Advise me English literature about noble girl's youth. Like Estella in Great Expectations.
A Little Princess and The Secret Garden
>>8249832
thx, is there anything else? in particular, I want to know about the noble education system.
>>8249941
There wasn't much for girls. What you might like is Mary Wollstonecraft who outlined why upper class women should be educated (and not be allowed near the pleb women) in The Vindication of the Rights of Women.
Both of Hodgson Burnett's books are closer to what upper class women's education would consist of with occasional tutoring (Secret Garden) or a boarding school at home in England while their parents were abroad (A Little Princess).
If you want to know about the noble education in general, you could look up the trivium and quadrivium which were the standards through from the middle ages, and public schooling in EnglandPublic schools in England are not public
Do you want it to be solely female and solely in Dickens' time? There were a few public girls schools at that point but a lot of upper class women wouldn't be sent to them, since the standard of education for them was still tutors if they got any.
>>8249970
shit I saged this for some stupid reason, have a bump for more anons' help
>>8249970
>solely in Dickens' time?
no, It doesn't so much matter
>>8249987
There's a book by Josephine Kamm which goes from AngloSaxon England up to the 60s when it was published, called Hope Deferred, in that case.
idk, look up some books with governesses in them
>>8249941
Read that book about a governess from Anne Bronte.
>>8249970
>What you might like is Mary Wollstonecraft who outlined why upper class women should be educated (and not be allowed near the pleb women) in The Vindication of the Rights of Women.
I like it already! :-D
>>8249832
>A Little Princess
I find it sad that so many people don't get the character of Sara Crewe. Just a while ago, I find once again some feminist blog lambasting the series for being problematic.
And speaking of feminists, why is it that if I go search for articles about old novels with female leads, all I get are feminists blogs? Fuck me, I don't even know if I should argue with them.
Also, Burnett also wrote the novel White People, in which the protagonist is a legit Scottish high chieftain lady, living in a lonely castle in Scotland. Her education came from her servants who attended to her since she was little. She would have gotten a governess if not for the place being so dreary no one wanted to stay there for long. And she's smart enough to not need one anyway, since she devoured books like a hungry wolf just like Sara did.
And like a proper lady, she knows how to give "that look" when she seriously orders her servants.
>>8252318
>I don't even know if I should argue with them.
The more you hate something, the stronger it becomes.
>>8252342
Honestly, I'm just afraid after I've written a long ass rebuttal I would just get blocked instead of getting a reply.
Or even better, getting a reply then getting blocked, so I can't reply back.
>>8252318
>I find once again some feminist blog lambasting the series for being problematic.
fuck I see why /r9k/ REEEEEEs
Sara is so fucking perfect, how could it be problematic? Do they think girls are incapable of being kind? Fuck this whole gay earth.
>why is it that if I go search for articles about old novels with female leads, all I get are feminists blogs?
I don't know but if your search engine has a history that might weigh it towards those sites some.
I think it's also feminists latch on to anything slightly obscure as "not male dominated"/"reclaimable".
The other week I was looking for Praxilla of Sicyon because reasons, and the third hit in was a blog that dedicates their time to embroidering portraits of women they view as rebels from history.
Praxilla may have been bawdy but she wasn't a fucking rebel, it was pretty normal to find female poets, and nobody would have thought in ancient fucking Greece, "wow, a woman can do that".
They spelt Aristophanes' name wrong too, and used some translation which is called Sappho's Lyre for obvious retarded reasons while publishing her Adonis for even further retarded reasons (they called that one shit, they must be oppressing her).
It's like they're really afraid women weren't oppressed or think that a shitty embroidered portrait is a fitting tribute to the woman who use have busts all around the place.
Fuck I'm angry now, I'mma go try to channel Sara Crewe.
>>8252366
>Sara is so fucking perfect, how could it be problematic?
I think it's because her saying of not wanting to become like Becky and forgetting her "H" and how many wives Henry The Third had. And the whole Indian colonialism thing. Also she thought Ermengarde was stupid (which is true, but feminists who love equality won't stand for that)
Also, I won't call Sara "perfect". She has a certain harsh edge to her that makes her a really unique character among other child heroines (which, sadly, disappear in most adaptations like the Alfonso movie or the anime). She is the perfect example of how to write a wise child type of character (I have a hunch Matilda is kinda based off her).
You can also see bits of Sara in other Burnett heroines, like the Lass O' Lowrie.
>>8252366
>and the third hit in was a blog that dedicates their time to embroidering portraits of women they view as rebels from history
Oh hey, it's just like that one blog I found yesterday which is all about "strong female characters". God, that term is already a red light for me.
Let's look what it had to say about Sara.
>Does the character shape her own destiny? Does she actively try to change her situation and if not, why not?
>As such, Sara’s always on the back foot here – the most she can control is how she reacts to things, and she makes a point of doing this as much as possible. Determined to always behave like a kind and magnanimous princess, she never allows her changed circumstances to affect her behaviour. But she never really tries to change things. She tries to make herself feel better using her imagination, and trying to keep up her friendships, but she never thinks about how she can change what’s really causing her problems: her financial situation.
>Let’s compare this to other child characters. Matilda grew up a great reader in a house where books were pretty much banned – so she took herself off to the library at the age of four, developed superpowers and eventually manoeuvred herself into a much better family life. Scout Finch grew up in the Deep South, where she finds the gendered expectations stifling – but she doesn’t let that stop her from living her life the way she wants to. Coraline is put into a new living situation she doesn’t really like – and then has to fight a demonic nightmare-beast and rescue her own parents. These characters are all under the age of ten, but they’re still in control of their own stories.
