Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

I'm so glad you've decided to learn with me today.

We're in the Modern Text First Study unit and our modern text is "Leave Taking".

Today we're going to read scene six and we're gonna look at a very significant theme in this play, the idea of home.

And we're gonna see how Pinnock explores this in all of its complexity, intricacies, power, pain, joy.

I can't wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through this lesson together.

Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to explain what happens in scene six of "Leave Taking" and explain how Pinnock explores ideas of home.

Home is an incredibly important theme in this play.

It means different things to different characters at different moments in the play.

And we're gonna look at scene six today and how this explores this idea really, really thoroughly.

There are some key words which are gonna help us unlock our learning for today.

They are, home, a place where you live.

The word home is often connected to ideas of belonging and security.

Dislocation, a feeling of being out of place, or in the wrong place.

Talking in tongues, when you speak in an unknown language during a religious service, considered communication from God.

Migrate, when you relocate from one country to another.

Identity, who you are.

The qualities that make you.

Understanding, finding, and accepting your identity can be a life's work.

And just as Pinnock explores the idea of home, it's an incredibly important idea in her play, so too is the idea of identity.

So we're gonna look at these two ideas and these words are gonna be incredibly important to help us achieve our objective today along with dislocation, talking in tongues, and migrate.

A lesson outline for today.

So first of all, we're going to read scene six and then we're going to explore ideas of home.

So let's start off with reading scene six.

Now I'd like you to discuss how has Pinnock explored the idea of home so far? Cast your mind back to the previous scenes.

one, two, three, four, and five.

How do you think she has explored the idea of home so far? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Fantastic discussions there.

Showing your fantastic knowledge of the first five scenes of "Leave Taking".

It was really nice to hear people saying, "But also, but also," and adding additional ideas because this idea of home is so complex.

Here's some ideas you might have had.

So Enid, Brod and Mai migrated from one home to another.

Viv is interested in Jamaica, the home country of her mother.

We see that in scene one where she says she wants to go to the West Indies to find out who she is there.

Pinnock already establishing the idea of home being connected with the idea of identity.

Viv is on the cusp of leaving home, and Del has run away from home.

So for these two siblings, the idea of home being something that you will leave with kind of conflicting feelings as you leave it.

Enid calls England home, until her mother dies when she says, "I want to go home," meaning Jamaica.

And Brod thought of England as home and he's angry that he had to pay to become a British citizen.

This is his anger expressed in scene two where he's been sent a letter from the home office calling him an alien.

And he feels vastly disgusted at this given that he's lived in England for over 30 years.

So these are just some of the ways then scenes one to five, Pinnock has explored the idea of home so far.

Now in scene six, Pinnock continues her exploration of home.

Enid describes Del as having run away from home.

But Enid also describes Jamaica as home.

She's got this idea of her own family home with her daughters, but also the home where she grew up in Jamaica.

Mai talks about Obeah practises back home and by back home she means Jamaica, even though Mai and Enid have established their lives and their home in England.

But Mai also describes home as being at peace with yourself.

So the idea that home isn't actually a physical place, but it's something about who you are, you are feeling at peace with who you are and with your identity.

So again, in scene six, you're going to see how the idea of home, and the idea of identity are inextricably linked in this play.

In addition, Mai tells Del to go home to Enid's house.

So the idea that Del at the moment is dislocated, she's not in the right place because she's staying with Mai.

And even though Mai seems relatively happy to have her there, it is not her home.

Now Pinnock balances these ideas of home against the ideas of journeying.

Mai tells Enid she's about to go on a long journey.

Perhaps, referencing that Enid will return to Jamaica for her mother's funeral.

Mai talks about the difficulties of migrating, so moving from one home to another.

And Mai talks about her son who was always dreaming about escape.

So Mai's son was born in England, he had a home with Mai, but he was always dreaming about escaping not just the family home but also England itself.

I'm gonna look at Mai's son in a lot more detail in learning cycle two.

He just has a brief appearance there.

He doesn't actually appear on stage, but he's mentioned in the play, but I think it helps us understand ideas of home and particularly the character of Del in a lot more detail.

So Mai says in scene six that she knows why the idea of home is so complex and this is what she says, Mai, "You would think things would change by now.

My grandfather's grandfather come to Jamaica in the hold of a ship.

