Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

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

We're in the unit, the Modern Text: First Study, and our Modern Text is 'Leave Taking.

' Today we're gonna read Scene Three and we're gonna focus particularly on the character of Enid.

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.

By the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to explain what happens in Scene Three of 'Leave Taking.

' We're also gonna have a particular focus on the character of Enid and think about what Pinnock says about this character and whether we can see these ideas being developed in Scene Three.

There are some key words which are going to unlock our learning for today and they are Pastor, which means a religious leader of a Christian Church.

Stage directions, which are instructions written in a play script, often in italics, which explains something about the staging or how an actor should deliver a line.

Talking in tongues.

This is when you speak in an unknown language during a religious service, and it's considered communication from God.

And predicament, which is a synonym for problem or difficulty.

These words are going to be referenced throughout today's lesson, and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

Our lesson outline for today: We're gonna start off by reading Scene Three, and then we're going to look at the character of Enid who Pinnock describes as "caught between two worlds." Let's start off with reading Scene Three.

In scene two of 'Leave Taking,' Enid cleans her house in preparation for a visit from the local Pastor.

The stage directions say Brod picks up Enid's list and reads, and then Brod says, 'Clean carpet.

Wine glasses, set oven for chicken.

Make sure Brod have tie.

' Boy, we really turn English now.

I'd like you to discuss what might Enid's preparation tell us about her character.

So looking at this section from Scene Two, when she's preparing for the Pastor to come to her house, what does her preparation tell us about her character? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Lovely discussions looking back at Scene Two before we start reading Scene Three and exploring Enid's character, what can we infer? What can we think about her character given this moment from scene two? Well, Enid seems to feel maybe a bit nervous and that everything needs to be perfect for the Pastor's visit.

She's clearly very house proud, but her behaviour might also reflect her desire to fit in and stick to the rules in England.

That's why Brod says, 'Boy, we really turn English now,' because Brod interprets her list as a desire to adopt traditional British behaviours.

So Enid, who has always said that she wants to stick to the rules and make sure that she can establish a life in Britain, even if that means suppressing some of her Caribbean or Jamaican heritage.

That is how Brod is interpreting this moment as she prepares for the Pastor to come to her house.

Now, Scene Three begins after the Pastor has left, we never actually see him on stage.

Instead, we hear Brod's analysis of him.

He says, "I just don't understand the church business these days.

The spirit gone outta it.

Him and his wife just want an easy life, discuss Bible over tea in a china cup.

In my day, it was about throwing yourself right on the edge of life.

It was jumping and shouting and feeling the damn thing, feeling the spirit flame up inside you." I'd like you to discuss how does Brod's language reveal his disappointment with the church? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Beautiful exploration of Brod's language there in Scene Three and his analysis of the Pastor and his disappointment in the church.

So lots of you focused initially on this image of tea in a delicate china cup, so china can be broken very easily.

It's very fragile and it seems to contrast with the excitement of jumping and shouting and feeling developed with the idea of a flame coursing through your body.

And it was really nice to hear people thinking about the connotations of this idea of a flame.

So according to Brod, religion should bring light, heat, energy, and perhaps even an element of danger.

So really looking at what that word flame and what it might mean to Brod and what it means for what he expects from a religious experience.

A check for understanding.

Why is Brod disappointed by the current examples of organised religion that he sees? Is it A.

He has never had a deep spiritual experience, so can't understand why Enid is drawn to it.

B.

He doesn't like the idea of tea in a china cup, it's too stereotypically English.

Or C.

It seems to lack energy and passion.

Pause a video and select your response now.

Well done.

If you selected C.

It seems to lack energy and passion.

I'd like you to read Scene Three of 'Leave Taking,' and as you read, pause and discuss these five questions.

One.

How does Enid respond when Brod asks, "Why are you so bothered about what these people think?" And what does this response reveal about Enid? Two.

Enid and Brod share memories of church service in Jamaica.

How is it described? Three.

What happens when Brod puts a record on? Four.

Enid and Brod describe common beliefs of Jamaicans with family members in Britain.

How are these common beliefs different from from the reality of Enid and Brod's lives in Britain? And finally, five, what happens to Mooma, Enid's mother? Pause the video.

Read Scene Three and as you're reading, discuss these five questions.

Pause the video now.

Fantastic reading of Scene Three and really good discussion of these five questions which are helping us understand particularly the character of Enid much more.

Here's some ideas that you might have had.

So one, how does Enid respond when Brod asks "Why you so bothered about what these people think?" What does this response reveal about Enid? Enid says, "Where would I bring my problems if I didn't have the church? Who'd listen to me apart from God?" And this perhaps reveals how lonely Enid feels and how isolated.

