E. Nesbit influenced many children’s writers after her, including C. S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling. She is known for her humor, creativity, and insight into how children think.
As a lover of children’s books, having worked with children for many years and having a sort of whimsy and humor in my personality, I thought it was time I read some of E. Nesbit’s works.
I decided to start with one of her most well-known books, The Railway Children.
About E. Nesbit
A strange thing happens when I start to get into a book. If I find it interesting and engaging, I immediately want to learn more about the author.
So, who is E. Nesbit, and what is the thinking behind The Railway Children?
Edith Nesbit lived in poverty most of her life and wrote fiction to make money. She held to ideals about being a lady and not having to work, but was ironically forced to work because of her family’s economic hardships.
Edith Nesbit’s father died when she was very young. Her own husband was distant and lived apart from her and her children for most of their marriage. This is important, as the “missing father” is a stock character in Nesbit’s works.
You can find more information about E. Nesbit and The Railway Childrenhere and here.
The Mystery of the Missing Father
The main mystery in The Railway Children is: what happened to the father, who was so fun and loving at the beginning of the book?
The narrator provides insight into how the children are processing their father’s mysterious arrest, and their forced move to the countryside with their mother.
“Well, it was just like that with the sorrow the children had felt at Father’s going away, and at Mother’s being so unhappy. It made a deep impression, but the impression did not last long. They soon got used to being without Father, though they did not forget him; and they got used to not going to school, and to seeing very little of Mother, who was now almost all day shut up in her upstairs room writing, writing, writing. She used to come down at tea-time and read aloud the stories she had written. They were lovely stories.”
The story resembles E. Nesbit’s life in several regards, but also paints an idealized version of it. There are many innocent and happy moments in it.
The mystery of the missing father comes into play at various points, interrupting the children’s adventures to the railway station nearby.
Bobbie, one of the girls, articulates her deepest fear to her mother at one point:
“[Bobbie’s] heart was beating horribly. WHY hadn’t Father taken his clothes? When Mother came out of the room, Bobbie flung tightly clasping arms round her waist, and whispered:— “Mother — Daddy isn’t — isn’t DEAD, is he?”
“My darling, no! What made you think of anything so horrible?”
“I— I don’t know,” said Bobbie, angry with herself, but still clinging to that resolution of hers, not to see anything that Mother didn’t mean her to see.
Mother gave her a hurried hug. “Daddy was quite, QUITE well when I heard from him last,” she said, “and he’ll come back to us some day. Don’t fancy such horrible things, darling!”
The reader is left to wonder what has become of the father, and why was he taken away so abruptly? Was he working on some secret government project? Did he forget to file his taxes?
The answer is not revealed until the very end of the story.
Moral Teaching
There are subtle didactic elements throughout the story. As the children learn right from wrong, the reader learns along with them.
One instance is when Peter, the youngest child, has been stealing coals from the coal car he found in a tunnel at the railway station. The family is too poor to afford coal, and Peter reasons that it isn’t stealing if he takes the coal from the bottom of the heap.
The station master catches Peter in the act and his sisters, Bobbie and Phyllis, jump out from where they’ve been hiding.
“The Station Master loosed Peter’s collar, struck a match and looked at them by its flickering light.
“Why,” said he, “you’re the children from the Three Chimneys up yonder. So nicely dressed, too. Tell me now, what made you do such a thing? Haven’t you ever been to church or learned your catechism or anything, not to know it’s wicked to steal?”
He spoke much more gently now, and Peter said:— “I didn’t think it was stealing. I was almost sure it wasn’t. I thought if I took it from the outside part of the heap, perhaps it would be. But in the middle I thought I could fairly count it only mining. It’ll take thousands of years for you to burn up all that coal and get to the middle parts.”
Nesbit captures the delightful reasoning of a child, who is motivated by compassion for his mother and sisters to “mine” the coal. The lesson he learns is that he is still stealing.
There are also some interesting political current events that Nesbit alludes to in this story (written in 1906), which I will go into in my next post.
