Using many elements of the detective story genre, Cue for Treason has dramatised the cost of maintaining the English throne in the life of one loyal boy, Peter Brownrigg. Depicting him as a typical lad who comes to London and gets caught up in the colourful activities at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Trease has created a memorable record of life for an individual in one of the greatest periods of English history. Successfully countering intrigue with integrity, Peter passionately short-circuits a royal assassination and saves the Tudor throne. Cue for Treason is the story of Peter's homecoming more than an aborted assassination. He returns home in disguise like Odysseus.
Discuss this theme. Refer to related themes as mentioned in Q. 13 e.g., Kit's expecting her inheritance (200) is very English and homely.
resourceful, alert, intelligent, loyal, free spirited, independent, fights injustice (fights Morton's confiscation of common lands, could defend his Queen from harm, threat or embarrassment).
Character serves technical purposes as PARTICIPANT
NARRATOR.
Central character is a true son of the earth, an Englishman through
and through no deceit, reliable and truthful, an honest narrator =
readers trust him.
We accept his boy's accounts of events whereas politicians, adults,
reporters have agendas to distort the facts
However his point of view does have its limitations too:
a first person's narration is not omniscient, not
universal or comprehensive of all facts necessarily limited to his
own perceptions (unless author interrupts to interpret)
Trease does this here and there to clarify, explain, emphasise, and
adds mystery to what Peter could not yet known or would not know as
an inexperienced boy. The author has benefit
of hindsight about history to know outcomes, priorities, causes,
etc.
Cue for Treason is a picaresque novel = a central character goes through an adventure of unconnected events. It serves several purposes:
suspense - an adventure story
intrigue (e.g., the world of Cromwell and Rich in More's times)
treason, sedition, spies, patriotism
nostalgia:
- serves to reteach history - persons, places and events
- dramatises OUR English history & heritage
- recreates a Golden Age of Elizabethan flowering
- celebrates our English language - sayings, proverbs, regional vocabulary and dialects.
Peter moves across a broad canvas of people, places and issues.
Is it constructed to demonstrate a lesson? Yes, to some extent: it is a morale booster for war-torn Britains and a demonstration of how even common people like civilians can serve their country. Fighting a war successfully deminds total loyalty from the whole country.
No, that is a genre like Crime and Punishment where there is little action and much pondering motivations, possibilities and guilt. All the action in Cue is not in Peter's head. It ia realistic portrayal of life-like events.
No, epics like The Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid are long poems about heroes but assume universal proprortions and status with time and fame. Cue for Treason while it is about heroism, loyalty and patriotism can hardly be rated an epic on these criteria. It may not even be rated a classic of spy literature either.
Does Trease offer a critique of Tudor society?
Does he offer a critique of 1940s English society under threat in war?
Can we readers today in 1999 use his novel to critique our Australian society?
Is he a conventional novelist like Dickens offering social (and even political) criticism?
Does Trease critique/parody/deride/make moral
judgements on characters, attitudes, social institutions?
Yes indeed.
Like a social scientist, a novelist is a close observer of detail,
looking for causes and social structures, and may infer even suggest
explanations for events.
Plums MOTIVATIONS
He dramatises the dullness and poverty of
travelling actors.
He celebrates family life as the best unit in society.
He celebrates the monarchy.
He brushes off the church as ritualistic & unrealistic, etc.
Many other examples.
Novelists do use coincidence to contrive events, truncate time sequences, cover small impossibilities and get on with the plot. It is all a matter of rating their use of it. Peter's finding food and escaping capture in the coffin are not too unlikely.
©G. Smith 1998
|
Trease as |
Concern |
Theme |
Tool, device used |
|
writer |
social |
nostalgia, integrity |
love England |
|
citizen, patriot |
political |
patriotism, heroism |
Peter as role model |
|
critic |
personal |
courage, resourcefulness |
lift morale |