The Elite-Individualist in British Romanticism

The Elite-Individualist in British Romanticism:
the Scientist, the Intellectual and the Woman

The scientist, the intellectual and the woman exemplify elite-individualists ever present as exiles and pariahs in British Romanticism. These protagonists share many characteristics of gifted individuals with artistic and intellectual abilities, but who have been casted out from the majority into solitary spaces where they analyze relationships between people and the validity of human interactions. Scientists, intellectuals and women all have one thing in common, this ability to go against the grain and to question the ways in which others advance themselves in life. Fictive Jane Austen’s Emma, Shelley’s Victor and the real-life DeQuincey have one thing in common: They embody the select few protagonists who question the relationship of man and women to his social environment. They are the three faces of elite-individualism.

Emma encountered much opposition in her attempts to make matches, but her obstacles were her own easy life. Austen wrote:

“The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her. (Austen 7)”

The author, DeQuincey, who wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater narrates his own confession of an elite individualist who has his own way much like Emma. The only difference is that he did exist and happens to be a male. DeQuincey remains representative of the one who intellectualizes throughout his journey. Whereas Emma intellectualizes about male and female relationships, sometimes known as the domain of women, DeQuincey sends his thoughts inward to follow his own dreams including his fear of the Malay. The most significant relationships to the elitist DeQuincey are those with the abandoned, orphaned child who lives in his landlord’s home and the relationship he has with the street walker who spends her own money to purchase Port wine to save his life. Both DeQuincey and Emma, as elitists, do empathize with the plight of the needy when Emma helps Harriet who is of a lower social class than she and when DeQuincey tries to assist his platonic friend the street walker to no avail. Whereas DeQuincey and Emma rationalize means of dealing with the real world around them, Victor Frankenstein cannot be satisfied with what life provides. He wishes to give life. While Emma assists women in finding happiness, Victor Frakenstein negates women’s hopes of a peaceful existence.

Frankenstein, the fictive scientist, was a highly educated man in both letters and sciences, a man who was brought up in a family environment that was very close, almost incestuous by modern standards, given that his parents had chosen a wife for him who was a cousin and had been raised as a sister. Early on in life, Frankenstein experienced the death of his mother, remaining omnipresent and representing destructiveness. It is for this reason that Frankenstein immerses himself in creative studies and opens himself up to the ultimate experiment—symbolic also of the inner artist, writer, inventor or creator—that of creating a new and living being. In such creation, he omits aesthetics altogether. He differs from DeQuincey in that DeQuincey exhibits fear of the unknown demonstrated through his frightening dreams about the Malay in Asia. The question remains whose perspective makes most sense, whether it be best to avoid the unfamiliar or venture to create the being, that product of creativity also known as Frankenstein’s monster.

To the reader’s surprise, Frankenstein’s creation will not be content because he, much like the people depicted in Austen’s Emma also wishes to maintain relationships and, above all, have a significant girlfriend, the female monster who also represents the unknown. Victor Frankenstein decides not to venture in this realm which would require the creation of the female monster; he discovers his solitude and scientific enquiry, that of the elitist without breaks, has taken him into unknown territory which readers may presume is much like that of DeQuincey when he takes his opium drug. Such unexplored paths might carry men off into the predicament of creating the monstrous product of solitary imaginations gone wild due to unrefrained imagination out of control. Whereas DeQuincey does no harm to women, Victor Frankenstein’s tendencies to cover up the truth ultimately bring about the deaths of the women around him who are shielded from knowledge of the elite individualist. On the contrary, Emma who is a giving elitist spreads her knowledge of matchmaking to benefit her female peers and their eventual mates.