My mother did run away to Cuba in the twenties to cut cane, and I came here.

It must be some kind of curse that condemn our people to wander the earth like ghosts who can't find rest." Now, she says, "My grandfather's grandfather come to Jamaica in the hold of a ship." Now slave traders enslaved Africans and transported them across the Atlantic to work in plantations in the newly colonised Americas.

So Mai is saying that her ancestors were enslaved people who were forcibly transported in horrific conditions across the Atlantic to work on plantations in Jamaica.

So the idea of dislocation goes way, way back because her ancestors who lived in Africa were forcibly transported across the Atlantic.

Then Mai references her mother's migration.

Her mother did run away to Cuba in the twenties and her own migration.

And "I came here, I came to England." So she's talking about two other journeys here.

Her mother's migration and her own migration.

Now I'd like you to look at the end of this quotation where Mai has talked about her grandfather's grandfather who was transported from Africa to Jamaica in the hold of a ship as an enslaved person.

I'd like you to consider her discussion about her mother's migration and her own migration.

And then it culminates in this quotation here, "It must be some kind of curse that condemn our people to wonder the earth like ghosts who can't find rest." I'd like you to discuss what is Mai saying? Why is she saying it? And consider her own personal history, the history of the transatlantic slave trade, her perceptions of her own son and Del.

I'd like you to pause the video, discuss this question, really mining it for its full complexity, it's a really key moment in the play where Mai is voicing ideas about home and ideas of dislocation.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Really beautiful ideas there, engaging with this quotation in all of its complexity.

It's gonna be a key quotation that you're going to want to return to over and over again when you are exploring, where you are discussing, where you are writing about "Leave Taking".

So Mai seems to be saying that there are a range of awful and lasting legacies from the transatlantic slave trade.

But here she's exploring the idea that those with enslaved ancestors feel a sense of dislocation.

So her grandfather's grandfather was forcibly moved from Africa to Jamaica and that intense sense of dislocation, forcible dislocation here is seen even in Del, and in her son.

So generations later, feeling that sense of dislocation, not feeling at home when they are at home.

Well done for exploring this quotation.

What Mai is saying, seemingly talking to Del, but also exploring very complex ideas about the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its lasting legacy.

A check for understanding, just to tie up all of our ideas from learning cycle one before we move into our practise task, our independent task.

So we're gonna fill in the blanks.

You can see here we've got a paragraph that says, "Arguably scene six, explores ideas of," blank.

"Pinnock develops ideas from earlier in the play by balancing the ideas of home with ideas of," blank.

"Pinnock uses the character of Mai to explore the sense of," blank, "that each of the characters in 'Leave Taking' feels, both for personal but also," blank "reasons." I'd like you to pause the video and put in those four words into those blanks so that the paragraph makes sense and shows off your understanding of the work we've done in this learning cycle so far.

Pause the video and fill in the blanks now.

Well done for making this paragraph make sense and showing off your knowledge of particularly our key words.

So, "Arguably scene six explores ideas of home," and that is the focus for our lesson.

Today we're gonna look at it in learning cycle one and learning cycle two.

"Pinnock develops ideas from earlier in the play by balancing the ideas of home with ideas of journeys.

Pinnock uses the character of Mai to explore the sense of dislocation that each of the characters in 'Leave Taking' feels both for personal but also historical reasons." So tying together some contextual ideas that are really important to display about migration, about the transatlantic slave trade in this short paragraph.

Now I'd like you to read scene six of "Leave Taking" and as you read, pause and discuss these seven questions.

One, "What does Mai say about her own mother?" Two, "Mai and Enid discuss what it means to have 'a good life'.

What does it mean to each woman?" Three, "Why does Enid feel guilty about her mother's death?" Four, "How does Enid 'let it out' what might this suggest about her emotions?" Five, "What reason does Enid give for not going to the doctor? Why might she feel more comfortable with Mai? Six, "What does Mai tell Del about her son?" And seven, "What reason does Del give for not being able to love herself?" So you're gonna read all of scene six, a really important scene which develops our understanding of this idea of home.

We've got some very unhappy characters in the scene.

We've got Enid grieving for her mother and Del still feeling a sense of dislocation.

I'd like you to read through all of scene six and as you are doing, discuss these seven questions.

Pause the video and read through scene six now.

