Recalling the past : “The voice of objects’’ in three short stories for young readers written by Angeliki Varella

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Published: May 11, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/jret.14977
Keywords:
journey of memory past childhood narrative autobiographical short stories Angeliki Varella Children’s literature
Dionisia Margariti
Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine how three objects of the past provide the narrator with the opportunity to travel back in time in three different short stories for young adults written by the distinguished Greek children’s writer Angeliki Varella. Firstly, I will provide some information about  the author and then I will concisely  examine how memory works in autobiographical short stories for children and young adults. My objective in this paper is to focus on “Fluri konstantinato” (1998),“Kobe kore”(1999)  and “The sounds of the gramophone” (2006).  I will trace the journey of memory in these three short stories and I will explore how objects function as vehicles for the narrator’s journey into the past. A golden coin (fluri) brought by a refugee from Asia Minor in “Fluri konstatinato”, a bakiri – a cup for carrying porridge- in ‘’Kobe Kore’’, an old gramophone in “The sounds of the gramophone”, all these objects  of another epoch,  exist simultaneously  in the present of the narrator, not only as decorative elements, but also as reminders of her childhood. In these three autobiographical short stories the narrator’s past comes alive through memory, and memory continues to recall experiences as things of the past are still there, having their own ‘voices’. The role of the objects and the confrontation with  figures of  the past in each story  will therefore be analyzed. I  also hope  to show the aspects of the articulation of time and space through narrative modes in these three  stories.

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Author Biography
Dionisia Margariti, Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Εκπαιδευτικός, Δρ Παιδικής/νεανικής λογοτεχνίας
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