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Viv Matthews in Leave Taking — character analysis

Leave Taking · Winsome Pinnock · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Modern texts option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. The clever daughter who cannot find herself in her books

Viv is Enid's younger daughter, studious and successful, the one on course for university. She is the peacemaker in the early scenes, trying to stop Del mocking Mai and to calm the quarrels at home. She is anxious about failing her exams, because so much of her mother's hope rests on them. Encouraged by Brod, who asks her what she knows of Jamaican history, she wants to go to Jamaica to understand who she is, rather than go straight to university; Enid opposes the idea and blames Brod. When her grandmother dies, Viv is the one who finds her mother drinking alone and hears her story, and Enid gives her the savings for university. But Viv is losing faith in an education in which she never finds anyone like herself. She skips an English exam and offers the university money to Del, who throws her out and insists she finish. Later Enid throws her out of the flat too. By the end Viv is going to university to study Black Studies.

Build your reading of Viv Matthews in Leave Taking, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this study carries all three.

How Viv Matthews develops

The peacemaker

In Scene One Viv tries to keep the peace between her mother and her sister at Mai's, and in Scene Two she is studying while Enid prepares for the pastor. She is the daughter Enid can be proud of, and the one who listens when Brod talks about Jamaica.

Key moment. Viv, at her books while Enid prepares for the pastor, being asked by Brod what she knows of Nanny of the Maroons (Scene Two). The question exposes a gap in Viv's schooling: she knows English literature and little of Jamaican history. Brod's challenge starts her search for a history of her own.

She feels the pressure. Viv worries aloud about what would happen if she failed her exams, because she knows what her success means to her mother.

Searching for herself

Key moment. Viv telling Enid that she wants to go to Jamaica before university, and Enid blaming Brod for the idea (Scene Three). Viv's wish is a wish for roots; Enid hears it as a threat to everything she has saved for. The quarrel is about what education is for.

Across Scenes Four and Five Viv says what is wrong: however hard she searches for herself in the books she studies, she is never there, and she and her teachers seem not to speak the same language. She is successful in a system that does not see her.

Key moment. Viv offering Del the university money and admitting she has skipped an English exam (Scene Five). The good daughter rebels at last, against the education she has been so good at. Her gift of the money shows love for Del and a loss of faith in the future the money was for.

Black Studies

After Del throws her out to sit her exams, Viv is also thrown out of the flat by Enid. She is offstage for the rest of the play, but in the last scene Enid reports her news: Viv is going to university to study Black Studies.

Key moment. Enid telling Del, during the final reading, that Viv is going to university to study Black Studies (Scene Eight). Viv's ending reconciles the two things she was torn between. She will have the education her mother worked for, and it will be about people like her.

How Pinnock builds Viv on stage

Viv is first seen at her books, and her speech is careful and educated, the speech of a successful pupil.

Pinnock makes her the listener in Scene Four, so the audience hears Enid's past through her ears.

Her rebellion is quiet and offstage: a skipped exam, reported in Scene Five, and a future reported in Scene Eight.

Viv in context

She shows the pressure on the children of migrants to succeed in education for their parents' sake.

Her complaint that she never finds herself in her books reflects a school curriculum that left out Black British lives.

Relationships

  • Enid — The mother whose hopes she carries and resists.
  • Del — The sister she tries to protect, and who protects her in return.
  • Brod — The family friend who teaches her about Jamaica.
  • Mai — The obeah woman she first meets with curiosity rather than scorn.

What Viv Matthews stands for

  • Her books: an English education that gives her success and no reflection of herself.
  • The university money: Enid's hope, nearly given away.
  • Black Studies: a future in which education and identity meet.

Why Pinnock made Viv Matthews

  • To criticise an education that leaves Black British pupils out of what they study.
  • To show the pressure on the children of migrants to succeed for their parents.
  • To show identity as something searched for, not simply inherited.

Readings you could defend

More than one reading of Viv Matthews can win the debate. These are the credible alternatives — argue one, and know the others.

  • A good daughter whose rebellion is a search for herself.
  • A mirror to Del: the one who succeeds in the system and still feels excluded by it.
  • A sign of hope: the generation that will study and tell its own history.

Essay arguments

  • Pinnock makes Viv's success the sharpest criticism of the education system: the best pupil is the one who cannot find herself in it.
  • Viv's journey moves from Brod's question about Nanny of the Maroons to Black Studies, so the play ends with the history she was missing.
  • Viv and Del swap roles in Scene Five, the rebel defending education and the scholar rejecting it.

Viv Matthews in theme essays

  • Education: the books without her, the skipped exam, Black Studies.
  • Identity: the wish to see Jamaica, Brod's history lesson.
  • Generations: the money from Enid and what Viv does with it.

Questions that get asked

  • How does Pinnock use the character of Viv to explore ideas about education?
  • How does Pinnock present the relationship between Viv and Del?

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of Viv Matthews in Leave Taking to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of Viv Matthews in Leave Taking against the writer in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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