Introductory activities

The text that this unit is based on is: The Man Who Loved Children, Stead, C. The Miegunyah Press, Victoria, 2010.

Background reading

As background, students can read this article about The Man Who Loved Children focusing on the complex nature of its autobiographical elements, containing details about Stead’s life and discussing her intentions when writing the novel.

After reading the article, students can consider:

  • Do we need to know about Christina Stead’s life before reading the novel?
  • What are some of the perspectives on the novel shared in the article?

Students may also watch the beginning of the Wheeler Centre’s Lecture about the novel. There is a brief introduction by the host, and the lecture starts at 06:40.

  • What facts about Christina Stead does the host mention? List some of them. Come back to these short autobiographical details later, as they pertain to the content of the novel.

 

Outline of key elements of the text

The Man Who Loved Children (1940) explores the dynamics of the Pollit family, largely through the perspective of the adolescent Louisa Pollit as she comes of age. The unhappy marriage between Sam and his second wife Henny is a key thematic concern of the novel, which observes and comments on the family’s challenges in a series of episodic chapters that chronicle the decline and unhappiness experienced by the Pollits. Sam’s eccentricities and his attempts to control his six children are viewed through Louisa’s critical eye, and the novel is alternately humorous and tragic in its tone. Largely ignored for years after its publication, The Man Who Loved Children was rediscovered through efforts to revive and popularise classic texts by Australian authors in the 1960s. A semi-autobiographical work based on Stead’s childhood in Sydney, the setting of the novel was changed to America at the request of its original publisher. The Man Who Loved Children can be read as a psychological domestic drama, a melodrama, a bildungsroman, a work of realism or as a satirical comment on politics in 1930s America.

Personal response

The class can consider this question by making a mind map: What do we believe makes ‘a happy family’?

Students list all the factors they associate with happiness within families. After sharing and discussion, they consider the following questions:

  • In what way/s has the image of family changed in the twenty-first century?
  • Is a ‘nuclear family’ more likely to be a happy family?

The class may wish to write short responses on whether they agree or disagree with the second question.
(ACELR053)   (ACELR054)   (ACELR056)   (ACELR058)

The family in the novel

The Man Who Loved Children is about the Pollit family, consisting of a husband and wife, their children, and the husband’s daughter from a previous marriage. It explores their increasingly unhappy family life and spirals towards a traumatic and dramatic conclusion.

Students are to take on the role of a concerned outsider looking in at the Pollit family:

This novel concerns a marriage between two flawed individuals. Henny, the wife, doesn’t manage the household budget and is quite depressed and isolated – often retreating to her bedroom to play solitaire and get away from her family. She lives in a fantasy world and is keen to meet other men for dinner, as she enjoys being spoiled and being the focus of attention. Sam, the husband, is dominating and a bully towards his children, often forcing them to do things against their will and becoming angry whenever they disagree with him or think independently. At the beginning of the novel, the couple have five younger children and are bringing up the daughter from Sam’s first marriage. They appear to have little in common and come from different social backgrounds. One of the sons is so worried about money that he hoards away pocket money. The eldest child empathises more with her stepmother than her father, whom she detests. Whenever the child, Louisa, has any ideas of her own, her father tends to insult and humiliate her. He continually asserts his own point of view, and generally holds unusual and highly individualistic opinions.

  • What are some of the problems identifiable from this brief synopsis of the Pollit family’s situation?
  • Can students think of anything that would help them to improve their family life?

Reflecting on their beliefs about families, students can identify some of the issues that affect the Pollit family.
(ACELR053)   (ACELR054)

Responding as a reader

Stead uses characterisation in a complex manner. The Pollit family can either be perceived as:

  • A realistic and semi-autobiographical reflection of individuals in Stead’s family
  • Constructs that illustrate different aspects of human nature
  • Characters presented to us in a satirical light, and who represent aspects of Australian and American culture. (For example, Louisa’s exaggerated despair can be understood as a melodramatic depiction of the self-centred struggles of adolescence, whereas Henny’s dysfunctional marriage may critique aspects of social stratification and portray the indulgence of the wealthier classes in America.)

In pairs, students go back and read the summary from the last activity. Then explore the Pollits from a different perspective – that of a critical reader.

Consider:

  • What vision of society does the Pollit family reflect? What could their issues tell us about the world around them, and about the aspects of that world that Stead is interested in exploring throughout the novel?
  • What sources of conflict and issues are contained within the passage? How do you anticipate these issues will influence the direction of the plot throughout the novel?

Read pp. 3–5 of the novel, which introduces us to Henny.

  • What does Henny’s attitude towards her children indicate about her life?
  • How does Stead create a sense of the prevailing mood of decay in these pages?

(ACELR054)   (ACELR058)

 

Synthesising task

Louisa Pollit: an autobiographical protagonist?

Consider some potential similarities between Louisa and Christina Stead. Through researching Stead’s life, fill in the following table with information that compares her life to Louisa’s:

Louisa Pollit Christina Stead
The only child of a first marriage, reared with several younger half-siblings

Desperate to escape an eccentric and dominating father

Creative, lonely and artistic as a child

Feels like an outcast trapped as a witness to an unhappy marriage

(ACELR057)   (ACELR058)   (ACELR069)