Austen reveals women’s needs to find mates who are both compatible and who will be able to maintain them in a healthy home environment since women cannot aspire to have careers and be the primary bread winners. These men would not include elite intellectuals like DeQuincey or Victor Frankenstein since women seem to fair well with trivial men in this literature aiming to be realistic. A woman’s future in the 1800’s depended solely upon her spouse’s ability to earn money and lead the family, but the female protagonists in “Emma” tended to be highly intelligent and learn to work within the limitations of the times given that they cannot immediately change a whole society. Emma believes herself capable of playing with people to better their lives, and realizes that she is better off than they are since she can depend upon her father’s support. In other words, unlike other women, she is not needy, but she eventually discovers that Mr. Knightley (the equivalent of a Romanticist knight in shining armor) has much to offer her. He is the voice of reason, so it seems, who judges her actions and deems it positive that she reads with Harriet. Emma ultimately becomes betrothed to this illustrious man, sixteen years her elder, but one who is very much like a brother in that they have known each other for years. He remarks that she has begun to read widely with Harriet and that there has been some positive interaction between the two women even though the relationship is not completely positive. Mr. Knightley, too, is elite but not too much of an individualist since he expresses common values and merely remarks regarding her actions without questioning society very deeply. DeQuincey contrasts Mr. Knightley in that he sees wisdom in the poorest of poor while Mr. Knightley tends to feel society should remain stratified. DeQuincey would disagree in that he sees the potential of supremacy in all who appreciate rhetoric, Latin and his preferred drug. DeQuincey remarks: “For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor limitary creature calling himself a man of the world, and filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices of birth and education, but should look upon himself as a Catholic creature, and as standing in equal relation to high and low—to educated and uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent. (De Quincey 24)”

These elite, intellectual characters challenge readers to think about gender roles and Emma’s relationship to Mr. Knightley which is both dependent and reactive to the his decisions along with those of her father. Ideology evolves into acceptance of the social maneuvers that Emma makes in order to survive in a world that is first and foremost a man’s world. Each of the female characters manipulated first and foremost by Emma has to deal with unique challenges that come with her social status depending upon if the women are wealthy, elite, poor, orphaned, a nursemaid, or even a “spinster.” At one point, Emma questions whether she would be better off as an unmarried elitist living in comfort alone with her father than married to a man since she loves her own cleverness and ability to manipulate the small world in which she lives. Emma uses her ingenuity to change the small world in which she lives. If she cannot control the universe, at least she can manage relationships of others. Mr. Knightly remains judicious throughout the book, judging the value of actions and relationships when he makes statements such as: “Of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I think it a bad thing.” (Austin 35) He goes on to ensure Mrs. Weston that Emma and Harriet will not help each other, meaning these two women will get each other into mischief. It is ironic that Emma does not think it necessary for her to marry, yet, she would try so diligently to get others to tie the knot. Readers cannot help but wonder why this bright, independent woman thinks it is so important to encourage others to marry if she does not plan to do the same, but marriage is a business relationship for which women must fight. Marrying into a business contract makes no sense unless additional wealth will result along with the meeting of the minds for elite, upper-class women like Emma.

Emma is a positive depiction of an elite, intellectual woman because she embodies positive traits in a single, witty character who humorously makes mistakes and who triumphs. Most of her efforts entail some rising action in the matchmaking process, followed by mini-obstacles and then triumphant unions. She has artistic talent, fascinating rhetoric, social skills, respectfulness, and attractiveness to the opposite gender. She is endowed with money and creates her own matchmaking profession that she will give up only when she marries Mr. Knightly. Along her journey of self-discovery, she discovers her heart and ability to love a man. Emma does not remain as solitary as De Quincey, the author of “Confessions of an English Opium Eater” for she is surrounded by residents of her small community in the countryside. She does not encounter the perils of the streets and the stomach illness that leads to self-medication in the form of a drug. She does not remain solitary like the introverted DeQuincey in the street. Nor do Emma’s female companions pay a fatal price such as each and every woman in Victor Frankenstein’s life. What a contrast between Emma, Frankenstein, and Confessions of an English Opium Eater!

