The way we want things to be

[litlover12]

Found this story via Bookshelves of Doom: Author Hilary McKay has written a sequel to one of my favorite childhood books, A Little Princess. As usual in these situations, I am simultaneously horrified and intrigued. I don't like the idea of some stranger messing with those wonderful characters, but at the same time I can't help feeling a little curious.

This part, though, unequivocally bugged me:

You introduce several new characters in your novel, including Alice, the feisty, outspoken new maid. She’s quite different from Becky, the maid who leaves to live with Sara.

Yes, she is. I knew that there had to be a maid helping out, and I felt I couldn’t have anyone remotely like Becky.

Well, as Ms. McKay has taken on this task, that's her prerogative. But sometimes I think that we're spoiled in this day and age, you know? We see other ages through our own eyes, and often that leads to tweaking our vision of them so that things are as we would have liked them to be. It's all to the good that we want to write strong, self-reliant female characters for little girls to emulate, especially in the Age of Bella the Bumbling and Brainless -- but sometimes I think we deliberately close our eyes and ears to the truth when we say we simply "can't have" characters who are cowed by their circumstances. Seriously, in the time and place when the story was set, who would be likelier to be working as a maid for a tyrant like Miss Minchin? A "feisty, outspoken" Alice, or a poverty-stricken, timid Becky who didn't dare speak up for herself, for fear of literally starving to death?

I suppose what I would say to Ms. McKay is this: Write Alice the way you need to, but don't blow off the Beckys of the world while you're at it. There were an awful lot of them -- and there still are, all over the world. And their voices shouldn't be drowned out just because they make us uncomfortable.

Comments

[middlegirl.livejournal.com]

I completely agree, from one A Little Princess fan to another. People of Becky's station were generally not allowed to speak up, as it was her lot in life to be a scullery maid, and especially with a mistress like Miss Minchin, to rebel even the tiniest bit would have ended with her being thrown out into the streets, where who knows what would have happened. I mean, that's exactly what would have happened after the Ermengarde's Hamper incident, except Miss Minchin knew that it would be hard to find a scullery maid for such little pay. Even Sara became a bit more subservient in her new station, because that's who she became. She kept her head up, though, because she figured she could still be a princess and because she recognized Miss Minchin for the hard-hearted woman she was.

To write our own morals and attitudes into a time period where they didn't exist (or weren't welcome) is completely wrong, if only because it clouds people's judgments to what life was really like back then, which in turn hampers our ability to recognize the events that brought us to where we are now.

Also, I just hate it when people mess with the history. :)