>Sara, however, is not. She holds her head high and behaves properly, that’s true – but she doesn’t actually think about how she could make things better for herself. It must be said that she doesn’t have a lot of resources, but she’s not completely friendless. Her father has a solicitor who’s partially responsible for her care, but she never thinks of writing to him to let him know how she’s being mistreated. She doesn’t ask her friends to speak to their parents about taking her in, or ask a trusted adult – such as Miss Minchin’s sister, Amelia – to intervene on her behalf. She doesn’t even think about running away. She just calmly accepts that she’s a servant now, never makes life difficult for anyone and takes herself out of the way to have a good cry.
>
>Granted, it must be said that Sara doesn’t have a lot of options. The examples I gave above wouldn’t really work out: her father’s solicitor is more concerned with paying his own bills, the majority of her friends have very bad relationships with their parents, and as the novel is set in Victorian England, Sara would have been a lot safer staying as a servant than running off on her own. But she doesn’t even consider any of these options; she just automatically accepts that this is her life now. A lot of this is to do with Victorian perceptions of what a ‘good child’ was – mainly, that they were quiet, innocent, calm and obedient. However, I think it’s really unusual for a child as imaginative as Sara – she constantly imagines how her life could be different, but never once thinks about how she could make it different. She just accepts it, so calmly and quietly that it’s almost like she was expecting it. I’ll talk about this in more detail later on, but that makes her a pretty passive character in my book so I’m withholding the point.
>Does she develop over the course of the story?
>This doesn’t change Sara at all. She never once starts to feel resentful, or angry, or bitter. She never steals food, even though she’s starving, or clothes, even though her rags are literally almost falling to bits. And this is all when she’s still a very young child, and still forming her own view of the world, but she’s never once tempted to lash out when she’s angry, or steal something just to make her life a little easier. She doesn’t even become guarded, or find it difficult to trust people, or start hoarding things she might find useful – she continues being her normal, perfect self. It’s simply not realistic for her to be such a saint when she’s suffered so much, and so long. Even Oliver Twist – widely agreed to be one of the saintliest child characters in literature – has a moment when he’s tempted by the camaraderie of Fagin’s criminal gang, but Sara has nothing of the kind.
>For a character to go through so much upheaval in such a short amount of time – and to go through a protracted period of hardship at an already pivotal time in their lives – and not change as a result of that is just unrealistic. It’s not how human beings work. We’re all shaped by our experiences, but Sara’s experiences of loss, poverty and loneliness just seem to bounce off her. I’m withholding the point.
>Does she have a weakness?
>No. Sara is pretty much perfect in every way. She’s kind, forgiving, dignified – but not to the extent where she lets herself get walked all over when it counts. Even when she’s grieving she doesn’t inconvenience anyone – she’s calm and composed and only breaks down when she’s out of everyone else’s way, and even that she does quietly. She doesn’t develop any negative tendencies as a result of her experiences and is forgiving and gracious to everyone who tries to keep her down. As you can imagine, I get pretty fed up of that.
>Does she influence the plot without getting captured or killed?
>Sara doesn’t really influence the plot all that much – as most of it revolves around who’s going to provide for her, she could just lie in bed all day and the bare bones of the story would be pretty much the same. How she does influence things is by being kind, and pure, and gracious, and dignified. She doesn’t set out to change things, but other people see her being kind, pure, gracious, insert Disney Princess attribute here and dignified, are inspired by her and decide to help her out in some way. She influences other characters more than she influences events and actions, and that’s usually by setting them an example or just by being kind. This does influence her trajectory through the story somewhat, but not by much, and most of the time it isn’t intentional. I’ll give her half a point, but I can’t help but feel I’m being generous.
>How does she relate to stereotypes about gender?
>When it comes to gender stereotypes, Sara ticks several very problematic boxes, most of which stem directly from Victorian conceptions of childhood and morality. She’s the archetype of the good little girl – kind, innocent, forgiving and sweet. She’s an angelic child, despite the fact that her father spoiled her rotten and the poverty and deprivation she endured after his death. Sara tries to be good through all of this, but as I’ve already mentioned, she’s already pretty much perfect.
>Where this starts making me uncomfortable is when you examine the fact that it’s all tied up with class. Sara doesn’t just decide to be kind to everyone, she decides to act like a princess – it’s an understandable thing for a little girl to do, but it’s also a subtle link between good behaviour and the upper classes. This might seem like a little thing, but as the book goes on it really starts to escalate.
>When Sara’s father dies and she’s cast into poverty, Sara makes it a point of pride not to lose her sense of self and to always act like a princess. But Sara’s sense of self is tied up with her social position – what she most wants to hold onto are her impeccable manners and her soft-spoken, educated nature. When Sara is poor – and she’s very much at the bottom of the pecking order, not being able to afford new clothes, shoes or food – other characters constantly talk about how she doesn’t look poor. Her good behaviour and well-spoken nature are always remarked upon and the two are very closely linked. It’s not just that she sounds well-educated when she talks, but that her politeness, kindness and efforts to help other people are constantly taken as evidence of her ‘good breeding’. Equally, Sara’s calm and quietness after being told of the death of her father are presented as evidence of her innate dignity in the face of adversity.
>If you think about this, it actually has some really horrible implications. Sara has been orphaned at a very young age and cast into terrible poverty – something which would make any child of her age extremely distressed. But she’s being held to adult standards of behaviour, expected to keep a stiff upper lip and soldier on despite all she’s been through. All her systems of support have been taken from her and she literally has no-one else in the entire world to care for her, and yet Sara’s remarkably restrained grief is held up as the ideal. This poor child has lost everything, but after a few quiet moments when she cries in the attic, out of everyone’s way, her grief is pretty much glossed over.
