'Weekend' is a short story by the author Fay Weldon, and published by Penguin in 'Modern British Short Stories'. It originally appeared in 'Cosmopolitan' magazine in 1978. This version of the BritLit kit was significantly revised in 2009.
About this BritLit Kit
'Weekend' concerns a middle class family from London with three children spending a weekend in their country cottage. Although the story deals with one particular weekend, in many ways it could be any weekend - what we are shown is a glimpse into the ordinary, the habitual, the norm; it appears that the family spend virtually every weekend at the cottage. The story examines the relationship between husband and wife Martin and Martha, and between Martha and Martin's friends as well as taking a tongue-in-cheek glance at what 'properly brought up' children are expected to be involved in.
The themes that can be drawn from this 5,000 word story include 'the Family', 'Personal relations' and aspects of sexism or sexist behaviour. Please note, the story is concerned with adult themes and may not be suitable for younger children.
This kit has been rewritten from the original 2003 version, which was much longer. This editing process has been the result of a continuing trend for shorter kits. Most of the original material which has been excluded from this version is available in the ‘Supplementary Materials' file.
The materials in this BritLit Kit are available to download in the Attachments box below. To download pdf files and audio, right click on the file and save to your computer.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Weekend Audio (mp3) | 8.56 MB |
| weekend_text.pdf | 69.73 KB |
| weekend_activities.pdf | 443.37 KB |
| weekend_activities_key.pdf | 39.68 KB |
| weekend_supplementary.pdf | 1.22 MB |
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Comments
A wonderful project. A special thank you for the amazing author's reading. And one more thank you for being with me at this loong weekend
In our "mature adults" class, the supplementary materials were extremely helpful! Thank you MUCH from southern California!
and from the North of Voronezh!