Browse Exhibits (55 total)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: Part 1, Chapter 10
This exhibit examines the opening sequences of Part 1, Chapter 10 in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. This draft appears to be one of the final drafts before the publication of the novel, as the changes focus on smaller details; the final adjustments of the sentences appear almost verbatim in the final novel. These smaller changes include: changing of Duddy’s “real” job, to his “regular” job, the change of “eighteen dollars per week” to “sixteen dollars a week”, changing “five years” to “finally”, and changing “Uncle Morris” to “Uncle Benjy”. These changes reflect how Richler gained a better understanding of the timeline he wanted to follow in his novel, and the specific facts about the era in Montreal. Most notably is the change regarding Ida’s infertility. In the published novel, the reader is not privy to Ida’s infertility until the end of the novel, believing Uncle Benjy to be the infertile one. This alteration in the published novel creates a redeeming quality in Uncle Benjy’s characterization as he takes the blame for producing no grandchildren. Additionally, the characterization of the workers at Uncle Benjy’s factory, namely Malloy and Esptein, is lessened in the novel in order to abstain from detracting from the novel’s focal character, Duddy.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: Part 3, Chapter 3
This exhibit will focus on chapter three of part three in the novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler. In this typescript, Richler's edits hold true to the published novel. Richler takes out dialogue that would attribute Virgil's accident to Duddy, and by doing so shifts the responsibilty of the accident. Throughout this chapter, Duddy's character develops into an anti-hero and any sympathy that the audience would have previously felt is edited out of the final draft. In the beginning of the chapter on page 247, Richler crosses out the line where Duddy denies fault in Virgil's accident. This edit further prevents readers from attaching to his character. This chapter poses as the turning point in the novel, to wholly illustrate Duddy as a character without moral boundaries.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: Part 1, Chapter 11
This is exhibit focuses on pages 57-61 of part one chapter eleven of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Beginning on page 57, the manuscript depicts the summer Duddy worked as a waiter in a hotel in the Laurentian mountains. At the beginning the hotel Ostrofsky's Castle des Pins is scratched out and replaced with Weidman's. He changes the name of one of the characters from "Fuddles" Herman to Cuckoo Kaplan which was not indicated in the manuscript any further than Cuckoo Kaplan being written in red at the top of the page. At the end of the first paragraph 'At night' is changed to 'After a day's work'. In the middle of the second last paragraph the phrase "but nobody objected to if he tagged along" was removed from the sentence. Richler then describes the various pranks played on Duddy despite his attempts to fit in; these pranks did not make it into the final novel. One of the pranks in the manuscript describes the boys convincing the cook to intentionally make mistakes on Duddy's orders. The final version says "The gift of a bottle of rum insured the cook's good-will- Duddy had no trouble getting his orders". Page 58 begins with a paragraph that was entirely omitted from the final version. In the description of Irwin, Richler changes Duddy’s reaction of not being impressed to not being fooled. Richler’s changes in the final paragraph include a more sexual outlook (women and great danes to women and whips) and at the same time removes Irwin’s action of drugging women’s drinks. On page 59, he makes a lewd comment about Emily Dickenson - these were omitted in the final draft. On page 60, Richler omits certain descriptors that change the atmosphere of Rubin's to a commercial place. There is one instance where Richler changes the description of a floating orange peel to a floating popsicle wrapper. Richler removes the mention of the neighbours bridge and poker clubs. On page 61 the description of Cuckoo has entire sentences crossed out that remove many of his antics. All other changes are Richler’s removal of unnecessary information that does not contribute to further development of the characters or plotline.
The Transatlantic Moonstone: Part IX
Wilkie Collins’s best-selling novel The Moonstone (1868) was serialized simultaneously in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America. The letterpress was consistent on both sides of the Atlantic, but the material formats of Harper’s Weekly and All the Year Round differed greatly and subtly shaped the way Collins’s text could be read in each continent. Unlike Charles Dickens’s literary journal All the Year Round, Harper’s Weekly was marketed to a broad audience and included images, lively advertisements, and fun columns like “Humors [sic] of the Day” (Harpers 142). The two journals were evidently marketed towards different readerships, but both found a place for Collins’s sensational novel in their 1868 publications. This transatlantic appeal was due to both parties' careful manipulation of the material conditions of their respective texts. These manipulations helped guide their readers’ interpretations and build appeal for The Moonstone within different communities of readers.
In a recent essay (2014), Molly Knox Leverenz calls for an intratextual analysis (23) of The Moonstone within Harper’s Weekly. While doing so, she adheres to Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge’s assertions that images are not simply reflective of The Moonstone’s plot, but have important generic, thematic, and narrative significance (207). Leverenz argues that the American illustrations in and surrounding the serial parts of Collins’s novel concretize themes from the verbal text and help the text to participate in transatlantic discourses. This move was particularly important because of the jarring effects that the recent Civil War had had on American national identity (Leverenz 21). Much of Leverenz’s essay reflects upon the ways in which the American text uses images to distinguish itself in opposition to English ideology in The Moonstone (28).
Leverenz's essay emphasizes the American editor’s critical stance on English imperialism (24), but this exhibit will instead explore how Harper’s critiques the English class system as it is represented in The Moonstone, chapter XV. Harper’s uses image and formatting to counteract representations of English classism with idealized images of American unification and benevolence. This argument carries into Dickens's All the Year Round, where formatting and layout is manipulated in order to self-consciously critique English society on the same grounds. This is accomplished by juxtaposing The Moonstone with stories that explore taste and the etiquette of British dining.
Note: The images in this exhibition are designed to be explored in the order they appear (from top to bottom).
Works Cited
All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal 29 Feb. 1868. 265-288. Print.
Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization 29 Feb. 1868. 129-144. Print.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review 42.3 (2009): 207-243. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Leverenz, Molly Knox. "Illustrating The Moonstone in America: Harper's Weekly and Transatlantic Introspection." American Periodicals 24.1 (2014): 21-44. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