Beautiful and very sensitive reading of scene six there.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you have to these questions.

So, what does Mai say about her own mother? Mai says she died 18 years ago and that she still misses her.

Two, Mai and Enid discuss what it means to have a good life and what does it mean to each woman? Well Mai believes a good life means having basic needs met, shelter, food and drink.

For Enid it means having her children live like normal people, something she worries her children won't be able to experience in Britain.

Three.

Why does Enid feel guilty about her mother's death? Well Enid feels guilty because she feels she ought to have sent money to her mother and sister as soon as her sister sent the letter.

And that if she had done this her mother would have survived.

So we know the opening of the play begins with Enid consulting Mai and saying, "Should I trust my sister? Does she actually need money? Is my mother actually ill?" And there was no real resolution to that but we know that Enid did not end up sending money and now she feels very guilty about it.

Four.

How does Enid let it out? What might this suggest about her emotions? The stage directions state that Enid "stares straight ahead, then her face contorts and her mouth opens in a soundless scream." This is followed by sound described as a "howl of pain" and Pinnock adds, "which may have echoes of Brod's talking in tongues in scene three." Perhaps Enid's emotions are so complex and raw that language is not enough to express how she's feeling.

Language can do so much but I think Pinnock also understands that sometimes there are some emotions that cannot be expressed in language.

And here we have this character expressing her grief, her rage, her guilt in this moment.

And I think seeing that on stage would be just so incredibly powerful and incredibly moving.

Five.

What reason does Enid give for not going to the doctor? Why might she feel more comfortable with Mai? Well Enid doesn't want to go to the doctor because she says, "What they know about a black woman's soul?" She feels more secure with Mai.

Even though this scene shows they differ in many respects, they have a shared understanding through their cultural roots.

And six, what does Mai tell Del about her son? Mai tells Del that she was hard on her son, but because she wanted to save him.

He told his mother he never felt even a little bit British and was always dreaming about escape.

Mai wished he could find some peace in himself so that he could be at home anywhere.

So it's kind of longer paragraph, a longer piece of dialogue from Mai, where she's talking about her son, a bit more revealing about some of her past life.

And she seems to be telling this to Del in order to help Del understand why she might feel this desire for escape, this kind of restlessness.

But she's also giving her a perspective of what it means to be a mother.

So Del is often very hard on her own mother Enid, and feels that Enid has not brought them up in the way that she would like and feels that her mother really hates her.

But Mai is saying here I was also hard on my son but there was a reason for it.

So perhaps trying to help Del understand Enid and her mother's choices a little bit more.

And seven, what reason does Del give for not being able to love herself? Del asks, "How can you love yourself where you are always at the bottom of the pile?" Perhaps developing the frustration she expressed in scene two about the racial discrimination she faced at work.

And I heard some people referencing scene two.

Really nice to link these two moments together to start understanding that Del's feelings of low self-esteem, her inability to feel self-worth is actually to do with the situation she is facing in Britain as a second generation immigrant.

But some people also referenced the moment where Del put some of the love potion behind her ears.

Mai has said the love potion is to help people help love themselves and Del is very dismissive as she often is of Mai and Obeah practises.

But we do see this hint that actually she takes it a bit more seriously by her putting the love potion behind her ears.

But it also expresses a bit of vulnerability that maybe Del is not a character who at the moment feels any love for herself.

So a very poignant moment at the end of this very poignant scene where we've also had Enid showing her intense vulnerability as well and even Mai when she's talking about her son, that is a moment of vulnerability I think for her as well.

A really lovely exploration, really lovely sensitive reading of scene six of "Leave Taking".

Well done.

So we have read scene six of "Leave Taking" and now we're gonna move on to our second learning cycle.

We're gonna use that reading to help us understand how Pinnock is exploring ideas of home.

So in scene six we find out the following about Mai's son.

He doesn't often come home, he doesn't feel British despite being born in England, he was restless and wanted to escape though he's not entirely sure where to.

Now I'd like you to discuss what similarities can you see between Mai's son and some of the other characters in "Leave Taking".

Pause the video, think about what we learn about Mai's son, but then tie that to your knowledge of all the characters in "Leave Taking" and see what similarities can we see between these characters and Mai's son.

Pause the video and discuss this question now.

A really beautiful discussion there, showing how carefully Pinnock has placed and has described a minor character.