This past year, I’ve gone through many transitions.
Chicago Skyline at Nightfall
First, My husband and I moved to Chicago from the suburbs. I’ve lived on the edge of the city before, but not in the city. I’ve had to get used to things like walking places (which I love!), being constantly surrounded by people (which I usually love), and having to deal with roaches (shiver). Thankfully, my husband has risen to the challenge in the roach department.
I started doing freelance writing as my job. I was already working on my own writings, and I had always dreamt of writing being my job (while doing some form of ministry on the side), so I decided it was time to try it out and see if it worked. It did!
I’ve loved learning new skills, such as SEO writing (see Moz for help on learning SEO) and copywriting, and getting better at some skills I already had, such as researching and creative writing.
I thought I could write about 20,000 words a week, which seemed like a lofty goal. What I found out, however, was that I can do 35,000 words a week, and possibly a little more, if I have to. However, at that point my hands are so tired that It becomes a chore to lift a glass of water to my mouth to drink. So, it’s not sustainable to do 35,000 words every week.
Writing 20,000 words, however, is doable. The way I have made that work has been through the following:
Doing hand and arm stretches. I’ve learned some helpful ones by watching videos like this one.
***An aside: Before you recommend dictation software, I’ll say that it doesn’t work for me. I’ve always thought through my hands, so to speak. I am more visual and can correct my grammar and syntax as I go, because I see it in front of me. In short, I self-edit as I write and then all my work needs is a quick proofreading at the end.
Another change has been transitioning to new friends and a new church community. Breaking into a group can be difficult. The reality is, most people are just as shy or shier around you, the new person, as you might be around them. But someone has to break the ice. I’ve tried to approach each situation meeting new people as being the icebreaker. I’ll ask questions and be prepared to share about myself. Occasionally, I get a little too comfortable with this, however, and realize I need to back off because this person just isn’t comfortable around me yet.
Then CoVid-19 hit. It’s hard when you’re in a new place and trying to meet new people and suddenly…you can’t go places to meet new people! Thankfully, as we had already connected with some people, we were able to transition to virtual meetups. We have gradually gotten braver to do socially-distanced visits. I am thankful that I have been able to form some good friendships here so far.
And then, there are the internal components to all of these changes. When I am in a new environment, I get a little excited. These people don’t know me yet. It’s a chance to start over. I can show them who I am right now. I am a person who is constantly growing and changing (Myers-Briggs ENFP), and yet, sometimes those around me have a certain perception of me from when they first met me, and I can feel pressure to be the person they think I am, rather than the person I am right now (does that make sense?).
And yet… I desire to present and be my genuine self.
It is inevitable, then, that I am driven to figure out who I am exactly, in this moment in time, and how do I fit/ not fit my context and how much of myself needs to adapt to my environment and how much can just be…me?
In a nutshell, I think I have determined the following about myself, at this moment in time:
1) I am a writer. Whether I am publishing something or not, my thoughts must be written down and recorded. There is satisfaction in simply putting something into words.
2) I am a learning enthusiast. At any given moment, I want to learn at least ten different things, and only have time for one or two of them (sigh). These include learning more about languages, culture, science, philosophy, theology, art, psychology, you name it… (oh, except math. 😉
3) I am a visionary. I always kind of knew that, but was shy about it. I don’t want to be too bossy with others, but when I get a vision of something amazing that can and should happen, a fire is lit under me and I have to map out an entire strategy to make it happen, even if it is at some point (sadly) discarded. But for every “vision” I have, there is always more where that came from. Like a Hydra, I cut off one idea, and two more will instantly take its place.
4) I am an extravert. This is a tough one for me, because at various points others labeled me as introverted and then at some points others thought I was very extraverted! The truth is, I’m about 65-70% extraverted, but I still need alone time to be in my head and examine my feelings and think about who I am and what I want to do with my life. I know this from self-examination (Which is normally an introverted activity, haha!) and every assessment test I have taken. At times I become more introverted, however, if I feel unsafe, as I am also a highly emotional person who is hyper-attuned to my environment.