>This is particularly important when you look at how other characters in the novel deal with grief and good behaviour. In one of the earliest scenes, Sara befriends a much younger girl called Lottie, who frequently cries over her dead parents. Lottie howls and wails and has frequent temper tantrums, and is branded a naughty child because of it. Sara, on the other hand, deals with her grief in a way that never inconveniences any of the adult characters. She is held up as the behavioural standard for young girls, rather than Lottie – both by characters within the novel and by the novel itself – and I find this incredibly disturbing. The way Sara and Lottie handle their grief makes it incredibly clear that a ‘good child’ was a convenient child, no matter what they were going through.
>The upshot of all this is that Sara’s innate ‘goodness’ as a character seems to stem from two things: her social class and her ability to repress inconvenient outbursts of emotion. The fact that either of these are taken as signs of good behaviour is, to my mind, pretty worrying. As a character, Sara is built upon a foundation of extremely unhealthy notions of what constitutes good behaviour for young girls – and as such, I just can’t give her the point.
>Sara is a consistent character with a range of goals, hobbies and beliefs that aren’t dependent on her love life, but she still hasn’t passed my test. She doesn’t develop, she doesn’t have a weakness, other people are completely in control of her destiny and her character is grounded in some incredibly old-fashioned and insidious gender stereotypes.
>Ultimately, I think a lot of the reason for this is due to the time period in which the book was written. Victorian expectations of children were beginning to soften by the time the full novel was published, but they were certainly pretty ridiculous. But when I finished reading A Little Princess, the overwhelming sense I got was that Sara was not a character with fully developed flaws, agency and development but an example for other children. When you factor in Sara’s extremely muted response to the tragedy she goes through, it becomes pretty clear. There are a lot of problems with the book (not least of which is its uncomfortable handling of racial dynamics, which I didn’t even touch on here) but I think that this is one of the most significant.
>Next week, I’ll be looking at a classic among comic books – V for Vendetta. Evey, I’m coming for you.
>>8252453
By perfect, I don't mean idealised clean waifu perfect, I mean she's a genuinely great character. If she were utterly perfect (or banal) then I'm sure the feminists would have no problem with her, but she can't actually be kind without the potential for not being kind.
Compared with some other Indian princesses, or even that Lavinia bitch or whatever her name was, she's a fucking saint, but the Becky thing is pissing me off, because half the point is that they develop a kindness between each other despite class.
They're probably pissed off Becky stayed a maid too, while being pissed off that Sara doesn't want to become of her class, which is kind of a tacit admission they wish Becky didn't drop her h and had more money to be a "better character".
She's not wholly unique, because Stevenson does a similar thing with Jim Hawkins (god what an awful book that would be if Jim had to be all good and undeceitful all the time, he'd be dead).
Being mad about the Indian colony thing is about as good a criticism of A Little Princess as criticising Treasure Island for having penalties to being a pirate.
There's a good book, which has a story about one of the evil Indian princesses in it, called A Pack of Lies. It's a series of stories within a frame story, but the author, McCaughrean handles child characters well with a kind of Hodgson Burnett style. You'd probably like that too even if it is more modern in setting for the frame story.
On a side note, Dahl is scary excellent even when you read him as an adult. I think what makes him so good to read as an adult is that he was terrified of children and so didn't make them perfect little angels, which no actual child is.
Reading that blog post now and screaming internally, probably back later.
pygmalion
>>8252366
I'm super confused why anyone would spend more than three seconds looking at a blog- any blog, about books.
>>8252482
>>Does the character shape her own destiny? Does she actively try to change her situation and if not, why not?
>why doesn't she try to get back to being wealthy tho
wtf. The point of her being a princess without money is because she didn't want to become a princess because of money but because of virtue. Mathilda was probably smart enough she could have turned a good profit too, but apparently wanting to be a reader is a greater purpose in life than wanting to show some noblesse oblige. Just what. the. fuck.
>lol of course i realise if she tried any of the things to get the money back she'd need some deus ex machina but that still makes her financial situation her fault because it's inevitable and she knows that without consideration
Jesus how do you find your mouth to eat when you're this dumb? It's not to do with her being a good child, it's because she realises that a princess is a kind of servant- privilege is tied to obligation as a princess, and it is not an easy job. If she were rich and ruling a country she'd still have to accept her role and fucking work for it or there'd be a revolt.
>everyone turns into a bitch if you treat them like a servant in the victorian era
Yeah, that's a glowing review of the working classes or are they supposed to suck it up like Sarah does because they're used to it? Is it only the upper classes who are capable of becoming bitter and angry, and the working classes are just some imbeciles who don't know better? Fuck. And then there's the added concern that this blog doesn't seem to understand she could have easily developed into a princess Lavina (sp?) instead of the princess Sara she does become. They argue that she doesn't develop because she develops into something good and enduring. If she'd become bitter, she would have failed at her goal. It's not like it's not work to not be bitter about that shit, it seems like the blogger thinks it's not worthwhile work though because she can't imagine herself sucking it up.
>doesn't affect the plot
Yeah, besides everyone she's friends with and every hungry child when she can and the whole fucking school. I'm sure she would have got a whole point if she'd stabbed the mistress, because that's plot changing even if it means you're a psychopath.