Modern readers may fail to interpret DeQuincey’s messages of solitude because the average reader does not empathize with the solitary intellectual who goes about intellectualizing and philosophizing. He is the thinker who is endowed with lonely, misunderstood giftedness. De Quincy presents himself as a gifted young man who, from the earliest days of school, when he sneaks away from his school masters' powers, recognizes that he is intellectually superior to both his peers and teachers as he is more versed in Latin than they are. Certainly, Emma did not face these perils of the streets that the rebellious intellectual affronts upon his youthful journey. Emma, an elitist, had all the necessary money and support. Perhaps her abilities lay in organizing relationships successfully while our elitist male characters did not deal with people successfully on an intimate level. The men were bookish, but Emma needed Mr. Knightley’s encouragement to read. Emma possessed relationship skills meanwhile DeQuincey possessed aptitude for inner visions.


De Quincy, possessing intellectual prowess and few practical skills, recognized that he was a philosopher above all, ready and willing to borrow off of his family inheritance to make ends meet. Apparently earning, saving and investing remained his weaknesses in the Romanticist age; therefore, he became a young peripatetic, a man of the streets who frequented streetwalkers as friends. He believed himself a philosopher and wrote:

"From my earliest youth, it has been my pride to converse familiarly, "more Socratico," with all human beings, man, woman, and child, that chance might fling in my way: a practice which is friendly to the knowledge of human nature, to good feelings, and to that frankness of address which becomes a man who would be thought a philosopher." (De Quincey 24)

DeQuincy learned compassion from a prostitute named Ann who helped him much like Emma assisted the needy women in her countryside. Women in the 1800’s who were depicted in Emma or in Confessions of an Opium Eater were basically caretakers and nurturers who empowered their men through reinforcement. As a homeless man on the streets, DeQuincey learned that he could refer to himself as a "Catholic creature," one who was open to all levels of society and all variations on perspectives, finding all people to be equal no matter their social status. Emma recognized social status but recognized the ability to transcend status, evidenced in her attempts to encourage Harriet to marry in a higher social stratus. Relationships, not books, motivated Emma.

DeQuincey, our elite intellectual, said his greatest wealth was to be found in his five thousand book collection. De Quincy had attained vast knowledge but was little understood by his peers and even potential employers. In some respects, as an elite-intellectual who was not appreciated, he maintained commonalties with women of his times. DeQuincy's wealth remained in his five thousand books along with his Opium to soothe the pain that prevailed when one was without work and misunderstood by one's peers. Frankenstein, on the other hand, never managed to end the pain of having dared create more than one should.

One can think of these three models as being three graces pertaining to relationship building, inner visions and failed creation. The essential message, therefore, remains that it is okay to remain an individualist and independent thinker in this world if one can balance relationships, dreams, and the inner monster: creation. DeQuincey wrote of thoughts:

"I, whose disease it was to meditate too much, and to observe too little." (54) Opium brings relief to this self-proclaimed "spirit of rebel." (55) The rebel is essentially one who rebels from belonging to the average group but who uses his mind to a greater extent than the masses. Rather than befriending the general population, he befriends opium, symbolizing the pain resulting from a well developed cranium.”

The monster represents the artists’ ability to shape and mold his creation for it may take on a new form unappreciated by society. Whenever a painter paints or a writer puts her pencil to the page, she risks the response of the viewer or reader. Society finds Frankenstein’s monster repulsive and unacceptable, just as society finds new and innovative art objectionable until society understands more than just what is present on the surface. Therefore, we have a new monster which represents the pure fear of creation. Frankenstein’s creature described the following: “I gazed upon my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph.” (Shelley 97)

Humans judge the monster within and that of Frankenstein by its hideous outer appearances, much as people do in real life as they do not take the time to get to know people with deformities and they isolate the aged. Therefore, the monster made an unethical decision to prey upon men in retaliation for their disdain; a part of him wanted to do what was right by humans, but taking revenge against them triumphed. Consequently, Frankenstein died mainly of a broken heart, disempowered, and his monster felt some remorse in having lost his creator, also disempowered. Frankenstein remains the readers’ most tragic elite individualist, a man who has taken too many risks and who has nurtured the woman around him by hiding truths from them that result in their womanly deaths. Victor Frankenstein’s bookishness births a boundless monster with no refrain, able to destroy humanity, but he is obviously only a figment of Mary Shelley’s imagination, a character in one of those books such as the real DeQuincey might find on his shelves of five thousand books in a solitary room resembling an artist’s still life. With all their books, the male elitists do not find the financially elite Emma’s cheerfulness in her ability to manipulate others, an individualist’s enthusiasm for control of gifted individuals with artistic and intellectual abilities. She triumphs in the end over her male counterparts as women move into the realm of intellectualism.

Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Emma. Suffolk: Penguin, 1815.
Quincey, Thoma De. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Suffolk: Penguin, 1821.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1851.

Playfulness of Great Creators: Learning from Artists

by Laura Sweeney, EdD
Copyright July 30, 2008

One does not ordinarily think of playfulness as being the domain of highly successful, mature adults. One envisions them with their eyes on investments, hard work, and other business matters. Yet, there is one thing that separates great creators and self-realized individuals from other adults: Creators such as Picasso, Michelangelo, Einstein, W.B. Yeats, Miró, Chagall and numerous others employed playfulness to conceive great artistic products that positively changed the lives of everyone around them. From joyous solitary moments throughout their lives and especially in mature years, they yielded answers to what really makes people happy: the art of solitary play without limitations or fear of making mistakes. Those creators who fortunately lived long enough to reach what we refer to as “old age” reaped the benefits of personal happiness in elder years that even surpassed their formative years by utilizing playful manipulation of ideas and materials.



To be playful is to be frolicsome and joyful, to utilize the five senses in a manner that brings delight. For example, lively sculptors play with their sensual building materials, rubbing their palms up and down the surfaces of smooth forms that abruptly turn coarse and jagged. Their hands grasp a rigid, unbending object only to cheerily find it contrasts with the softness of humid clay and the texture of jagged wood. All five of the creators’ senses are involved as they smell the sweet scent of a vanilla candle contrasting earthy musk perfume nearby in the aroma therapy environment. Another artist plays with colorful pieces of paper cut into triangles as he fits them together in various playful ways while his wife dispenses glitter-glue in squiggly lines onto their design. A woman awakens from a dream, and like Salvador Dali’, she pours her vision out on canvas. Meanwhile, a scientist experiences a creative spark as he playfully ponders a problem that has challenged others for decades. His friend, the writer, jots down the first words that come to mind, only to rearrange them in playful ways as metaphors with humorous lyricism and underlying meanings. Each of these individuals, no matter where he is located, works together in a unified playful effort that transforms humanity by impacting its global audience.



Many adults do not realize the value of playfulness throughout adult years, opting to give up on their ability to play with unique concepts, shapes, and sounds; however, leaving one’s mind idle eats away at both longevity and memory. Rather than to accept life without playfulness, artists such as Cindy Sherman, a contemporary photographer, have learned how to fully explore the wonders of playful imagination, integrating playfulness into their art. Knafo affirms,


“Sherman's art depicts a theater in which she manipulates her favorite toy--her own body—-to play out an infinite number of roles. She literally makes a spectacle of herself as she becomes innocent girl, seductress, man, woman, hermaphrodite, old, young, rich, poor, monster, beast, etc.” (Knafo)

Sherman does that which countless women of all ages do when they apply makeup, model dresses and color their hair for pleasure in an attempt to act out fantasy roles, like the starlets of cinema, even if it is merely the theater of their own fantasy. Every photo Sherman makes represents a cinema still-life in which she is the ever-changing blonde, redhead, or sultry brunette from the small town to the big city, both a doer and a passive receiver. Her playfulness over the years evolved from putting on shows of a youthful, refreshingly self-absorbed woman to those of a mature woman exploring dolls in photography to enact trauma, to imagine all the possible situations that confront women throughout their lives. It seems she has asked the question through visual metaphors, “What if this happened to me?” The photographic process evidently characterizes pleasure for Sherman who demonstrates that make-believe play benefits all ages and can also be appreciated by observers.



Albert Einstein is often noted for having shared his opinions on play, creativity and fantasy. He revealed it was important that parents read fairy tales to their children to develop their imagination and intelligence and even remarked that cerebral play was just as important as other learning methodologies. Einstein observed, “This combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.” He found resolutions to problems in playful imagination, through “signs” and “images,” rather than through traditional academia. (Wenger, 12-13) As an alternative of playing games with hands, Einstein utilized inner thought play, a method of combining numerous abstract concepts in contemplation.