This “nutshell” is starting to get a little long-winded, so I’ll end this blog here.
I’d love to hear from you.
What are some transitions you’ve had in the past year?
How do you respond when you’re in a new environment?
From the first time I read this short story, I was instantly arrested. I love allegorical, philosophical works, and Harrison Bergeron does not disappoint in that department.
This thought-provoking story takes place in a dystopian future. It shows the logical end of an extremist view that tries to make everyone “equal.” What you will see as you read or listen to this story, however, is that equality is placed as the highest virtue in society, to the end that no one is allowed to have any advantage over anyone else. This may sound nice in an idealist sense, but this cautionary tale shows the downfall of not keeping the equality in line with other virtues.
I would appeal to Aristotelian ethics to support Vonnegut’s observation here. It is important to keep ourselves in check and not place one value so highly it supersedes other important values. Virtue is about balance (https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-eth/).
Without further ado, here is the story so that you can enjoy it yourself.
HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
“Huh” said George.
“That dance-it was nice,” said Hazel.
“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.
“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel a little envious. “All the things they think up.”
“Um,” said George.
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.
“Well-maybe make ’em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better than I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.”
“You been so tired lately-kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean-you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just sit around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it-and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you are,” said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”
If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?
“Who knows?” said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and Gentlemen.”
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
“That’s all right-” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me-” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God-” said George, “that must be Harrison!”
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood – in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
“Even as I stand here” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison’s scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
“Now-” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”
The music began. It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said.
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
“What was it?” he said.
“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.
“Forget sad things,” said George.
“I always do,” said Hazel.
“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.
“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.
“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee-” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”
When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he was influenced by several great thinkers who had come before him, one being John Locke.
John Locke was a political philosopher in the late 1600s who wrote Two Treatises of Government, among other works. I wanted to share a quote from the second treatise, along with the area I think it connects with the Declaration of Independence.
Sect. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
With everything going on in the world right now, and the poor dialogue and political statements that are communicated via memes and tweets, I just want to say…
Whatever happened to reading, thinking critically, and writing thoughtfully?
Why can’t we take all the time and energy we spend trying to shame others and participate in virtue signaling and channel that into actually thinking deeply and having real conversations?
This is me, sitting over here socially distancing this July 4th and reading and thinking.
Farrago (fuh-RAH-goh) Noun A confused mixture: hodgepodge
Yokel (YOH-kul) Noun A naive or gullible inhabitant of a rural area or small town
Argot (AHR-goh) Noun The language used by a particular type or group of people : an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group.
Louche (LOOSH) Adjective Not reputable or decent
The louche and stentorianyokel burst from the saloon, spewing a farrago of poorly phrased attempts at using the local village’s argot to insult the owner.
Now, what’s yours? Can you make a funny or creative sentence (or two!) using these words?
Today we’re going to talk about John White’s The Sword Bearer. John White was a psychologist and a Christian speaker, and both of those things, his faith and his background in psychology, are definitely present in this book.
This book was written primarily for his grandchildren upon their request. They actually said they wanted something that was like C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. This is a children’s fantasy Christian allegory, although you could read this and still enjoy it without delving into the allegorical aspects. But allegory is one of my favorite things to explore, so why not.
We’re going to explore the allegory in this book. I also want to talk about the psychological aspects today, specifically grief.
Christian Allegory
Hey!
One of the allegorical aspects of this book, The Sword Bearer, is that the characters are all in this world where there’s this duality. There’re these two main controlling powers. There’s the Changer and he represents what is good, or God, for the Christian. On the other hand, you have Lord Lunacy, who represents evil, but pretends that what he is really representing is right and good and that the Changer is actually evil, which is interesting. He doesn’t come out and say “Hey, I’m bad.” He tries to trick all of the characters to think that he’s the one who’s in the right and he can really give the characters what they want.
