Just wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Along with enjoying the festive time with my family and friends I shall be elbow deep in picture books 😀 all in readiness for next module of my masters. The Snowman, Where The Wild Things Are and Something Else are among the fab books we are studying but there is no harm in reading a few more – especially as my grandchildren are with me over Christmas.
Have a great Christmas and New Year and I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you on all things bookish in 2019!
And so I draw to a close this section of my blog. I have written this as part of an assignment for my MA in Children’s Literature course but have found the exploration through this medium enlightening and challenging, and hopefully engaging for you too!
I set out to show how Children’s Literature has reached an “adolescent” stage in its development and wanted to review it through the entirety of its history. I realised that this was too adventurous for a single assignment but by focusing on the Adventure and Fantasy genres and in particular Treasure Island and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I have shown how these authors were moving towards showing their readers the issues they are exploring, rather than telling them. By doing this they are allowing their readers to reach their own conclusions and raise their own questions about what they have read. And so in a way have taken on some of the characteristics of adolescence particularly the search for self, which is why teenagers question the world around them!
I have loved sharing my thoughts with you and intend to continue as my studies progress. So watch this space!
I was always going to move onto The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, it is a novel in the adventure genre that crossed boundaries like Treasure Island, but it reverts back to the moralistic tales that were common pre-Darwin and his evolutionary theories. This was going to be the start of my discussion, comparing the style with that of Stephenson’s classic adventure story. However, yesterday’s entry on Treasure Island, particularly how young Jim Hawkins is a multi-faceted character like the father figure he is drawn to, Long John Silver, has stayed with me. Lying in bed, awake at 2 in the morning – a common occurrence I am afraid but it is when I get my best thinking done! – the similarities between Jim Hawkins and Edmund Pevensie started to ricochet around my brain. Both these boys are drawn to the charismatic villain of the piece, and in some ways influenced by them and both temporarily ally with these “evil” characters, betraying their companions. Both are also the instruments for bringing about the ultimate win of good over evil, sacrificing their own lives for the safety of the others in their party. Thus both children are not simple black and white depictions of good or evil. This connection between Jim and Edmund has left me with an admiration for both characters, and I feel that Stephenson and Lewis have managed to provide realistic depictions of what it is to be human.
What surprises me about this is that Edmund was my least favourite of the children in C.S Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. As a child I didn’t like the way he betrayed his siblings, and I always felt that he was very lucky that Aslan stepped in to save him. My re-visitation of this treasured book of my childhood has proved startling because I have completely re-evaluated how I feel about the second youngest Pevensie child. In light of my studies in Literature, and specifically Children’s Literature, I am open to different approaches to texts. However, I feel that my change of heart is mainly because I am now an adult with life experiences which enable me to appreciate that pain, loneliness, jealousy or fear can lead to certain negative types of behaviour. Having studied the Second World War at A-level as well as viewing programmes and films, such as Band of Brothers, Hope and Glory, Schindler’s List I have developed a more rounded view of what what was going on around the time C.S Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
The most shocking revelation to me in regards to Edmund however is part of the text that I would have read when I was younger, but somehow missed or ignored. It comes after the defeat of the White Witch, when Lucy and Susan realise how injured Edmund is. Peter is explaining how Edmund saved everyone by taking out the Witch’s wand:
“It was all Edmund’s doing Aslan, ” Peter was saying. “We’d have been beaten if it hadn’t been for him. The Witch was turning our troops into stone right and left. But nothing would stop him…when he reached her he had the sense to bring his sword smashing down on her wand instead of trying to go for her directly…He was terribly wounded.” (pp.186-7)*
Firstly, I don’t think I have ever truly recognized the courage and strength of mind that Edmund had to face up to his adversary. This is the wicked Queen that had tried to have him killed yet she was also the same person that he had been enthralled with so badly that he was willing to give up his family to her. It must have taken a lot for him to keep a clear head and strategise the best way to defeat her and carry it through. The fact that he was mortally wounded only adds to his sacrifice. Lucy’s revival of Edmund, when I first read it, seemed obvious, I had no doubt that she would help him. I don’t remember realising that Edmund was at the point of death. Had Lucy not administered the cordial to him, he would certainly have lost his life. On re-reading this I was touched by how much Edmund was willing to surrender for Narnia and his family, even more so because Edmund would be the one person there most aware of the White Witch’s dreadful powers having witnessed them firsthand.