>kind women don't exist
>it couldn't be noblesse oblige or a moral code because women don't have those
>it has to be society
Great agency grab, no wonder she didn't become the bitch this blogger is, society wouldn't let her. I'm sure the blogger pleads society made her be a bitch and doesn't understand when she fucks up because fuck personal responsibility. Does she not know HB wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy too where expecting kindness in others and being innocent can make even racists stop being bitter? Is that supposed to be a gender stereotype of boys or is it just Victorian children when it's written past the Edwardian era? This blogger doesn't believe in good people because she isn't one. (1/?)
>>8252637
it was about three seconds worth of content, it's not like they could write an essay about Praxilla's meter or anything other than she had a vagina.
>>8252495
Jumping back to Lottie. She's judged a naughty child because the system is fucked. Hodgson Burnett isn't making an argument the school would be a good place if only Sara had kept her money; Lavina gets away with total shit and gets to be golden because she has money, not because she shows good behaviour, and Sara gets treated very fucking nicely when she has money and punished for debts when she doesn't. The mistress doesn't like her at all when she's buying her cake, and she probably could have had a wailing tantrum over the cake with no repercussions and even grovelling from the bitch who secretly hates her, so long as she had money. No wonder the bitter blogger want her goal in life to be to get the money back, not to become a good person.
>standards for children were fucked at the time, not because child labour, but because children were expected to be polite
I don't think the reality of Victorian poverty set in at all for this girl. She's expected to be polite but ill spoken and rough like Becky because she's poor. Arguing she's supposed to be innately good because of class ignores that most of the better people aren't the money driven people, which apparently should be her goal, and the kindest people to her are the people with the least status who also have to repress everything or starve in the gutter.
>points because the child doesn't have a love life
Who the hell was she meant to be fucking in a girls school anyway? I have a terrible suspicion if she'd married someone for money this blogger would have given her more action points. I should probably point out here the first installment came just two years after the UK raised the age of consent from 13 to 16, when child molestation and trafficking had become major talking points because journalists took to buying children to prove how easy it would be to debauch a twelve year old, and listing the names of everyone who voted against reforms in the newspapers. The first installment came out when people had just started reporting immense child abuse, which makes being a servant and sent out in the rain while starving look positively pleasant, and this idiot wants to give her points for not trying to find a man but deduct points for not having weaknesses. (2/2 and fucking REEEEEEEEEE *drops mic*)
>>8252576
>She's not wholly unique, because Stevenson does a similar thing with Jim Hawkins (god what an awful book that would be if Jim had to be all good and undeceitful all the time, he'd be dead).
Treasure Island, right?
I think Sara is unique in how she clearly has this repressed anger and loneliness that the author shows between the lines. This is why I don't agree with that blogpost saying she doesn't change. She does change. That whole being a princess thing is her way to cope.
This ties in to her saying early on when she's still wealthy how she thinks she may be a horrible child but no one knows since she is just so blessed ever since she was born. That part where she threatens Miss Minchin almost makes her look delusional.
>>8252637
Because boredom.And loneliness
>>8252743
Yeah, Treasure Island. I think I read it just before I got to Hodgson Burnett as a kid, but it was an eye opener for me that kids books weren't all boring. I was convinced for a while that it wasn't a kids book so I hid it in case anyone tried to take my pirate stories away. Jim kind of has that "all this shit has happened to me and I'm miles from anyone who cares but I don't have time for old shit when the new shit just keep coming" vibe too.
It's been too long since I read Treasure Island and A Little Princess but they're both great children's books because they're not filled with bullshit. I need to re-buy and backlog them.
>>8252639
>Does she not know HB wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy too where expecting kindness in others and being innocent can make even racists stop being bitter?
God, that story is really a treat if you like cute kids. And tsundere grandpas.
For the female counterpart, there's also Editha's Burglar. Innocent little girl faces off against the titular burglar.
>>8252717
>Jumping back to Lottie. She's judged a naughty child because the system is fucked. Hodgson Burnett isn't making an argument the school would be a good place if only Sara had kept her money; Lavina gets away with total shit and gets to be golden because she has money, not because she shows good behaviour, and Sara gets treated very fucking nicely when she has money and punished for debts when she doesn't. The mistress doesn't like her at all when she's buying her cake, and she probably could have had a wailing tantrum over the cake with no repercussions and even grovelling from the bitch who secretly hates her, so long as she had money. No wonder the bitter blogger want her goal in life to be to get the money back, not to become a good person.
Yeah, the blogger missed the part where at the very beginning, Sara thought Miss Minchin was a fishy person with fishy eyes. It was never said again directly but it was obvious Sara knew Minchin's bullshit. That's why she said "you were never kind to me" to her.
Here's another one. This time it's from some lesbian fantasy romance writer.
>One of the repeating themes that I find both utterly believable and discomfiting is how Sara’s polite and confident demeanor communicates to others that she doesn’t really belong to the working-class life she’s been thrust into. Believable: because the reflexes and behaviors you’ve been trained into by your upbringing are impossible to shed entirely. The best you might manage is to learn to act out a different role convincingly. I know that I have reflexes and behaviors that derive from spending my entire life with the sure and certain knowledge that I don’t have to worry about my next meal, or where I’m sleeping, or whether my medical needs will be met, or what to do if an unexpected expense comes out of nowhere. (That “sure and certain knowledge” could become wrong overnight if the right conjunction of circumstances happened. But I retain those reflexes because it’s never been wrong yet.) But at the same time, this theme is discomfiting because it’s presented with a flavor of essentialism. That is, one gets the impression that Sara has these reflexes not as learned behavior due to her environment, but because she simply is, deep down and through and through, a genteel person, in the same way as she has gray-green eyes. Her behavior doesn’t simply signal that she has known a better life than she now leads, it signals that she deserves a better life because she is a better person than someone who didn’t have her history.
