As early as 1715 when Isaac Watt’s Divine and Moral Songs asked “Have you not heard what dreadful plagues\Are Threatened by the Lord, \To him that breaks his father’s law\Or mocks his mother’s word?” such coercive literature as Tatar refers to above has been in circulation. This type of literature aimed to mould an ideal docile child who followed instruction, through stories, which either killed off their protagonists or framed them as an exemplary figure. Since it became a commercial endeavour with Newbery’s “A Little Pretty Pocket-Book” (1744), children’s literature has openly endorsed a productive discipline that condemns idleness and censures disobedience even as it hails acculturation and accommodation. Some of the stories were violently coercive and almost seemed to take the idea of moral symmetry, that is of good against evil, too far (e.g. German Struwwelpeter) in that they turned into horror stories which lost their “socialising energy”. Though the vast majority of tales from the time played a key role in creating the ideal child previously mentioned. It is hard to gauge the extent to which children listened or believed these moral messages however some evidence exists that the tales where reinforced wherever possible by other improving activities such as attending executions.
It can be said that the tales of this era were not completely devoid of merit for example they gave lessons of care with fires in an era of open fires. Tatar claims that they offered children a “program for survival” but this is an overstatement as the tales concentrated on the torments of failing to heed advice given. Perhaps Zipes better summed up the overall messages contained in these tales when he said, “to live, a child had to live properly, restraining natural instincts according to rules established by adults. To disobey these rules or to indulge one’s sensual drives for pleasure meant death”. There are many examples of such literature which range from Tom Trindall to the story of The little fish that would not do as it was bid that combine this element of instruction with amusement. Though, a major part is also played by the so-called reward/punishment tales, which portray contrasting characters who are for example kind/unkind, hard-working/lazy and such with the obvious reward coming for the “good” character and some less pleasant fate for the “bad” character (Heinrich, Hoffman and at the horror end of the spectrum Stuwwelpeter).
This moral-based literature was a major part of the socialization mould as it tried to shape society but messages also existed with regard to class attitudes, sexism and racism which would now not be acceptable or should I say politically correct. As Morison puts it “within the staid improving literature of the time the biases are particularly transparent”. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) has some references to blacks, which, while containing a certain element of moral irony, are considered unwelcome in today’s political climate. It has been said that Kipling’s works generally have clear messages of white supremicism but in particular The Jungle Books (1894-5) where it is surely not by chance that Mowgli ends up as a game warden under the control of British authority. Another such example is that of Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo (1898), this story though still read now would definitely not be written in this era. As Morison suggests picking out attitudes from an earlier time is easy with one hundred or so years of hindsight. Obviously the literature of a time is going to run true to the attitudes of the time and “we do not know now what unexpected sins we ourselves may be found guilty of in fifty years time”.
More worthy of mention is the images and values, which are portrayed in the literature. Bob Dixon in his piece Catching them Young enlists many examples of such portrayals. As the title of the piece suggests he hunts out racist, sexist and class values within children books that are indeed catching children young and laying out in their mind the way “things should be” so to speak. His many examples include the mass of sexist on goings in the Pony Parade series, Noddy’s assault by the wicked golliwogs and the snobbery of Rev. W. Awdry’s branch line.
I think particular attention should be paid here to the issue of the sexist values, which many of the books portrayed. As Cadogan and Craig put it “before girls are old enough to go to school they are familiar with Polly Flinders, who is whipped for spoiling her nice, new, feminine clothes, with the other Polly who is encouraged endlessly to put the kettle on and take it off again; they learn that Miss Muffet has an irrational fear of spiders, and see how the little girls who are kissed and reduced to tears by the offensive Georgie-Porgie lack the courage to chase him off, and have to wait until the “boys” come out to rescue them”. Though to female readers it may seem ludicrous for us to say that this is why little girls are little girls, as they now see themselves in the “girl-power” mode, perhaps this was indeed the case. Girls in this literature were often given passive verbs for example Jane would watch but John he would jump or run. John (typical boy) in our example was outgoing and he was ready to act upon the world but Jane (typical girl) seemed content with her lot. As Dixon put it “Boys do, girls just are”. This may seem harsh to a member of the female population now but these are the images that were portrayed. We see them backed up by children’s toys, as boys receive action heroes or fighter planes girls are satisfied with ironing boards or Barbie dolls. Claudia Nelson would argue though that the feminine ethic was being promoted even for boys in Victorian times. This ethic of self-control, selflessness and self-sacrifice represented kind of attempted reformation of society. There is no doubt that messages from the wider society existed here but as societal attitudes changed so did those of publishers and this is why many popular works were re-edited.
