day xenophobia, is imperative if racism in society today is to be defeated.
Enoch Powell was a man of considerable academic and military achievement, yet the elaborate vocabulary in his 1968 speech masks racism of a simplistic sort. The Radio 4 segment analysed the speech in great detail, highlighting the pernicious racism, the half-truths, and the nationalistic fervour. It was a measured and cautious analysis rather than a mere recap of the speech. Rather than accusing the BBC of inciting racial hatred, we should instead be appreciating the educational value of deconstructing the speech’s sentiment, one which is so relevant to the current age.

Rock, Soul, Techno – Trinity has it all

Arthur Charlesworth
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Rock, Soul, Techno – Trinity has it all

If you think rock ‘n’ roll is the best revision break, Cellar has some fine offerings. Liverpool loudmouths Queen Zee will paint the place pink on Monday first week (23rd April) while similar soapbox shouting will come courtesy of Blackpool trio Strange Bones on Monday third week (7th May). Come down to see why these guys are nominated for ‘Best Live Act’ at the 2018 Unsigned Music Awards.

Chaos will equally ensue when West London post-punksters Sports Team play on Wednesday of third (9th May). With the following week offering some lush Lo-Fi in the form of duo Her’s (12th May) before the week after will see The Underground Youth play to some youths underground on 17th May. For fans of Sonic Youth be sure to catch Drahla on Thursday of seventh (7th June) for some abrasive guitar galore.

But its not all guys and guitars. Friday of 0th (20th April) sees the return of Soul Sessions with trio 3Peace DJing and playing an exclusive live set! Saturday of first week presents another Cellar first: a vinyl-only night. Headlined by Sunil Sharpe, who has played at the likes Tresor, Berghain and Fabric, for fans of techno it cannot be missed. While linking in with their upcoming production of Huxley’s Brave New World, 472 Productions will showcase a night of art-pop and industrial funk on Thursday, second week (3rd May).

The Bullingdon also has some fine club nights to offer. There’s Gun Fingers with Murlo on Saturday of 0th to get you back into the swing of things, and then a continual stream of beauties to make cocking up exams a real possibility. Chaos in the CBD headline the Easter Party on Friday, first week, while Simple and Musical Medicine will serve up weekly entertainment to wet the whistle, before Dr Feelgood treat us on Friday of eighth.

In amongst the tribute acts, the O2 has some fine offerings. Touring in support of his fantastic debut, Isaac Gracie is set to captivate the place on Saturday of 0th closely followed by the emotive electronica of Will Heard (26th April).

This is also the best place to show off your stamina, with the This is May Day celebrations running from 11pm to 6am. If your dad’s in town on 4th May, take him to the Bullingdon to see Wilko Johnson, 70s pub-rock band Dr Feelgood’s legendary guitarist. The day after sees folk hero Frank Turner take to the stage, before the laid-back indie of DMA’s (10th May), manic Marmozets (11th May), and big-chorused Black Honey (14th May) to round off a marvellous month. Although, the biggest name may have been saved for sixth week, with Miles Kane on Saturday 2nd June.

Trinity: it is the worst of times and the best of times. Sure, it’s summer and there’s plenty to stress about. For finalists, I hope that the film of this term will be the Graduate. But if it all goes pear-shaped, don’t worry; with all this good music about, at least, it will have a half decent soundtrack.

Wes Anderson’s films are nostalgic for the present

Daniel Gonsalez
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Wes Anderson’s films are nostalgic for the present

Wes Anderson returned to the big screen in April with the release of Isle of Dogs, another fine film from one of the most distinctive auteurs in modern cinema. Anderson’s style is unmistakable: his frames are symmetrical, his palette is filled with vibrant colours, and his sets are painstakingly crafted down to the tiniest details.

His stories are madcap capers, but they are presented with a striking emotional detachment, matched by the impassive movement of the camera and the monotone speech of his characters. Anderson’s stylistic virtuosity means that it’s easy to regard his films as shallow and superficial, but his unique style disguises a surprising emotional depth. Anderson’s worlds, seemingly so joyful and beautiful, are actually deeply lonely places. Almost all of his characters are repressed or incapable of connecting with the people around them.

In The Royal Tenenbaums, Margot locks herself in her bathroom and refuses to talk to anyone due to a failing marriage. The same movie sees Richie exile himself to the other side of the world, and Chas proves himself unable to come to terms with the loss of his wife. In Moonrise Kingdom, Suzy and Sam are misfits without any friends, Suzy’s parents sleep apart in a loveless marriage, and Scout Master Ward leaves his thoughts in an audio diary since he has nobody to talk to about them. In Grand Budapest Hotel, even the seemingly happy and sociable Mr. Gustave has to eat his meals alone, in a bare room every night, while Zero has lost his entire family to war. This is where Anderson’s detached style truly comes into its own. Often criticised as draining all emotion from his movies, he actually does the exact opposite, highlighting and reflecting the detachment of his characters. The long, silent, static shots of Gustave eating alone or Margot locked away in her bathtub capture their loneliness perfectly.