>And one of those reflexes? Sara turns the sixpence into something of a lucky charm, making a hole in it and wearing it as a pendant. She is never tempted to spend it, even when she fantasizes about finding money in the street to buy bread with. Because if she spent it--and especially if she spent it on bread--then she would be the beggar-girl she’d been taken for.
I half-agree with this. I think Sara is a special child.
But being disturbed by it is your choice entirely. It's like being disturbed that Aragorn becomes king instead of him establishing democracy.
>Sara is perfectly capable of recognizing and disapproving of how hard the school scullery maid is worked. But in her stories about “labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, dark men dug them out with heavy picks”, it never seems to occur to her to consider that her anticipated wealth will come at the cost of the sweat and blood and often lives of those “strange dark men”. Although we seem to be led to believe that the diamond mines are in India (where Sara’s father is), it’s impossible not to visualize the origins of the De Beers diamond empire and its founder Cecil Rhodes.
>I don’t know that Burnett intended us to factor in that associated moral debt. Probably not, since the question is never really even alluded to. (And eventually when the mines retrieve themselves and the wealth is realized, the exploitative nature of the industry is never touched on.) This (although with the issues of orientalism) is one of the foundations for me considering my love for this story “problematic”. Stories about how virtuous people are rewarded with fabulous wealth rarely acknowledge that most sudden wealth is created at a great cost to some set of unfortuante people behind the scenes.
>
Sara has an oddly idealized image of what it is to be a princess—something that particularly comes out in her historical hero-worship for Marie Antoinette—but that’s a discussion for a later point in the book. Suffice it to say that the “princess pretend” is not about actual royalty, but about an idealized image that Sara has associated with the role of princess. Princess as a job, rather than an inheritance.
>The last part of Chapter 6 brings strong foreshadowing of disaster, and provides some useful data regarding the source and nature of Captain Crewe's money. In an earlier entry, I already noted that Crewe's occupation as an army officer seems unlikely to have been the source of his wealth, and now it's confirmed that if it came from his parents being wildly successful in business, he inherited none of their talents in that direction.
>As he writes to Sara, there are financial problems with the diamond mines, but "your daddy is not a businessman at all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous." Now, allowing for some hyperbole when writing to an eleven-year-old girl, we can easily see how precarious the family fortunes have always been. Crewe spends money extravagantly, admits he has no business sense, and invests what turns out to be his entire fortune in a risky speculation on nothing but the word of a boyhood friend. While Sara certainly doesn't deserve to become destitute, one can't help concluding that perhaps Captain Crewe does deserve it. And yet, in the midst of these financial troubles, he arranges for an extravagant party for Sara's 11th birthday, including a number of expensive presents, for which Miss Minchin is expected to front the money. He knew he was in financial difficulties and he went ahead and asked Miss Minchin to front a large sum for a non-essential purpose.
Guess she doesn't know the father is based on Burnett's own father and his subsequent business failure that made the entire family move to America.
There's a darker version of this dad in one of Burnett's other books, in which he's an actual gambler (and the Sara there being more grumpy and angry)
>>8252639
>They're probably pissed off Becky stayed a maid too
Yeah.
>Becky is where the idea of "moral accounting" falls down. Other than the simple fact that she isn't the protagonist, the only reason for her not to "deserve" more than she gets (not discounting that she does get *something*) is class.
>When I read this, I was wrapped up in an odd social rebuilding. The woman who suggested I read this, I came to the conclusion that there was an odd "natural" order to relationship.
>They could be friends but to think they were equal was an impossible notion of not only the time but how the universe worked.
Also, gay people.
>I can't. But I want it. In the same way I want to read about queer people in history getting happy endings that don't involve masquerades and compromises and the constant threat of disaster. The heart wants what it wants. That doesn't mean it would be reasonable to get it.
>The first of the cringe-worthy moments comes in the first description of Becky as “a dingy little figure”, but more to the point, in that first descriptive paragraph, Becky (whose name we don’t know yet) is referred to as “it” three times. Now, this isn’t a matter of gender uncertainty--clothing is highly gendered in this era and even if Becky’s face were obscured it would have been instantly obvious that she was female. There seems no useful reason for this “it”-ing, especially given that the narrative switches to female pronouns in the next paragraph. If I were looking for deep meaning, I’d suggest that the change in pronouns represents the near-instant process of Sara recognizing Becky as a unique and individual human being, but if so, it still feels like a slap in the face to do that by means of literal objectifying at first.
Okay, this is just autism. The author is doing that to exemplify how some people would see servants more as tools rather than humans. It's a subtler version of the description of Jo in Bleak House, where he gets called "a creature" over and over again. The joke is in the absurdity.
>This is even stronger with regard to the titular character of the next chapter, Becky, who I like a great deal more than Burnett seems to want me to.
Ebin.
>Ermengarde, unfortunately, is brought in with an unpleasant whiff of fat-phobia. Now, Burnett never quite says outright that Ermengarde is stupid because she is fat, but there’s a constant re-emphasis of her physical appearance, and regular comments from other students that restrict Ermengarde’s possible roles on the basis of her body. (Much later in the book, this attitude is summed up in Ermengarde’s repetition of the others’ judgement, “I can’t be a princess, I’m too fat.”) And while the narrative clearly takes the position that being a good person is more important than being thin and beautiful, it never really contradicts the judgement that her body is the determiner of all her other characteristics.
