Text: On the fictitious and independent island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, a quaint society takes pride in their historical ancestor, Nevin Nollop. His claim to fame? Inventing the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog", which is represented by a monument in the town square. One day a letter falls from the memorial statue, leading the island's ruling council to interpret this as a sign from Nollop that they should discontinue the use of that letter. At first this this seems easy enough to follow but as subsequent letters begin to tumble from the statue the council begins to exercise more and more power over the island's citizens.
Context: The debut novel of playwright Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea is a 2001 novel that combines the epistolary genre with dystopian themes and elaborate wordplay. Released in October, the novel reflects a gentler approach to the typically-harsh dystopian genre, as befitting a pre-9/11 American context. The novel itself is structured as a series of letters between characters, and through the use of this conceit the author is able to reflect the shrinking alphabet of Nollopian society as the island council bans more and more letters.
Suggested Class: I think this would work fantastically as a Year 11 Advanced English text. Its themes mean it could fit quite easily into the Narratives That Shape the World module. The use of pangrams (sentences that include every letter of the alphabet) and lipograms (restricted writing rules based on the removal of a letter) also mean it could be a fun text to explore in the Reading to Write module. In either case, the novel also works well as an introductory point to the dystopian ideas explored in the Year 12 text Nineteen Eighty-Four. Alternatively, the novel would also work well with a strong Year 10 English class.
Ideas:
- Explore the epistolary genre. What does this mean in terms of the writer and reader? What are the cons and pros of a writer using this genre to tell their story? Why would Mark Dunn choose this genre in particular for his story? How does the island-setting and fictitious context of Nollop lend itself to this genre to make the use of letters seem like a natural fit? Why can Ella Minnow Pea only function as a novel and not as a film, television series, or even a play?
- Explore the dystopian genre. What is a dystopia? How do writers use dystopias to explore ideas of freedom, control, thought, action, government, and citizenship? How does Ella Minnow Pea's use of the dystopian genre suggest certain things about the aforementioned ideas? Think of examples of dystopian fiction and the elements of each society therein that have been tweaked... what would you change to create your own fictitious dystopian society?
- Word games. As you read the text as a class, ask students to write summaries of each section using the rules of the book at each point. For example, after one letter disappears, students may not use this letter in their summary. Ask students to also experiment with lipograms, pangrams, and other constrained writing games:
- Reverse-lipograms, where every word must contain a certain letter or letters.
- Poetry that uses only one vowel.
- Aleotoric text: creating a piece of writing using elements selected by chance (EG. Ruling dice to determine what letters can't be used, pulling certain words out of a hat that must act as the theme of a piece of writing, etc.)
- Map: Map the town and its characters. This might seem rather basic but I think the complex rules of Dunn's text would require some visuals (showing who's who and where they're situated in relation to each other) in order to help students keep up.