You couldn't even describe as a minor character, really, because he doesn't appear on stage but a glimpse into another character.

A character's life can really help us understand the characters who are on stage who are being presented before us.

You might have said, "So we know he doesn't come home often, and we know that Del has not returned home in weeks and is trying to find out where her new home will be." So these ties between these two characters of the younger generation who are both leaving home and not returning, not finding it a place of security or a place of belonging.

He doesn't feel British despite being born in England.

Now this explored in a number of characters.

So Brod.

Brod's feelings of Britishness have been destabilised after having to pay to become a citizen.

And we saw that real frustration and anger, that disbelief expressed in scene two.

But Viv, Viv also doesn't feel connected to ideas in the British education system.

And she's expressed this idea a number of times, never really taken seriously by her mother or by her sister.

But she has said, "I don't see myself in these books." So Viv is British, she was born in England, she's grown up in England, but she doesn't see herself presented in the books that she's reading.

So she feels a sense of dislocation in school.

We know that Del faced racial discrimination at work including her manager thinking that she can't speak English despite being born in Britain.

So a different articulation of Mai's son's idea of not feeling British.

She says he doesn't feel British and here Del is basically being told she isn't British because she is Black, because she's a second generation immigrant and facing this is really giving her this sense of dislocation.

Now we know that Mai's son was restless and wanted to escape, though he was not entirely sure where he wanted to escape to.

And we know that Del and Viv both wanted to escape the family home but neither are entirely certain of their future.

So at the moment Del is living with Mai, we know that she's pregnant.

It does not seem that she can stay with Mai because Mai lives in a bedsit, so there will not be enough room for a mother and another child.

And it also doesn't seem that Mai is particularly keen on the idea that Del will stay with her long-term.

She does tell her to return home, we saw that in scene six.

She says, "Go after your mother and go home." It's partly because she feels that Del and Enid should reconcile, but it's also about thinking about the future and the fact that Mai and Del's living situation can't really continue.

And Viv, Viv's future does seem in some ways mapped out.

She's going to go to university, but we have seen her express the idea that she's not particularly happy about this and she knows that her mother is desperate for her to do it and she has excelled in academia throughout her school career.

But because she doesn't see herself in the books, in her school books, because she is desperate to go to the West Indies and explore her identity further, she does not seem very, very keen about the future, her future that's been mapped out so far where she's gonna go to university.

Well done for looking at this moment, this exploration of Mai's son.

We just get a small short bit of dialogue about him but it helps us understand this idea of home but also the other characters as well.

Now a check for understanding.

We want to look at Mai's son, make sure that our understanding of why Pinnock chose to include him, or referenced to him in the play.

We need to make sure that we're secure in that.

Pinnock of course did not have to include the idea that Mai had a son.

She did not need to do that, so the fact that she chose to, we need to really understand why she made that choice.

So Mai's son serves as a contrast to the other characters of the play.

Is this true or false? Pause the video and select your response, now.

Well done, if you selected false.

Now I'd like you to justify your answer.

Is it, a, Pinnock uses Mai's son to help us identify him with the other characters in the play? Or, b, Pinnock uses Mai's description of her son to help develop our understanding of the other characters? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done, if you selected b, Mai uses, sorry, Pinnock uses Mai's description of her son to help develop our understanding of the other characters.

And that could be a really nice topic sentence actually, if you were looking at the sort of minor characters in "Leave Taking", if that was an essay question or something you were interested in exploring, 'cause that will be a clear way in to be able to discuss what Pinnock has Mai say about her son, and then a way in to explore the other characters.

So I'd like you to reread this section from scene six.

This is what Mai says about her son.

"He, my son, used to tell me how he never feel even a little bit British.

He used to go on and on at me, in a cockney accent.

He would never rest, always dreaming about escape, turning it round and round in him mind.

But where the hell he going to escape to? If instead a going round like a madman, he could find some peace in himself, journey inside himself, everything would be all right.

You at peace with yourself, you at home anywhere." So there's really this extended bit of dialogue which we have thought about earlier in this learning cycle.

We're now rereading that section.

We're gonna mine it for its richness.

Now using the three prompts, I'd like you to annotate this section of the text to show how Pinnock explores ideas of home.

And these are the three prompts.

Consider how other characters do or don't feel British.

Consider how other characters dream of escape.

