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

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

I don't have much to say here except "yes, this." It's so frustrating, this idea that there is only one way to be strong or to be a "worthy" heroine. Especially when it involves imposing our own modern ideas upon the past.

[rant about teaching for last year's Victorian lit class redacted]

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

I'd kind of like to hear the rant, actually. :-) If you have time, that is.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'd decided not to do the rant because I've already sort of done it here, among other places:
http://tempestsarekind.livejournal.com/131060.html
http://tempestsarekind.livejournal.com/129629.html

It was a crazy experience: lots of non-majors, all convinced that they "knew" what the Victorians were like, and that politeness is totally oppressive, and the only positions for female characters were a) to be Oppressed (and therefore not worth our time, or only worth our dismissal); or b) to be Rebelling Against the Patriarchy. *sigh*

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

GREAT rant! I love "Murder is bad, kids, except when Victorian women do it." So true.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

They really seemed to believe this. It was very distressing!