Secondly, Lewis hints at the troubles in Edmund’s life in the ‘real world’ that led to his estrangement with his siblings initially. It is when Lucy sees the fully recovered Edmund:
“healed of his wounds but looking better than she had seen him look – oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had become his old self again and could look you in the face.” (p.188).
The implication being that something was happening to Edmund at his school, either that he had fallen in with a bad crowd and got swept along with them, even if he knew it was wrong (hence the not being able to look his siblings in the face) behaviour he repeats in Narnia when he first enters. Or that he is isolated, miserable and perhaps being bullied at school but does not know who to turn to for help and so he lashes out at those closest to him. Whatever the reason, it means that there is more to Edmund than meets the eye, and this gives his character more depth than that of Peter, Susan or Lucy. The other Pevensie children are in comparison, one dimensional, they are good, honest children who do not hesitate to picking which side to fight on, they do not argue with Aslan’s authority or his rules, and when they are told to do something they do it unquestioningly.
Lewis message is clear throughout The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the moralistic overtones of the book are clear. His Christian allegory is centered around Aslan, whose sacrifice and resurrection are the means to Narnia’s salvation. However, his portrayal of good and evil are very cut and dried in their depiction, apart from Edmund. Edmund’s moral ambiguity at the start of the novel is refreshing in that it enables Lewis’s readers to question the causes of good and evil and realise that things are hardly ever as simple as they think. Edmund’s story arc hints that bad consequences can come from mundane motivations. The Narnia stories have their origins not only in Christian beliefs, and the books that Lewis read when he was a boy but it also has influences from WWII, and the horror that many felt at rise and strength of influence that Nazism had on the world around it. Lucy Pearson, in her book Children’s Literature: Texts, Contexts, Connections notes that “the combination of resentment, denial and greed which contributes to Edmund’s decision to betray his family (and consequently the whole of Narnia) enables readers to grasp some of the factors which led to the rise of Nazi rule”. (p.45)
Lewis may be telling his readers to live a good Christian life through his portrayal of Peter, Susan, Lucy and Aslan however by showing the complexities of Edmund’s character and struggles, Lewis allows his readers to draw their own conclusions.
*The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S.Lewis [1950] quotes taken from the HarperCollins colour edition (1998)
The above clip is the moment when Jim Hawkins first sets eyes on Long John Silver. It is from the 1990 adaptation with Charlton Heston and Christian Bale. Heston’s portrayal here perfectly sums up the duality of Silver’s nature, the menace with which he approaches Jim as well as the fatherly way he talks to him. In the book, Jim’s gut feeling on hearing about Silver is that he was the “one-legged sailor who I had watched for so long at the old ‘Benbow'” (p.48), yet on meeting him Jim believes that this is far from the truth of things. In comparison to the “pirates” that young Jim had already met, and been terrorized by before, Silver presents a charismatic, friendly – almost fatherly – persona that is far removed from Black Dog and blind man Pew.
It is the charm of the old pirate that is his most dangerous quality because it enables him to manipulate those around him, putting them at their ease and taking him into their trust. It is also the way that Silver carries himself, and talks, that belies his murderous intent; he is more learned than the other seamen and the expectation that garners from Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey is that he is a trustworthy man. Silver is well spoken, and this is partly how he manages to fool Jim and his friends as, able to talk as easily with his fellow shipmates as he is with Jim, the Doctor and the Squire, as Jim himself notes:
“All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each, and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind; and always glad to see me in the galley…” (p.62)*
This ability to charm his way around everyone is how John Silver convinces the men to mutiny, but it is also how he manages to change allegiances throughout the course of the story, to not only stay alive but to escape unpunished, and with stolen treasure to boot! R.L. Stephenson, in his creation of this multi-faceted character, wrote something that differed from the simple didactic and moral message that had been common of his predecessors. There is no clear cut definition between good and evil in Treasure Island, Long John Silver may be a mutinous murderer but he is also the means by which Jim Hawkins survives.