Two, Enid and Brod share memories of a church service in Jamaica.

How is it described? Brod says, "Back home the church was hot." and remembers a service when there was a hurricane, but Pastor Chully Johnson managed to get all his parishioners to stand firm in the face of it.

Brod says, "Chully call down a spirit more powerful than any hurricane." Enid calls the service sweet and remembers how they all began talking in tongues.

So Brod seems to be remembering this service in contrast to the visit from the Pastor that Enid and Brod have just experienced, an experience that Brod certainly feels very disappointed by.

Three.

What happens when Brod puts a record on? When Brod puts the record on, he and Enid begin to dance.

Pinnock writes in the stage directions: "dancing together at first, then separately in their own worlds." And I think this is such a powerful moment in the play.

And obviously reading it, understanding it from the stage directions, incredibly important.

But seeing it on stage would really bring this moment alive.

And I think it's such a beautiful moment where it exposes Enid and Brod's relationship together.

So he puts on this record, he knows that Enid will want to dance and they are dancing together at first, showing that relationship between them, but then separately in their own worlds.

And it seems to express their feelings, their raw emotions as characters, more so than than dialogue can at points.

And I think seeing this on stage and seeing how different directors or actors interpret this would be incredibly powerful, particularly in Scene Three.

So we've had Scene One and Two, the characters have been established.

Some of the most important themes have been established, and now we can start to develop and understand these characters even more.

So I think it's a really beautiful moment in the play and one that I would really love to see on stage in a range of different ways to see what resonances different actors and directors could bring to it.

Enid and Brod describe common beliefs of Jamaicans with family members in Britain.

How are these common beliefs different from the reality of Enid and Brod's lives in Britain? Brod says, "People back home think Caledonian Road," which is a road in London, "paved with gold." This echoes Enid in Scene One.

When she tells Mai, "She, my sister, must think I'm living like a millionaire." The expectations of the life Jamaicans could have in Britain was very different to the reality.

Not only 'cause Britain was poorer and more hostile than migrants had expected when they relocated post World War II.

So both these ideas, the idea that Britain was poorer than had been expected, but also that the hostility, which meant that housing, jobs and attitudes were more difficult and made life in Britain more difficult than migrants had expected.

What happens to Mooma Enid's mother? Enid's mother dies, and this is reported via a phone call from her sister.

So a very sad, sombre end to Scene Three and maybe serving as a bit of a contrast to the memories that Brod and Enid seem to share about Jamaica and that moment when they seem to dance together, then we get this moment where Enid is completely devastated, completely crushed by the reporting of her mother's death.

Well done for reading Scene Three so beautifully, and exploring the ideas and the characters in this scene in much more detail, beginning to understand how they are developing over the course of this play.

We're gonna move on to our second learning cycle now.

We're gonna think about Enid "caught between two worlds." So in her introduction to 'Leave Taking,' Pinnock describes Enid's predicament, predicament meaning, problem or difficulty, one of our key words from this lesson.

And Pinnock writes, "She is caught between two worlds, reaching out for life in a new country, haunted by memories of what she has left behind." I'd like you to discuss, consider just Scene Three, how does Pinnock develop the idea that Enid is "caught between two worlds?" Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Beautiful discussion there, tying together your understanding of Scene Three in the character of Enid with Pinnock's own interpretation and words about this character.

You might have, if she really carefully prepares to meet the Pastor in London.

But at the same time, she fondly remembers the livelier church services in Jamaica.

She wants her daughters to have a stable life in the UK, but this means she can't be with her mother when she dies.

So she's reaching out for life in new country with her daughters, but she has left behind her mother, and now her mother has passed away.

She resists Viv's ideas of going to Jamaica saying, "You don't know what it's like out there," and "You wouldn't survive out there." So Viv, in this scene, says that she's very interested in going to Jamaica, and Enid really, really resists this idea.

She's not interested in taking Viv there or exposing her to her life there.

And so again, this shows that she's reaching out for life in a new country, and she's really determined that Viv is going to go to university in Britain, but she is still suppressing the memories of what is there and trying not to think about it.

And here it manifests as not wanting her daughter, Viv, to be interested in Jamaica.

And Enid remembers talking in tongues in Jamaica, but tells Brod to be quiet in case the neighbours hear them.

And lots of people notice this very small moment in the play, which it would be easy to skip over, but actually it does reveal something about Enid because exploring this idea of talking in tongues, this communication with God, this religious communication with God, is obviously important to Enid.

She remembers the church service as sweet, but she does tell Brod be quiet because she doesn't want the neighbours to hear her talking in tongues.

And we know that Enid cares very much about what other people, particularly people born in Britain might think of her.