Pablo Picasso, although perfectly capable of rendering realistic portraiture, delved into abstract concepts and the visions of children. His paintings seem too childish for some viewers to even give them consideration, but Picasso, who was a teenage prodigy of realism, later chose to play with color, shape, line, and multiple viewpoints in his Cubist style and with monochromatic vision in his Pink and Blue Periods. The artist knew he was capable of rendering perfect realism, but making unique shapes from a child’s perspective took greater knowledge of playful rhythm, balance, pattern, texture, value and color. Berube reminds us that even the best education specialists like Gardner appreciated Picasso’s childlike vision because great minds identified with Picasso’s playful genius:



“‘One of Picasso's dictums was that true art first resides with the child, a ‘genius of childhood,’ in Picasso’s words, that ‘it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like them.’”(Berube, 82)



Picasso’s The Three Musicians (1921) exemplifies distorted forms filled in with outrageous, playful colors to awaken playful visual lyricism while carrying the viewers’ eyes around the canvas in a visual dance. Squares and rectangles seem to boogie with one another as if they were animated on the flat surface. Picasso played with the various layouts before adding primary and secondary colors right out of the tube or barely mixed, remarking consistently, “Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once we grow up.” (Brainy Quote.com) Picasso most successfully returned to playfulness even in later years beyond the age of eighty whilst not sacrificing the fresh vision of his art bringing inner joy and peace to artist and viewer alike.



Salvador Dali invoked playful dream images in intelligent-art-hybrids, juxtaposing anything that did not ordinarily belong together. This playful pairing of dream elements explored the emergent psychoanalysis of his days. (Suckale, 698) Many critics did not understand why a serious artist would clown around in this manner and why his art took on importance for its novel presentation of adjacent symbols. In The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Dali’ plays with the realism of the unconscious psyche of its protagonist, St. Anthony, who holds up a cross to a caravan of six animated beasts that carry various temptations upon them. The anthropomorphic animals with elongated legs carry women, gold, a pyramid, shrines and a tower upon their backs—not the average dreamer’s dream—but possibly a jocular observation about the nature of dreaming. The viewer is challenged to guess why there are six, and not seven, beasts and why there are small figures of men beneath the towering animals. Such combinatory pictorial elements are none other than Dali’s playful gesticulation.



Joan Miro’ also enjoyed playing with art elements and most particularly line. Suckale writes of “Miro’s art, “Many figures, objects and signs appear, overlap and take part in the magical game that is a mixture of carnival, theatre, and fairytale.” (Suckale, 606) Harlequins, cats, butterflies, anthropomorphic shapes and jocular lines play together in Harlequin’s Carnival (1924/25), and in People and Dogs Before the Sun (1949). Miro’ playfully paints in the basic shapes, filling in the lines like a coloring book with primary colors and black on a neutral background. Flowing organic lines with black dots on the ends overlap and turn into repetitive spirals that dance around the page in visual symphony evocative of dance.



Marc Chagall, in Double Portrait with Wineglass (1917), simplifies the figures to the bare minimum so that they become flat and angular with penetrating geometric lines. The playful female protagonist lifts her male counterpart on her back as his slightly disengaged head laughs about a glass of wine that he is about to consume. From his glass, an angel seems to emerge, splitting the background into two halves, a white sky to the left of the canvas and a yellow sky to the right of the canvas. No doubt, these two painted characters indulge in play amidst the challenges faced by ordinary couples. Most obvious is the way Chagall plays with color in this work in others, teasing the viewer and challenging her to interpret underlying meanings.