Ahahahahahaha.
>In my head-canon, there’s a somewhat different story going on. Ermengarde clearly needs a learning method other than what Miss Minchin’s school (and the society of the story in general) uses. She may have an actual learning disability or she may simply have different brain wiring. She comes from an intellectual family, with a father “who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart”. Ermengarde has difficulties with rote memorization (though she does better when facts are contextualized in an interesting way). Her father is severely disappointed that Ermengarde doesn’t follow in his footsteps and various comments along the way indicate that she’s been told that she is stupid, dull, and a disappointment since long before she came to school. Miss Minchin was then primed to view her in the same way, and Ermengarde’s learning experience has been an exercise in being forced to repeat the same failure modes over and over as a public humiliation. Given all of that, it would be no surprise to me if her weight were a consequence of the emotional abuse. Comfort-eating has a strong attraction. (And evidently her aunts who sent her care packages at school are firm believers in "food is love".)
>This is one of those characters that I felt the fan-sequel dealt with really well. To an extent that it deeply colors my rereading of the original novel, I suddenly realize now. Huh. I suspect that as a child I didn't notice any of this particularly; the Sad Fat Girl was so damn common in children's literature, as a way for the protagonist to show how good she was by liking her anyway, that she just read like a stock character to me.
That fan-sequel was that Wishing for Tomorrow book starring Ermengarde as the main character.
And she's just as stupid. With the added jealously of Becky going away with Sara while she has to stay there.
>There is a very faint air that Burnett faults Miss Minchin for being pragmatic and not being generously warm-hearted when it counts. I’ll agree with dinging her for not being kind, but I think she gets a bad rap for being practical. She can’t afford to be unworldly. And she can't afford to freely maintain a "charity pupil" as Sara eventually becomes
Once again, she doesn't know that Burnett ran a seminary herself once she was in America, so that her family could live.
>One of the things that really strikes me is how thoroughly female-centered the story is. There are significant male characters, of course: Captain Crewe, Mr. Carrisford, Ram Das. But they are external to the core of the story. The friends, the enemies, the supporters, the antagonists, the authority figures, the followers--all of them are women and girls. And we get to see a wide variety of characters, such that none of them has to support the concept of femaleness on her own.
>One might point out that this is not at all peculiar in a story set in a girls’ boarding school, but it is a rather strong contrast with the usual structure of current children’s literature. There is never any sense within this book that a girl can’t be a hero, or a faithful friend, or a jealous rival, or a redeemed guttersnipe. And with one sole exception that I can think of, the female characters are not interacting with each other, for good or ill, in relation to men. (The exception that comes to mind is the incident toward the end of the book when Cook has been treating her boyfriend the policeman from the school kitchen, and then blaming the missing food on Becky.)
And there it is again. "Muh strong females need no men"
Oh yeah, for Secret Garden.
>I've always found Dickon a far more sympathetic character than Colin. Colin rather goes from self-pitying hypochondriac to self-important egotist
This explains all those Secret Garden fanfics having Colin lose all his character development. Fucking fangirls lacking reading comprehension.
bimnp
>>8253316
>Sara has an oddly idealized image of what it is to be a princess—something that particularly comes out in her historical hero-worship for Marie Antoinette—but that’s a discussion for a later point in the book. Suffice it to say that the “princess pretend” is not about actual royalty, but about an idealized image that Sara has associated with the role of princess. Princess as a job, rather than an inheritance.
> not about actual royalty, but about an idealized image that Sara has associated with the role of princess. Princess as a job, rather than an inheritance.
>not about actual royalty
>because actual royalty has never been a job
>that's just crazy fantasy
>what it's really like is like never having to have a job again :3
wtf is wrong with these people? do they think that being king or queen was like being a lottery winner and you didn't have to do paperwork, or attend state functions, or go to war? they're pissed off Sara actually knew what a head of state was?
because people might think that being a princess isn't just spending all daddy's money and might actually hold some feudal power and state duties?
this thread is deeply disturbing because these are likely college age women who are getting a children's classic wrong on basic reading comprehension. we can't have declined that much in the past century surely?
>>8254712
Too bad the blogger hasn't got to the chapter about Marie Antoinette. I am prepared for full on left-wing nobility hate train.
>all those posters in the blog using their ugly mugs as their avatars
Jesus Christ, I don't understand normies.
>>8253340
>As he writes to Sara, there are financial problems with the diamond mines, but "your daddy is not a businessman at all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous." Now, allowing for some hyperbole when writing to an eleven-year-old girl, we can easily see how precarious the family fortunes have always been. Crewe spends money extravagantly, admits he has no business sense, and invests what turns out to be his entire fortune in a risky speculation on nothing but the word of a boyhood friend. While Sara certainly doesn't deserve to become destitute, one can't help concluding that perhaps Captain Crewe does deserve it.
One can help it actually, by not being a rinser.
There's one thing that keeps coming up in all of these, and it's really disturbing when you remember these are supposed to be feminist analyses: while they all think the point is to make Sara rich again, not kind, they all also seem to think of men as providers of this money- not work, not luck of finding a diamond mine, not anything unseemly, like the prostitute she would probably have to become if she got free from Minchin, but daddy.
That they all seem to think getting the money back is a goal is disturbing enough, but they really don't want to see Sara work or accept she has to work.
As awful and vindictive as Minchin is, she could have poorhoused Sara, kicked her out, or sold her to cover the debts, and it seems from this review that the blogger would have been fine with that because Minchin, the lady who's only nice to kids for profit, doesn't deserve to lose out on cash.