And so this small moment is quite revealing, particularly when it's contrasted to Brod's exploration of talking in tongues and his desire to remember that moment really clearly and evocatively.

A check for understanding.

Why might Pinnock describe Enid as "caught between two worlds?" A.

She's trapped in Britain and wants to return to Jamaica.

B.

She's trying to establish a life in Britain, but her past is still very much in her present.

C.

Her attempts to talk about Jamaica with Brod and her daughters are shut down.

Pause a video and select a response now.

Well done if you selected B.

She's trying to establish a life in Britain, but her past is still very much in her present.

Now I'd like you to reread this section from Scene Three.

Enid says to Brod, "You see what nonsense you put in the girl head?" And to Viv, "What about university." And to the phone, "Yes, I'm still here." So we can see that Enid is talking to Brod here.

She's angry with him for talking to Viv about the idea of going to Jamaica.

She's determined that Viv is going to go to university and that should be her next step.

But she is also on the phone because she's talking to her sister about her mother.

And Viv says, "Loads of people take a year off.

I can go next year." Enid says, "You don't know what it like out there.

You don't understand what poverty do to people.

The last time I went out there, they begged me for this, begged me for that, go through my suitcase when I outta the house, steal my clothes.

They think we have so much, they don't imagine how we live over here." So this is Enid having a tussle with Viv about the idea that Viv would spend a year, before she goes to university, visiting Jamaica.

Now using three prompts, I'd like you to annotate this section of the text to show how Pinnock explores the idea that Enid is "caught between two worlds." And here are the prompts: I'd like you to consider the stage directions, they're minimal, but incredibly important to understanding how Enid is "caught between two worlds." I'd like you to consider Enid's response to Viv's idea, and I'd like you to consider the perception of England versus the reality of Enid's life.

So pause the video and using these three prompts, annotate this section of Scene Three to show how Pinnock explores the idea that Enid is "caught between two worlds." Pause the video and complete the task now.

Beautiful to see people rereading a section of the text and bringing all of their ideas to their annotations.

Rereading is such an important part of the study of English literature.

Every time I reread 'Leave Taking,' small sections of the whole text, I see more and more, it becomes richer and richer.

I start to understand yet more of the complexity and the structure of Pinnock's work.

So I really encourage you to continue your rereading and really enjoy that as the text will yield yet more riches to you.

Here are some ideas you might have had in your annotations.

So we'll consider the stage directions first, which seem really minimal in a way, to Brod, to Viv, to phone.

But actually Enid is holding two conversations, with her London born daughter and Jamaican born sister, and she's trying to manage both at once and neither seem to understand her own life.

So I think even though they're really, really short, Pinnock putting those in really establishes that Enid is "caught between two worlds." Enid's response to Viv's ideas.

She's saying "you don't know what it like out there" when Viv is saying, "loads of people take a year off and I can go next year." Well, Enid explicitly states, "you don't know what it like out there," showing a gulf between parent and child experiences with Enid as the unwilling bridge between two worlds.

So Viv really wants to go to Jamaica.

She only has experience of London, but Enid has experience of both countries, both England and Jamaica, and she's an unwilling bridge here.

She doesn't want Viv to have experience of Jamaica.

She wants her to keep moving forward with her life in England.

So she's not happy about being caught between two worlds.

She's an unwilling bridge between these two worlds.

And finally, consider the perception of England versus the reality of Enid's life.

So Enid says, "You don't know what it like out there.

You don't understand what poverty do to people." And her family don't understand her life in England.

So not only does she have Viv who she says does not understand what Enid's life was like in Jamaica, but her own family do not understand what her life is like in England.

"They beg me for this, beg me for that.

Go through my suitcase.

They think we have so much, they don't imagine how we live over here." So she is not understood by her family in Jamaica, nor does she feel understood by her family in England.

But Enid also seems to be really aware how little she can truly help her family in Jamaica who do seem to need her help particularly economically, financially.

But she's aware that she can't really help them.

So again, she feels that difficulty, that predicament of being caught between Jamaica and England and not being able to support her family in Jamaica.

Well done for looking at that short section of Scene Three and really exploring how Pinnock, her very careful stage directions, her very careful dialogue, helps us understand these characters in much more depth, particularly the character of Enid at this point in the play.

In summary, a Pastor comes over to Enid's house for dinner.

Brod is critical of the sanitised version of the church he experiences in the UK.

Enid is not supportive of Viv's desire to visit Jamaica and delay her education.

Pinnock describes Enid's predicament as being "caught between two worlds." And Enid learns of the death of her mother.

I've so enjoyed working through this lesson with you and hearing all of your fantastic ideas.

I look forward to seeing you next time.