Creators habitually prefer to contradict easily understood realism in favor of uncertain play to innovate as well as provide solutions. Without such play, change would not occur. For instance, the director, Federico Fellini, explored the mythology lying beneath imagination in his film entitled Juliet of the Spirits (1965). The director opted to say good-bye to the hum-drum, ordinary world of cinema as his film penetrated the playful, innovative, fantasy realm in which his protagonist named Giuletta, a middle-aged housewife, ultimately freed her own inner child (within her mind) from a symbolic bed of martyrdom. This film characterizes the female coming-of-age story when Giulietta finally can play games with the clown-like and colorful, next-door neighbors who celebrate audaciously throughout the night. They beckon her to act childish and dress in primary colors with them at their home. Meanwhile, her husband, whom she discovers has been unfaithful, decides to give Giulietta some space for reflection for the first time in her life. Whereas some spectators view this film as being too sad, I believe this is a positive female coming-of-age celebration embracing women’s playfulness at middle-age as a viable life option. The enlightened Giulietta cast away the restraints of middle class appearances, but it was really the director of the film who decided to begin to produce films based loosely on ancient mythologies.



The Irish author, William Butler Yeats, also played with myths and fantasies of Celtic origins, pleasant fascinations such as fairies and goblins, the supernatural daydreams of a playful otherworld. He kept private painting-journals which were until recently little known to the world but in which Yeats, also an artist by training, drew colorful mystical symbols to try to understand what he perceived as the spiritual aspects of writing. Without such mindful inner play, writers cannot produce fresh works of poetry and romance. Yeats had the playful courage to produce works that mediocre writers never accomplish for they are too fearful to delve in the playful mind lest their peers might be judgmental of their play.



Michelangelo often displayed this sense of humor and audacity, even hiding his own portrait throughout his mural or displaying hidden symbolism. Whereas his art was based on Catholic mythology, he humorously inserted what viewers might define as playful, underlying commentaries on the subjects he depicted. Hence, even today there is much conjecture concerning the messages he wished to convey. Playing with silly gests throughout the Sistine Chapel added to the appeal found by viewers of later generations.



Creators of great arts played and still do play for hours on end, often in blissful solitude until the final moment when they determine the best way to fit together pieces of an intelligent-art-hybrid and happily reveal their creations to the world. Often times, the public has been shocked by creators who juxtaposed oppositional elements in the same context, such as when Salvador Dali dared depict components of dreams in a manner resembling the three-dimensional world. “Combinatory play,” as described by Einstein, remains the essence of this manipulative process used by creators in which various ingredients, materials or envisioned dances, carouse around in the minds and hands of creators, penetrating each other like Miro’s shapes penetrate one another on canvas or dissected like a Dali’ icon in a dream environment. Everything in existence in the artist’s mind and in his hands is relevant and shares a dynamic relationship once the combinatory play has reached its pinnacle. Playfulness is indeed the domain of great creators who teach us to take it easy and get into the flow of ideas, to enjoy the rhythm of elements that ignite sparks in our brains. The best ideas sprout from play experienced in the classroom environment, from play in solitary thought, or from play conducted on a brainstorming team. Adults today learn from creators that they must lighten up and enjoy the playful emergence of visions, providing hope for all who embrace them.



Laura Sweeney


Works Cited

Berube, Maurice R. Eminent Educators: Studies in Intellectual Influence. Greenwood, CT: Westport Press, 2000.

Brainy Quote.com http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pablopicas104106.html
Fellini, Federigo. Juliet of the Stars. Film. Rome, Italy: Janus Films, 1965.

Knafo, Daniele. "Dressing Up and Other Games of Make Believe: The Function of Play in the Art of Cindy Sherman." American Imago (1996): 139-64.

Spector, Jack. On the Limits of Understanding Modern Art. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Suckale, Robert et al. Masterpieces of Western Art. London: Taschen, 2007.

National Library of Ireland. "The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats." Yeats (2008): 1-20.

Wenger, Win Ph.D. and Richard Poe. The Einstein Factor: A Proven Method for Increasing Your Intelligence. Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1990.

Writing Stories About Pets for Family Fun: Pet Writing and Personification

Family fun can be enjoyed to the fullest through the process of Pet Personification, also known as Pet Writing. Children enjoy naming their pets and personifying pets in their daydreams and thoughts. Some of the best cartoons in the papers and on T.V. personify animals, and pet personification is another great tool to develop children's imagination. During the summers and other vacation periods, parents find it difficult to think of inexpensive, intelligent and creative projects to keep their children occupied. How about encouraging children to write during the summers? How about writing a story about your own pet no matter what your age?