John, our main character, stumbles into this world, Anthropos, which is Greek, meaning man or mankind. When he stumbles into this world, he meets all these different creatures and they’re trying to figure out, “Are you for the Changer or are you with Lord Lunacy and the dark powers that be?” And John is a little torn, to be honest. He’s encountered both the Changer and Lord Lunacy and who Lord Lunacy represents, who I’m drawing a blank on. He represents someone else, he’s like the prettied-up version of the devil, if you will.
So, there’s this tug on John throughout the book. Will he follow what he knows to be right or will he do what seems easier, what he wants to do? Sometimes he’s not sure what’s right. Sometimes he wonders, “Am I deceived? Are all these people who I’m surrounded with, who follow the Changer, are they actually all following the wrong guy? And should I just continue to let myself “descend into darkness,” in a sense?
One litmus test that everyone has to take is drinking this wine of free pardon. Basically, what will happen is, all the creatures have this giant feast every night and the giant eagle, Aguila, brings it to them, and with that comes the wine of free pardon. It’s the special wine that, if they drink it, one of two things will happen. One, they will drink it and spit it out, it will taste like the most horrible thing in the world to them and that will signal that they’re basically not aligned with the Changer, because the wine comes directly from Him. On the other hand, what could happen, is that they would feel this sense of elation, this sense of this burden being lifted, and all their guilt has gone away. This is very much tied to communion, that sacrament that Christians, Catholics, and others uphold.
Allegorical and Psychological Elements
Just to close off that section about the wine of free pardon, on page 163, John has been trying the wine of free pardon along the way, and spitting it out, because it tastes horrible to him. Sometimes he just says, “I’m not going to drink it.” This, of course, makes the other characters suspicious of him and kind of makes him wonder about himself, too. Why is he not able to drink this and why do all the other creatures think it’s so good? Finally, he is going to drink the wine of free pardon. Mab, the seer, has magically transported this cup to where John is being held captive and John is about to drink it before he performs his heroic act, which is to kill Lord Lunacy.
“Fearfully, he looked around. To his joy, he saw a silver flagon beside him. He sat up, reached for it and raised it slowly. It was heavy.
The wine inside was dark, and as he stared at it he remembered the night when he had spat it out, had thrown the wine in Mab’s face and then thrown the cup away.
What had it tasted like? He could not remember. It was not the taste that had bothered him. But what was it?
He raised the flagon to his lips and tasted. Powerful emotions tugged at his chest. He breathed deeply and tilted his head back, gulping the contents of the flagon greedily.
The wine tingled in his mouth and throat. A warm fire flooded his body. He lay back, letting the flagon tumble onto the carpet. His shame and guilt at first seemed to be crushing him. But as the fire inside him burned on he knew he was being set free.
Tears flowed from his eyes and he let them flow. His arms and legs were shaking. Shame and guilt were evaporating, leaving in their place a huge contentment that swept over him in waves of fire and light. He closed his eyes and let his body tremble.”
Basically, this is a turning point, a foundational moment for John, where he has made the choice that he is going to follow the Changer no matter the cost. And he’s figured out at this point that Lord Lunacy isn’t really who he says he is. He had this special stone that revealed to him Lord Lunacy’s true identity, that revealed him as this evil dragon instead of this nice-looking man that he was seeing before. After that whole debacle, he will have to meet the Goblin Prince and have a showdown.
The last thing I want to touch upon is how John White deals with grief in here. Basically, the character John has lost his mother and his father and then he loses his grandmother at the beginning of the book right before he gets into Anthropos. All through this journey in this magical land at different points he’s thinking about his parents or about his grandmother and kind of processing that. It isn’t really until the end that he’s able to face his grandmother’s death and that happens, in fact, in the showdown with the Goblin Prince, because the Goblin Prince has made this vision appear of his grandmother to distract John from the battle so that he can gain an advantage. John has to realize, “That can’t really be my grandmother standing there, because I know she’s dead.” And that can be really hard, especially for a child who’s used to having someone around.
