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orphans and gender
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From: Hollis Rudiger <hmrudiger>
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:25:09 -0500
Recent posts have me thinking a lot about the idea of "abandonment" in terms of gender. Many authors orphan characters as a way to explore certain aspects of emotional development, the character is then often placed in situations where independence, self reliance, self advocacy are required much earlier than in cases where a parent is there to guide the child through adolescence. Or, characters are sent off to boarding school where, again, there is no parental influence, at least within the pages of the novel. or summer camp...
How might that experience be different for boys and girls? How does the sex of the deceased/absent parent affect the situation?
An historical example: Twain's The Adventures of Huck Finn (1884) and Susan Warner's The Wide Wide World (1850.) Both main characters are orphans who serve as models of masculinity/femininity for their era. TWWW has been called a feminist Huck Finn
(which has always irked me, since the former was published prior to, and oversold the latter. But this kind of "praise" for TWWW is likely due to the fact that the male-ness of Huck's experience came to represent America.)
In both cases the characters must grow up according to their own still?veloping moral compasses, (although this thesis could be challenged by critics who argue that adolescence hadn't really been invented yet) but the experience is completely different for each. Ellen Montgomery in TWWW feels torn in two as she tries to make decisions: She feels loyal to her dead mother, who was the model of Christian femininity, but on the other hand, feels excited and challenged by more worldly, intellectual challenges. The Wide Wide World has always challenged me as an Antigone story-A woman's allegiance to spiritual laws vs. human law =feminism? And how can that be when power in this world, pragmatically speaking, is completely tied to human law? Huck is unattached, has nothing but the land to influence his choices. He is the American ideal.
A Northern Light has been mentioned a few times this month, and I am struck by the very similar dilemma faced by Mattie Gokey. On the one hand she wants what was at the time, the male domain, but she has made a promise to her mother to remain in the female (domestic) domain. This dichotomy between the domestic and the public was a major part of American life in the years that TWWW and TAoHF were written and when ANL takes place. We have moved beyond that one hopes, but have we really?
Abandoned child stories that I have read from this year alone that immediately come to mind:
Harry Potter Far From Xanadu- Julie Anne Peters (father's suicide, mother's dysfunction, lesbian main character) The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber (boy orphan raised by ineffective mother) Stormwitch- Susan Vaught Raven's Gate- Anthony Horowitz Ball Don't Lie (forthcoming by Matt de la Pena) Series of Unfortunate Events- Lemony Snicket Secret Under My skin- Janet McNAughton Smiler's Bones- Peter Legrangis The Nobodies - N.E Bode (cleverly plays with historical orphans in children's lit) The Heaven Shop- Deborah Ellis Looking for Alaska - John Green (Boarding school) Ruby Tuesday-Jennifer Anne Kogler (mother floats in and out) Black Storm Comin'- Diane Lee Wilson (father leaves, mother dying) Magic or Madness- Justine Larbalastier (mother hospitalized for insanity)
and comics have always used orphans, for example Superman right now, a great new series is Runaways by Brian K Vaughan, where a pack of teens of children runaway from their parents whom they realize are super-villains.
So while this is nothing new (there are many other novels between 1850 and 2005 that use orphans) are there any observations we can make about how the orphans' sex determines his/her strategies for survival? Do boy orphans make it by using the minds and girl orphans by using their hearts? Do runaways count as orphans, or is it significant that it was the parent who did the leaving? How are cross-sex parent child relationships explored? (dad leaving female child vs mother...)
any takers?
Hollis
Hollis Margaret Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 26 Jul 2005 10:25:09 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:25:09 -0500
Recent posts have me thinking a lot about the idea of "abandonment" in terms of gender. Many authors orphan characters as a way to explore certain aspects of emotional development, the character is then often placed in situations where independence, self reliance, self advocacy are required much earlier than in cases where a parent is there to guide the child through adolescence. Or, characters are sent off to boarding school where, again, there is no parental influence, at least within the pages of the novel. or summer camp...
How might that experience be different for boys and girls? How does the sex of the deceased/absent parent affect the situation?
An historical example: Twain's The Adventures of Huck Finn (1884) and Susan Warner's The Wide Wide World (1850.) Both main characters are orphans who serve as models of masculinity/femininity for their era. TWWW has been called a feminist Huck Finn
(which has always irked me, since the former was published prior to, and oversold the latter. But this kind of "praise" for TWWW is likely due to the fact that the male-ness of Huck's experience came to represent America.)
In both cases the characters must grow up according to their own still?veloping moral compasses, (although this thesis could be challenged by critics who argue that adolescence hadn't really been invented yet) but the experience is completely different for each. Ellen Montgomery in TWWW feels torn in two as she tries to make decisions: She feels loyal to her dead mother, who was the model of Christian femininity, but on the other hand, feels excited and challenged by more worldly, intellectual challenges. The Wide Wide World has always challenged me as an Antigone story-A woman's allegiance to spiritual laws vs. human law =feminism? And how can that be when power in this world, pragmatically speaking, is completely tied to human law? Huck is unattached, has nothing but the land to influence his choices. He is the American ideal.
A Northern Light has been mentioned a few times this month, and I am struck by the very similar dilemma faced by Mattie Gokey. On the one hand she wants what was at the time, the male domain, but she has made a promise to her mother to remain in the female (domestic) domain. This dichotomy between the domestic and the public was a major part of American life in the years that TWWW and TAoHF were written and when ANL takes place. We have moved beyond that one hopes, but have we really?
Abandoned child stories that I have read from this year alone that immediately come to mind:
Harry Potter Far From Xanadu- Julie Anne Peters (father's suicide, mother's dysfunction, lesbian main character) The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber (boy orphan raised by ineffective mother) Stormwitch- Susan Vaught Raven's Gate- Anthony Horowitz Ball Don't Lie (forthcoming by Matt de la Pena) Series of Unfortunate Events- Lemony Snicket Secret Under My skin- Janet McNAughton Smiler's Bones- Peter Legrangis The Nobodies - N.E Bode (cleverly plays with historical orphans in children's lit) The Heaven Shop- Deborah Ellis Looking for Alaska - John Green (Boarding school) Ruby Tuesday-Jennifer Anne Kogler (mother floats in and out) Black Storm Comin'- Diane Lee Wilson (father leaves, mother dying) Magic or Madness- Justine Larbalastier (mother hospitalized for insanity)
and comics have always used orphans, for example Superman right now, a great new series is Runaways by Brian K Vaughan, where a pack of teens of children runaway from their parents whom they realize are super-villains.
So while this is nothing new (there are many other novels between 1850 and 2005 that use orphans) are there any observations we can make about how the orphans' sex determines his/her strategies for survival? Do boy orphans make it by using the minds and girl orphans by using their hearts? Do runaways count as orphans, or is it significant that it was the parent who did the leaving? How are cross-sex parent child relationships explored? (dad leaving female child vs mother...)
any takers?
Hollis
Hollis Margaret Rudiger, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
hmrudiger at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3930 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 26 Jul 2005 10:25:09 AM CDT