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The first question you might pose is, "But I don't have a pet, so how can I and my children write stories about pets?' Have no fear because writers make up fictive characters and write the names out on index cards. In addition to naming the fictive pet, you and your children will next write out a description such as the age, nationality, physical characteristics and character qualities on the index cards. I would encourage children to use at least ten adjectives to describe their fictional pets on the cards. Mark the main protagonist's character description (the main pet) with a star or a special color. Then make up names of other characters in the story and describe them on separate cards.

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Once you and your children have described all of the characters on index cards, it will be helpful to draw out the plot of the story on a plain piece of paper. A pencil is needed to draw an arch labeled with these five parts of the story:

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1) Exposition -- How the story begins including the setting. Setting is where and when the story takes place.

2) Problem -- What is the conflict or problem that the personified pet will have to resolve? The problem makes the story interesting. It can be anything from a small problem to a big problem, and it can relate to problems children face in real life.

3) Rising Action -- Create details about what happens along the fictive pet's journey. Whom does the pet meet along the way? What are some of the obstacles and joys the pet faces?

4) Climax of the Story -- This is the moment right before the problem is solved. The protagonist pet might have an argument with another animal or might be assisting another animal.

5) Falling Action and Resolution -- At this point, the writer has determined how the conflict will be resolved and what the future will hold for the fictive pet. Is the personified pet successful in his pursuit?

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Problems chosen for pet stories do not have to be complex. I would recommend that children choose simpler problems than those chosen for adult storytelling. For example, Snip and Stripe (my cats, by the way) want to figure out how they can encourage Grandma to let them go out on the terrace each day to enjoy the sunlight at 12:00 noon, or Snip and Stripe don't know what to do about the new dog that has moved into the home. These are simple, light-hearted and cheerful, problems that do not cause the child-author to worry.

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The step in which children draw out the arch for the plot can be utilized to develop visual imagination. For this reason, my students integrate crayon colors and ink drawing in this part of the process. Extra credit is given for illustrations of characters. This extends the time children are entertained while developing creative imaginations which are essential to both success and progress. It is essential that the process be fun in order to be appreciated, and therefore, parents must encourage children to utilize the five senses from visualizing to kinesthetically acting out the characters in plays.

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It is important to include each of the five parts of the story. Very young children may divide each part of the story into a paragraph, but I have seen older children do stories as long as twenty pages. There is no rule that each of the five parts of a story must be equal in length or a prescribed length, but writing a short story can be just as complex as writing a long story.

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Encourage children to think of their pets as beings with feelings and needs. Children show responsibility and develop charcter when they feed and nurture their pets. By getting into the feelings of characters in a story (especially when the protagonists are pets), writers develop a strong sense of ethics and character. Not only do they learn about the story structure that has been described in this article, but they also learn about cause and effect, responsibily and relationships.

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Parents will utilize Pet Writing to teach children about "personification" in fiction and in cartoons. Personification is when writers give attributes of people to animals and objects. It will be very important for children to understand this concept when they are in upper elementary school and throughout the high school years. Writing about pets for family fun entails creative visualization, imagination, sharing ideas, and family entertainment. There is no better way to spark the creative seed within a child's brain and to instill values such as humanity and love for animal life.

Creativity and Art to Enhance Family Life

Family efforts to be creative through the arts, writing , and other endeavours such as gardening or cooking enhance relationships between family members without having to be costly. Parents should encourage their children to be active in various creative mediums which engage their minds in the observation of colours, the feel of textures, thoughts of vocabulary, bodily movement, the sense of taste and the appreciation of sound. First and foremost, a creativity journal is utilized to keep track of artistic plans that are the focus of family collaboration. Parents make great coaches and stimulate academic and social success integrating three or more creative mediums along with journaling within the context of family social life.