I think John White is very much in touch with what children go through, how they think, what they feel, and I would recommend this book if you’re looking for a good children’s fantasy, if you’re looking for a good Christian allegory. It is technically not a classic, but it’s one I’ve enjoyed over the years since I was a child.
Thanks for listening!
I’d love to hear from you in the comments section:
Do you enjoy allegory, fantasy, or children’s books?
Have you re-read any books that impacted you as a child?
Why Lewis Carroll Wrote Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
Video Transcription:
Hey!
So today we’re going to talk a bit about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
This has been a favorite of mine since I was a child.
Highly imaginative. I love the way that he writes. It’s a classic, obviously, that’s why I’m talking about it.
So, a little background first about Lewis Carroll:
His real name was Charles Dodgson and He was a reverend and a mathematical lecturer at Christ Church and he was friends with the dean at that school, the Lidell family and they had a daughter named Alice and he would tell Alice these stories and she served as his muse in a sense, his inspiration, and he talks about why he wrote this book. He says:
“The why of this book cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child’s mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child’s smile would read such words in vain; while for any one who has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from God’s hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen; he will have felt the bitter contrast between the selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love. For I think a child’s first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things.”
And this book is basically just that: him celebrating the child’s perspective on things. and he takes ordinary things: a deck of cards, animals, a house, really ordinary things and sometimes adult things and he gives the child’s perspective on those which is really interesting because it creates this sense of constant wonder and sometimes comedy because the child is not really understanding what is going on and all the adult “whys” of something and so, basically, the child is just responding on an emotional level or trying to make sense of it all and so there you get the mind of Alice and it is through her eyes that we experience this whole wonderland.
A Bit about Wordplay and Irony
Transcription:
So, one of the things that Lewis Carroll does in here is that he creates a lot of wordplays and so children are often going to be confused when they’re first learning words or concepts and they don’t know what it means yet or they don’t know the multiple meanings. He really plays on that quite a bit. So, I’ll just give you two quick examples:
One of those is, so Alice has grown really big. She first entered into wonderland, then she grew really big, then she cried a lot and then she grew really small, so there’s the pool of tears that she finds herself falling into with all these other animals and then they get out of the pool. They’re all cold, they’re all wet, they all want to dry off. So, the mouse things of something that will get them very dry.
“Ahem” said the mouse with an important air, “Are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round if you please. William the Conqueror, whose cause was favored by the Pope, was submitted to by the English…”
And so, he’s reciting something very dry to get them dry. So, there’s the whole concept of reciting something dry to get them dry and there’s another level because this is very dry British humor.
Then another example is “Porpoise.”
There’s this play on words about purpose and porpoise. They’re talking about doing things on “porpoise” and then there’s an actual porpoise they’re talking about. Much funnier when you read it then how I just explained it!
I really enjoy the irony in this. At the famous trial at the end the king says, “Don’t be nervous or I’ll have you executed on the spot!” So, there’s something you would be very nervous about, a death threat, and then telling someone not to be nervous.
Again, through the eyes of a child, seeing adults saying one thing when reality is another, or seems to be another, you know. Adults do that all the time, we tell each other not to be nervous about things that we really ought to be nervous about.
A Parody of a Tale of Manners
Okay, so, two last things:
1) its kind of like making fun of a tale of manners because it shows what not to do in many circumstances, one of those being the also famous scene of the Mad Hatters tea party. When she’s first coming upon them:
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table but there was nothing on it but tea.
“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer,” said Alice.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice. “It’s laid for a great many more than three.”
“Your hair wants cutting said the Hatter.” He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity and this was his first speech.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” said Alice with some severity, “It’s very rude!”
And then it goes on with more ridiculous conversation, but basically there’s a lot of pointing out that the other characters are being rude when they are being rude.
2) I wanted to talk briefly about the lessons. Everywhere she goes in wonderland, the animals demand that she recites her lessons to them. She thinks this is very odd, very bossy, and it’s very pointless. In the mind of a child, “Why am I being forced to memorize these nonsensical lessons and recite them at the drop of a hat?”
