What happens in the story? Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit is a short story written in 1955.

Authors Avatar

What happens in the story?

Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit is a short story written in 1955. It was published in the collection Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and other prose writings (1978). If you have not yet read the story, then do so before you read this summary!

In a very simple way the title is well chosen – for the first part of the story is about Superman and the second about the snowsuit. But this also shows that the story begins with pleasant fantasy and ends in unpleasant reality. And there is no Superman to rescue the narrator – only Uncle Frank to help her accept what has happened.

The story tells how the narrator (whose name never appears) plays games in which she makes up adventures for Superman. Later she is invited to the birthday party of a wealthy spoilt child, Paula Brown. Paula is proud of her birthday present, a blue snowsuit from Sweden. Some time later, Paula is playing tag in the snow when another child pushes her and she falls into an oil slick, which ruins her snowsuit. Paula blames the narrator and the other children also join in the accusation. Although her Uncle Frank believes her, the narrator has no happy ending to her story – everyone is convinced that she is to blame for the damage to the snowsuit.

The themes of this story

This is a story in which ideas are very important – perhaps more than the characters.

Scapegoats

The story shows how ready some people are to shift the blame for their own actions onto someone else. This has an obvious relevance to the story’s wartime setting. In Europe the Nazi party encouraged Germans to blame Jews and communists for the past problems of the country. In the USA many citizens were imprisoned for the duration of the war because they had Japanese or German parents. Yet many of these were patriotic Americans, who wished to fight for their country. The narrator’s family seems to have a German background. Her father is called Otto. And when her uncle speaks of Germans in America being put in prison, her mother says she is glad he didn’t live to see what is happening in the USA.

In the story we see how one person becomes a scapegoat almost by chance – if the narrator had not joined in the game with Paula and the others, she could not have been blamed for the accident to the snowsuit. But once the finger of blame is pointed at her, everyone else joins in. Paula is supposedly unpopular, but no child wants to be held responsible for the damage to the snowsuit, and all readily join in condemning one person. Perhaps Paula knows that she is not popular enough to get away with blaming Jimmy. Perhaps she is frightened of telling her parents that it was largely her own carelessness that caused her to fall. (The reader sees that Paula is at fault for wearing her precious snowsuit while running around near an oil slick.)

Even David, who has appeared as the narrator’s friend, is ready to confirm the “official” version of events. The grown ups are ready to believe this, as only the narrator denies it. Uncle Frank appears to be the only person who believes her, but even he feels he must satisfy the other grown-ups by paying for a new snowsuit.

If you have never been accused of something you did not do, you are very lucky. If you are a teacher or parent, you have perhaps blamed someone in the same way that the narrator here is blamed. To decide what this idea means in the story, you might consider these questions:

  • Do all the children know that the narrator did not push Paula? Are they perhaps unsure of what really happened? Try to find evidence for your answer.
  • Why should all the children take the side of a child that “nobody...really liked”? How sure are we that the narrator is right in giving this measure of Paula’s unpopularity?
  • How good, in your view, are adults at knowing which children are truthful and which ones are more dishonest?

Fantasy and reality

Superman first became popular in comic strips and radio broadcasts. These are ideal media for fantasy stories because there are few limits to what the writers can show or suggest. Sylvia Plath, writing in the 1950s, can be sure that the reader knows who Superman is. Nowadays, some readers may not know this. Apart from his unusual clothing (he also has a blue suit), Superman has enormous strength and can fly “faster than a speeding bullet”. This is not an accidental comparison – he often has to do this to save someone from being shot.

Using the radio broadcasts as their starting point or inspiration, the narrator and David create their own dramas, including rôles for Sheldon. We do not know how inventive these games were. But the narrator gives us a sense of her imagination with her account of “making up dreams”.

The war represents unpleasant reality. There is a perfect illustration of this when the children go to the cinema. They expect to see a delightful children’s fantasy, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. But there is a supporting feature, which appears to be a US propaganda film. This shows how the Japanese torture and kill prisoners of war. It is not suitable for a child, and the narrator vomits in the toilet. (If the narrator is meant to be the writer, then in 1941 she would have been nine years old. Nowadays young children may well see violent or disturbing scenes in films and on TV programmes, but this would not have been so in the USA in the 1940s.)

At the end of the story, the fantasy is destroyed forever – the blue capes dissolve and vanish “like the crude drawings of a child.” The narrator suggests that fantasy is for children only.

Man and Superman

Superman is a fantasy character. No real human being is much like him. But the narrator wanted to believe that her Uncle Frank was like him. Early in the story she lists Uncle Frank’s special abilities: he was the strongest man David had ever known and he could perform conjuring tricks and acrobatic feats. In the original Superman stories, the hero spends much of his time living as an ordinary human being, Clark Kent.

When the narrator goes to the cinema the film about the Japanese horrifies her. It fills her mind as she lies in bed at night, and she is unable to make Superman come to the rescue: “No crusading blue figure came roaring down in heavenly anger”. It is as if she knows Superman belongs in the fantasy world but not the real world, where the war is being fought out.

At the end of the story there is a situation that occurs in most Superman narratives – there is a wrong waiting to be put right. And Uncle Frank is faced with the chance to do this. The narrator tells him the truth, perhaps hoping that he at least will defend her reputation, or even perform some miracle to put things right. What is his response? To pay for a new snowsuit and hope that people will forget. He seems not to realize that ten years may seem a short time to him, but to a child it seems almost an eternity – this is longer than she has lived or can remember.

Material possessions and human values

In the west today many people have so much wealth as not to worry about particular material things. If we ruin our clothes, we just replace them. This story may make sense to readers from cultures where possessions are not seen as disposable. Perhaps you know older people who are more worried about such things, and worry about waste.

It also helps if you know about the situation in the story. During the war, Sweden was a neutral country. We do not know for certain if the snowsuit really came from Sweden, as the narrator adds, “she said”. And we know that Paula does not always tell the truth. But the description of the snowsuit suggests that it is rare and expensive. And Paula evidently likes to have such special presents as a status symbol. Even today, some people (young and old alike) think that they must have clothes or cars of a certain kind, and look down on others who don’t have these things. If the snowsuit really did come from Sweden, then it must have crossed the Atlantic by ship – a very dangerous voyage.

Join now!

At the heart of the story is a simple contrast. Which is more important – a little girl’s reputation and happiness or an expensive and impractical garment? It seems obvious to the reader, that all the people in the story get this wrong. Perhaps the children have some excuse, as their values reflect what they have been taught. But the grown ups in the story should know better. What is particularly alarming is their readiness to spread the story: “…the whole neighbourhood is talking about it.”

In the developed world today the idea of private property is very important ...

This is a preview of the whole essay