I recall how my grandparents engaged me in writing letters which were sent and received through customary snail mail which is used less nowadays. Years later, several boxes were found in which my grandparents had collected these letters, many of which were very long. The writing that we did over the years served a practical purpose of unifying the family from afar while building writing skills. Letters also included illustrations of clouds, birds, dogs, family members and various other symbols. Perhaps one of the first steps parents can take to develop writing skills is to encourage their children to write grandparents regularly and to enhance these letters with drawings. It is likely children who write grandparents will be better writers than those who do not use writing for these practical purposes.

Bookmaking or journaling to record thoughts entertains children and all family members every bit as much as playing with toys or games. The mere actvity of gazing at a blank page and trying to envision what will go on the page builds connections between neurons in the brain. According to Win Wenger, author of "The Einstein Factor," scribbling, writing and keeping diaries is a "telltale mark of genius." (p. 58) There is no doubt the act of creation on a blank page improves intelligence, manuel dexterity, and kinsthetic abilities in addition to enhancing creativity. Such bookmaking and journaling may be done on computer as well as on real paper, but the skills learned through the process are different. For this reason, both the digital and tactile mediums are developmental although in different ways.

Parents need to guide their children to decorate and write in their journals wisely by utilizing entire pages as opposed to wasting paper as a means of respecting the conservation of trees. Graphic organizers for brainstorming are excellent devices with which families may begin creative journeys together. A drawing of a symbol or a large circle is usually placed in the middle. The topic or main idea goes in this shape. Then the shape expands with various branches listing art activities or writing topics to be explored alone or with the family group. Families might wish to begin with a large poster board so that the graphic organizer continues to grow.

Perhaps your family will list fun and creative activities that can be done as a group or even explore stories and visual activities such as collage and repetitive patterns that stimulate the mind with color and textures. Creating graphic organizers is often just as fun as family games such as "Monopoly." Surprisingly, there do not seem to be many families who employ this graphic organizer process, but it is commonly used to make connections in school teacher's classrooms such as mine where we analyze plots and characters and think of topic sentences for paragraphs.

Once the brainstorming and diagramming with a graphic organizer is complete, family members utilize their journals in thousands of ways. Obviously, they may choose to write fiction. Children need to know that their thoughts and ideas make a difference, that they do have stories to tell. Parents have the responsibility of empowering their children with attention to their stories. Children and adult creators, too, should add illustrations to their works regardless of whether or not they consider themselves talented in drawing because design skills are only developed through practice. The developing artists will have benefitted from the act of creation and the connections between the brain and the hand's activity.

With regards to design, family participants might wish to draw flowing, organic lines from one side of the page to the next, overlapping these lines to make many new shapes. Perhaps they will begin with twenty to thirty shapes. Next, they may fill in each shape with a different pattern, outline the patterns with ink or markers and fill them in with crayon or pencils colors. Alternatively, children may draw animals such as the "Creativity Cat" and fill it in with patchwork designs that are colored with numerous patterns from circles to squares. This was one of the most successful activities that I did with my visual arts students years ago. The possibilities are endless in journaling and illustration: Participants illustrate dreams, create games, draw ideal architecture and envision solutions to environmental problems. They understand optics through the creation of pointillistic drawings, three-dimensional illusion and blended color. As the family brainstorms for ideas, everyone grows and is empowered to be more successful while making the world a better place.

Creativity doesn't stop with the journaling. Perhaps someone will draw dancing figures with drums that are reminiscent of Matisse. This activity can be extended by making or purchasing drums to make music and dance at home. Learn about American Indians through beading and feather crafts. Filmaking, acting, and song enhance the journaling activities so one finds that there is interconnectedness between the arts and practical daily living. Families will discover they, too, can invent their own recipes, lay out designs for gardening, and write their own histories in the form or memoirs. In order to start today, get a journal or a blank sheet of paper and begin to list all the creative activities that would bring joy to the members of your family. Begin to create your own games and rituals because this will be one of the most fulfilling, inexpensive activities of your life when done alone and in the context of the group.

Laura Sweeney

http://www.creativeartcoaching.com/

Read: Wenger, Win, Ph.D., "The Einstein Factor: A Proven Method for Increasing Your Intelligence," Prima Publishing, U.S.A., 1996.