And then some of the characters point out her that she’s not saying it right or that it doesn’t make sense even when she gets it right.
I think this is a very interesting story as an adult. I enjoyed it as a child because of all the humor but I feel like I didn’t get a lot of the humor because I was thinking like a child and this is written from a child’s perspective.
Now as an adult I can look back on the child’s perspective and think how funny it was. I think this is one of my favorites and I can see Lewis Carroll’s influence come out in my own writing at times.
I found these articles to be helpful and validating. I am a highly imaginative person, but can be timid in putting forth my wild, unique ideas, thinking that they will flop.
But then I remember my favorite books as a child were the creative, off-the-wall ones. Kids love unique and silly books!
I remember I loved the “Dumb Bunnies” books, (by Dav Pilkey, also author of the Captain Underpants books) with the clever word play and unexpected, “dumb” plot twists at every turn. I recall the delight to find such clever humor, and enjoyed the silliness of it even if I didn’t fully understand it at that young age.
The Wayside school books (by Louis Sacher, also author of Holes and other books), about a school with strange happenings, built in a high rise building that didn’t have a thirteenth floor, was fascinating to me.
The last off-the-wall type of creativity I will mention was the Bailey School Kids books, with their focus on clever, logical, mystery-solving kids who always had some adult in their school, neighborhood, or summer camp that they suspected of being a mythical creature. From Werewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp to Dracula Doesn’t Drink Pink Lemonade and Elves Don’t Wear Hard Hats This series always had enough interesting, unique content to keep me engaged.
As I think about and practice my own writing for children, I have to turn off that critical, logically-driven part of my brain that says everything has to make sense and be a certain way. Just relax and let it flow!
It’s much more enjoyable to write without judgment, not making an assessment and second guessing everything I’m writing, but rather letting the ideas come and connect, letting characters develop a life of their own and have a say in where the plot goes.
Any other children’s writers out there? I would love to connect!
I wanted to share a story that surprised and touched me. I love Oscar Wilde’s writings, from “The Importance of Being Earnest” to “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
But did you know he wrote a beautiful children’s story?
Here is The Selfish Giant. There are many illustrated and video versions of this story. I think the connections to the story of Good Friday and Easter speak for themselves. I hope you enjoy! (taken from http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Wilde-Giant.pdf)
Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other. One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden. “What are you doing here?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away. “My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED He was a very selfish Giant. The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there,” they said to each other. Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice. “I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.” But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees. One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. “I believe the Spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out. What did he see? He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children’s heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny. And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done. So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen. All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye. “But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him. “We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.” “You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad. Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he used to say. Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said; “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.” One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting. Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved. Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet. “Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.” “Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.” “Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child. And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.” And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.
(click the image to view on Amazon/ grab your own copy!)
As one of my longtime favorite children’s stories by George MacDonald, this one always hits home for me. Ever since I was a little girl, I found this story to be rich and engaging.
One of my older sisters shared with me that she felt convicted reading this, as she related to being like the self-absorbed, tantrum-throwing princess growing up. I found that interesting because I was similarly convicted by the portrayal of the dutiful, yet self-absorbed, Agnes.
I was always outwardly “willing” to do what I was asked to, while inwardly harboring anger, resentment, or self-righteousness. Ultimately what this tale teaches is a lesson about the many forms our corruption can take and how we are each equally in need of redemption.
I have always been drawn to didactic tales such as this, yet in recent years I’ve found that they’ve begun to get a bad rap.
Should a Fairytale Be Didactic?
According to many, including the commentary provided by U.C. Knoepflmacher in the Penguin edition I read, MacDonald should have stopped writing before he wrote The Lost Princess! The grounds for this are that the story is:
“More disciplined, symmetrical, and monochromatic than MacDonald’s earlier open-ended experimentations with fairy-tale forms…His new emphasis on restraint demanded a repulsion of the imaginative free-play he had once so greatly cherished.”
