English 10 Novel Project

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English 10 Novel Project

• Choice 7
• Powerpoint Presentation
• On
• The Painted Bird
• Rob Lockhart
• 11-2-01

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Academic Expectations and Core Content

• 1.2 Students make sense of the variety of the
  materials they read.
• 1.11 Students write using appropriate forms,
  conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and
  information to different audiences for different
  purposes.
• 1.16 Student use computers and other kinds of
  technology to collect, organize, and communicate
  information and ideas.
• 5.2 Students use creative thinking skills to
  develop or invent novel, constructive ideas or
  products.
• Core content RD-H-1.0.10 RD-H-1.0.11
  RD-H-1.0.14

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The Painted Bird

• by
• Jerzy Kosinski

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Written in 1965, The Painted Bird rocked the
postwar literary worldwith its graphic and
horrific portrayal of a small boys experiences
during the World War II Nazi occupation of
central Europe.
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Table of Contents

• Novel Summary
• Selected Biography of Author
• List of Fiction Works
• Critical Commentary
• A list of Sources

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Expecting the dangers of Nazi invasion, parents
send their six year old son away from the city
and into the countryside to protect him from
forced labor in Germany, or worse, being sent to
the concentration camps.

• Although this action was intended to protect the
  boy, he is actually in great danger and
  experiences unspeakable horrors.
• Because of his dark complexion and foreign
  dialect, the boy is treated as an outsider by
  everyone he meets.
• Despite his parents middle class status in the
  city, the boy is thrust into a servile position.

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At six years old, the boys formative years were
defined by a worldly educational experience that
destroyed his innocence, a destruction
symbolized, at the end of the novel, by the loss
of his voice.

• The boy went from abusive home to abusive home,
  at each place witnessing such atrocities as
  murder, rape, animal abuse, etc.
• In addition, the boy himself is the recipient of
  physical beatings and psychological torture at
  every turn, the boy must narrowly escape death by
  resorting to an almost animal instinct

8
The title of the novel comes from a specific
episode in the novel, one of the stops the boy
makes on his precarious journey.

• The boys caretaker is a man named Lekh, who
  sold birds in neighboring villages
• When Lekh became upset, usually in his
  relationship with a particular woman, he would
  take out his frustrations on his birds
• Lekh would capture a bird, paint its wings and
  feathers, then allow the bird to return to its
  flock
• The bird, now an outsider or different because
  of the paint, is then viciously attacked and
  killed by the other birds

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In the end, the boy is rescued from his terrible
circumstance by Russian soldiers who drive the
Nazi occupation out and liberates eastern Europe.

• After witnessing a brutal murder, the boy loses
  his ability to speak, metaphorically representing
  his loss of voice situation he is a child who
  has no power within the context of abuse and
  servitude
• His painted bird lifestyle destroys any moral
  sensibility he might have acquired under a
  peaceful or normal upbringing
• He is reunited with his parents nevertheless, he
  cannot negotiate the peace and comfort his
  parents attempt to return in his life, and he
  turns to a life on the streets.

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"At all times a man risked falling into the
snares of those who hated and wanted to persecute
him, or into the arms of those who loved and
wished to protect him." Jerzy Kosinski, The
Painted Bird, p. 226
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Jerzy Kosinski - Biography
Although he denied the biographical nature of the
novel, Kosinskis early life was strikingly
similar to the boys life in The Painted Bird .
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Jerzy Kosinski - Biography

• 1933 - Jerzy Nikodem Kosinski born June 18, Lodz,
  Poland to Micezyslaw and Elzbieta (Liniecka)
  Kosinski
• 1939-1945 - Assumed dead and forced to wander
  throughout the villages of Eastern Poland in
  flight from the Nazis
• 1942 - Suffers speech loss in traumatic accident
• 1945 - Located by parents in Lodz orphanage.