Despite his overly complicated plots, Anderson’s main interest is in how his characters manage to find a connection in a detached and lonely world. We may rejoice when Mr. Gustave and Zero finally prove their innocence and gain their fortune, but the emotional height of the film only comes when they are chatting with Agatha in a train car, completely at ease in a place where they truly belong. Similarly, the conflict with Social Services in Moonrise Kingdom is the centerpiece of the plot. However, the story’s narrative arc is only reached when Sam and Suzy are relaxing in Suzy’s house at the end, free from all the troubles that everyone else brings. But Anderson can never leave it at that – his endings are rarely unequivocally happy. In The Royal Tenenbaums, the narrator nonchalantly tells us that ‘Royal died of a heart attack at the age of 68’ while Chas and Royal are still laughing together on screen, following their reconciliation. In exactly the same way, the narrator of The Grand Budapest Hotel informs us that ‘in the end, they shot him’ just after the scene in which Mr. Gustave is shown happily talking to Agatha and Zero in a train car. We are then told, briefly and bluntly, that Agatha died of disease a few years later. In all of his films, Anderson is quick to remind us that all good things must come to an end. At the very beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel, he shows us a glimpse of the future – a future in which the hotel is ruined, Zero is a lonely old man, Agatha and Mr. Gustave are probably dead. Even the setting is a reminder of how quickly things can change; we are well aware that the grand old Europe which Anderson celebrates will soon be destroyed by fascism and communism.

The ending of Moonrise Kingdom is just as bittersweet. We know Suzy and Sam will manage to live happily together for a while, but Anderson constantly reminds us that they too will grow up and become the adults they so despise. The symbol of their youth, their Moonrise Kingdom, is washed away into the past by a storm. Sam and Suzy are left with no more than memories, which Sam crystallizes in the form of a painting.

Anderson celebrates the joy and beauty that shared humanity can bring in a lonely world. But he is quick to remind us that every happy moment is half-gone before it has begun, doomed to last an instant before disappearing into the distant past. Wes Anderson is, in other words, nostalgic for the present.

Childhood’s Clarity in ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’

Meha Razdan
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Childhood’s Clarity in ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’

Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane opens with an epigraph from Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are: “I remember my own childhood vividly… I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn’t let adults know I knew. It would scare them.”

Gaiman is no stranger to adopting a child’s perspective: his novel Coraline has become a macabre modern classic in the sphere of children’s literature, and The Graveyard Book won him the Newbery Medal.

But where Coraline and The Graveyard Book use children to explore a twisted underbelly to the world which adults cannot see, The Ocean at the End of the Lane allows Gaiman’s narrator to straddle the perspective of the child and the adult, and then to blur the divide between them.

The narrative ‘lens’ which Gaiman employs generates a warped and fogged-up image, a series of events presented to the reader by way of the narrator relating his experiences as a child. In the novel, the nameless narrator returns to his childhood hometown for a funeral, and while he is there, he starts to remember a series of strange events that unfolded when he was a child.

The narration switches to a flashback, told by the narrator as a seven year old boy. When, at the end of the novel, the narrative returns to the present day and the narrator begins to drive away from his hometown, the memories fade away once more.

Despite its classification as a dark fantasy novel, Neil Gaiman claims the novel was inspired by events from his own childhood. The theft of the protagonist’s father’s car, for instance, is based on an incident in Gaiman’s own childhood – and thus The Ocean at the End of the Lane functions as a quasi-autobiographical work.

This basis in self-reflection manifests itself in the narrative exploration of the peculiar journey toward ignorance that comes with growing from child into adult. The climactic moment of the novel comes when the narrator sees his friend, Lettie Hempstock, sacrifice herself for him and enter a permanent, death-like trance. The young boy is then put under a spell that leads him to forget the events that have occurred and instead believes Lettie has simply moved to Australia.

When the narrator returns home years later, he slowly remembers the truth, only to forget it again upon leaving. This ebb and flow of the truth is intrinsically linked to the narrator’s proximity to and connectivity with his own childhood, a fact representative of Gaiman’s subversion of the archetype of childhood as a state of naïvité. Under Gaiman’s direction, childhood is clear and adulthood obscure. Childhood is a perspective bereft of the clouds. Without the clouds which come when we know what’s normal, childhood is the lens through which trauma, otherness, and “terrible things” can be seen clearly and examined. In short,

The Ocean at the End of the Lane allows Gaiman to demonstrate how adulthood functions as a way to forget what childhood cannot. He uses childhood to expose the real world hidden within the cracks, to tell the truths that adults have forgotten how to face.

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