The issue Knoepflmacher has with this story is that it is too organized and aimed at teaching restraint instead of providing ambiguous, transportive tales as he did before.
I respectfully disagree. I have always loved stories that have a moral or point while still retaining the loveliness of a myth, legend, or fairytale. From Aesop’s Fables (which are didactic, yet wonderful, stories!) to Pilgrim’s Progress, to the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne and others! With the right balance, I think having some sort of intended meaning can enrich a fairytale.
Literary/ Biblical Connections
This story could be likened to other dual stories that show two quite different characters and the choices they make. Among them are the Prince and the Pauper (published 6 years later by Mark Twain) and, perhaps the story George MacDonald had in mind, “The Prodigal Son” from the Gospel of Luke.
I am most curious about the last connection, as I think it’s worth exploring. How is this tale commenting on the application of “The Prodigal Son” in child-rearing and child development? How does the Wise Woman, as Wisdom itself, guide the children and parents? What are the implications of turning away from Wisdom?
As this is a blog and not a paper (though I feel that scholarly itch to write one!), I will try to be succinct instead of thorough. I encourage you to read this one as inspiration for your own thoughts and reflection!
The Princess Rosamund
The princess in the story could be said to represent the wild son in the parable of “The Prodigal Son,” as she feels she lives at her own whim, careless of the needs and feelings of those around her.
“As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that she was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it for a fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self-evident, necessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that she was Somebody… and the worst of it was that the princess never thought of there being more than one Somebody–and that was herself.”
The wise woman reprimands the princess’s parents: “how badly you have treated her!” She tells them that they ought to have given her some of the things she didn’t want and should not have spoiled her as it merely fed her selfish nature.
As a remedy, the Wise Woman kidnaps the Princess and gives her many lessons about doing things she doesn’t want to do (such as chores) and regarding thinking about others. The Princess regresses along the way, throwing terrible fits, but eventually her character softens and she becomes wise.
When she meets with her parents again, they are unworthy of her. The Wise Woman blinds them that they might re-learn how to see. And who should be their instructor but the daughter they had “treated badly?” Their physical condition is made to match their spiritual one and redemption is turned on its head as the transgressor becomes the prophet, leading other transgressors in the ways of wisdom.
Agnes
Agnes, on the other hand, is the dutiful shepherd’s daughter who does her chores and thinks herself morally upright because of it. She thinks highly of herself for merely doing what is morally right (her duty), and thus feels she is deserving of the praise and admiration of those around her.
Like Rosamund, she fancies herself to be a Somebody, making her “immoderately conceited” and vain.
“Agnes was not by nature a greedy girl, as I have said; but self-conceit will go far to generate every other vice under the sun. Vanity, which is a form of self-conceit, has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest feeling in the heart of a horrible murderess.”
As part of the Wise Woman’s training, Agnes is imprisoned with a reflection of herself (a doppelgänger of sorts, if you will). She loathes and fears it while still feeling smug, self-righteous, and satisfied. The reason her teaching doesn’t take is that there is a worm eating away at her heart.
As in the story of “The Prodigal Son,” it is the child who is outwardly vulgar who transforms, gaining a more humble estimation of herself. The shepherd’s daughter, Agnes, does not learn because her condition is more serious: her vanity has taken deep root in her heart and she won’t let go of it. She became too good at outwardly toeing the line and mistaking that for true virtue. She never learns and is left with her own worm-eaten heart as punishment.
The Wise Woman
It is worth noting that the Wise Woman, the teacher of these two “sinners,” represents Wisdom personified, as seen in the book of Proverbs from the Bible and in many literary works. She gives both the parents and the children difficult moral lessons to learn which challenge their deep-rooted beliefs about themselves and what the world owes them. Only two people in this tale are savvy enough to learn from her, while the others will continue in the blindness of their folly.
I’d love to hear from you:
What are some didactic (meant to teach) stories you’ve enjoyed?
What are some of your fairytale favorites and why?
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Classic Reads 