“‘Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins, ‘ he said, in steady whisper…’you’re within half a plank of death, and, what’s a long sight worse, of torture. They’re going to throw me off. But, you mark, I stand by you thick and thin…'” (p.157)
Silver’s affection and admiration of the boy adds another dimension to his character, it also strengthens the bond that is between himself and Jim. The boy agrees that he will do everything he can to keep the pirate from the hangman’s noose, but it is more than a debt repaid to Silver for saving his life. Jim, even after all that he has witnessed, has some admiration for the old sea cook. He responds favourably to Silver from their first meeting:
“…he made himself the most interesting companion…and every now and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or seaman, or repeating a nautical phrase til I had learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of possible shipmates.” (p.53)
The above quote also demonstrates how Silver exerts his influence over Jim. He entertains him with stories of adventures at sea, pulling Jim into his confidence with these tales. The repeating of phrases until Jim has learned them seems innocuous but actually the pirate is imprinting onto the impressionable, fatherless boy. This sway that Silver has over Jim is quite strong, the boy, once he discovers the pirate’s true persona, is still drawn to him. He is intrigued by the charismatic sea cook and throughout the story he temporarily allies himself with the pirate in order to survive the events of the island.
It is, in fact, Jim’s fluid allegiances and quick-thinking actions, born out of self-preservation, that ultimately save the remaining faithful crew of the Hispaniola, and ironically Long John Silver. This behaviour is, ironically, similar to the self-serving, charming, opportunity-seeking style of the very man that Jim Hawkins referred to as an “abominable old man…I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel.” (p.66)
What Stephenson has done by presenting Long John Silver, and to a lesser degree Jim Hawkins, as adaptable and morally ambiguous, is tap into the “ideological revolution” that occurred following the publication of Charles Darwin‘s On the Origin of the Species in 1859. Darwin’s theories on evolution, survival of the fittest and natural selection brought into question the pervading religious and moral views. It contradicted the teachings of the Bible, with its creation story of Adam and Eve, and it challenged the very concept that life was fully mapped out, with a heavenly afterlife being the reward for a pious or repenting life. This shocking discovery filtered into literature with the concepts of good and evil starting to have blurred lines, and many scholars noted this trickled into the narrative techniques and forms used by authors which left the readers having to establish their own conclusions about the moral issues within their stories. Thus in contrast to the previous stories like The Waterbabies, Pilgrims Progress and to some extent Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland etc. where the author, through the narrator, told the reader what to think, who was good and would survive, and who was bad and would be punished, Treasure Island turns the whole concept on its head.
Long John Silver is one of the most memorable villains that has been written in literature, and his influence on and affection for Jim, renders him sympathetic in some ways to both the Jim, the narrator, and the readers. His influence on Jim’s own behaviour, evident throughout the story, as Jim also starts to behave in a Darwinian way. The sympathy for the villain of the story and the “survival of the fittest” mode of thinking would develop throughout the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century, creating characters that would force the reader to think about the situations that they find these figures in, and question the morality of those circumstances shown by the narrative.
*Treasure Island – R.L. Stephenson (1883) – quotes taken from the edition published by Octopus Books 1980.
Peter Hunt, a prolific and oft-quoted critic of children’s literature has stated that “most histories of children’s literature suggests that children’s books were initially entirely designed for educational purposes, with ‘delight’, if any, an incidental sugar-ing of the pill. In the course of the nineteenth century, instruction gave way to entertainment, religion to fantasy…”*
Pilgrims Progress 1678
This “instruction” thread can be traced through early texts in the history of children’s literature such as Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), Robinson Crusoe (1719), A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), the Swiss Family Robinson (1812-3), and The Water Babies (1863). Although these are all very different texts, covering the religious, the castaway adventure, and nursery rhymes, the moral aim in each of these is clear. These texts were generally to teach children to live good Christian lives, that if they did they would be rewarded for their “good” behaviour, if not they would be punished. Although it was not all bad as they were shown that redemption was possible if they repented of their sins and followed Christian doctrine – the “education” of Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe a clear example of this. Didactism was rife throughout these books. If the reader enjoyed the tale at the same time that was an added bonus, the main aim was not to entertain, but to educate. So effectively, what the authors of these titles were doing was telling their audience what was expected from them in terms of behaviour and how they should live their lives.