Minchin's vindictiveness about the debt probably saves Sara from some other hardships, of equal or worse impact, and probably isn't good business sense either, which is why it's probably not even cost effective to keep Sara, even if she slaves while starving.
Why does Cpt Crewe get criticised for spending money he doesn't have, while Minchin spending money she's not getting reimbursed for not get criticised for being bad business sense? Because daddy's supposed to pay Miss Minchin and keep Sara in diamonds because only men need concern themselves with business skills and he failed as a man.
You'd get less bullshit from some evangelical tracts on gender and property.
>>8255147
noble girls, anon. the thread is about noble girls.
This is a kind of thread i want to bookmark. Novels like Twins at st. Clare, marimite helped me greatly to forget my depressing days
I want to be a noble little girl
>>8255152
the nobililty are mascots for the peasantry to cheeron an emulate.
>>8252487
>Fagin
lel didn't Fagin make Nancy a whore there? She wants Sara to be a whore?
>>8255171
>Twins at st Clare
For some reason this reminded me of the Trebizon series, by Digby, probably because we're on the tennis books board. Blyton's Malory Towers is rather similar to the Trebizon school too. None of these are the same quality as Hodgson Burnett, though they were comfy reading as a kid.
>>8255179
Judging by your spelling, you didn't get this from a book. Maybe try Enid Blyton.
>>8255184
maybe she thinks whores get to keep the money?
>>8255189
She thinks Sara will become a thief.
You know, like in those modern Victorian books starring a female child thief.
>>8255192
free trip to australia, who would turn that down?!?
To be fair, it's not just the West who has the same problems with A LIttle Princess. Some Japanese readers also have the same complains, to be point of saying the moral of the story is that money solves everything.
There's a Japanese manga inspired by it with the Becky character as the MC and in the end, they switch places with the Becky becoming a princess and the Sara running away to become a commoner.
There's a good thread on 2ch discussing about Sara's character, with one arguing that she isn't necessarily kind, since she acts more from her intention to stay a princess, like in the "giving bread to beggar" incident.And it's a shame it's the only single thread talking about Burnett's works properly.
Also, I like how some Jap says on a review on Amazon that you should read the original English text since the translation doesn't quite capture the feeling. I've looked at the translation and I have to say I agree. It doesn't distinguish Sara's accent with Becky's for starters. The anime at least had the idea of giving Becky the Japanese hick accent.
>>8249825
I want Estella to berate me while grinding her boots on my dick.
Hodgson Burnett being so good made me forget I should rec this thread What Maisie Knew. Not exactly standard education but still an education.
>>8255230
>It doesn't distinguish Sara's accent with Becky's for starters
This reminded me of the updated Sei Shonagon where they fucked it up and made her sound like a trendy teen. Osamu Hashimoto I think?
>>8255255
>What Marnie Knew
That was great. The end with the plot twist really hit hard.
And in the same vein of story, Tom's Midnight Garden.
Both have great rich girls.
![177543[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/d5pAtL5.jpg "177543[1].jpg")
>>8255255
>Sei Shonagon
Oh hey, she got an anime.
>>8253310
>Although we seem to be led to believe that the diamond mines are in India (where Sara’s father is), it’s impossible not to visualize the origins of the De Beers diamond empire and its founder Cecil Rhodes.
Well, I never knew diamond mining was only hard work in South Africa, and only evil when done there.
>>8253567
This makes me sad since I self-insert as Colin when I read the book.
>This was a favorite as a child. I reread it in college on a whim and was horrified by the classism in it, not to mention the uncomfortable satisfaction of Sarah winning back her Indian-procured wealth.
>Does anyone remember at the end of the book after Sara gets adopted, how she invites Becky to become her servant? I think I must have blocked that last little detail out of my FHB-obsessed childhood memory. A former coworker of mine who was big into labor issues dropped that bombshell a few years back and I've been reluctant to reread it since b/c I loved this book so much. (I loved The Secret Garden equally, too, so I guess that's unusual.) Of course, you have to interpret the work within the context of time it was written, but this book is supposedly about valuing the person within—irregardless of circumstances—so it's a little disappointing. Becky's a princess, too!
Oh, Jezebel.
We can all agree that Sara is practically a slave of Minchin, right? She doesn't get paid after all.
>>8255411
Ah yes, the righteous sanctimony of someone who donates none of their income to charity unless they can brag about it and put it on their facebook.
I beginning to think that most of these negative reviews of Sara are protoMinchins.
I think the closest we've got of a negative review of the writing on Minchin is that Sara lacks character for accepting her new role, which is essentially saying that if she didn't want to be Minchin's slave she should have done something about it herself.
And the calling Becky "it", but not so much hiring her, and it's Sara's fault she moves to a better job because Sara should have made her a princess.
Aren't these the people who go on about victim blaming? But then when Sara gets money and Minchin is being a bitch to her, Sara is at fault for her dad's friend pointing out society, like Minchin, is a money talks and bullshit walks place and Minchin doesn't have the dough to cover her bullshit.
She starved a child in an attic and worked her to near death, and probably would have worked her to death completely if the neighbours hadn't intervened, but we should worry Sara was a bit too happy after years of abuse to be richer than her slave master? What?
How is Minchin, the very obvious bad guy of the story, not being critiqued, but the starving twelve year old not being kind to her is a flaw?
>>8255422
yeah, she's an indentured servant at minimum, which is normally just a slave with worse life expectancy because they have a contract end date.