Consider character's attempts to find peace.

Now you've had such rich discussions about the inclusion, Pinnock's choice to include this reference to Mai's son, and I want you to bring all of those discussions to the level of annotation that you're going to make now.

So give yourself a lot of space so that you can write down all the ideas that you have and that means you can return to them, when you want to think about to consider "Leave Taking" some more.

So pause the video and using the three prompts, annotate this section of the text to show how Pinnock explores ideas of home.

Pause the video now.

Some beautiful annotations there, people really using this moment in order to think about the idea of home.

So really complex but important idea for Pinnock, but also to explore the play.

Scenes one, two, three, four, five, and six.

So really using this as a jumping off point in order to develop their understanding.

Here's some ideas you might have had and you can use these now to bolster your annotations if you wish.

So consider how other characters do or don't feel British.

Well Mai says of her son, "He never feel even a little bit British.

He used to go on and on at me, in a cockney accent." So Enid and Brod migrated to England and both feel a deep sense of their own British citizenship despite being born in Jamaica.

For Brod, this feeling has been destroyed by the British government.

And when Enid's mother dies, her longing for Jamaica, her sense of it as home increases.

So this idea of Mai's son not feeling even a little bit British is also explored in the idea of Enid and Brod where their idea, their sense of their Britishness is destabilised, for Brod because of the Home Office, and for Enid because of her mother's death.

But Del and Viv also help us understand this idea.

They were both born in London, but the racial discrimination Del felt at work and Viv's lack of identification with the education system shows that 1980s Britain is still hostile to the idea that children of migrants are British.

So Mai's son, no wonder he felt this sense of dislocation.

It's because Britain is hostile to the idea that children of migrants are British.

And we see that Del and Viv are both experiencing this hostility, this discrimination, Viv in her education, and Del in her workplace.

Consider how other characters dream of escape.

So Mai says of her son, "He would never rest, always dreaming about escape, turning it round and round in him mind.

But where the hell are he going to escape to?" In scene two Brod says he dreams about Jamaica, it was really nice to see people hearing that echo of that verb and linking it back to Brod.

So Brod dreams about Jamaica, but he can't respond when Enid asks why he doesn't then return.

Like Mai's son, Brod is restless, but he doesn't really know how to escape this feeling.

So Brod talks about the beauty of the Jamaican landscape, but he can't respond when Enid says, "Why? Why don't you go back there?" So again, the idea of leaving Britain, of leaving your place of home is there, the idea of escape is there, but not quite sure where you want to escape to.

So this feeling of dislocation continues.

Like Mai's son, Del and Viv are are both restless.

So Del doesn't seem to know what she wants other than to escape from the family home.

And Viv is uncertain if university really is an escape.

So this idea of dream and escape become really important to all the characters and Mai kind of articulating through her son the uncertainty of what it means.

"What are we escaping to?" "Is what we're escaping to better than what we currently have?" Consider characters' attempts to find peace.

Mai says, "You at peace with yourself, you at home anywhere." So you're at peace with your own identity and you will always feel at home, you'll feel settled.

Well Mai is expressing the idea that home is not a physical place and we discuss this earlier in the lesson, but rather feeling of identity within yourself.

And here we see this keywords that we've been looking at throughout home and identity tied together with Mai saying, "You at peace with yourself, you at home anywhere." Viv, Del, Enid, and Brod are all struggling with ideas of identity and knowing who they are.

And thus the idea of home is elusive.

They can't capture it, they can't feel it because they don't feel secure in their identity in who they are.

Really lovely exploration there of this really significant quote, this really significant moment where Mai through exploring her son, helps us to understand why the characters are feeling restless, why there is some inner conflict and external conflict for particular characters.

And this really beautiful phrase of Mai's "You at peace with yourself, you at home anywhere," showing how Pinnock ties the idea of home and identity together.

And that if you're not feeling secure in your identity, then you cannot feel at peace, you cannot feel at home.

In summary, Enid comes to visit Mai.

Enid has not seen Del for weeks and is very worried about her.

Enid expresses how she feels about Del and her mother through a howl of pain.

Mai believes many Jamaicans feel a sense of dislocation owing to the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

Mai describes home as a feeling of peace with yourself.

It has been such a pleasure to explore the complexity of this idea of home through the reading of scene six with you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.