The general consensus among scholars in this field is that a turning point was reached when Lewis Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. Carroll embraced the move that was occurring around this time towards fantasy and nonsense and made it his own. He was not the first to write a fantasy tale, Charles Kingsley had already done so with The Water Babies, however there was a very strong religious and moral message that hung heavy over that novel. It is certainly not the lighthearted tale that I had grown up with from watching the film that had been produced in 1978. With Alice though Carroll ran with the fantastical theme and used it to entertain his readers, at the same time as acknowledging that, although his target audience is children he did not have to simplify his storytelling to engage them. His novel is jammed full of influences from the world of mathematics and philosophy as well as gently mocking other literature genres and forms. He satirizes the adult/child relationship, so much so that the only person who seems to make sense in Wonderland is the child protagonist! However, there is still a moral thread running though Carroll’s work, Alice is a polite, well read, kind child, she is horrified by the actions of the inhabitants of Wonderland, questions their strange idiosyncrasies, and generally maintains that good behaviour gets rewarded. Yet the very fact that there are morally questionable characters who appear unrepentant about their conduct was a departure that had liberating effect. I therefore, believe that Alice in Wonderland is important, not just because it set the ball rolling for the Golden Age of Children’s Literature, by writing for entertainment. I think it also allowed texts to start to show their readers the ambiguities of life, rather than telling them that this is how it is.
This change is even more evident in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. For me, this text is just as important as Alice in Wonderland because it allowed the ambiguous nature of its protagonists open to question from its readers. Whereas many of the main characters in children’s books were ostensibly good or bad, and they either stayed good or they learned from their “sins” and repented. The teachings for what was expected from these children was clear cut. However, as I will show in my next entry Jim Hawkins is far from exemplary in his behaviour, but for me that made him all the more realistic in his portrayal!
So, as usual for me, I have overreached on my aim for this blog! Having read back my previous entry, I can see that trying to compare all of Children’s Literature to an adolescent, and explore its entire history is perhaps a tad too overambitious. I have, once again, fallen into the rabbit hole and like Alice, got lost and entranced with all that is there to explore.
Therefore, dear readers, I am going to re-examine my aims, focus on some genres within Children’s Literature that can illuminate, hopefully, how over the years the messages of these books have shifted away from a moralizing structure, to a more open-ended format that allows their readers to explore and question the meanings behind them.
For me this is a fascinating area and I do hope you will join me on my journey!
In the world of Academia, the study of Children’s Literature is a relatively young specialism. Until the twentieth century, it was not considered an area of its own, but an offshoot of adult literature studies – more a genre within that specialism. However, as the role of ‘children’ developed from little versions of adults pre-Victorian times, through the ‘introduction’ of the teenager and now with the categories of the Millennials and the iGeneration, we are seeing the age of ‘Children’ being extended into the early and even the late twenties!
So, in the great scheme of things, that must mean that Children’s Literature as a separate medium has now reached its adolescent years! To me this makes perfect sense when you look at the array of literature that is now available to the youth market. The classics are still there, and much sought after, however, there is also an abundance of work out there that enables its readers to question, disagree, and search for meaning. These are all characteristics that could be used to describe the emotional, social and cognitive changes that a child goes through during that in-between phase of adolescence. So it makes sense that one of the influences of that age group reflects those very ideals.
This is something that has fascinated me from the start of my studies in Children’s Literature. Learning about how this area developed and the changes that it has gone through since its early days (its infancy even) to the challenging and exciting books that are being published today. And this is not just limited to the novel, the developmental changes can be seen throughout the various genres including picture books, which contrary to popular belief, are not just for infants and those that cannot read. Some of these wonderful books hold a new meaning for each reading of them. Don’t believe me? Have a look at Colin Thompsons’s work such as Tower to the Sun or Anthony Browne’sVoices in the Park.
So that is what I intend to explore in this blog – the emerging adolescence of Children’s Literature and its changes since ‘conception’. I will do this by focusing on a few genres and show how they reflect some of the leading characteristics of adolescence.
Children's books: Not just for kids! 