Oh hey, an actually decent review of the book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3nSXCqzOEM
>Only a cherished few books had female protagonists, and they were often good-natured or talented or pretty or embodied some other kind of acceptable femininity that made me feel even worse. (Looking at you, Sara Crewe.)
Kek
>Sara also learns to check her privilege, as it were—she's not self-absorbed, but there's a lot she doesn't know about other people's lives.
>And yeah, the bit about Becky becoming her personal maid at the end always made me angry. After Sara being all "it's only our circumstances that make us different, and the only reason I'm cleverer than you is because of my education," you'd think she'd make it to "well, what if we gave Becky the same circumstances and education?"
>But what made me even angrier was after the first Magic Night when Sara gave Becky her old mattress and blanket. A true princess would have divided the luxuries evenly—maybe one person got the old mattress and the new blankets, for example.
>Becky was way too good for Sara
the-toast.net. They have all these shitty reviews and articles of your favorite childhood novels. Their readings of the Wizard of Oz series were the worst thing.
>>8255730
I bet she was pleased to find out Steinbeck has a self insert she can be proud of in Cathy Ames.
In other news, holy shit kids books are cheap like classics used be. I bought A Little Princess because of this thread, first hand, and it cost me three quid. If you try to buy another classic here from a bookshop here normally a fiver is a good deal, and usually you'll spend about a tenner. Reading kids' lit for the rest of the summer lads; comfy and cheap as chips.
>>8255854
Or you could just read it for free at Gutenberg.
>>8255873
>muh ebooks
Yes, that will make me connect with my childhood better: using technology which frustrates me and didn't exist for me back then because of some random anon's personal preference.
>>8255892
>ebook frustates you
What?
>>8255896
It means it impedes my progress while also diminishing my pleasure. Or did you want me to define technology?
>>8255910
I am the opposite. I do most of my readings on my handphone since I don't have the time to do so otherwise.
>>8255926
I can barely text since they got rid of physical buttons. I've killed more electronic devices in the past year than I've ever destroyed books. Books put up with being doused in liquid much better, though I'll probably be fucked if the environmentalists ever convince people electricity damages the planet less than paper.
>But now, Sara seems a bit insipid. And her imagination is escapist in the wrong way. She uses imagination to forget her troubles, instead of trying to imagine an escape she might actually make. She does get out of the attic, but only because she is rescued. She is as passive as Sleeping Beauty in making it happen. The ending, where Becky becomes Sara’s ‘delighted attendant’, feels like a betrayal of their friendship and a reassertion of the class divide that is deeply unimaginative. Luckily, soon after discovering Sara, I read Anne of Green Gables (1908) and its vivacious heroine Anne Shirley showed me that imagination could do a lot more. It could even be heroic.
I honestly don't know which part of Anne of Green Gables has Anne being heroic with her imagination.
>>8256517
Imagining the boy who teased her about her hair hadn't apologised repeatedly so she could keep beating him?
>>8256517
>>8256533
>mock new girl because she's ginger and you have crush on her
>she freaks out and breaks a slate over your head
>try to apologise
>she still freaks out
>try apologising more
>she still freaks out on you
>save her from drowning
>try apologising more after saving her from drowning
>she freaks out on you again when you just saved her life
>but now also won't talk to you
>keep being smitten with her and trying to apologise
>grow up some more and become teacher in your home village to finance further education after competing with her for scholarships
>she has a scholarship which she gives up to stay home
>she's freaking out no teacher positions for her in home village
>quit your job so she can get it and stay in her adopted village where you've lived your whole life
>eventually get to college to become doctor
>she joins the same college now she doesn't want to stay home
>she's a jealous bitch who doesn't want you to see other girls all first year
>maybe she does like me :3
>propose second year
>let's just be friends i don't really like you that much
>also have you met Chad?
>he's not right for me either, but he's better than you
>fuck my life
>try to focus on studies so you can get scholarship and maybe become doctor
>study really hard
>exhaust self and get deathly ill with fever
>she drops Chad when he asks her to marry him
>finds out you're ill and might die
>she decides she loved you all along
>accepts marriage proposal
>oh, but you should really finish your degree before we get married and fuck
>three years later after spending the engagement living apart and writing letters to her, get to marry her when you take over your family medical practice
>author says we live happily ever after with only some dead kids
See, that's good girlish imagining, whereas imagining you could be nice to people and not fuck up their lives is just stupid
>“I had a fantasy world that I escaped to. I called my other personality Celestia,” she explains. “I believed I was from that world. I believed I was from another planet. I think I was insane.”
>This escape to another world, she says, stemmed from being sexually abused by her father, Donald Heche, a seemingly devout Christian who she found out was gay as he lay dying of AIDS in 1983.
>“He raped me, he stuck his dick in my mouth, he fondled me, he put me on all fours, and had sex with me,” says Heche, qualifying that the abuse started when she was a toddler, years that she can’t remember clearly.
>“I think it’s always hard for children to talk about abuse because it is only memory. I didn’t carry around a tape recorder … I didn’t chisel anything in stone … Anybody can look and say, ‘Well how do you know for sure?’ And that’s one of the most painful things about it. You don’t.”
>Anne says she had herpes as a young girl, but she does not know if her mother knew she was being molested by her father. “I had a rash, I had sores, I had welts on my nose and on my lips.” When she found out her father had AIDS, she feared for her life.
>>8257766
Wrong Anne.
>>8249825
>Estella
>noble
>>8257891
I know I know, but I'm not an Englishman and I haven't read anything else. Plus, I like that character.
bumping for more grills growing up
I was going to say Silas Marner, but that's the antithesis of noble girl in some ways (even if Eppie is noble by birth)