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Jerzy Kosinski Biography

• 1948 - Hospitalized after skiing accident which
  shocks him into recovery of his speech.
• 1957 - Escapes to United States in December.
• 1965 - Publishes The Painted Bird and "Notes on
  the Author of The Painted Bird." Granted U.S.
  citizenship.
• 1971 - Mother dies in Poland

14
Jerzy Kosinski Biography

• 1979 - Publishes Passion Play. Film version of
  Being There, starring Peter Sellers and Shirley
  MacLaine released
• 1991 - Commits suicide after a long illness that
  prevents him from writing

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Jerzy Kosinski - Novels

• The Painted Bird (1965)
• Steps (1968)
• Being There (1971)
• The Devil Tree (1973)
• Cockpit (1975)
• Blind Date (1977)
• Passion Play (1979)
• Pinball (1982)
• The Hermit of 69th Street (1988)

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Jerzy Kosinski - Novels

• The Painted Bird (1965)
• Steps (1968)
• Being There (1971)
• The Devil Tree (1973)
• Cockpit (1975)
• Blind Date (1977)
• Passion Play (1979)
• Pinball (1982)
• The Hermit of 69th Street (1988)

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Literary Significance

• Unlike previous war novels which deal with the
  glories or atrocities of a soldiers experiences
  in war, Kosinskis novel reveals the horrors of
  war for the innocent individuals associated
  simply through proximity
• In effect, the novel takes on a dual
  significance 1) it exposes the effects of war
  on the culture in which the war takes place, and
  2) it exposes the experience of otherness, of
  being an outsider in a culture that abhors
  difference

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Literary Significance

• Kosinski chose a child for the protagonist, which
  heightens the readers sense of empathy while
  the formative years of childhood should be
  constructive, the boys early years are spent in
  violent, abusive, and destructive learning
  experiences
• I hoped the confrontation between the
  defenseless individual and overpowering society,
  between the child and war, would represent the
  essential anti-human condition. -- Jerzy
  Kosinski, afterword to The Painted Bird, xii

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Literary Significance

• This anti-human aspect, the explication of the
  role of otherness in culture, has led many to
  argue that The Painted Bird is a prototypical
  post-modern text, one that sheds light on the
  particular characteristics of post-modern life,
  one that hopes to expose the false nature of an
  evil, materialistic, and all-consuming culture.
• In a culture that espouses war as natural and
  appropriate response to constructed conditions,
  Kosinskis novel reveals the anti-natural aspects
  of war. Yet war is simply a metaphor for a much
  greater conflict between competing factions
  needing acceptance.

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Literary Significance

• It is quite natural, then, that the villagers in
  The Painted Bird, people who have been treated
  violently, in turn treat others with similar
  violence.
• The product of a violent world is violence the
  product of not accepting the other is the
  cyclic rejection of difference, which naturally
  leads to violence.

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Literary Significance

• The novel initially received mixed reviews,
  ironically according to the reviewers political
  stance. Most significantly, the novel was widely
  accepted in the United States while receiving
  harsh criticism in Kosinskis former homeland,
  harsh criticism that led to censorship across the
  soviet bloc world.
• Nevertheless, Kosinskis The Painted Bird remains
  as one of the classic anti-war novels, and opened
  the door for his future novels, all depicting
  various aspects of the human condition,
  individuals in relation to various cultural
  conditions.

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(No Transcript)
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A List of Sources

• Historical Analysis of Jerzy Kosinksis The
  Painted Bird http//users.ntplx.net/pfarris/essa
  ys/history/painted.txt Oct. 26, 2001
• Jerzy Kosinski http//jerzykosinski.virtualave.n
  et/ Oct. 26, 2001
• Jerzy Kosinski (1933-91). American Literature on
  the Web. http//www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/
  amlit/k/kosinski21.htm Oct. 26, 2001
• Kosinski, Jerzy. The Painted Bird. Grove Press,
  1995.
• Linn, Ray. A Teachers Introduction to
  Post-modernism. NCTE, 1996.
• Resources for Jerzy Kosinski http//www.collabor
  atory.nunet.net/goals2000/eddy/Kosinski/Resources.
  html Oct 26, 2001