The broad category defined as literary criticism or more readily referred to as subversive literature offer us messages, which were not appropriate in the culture of the time. An example being Twain’s Tom Sawyer, which reversed the standard model that the good and virtuous boy will succeed. Tom was a terrible boy who done any amount of bad things but to come to no grim end as we had seen in previous stories. Twain in his preface claimed it was for mere “entertainment” but was it? Lewis Carroll is every bit as subversive as Twain but more subtle, take his famous work of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, Alice is by no means a good little girl in mid-Victorian times. She is not gentle, timid and docile, but active, brave, and impatient : she is highly critical of the adults she meets and of her surroundings. Other examples include Mary Poppins where the parents can’t control their children and the Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand, the bull who would not fight (reference to WWII). Although this type of literature have hidden in them messages that were not acceptable at the time for one reason or another they do give us insight into a certain category of people’s thinking at the time and are therefore worth mention. Also as many of these classics are reprinted they offer us messages, which are now readily seen in our culture. A further example of this is Astrid Lingdren’s Pippi Longstocking, at the time of its release it was heavily criticised as Pippi wasn’t your standard girl but now it is an international favourite.
The final broad category, which comes up for discussion, is that of Psychoanalysis more commonly referred to as Folklore and Therapy. Some argue that such tales are culture specific, for example, Darnton finds the stories colleted by Perrault as simply detailing peasant life in eighteenth century France with its Malthusian environment of scarce food and high infant mortality. Bottigheimer maintains that the stories represent historical documents capable of giving an insight to their time in history. Others though see these folk and fairytales as universal multicultural documents; the greatest exponent of this theory is Bruno Bettleheim. He argues that there are symbols semiotically encoded in children’s literature that can be used as signposts to guide children through their basic problems when growing up. The rules for reading literature in such a way are very much Freudian and are based on his Interpretation of Dreams. In such tales the boundaries of right and wrong and the child’s need to make a choice are central. It seems this is more realistic an approach as in many other tales children are shielded from the “essential nature of mankind and the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly, out of anger and anxiety”. While we want our children to believe that everyone is good, “children know they are not always good; and often when they are, they would prefer not to be”.
Stories of this type often contain coded messages about “civil behaviour, good sense, right and wrong and how to survive”. The tales deal with real-life problems that occur for children for example a mother who wants to devour her daughter for being the fairest of them all. Though this departs from the norm of other children’s literature it seems that it may be closer to reality as Alison Lurie puts it, “the simple, pleasant adult society they had prepared us for did not exist. As we had suspected, the fairytales had been right all along – the world was full of hostile, stupid giants and perilous castles and people who abandoned their children in the nearest forest”. Evil is also not without its attractions in fairytales as in life symbolized by the mighty giant or dragon, the power of the witch or the cunning queen in “snow white”. Bettleheim maintains that these fairytales give children more hope that even the meekest can succeed (e.g. puss in boots) rather than concentrating their full energy on subversion or didacticism like other tales.
To use Hansel and Gretel as a brief example of the encoded messages, which exist in fairytales, is quite apt. The child’s striving to hold onto their parents even though the time has come to face the world is emphasised, as well as the need to transcend a primitive orality, symbolized by the children’s infatuation with the gingerbread house. The tale offers hope to young girls dominated by older brothers, as it was indeed Gretel who came to the rescue. In the end the children return home victorious and as the saviours of the poor family with the treasures they have acquired. They have defeated the most horrid of enemies, the witch, who burned to a cinder in her own oven. Victory for the meagre and hope for all those that see themselves in their shoes. This may not be particularly apparent to the child when they hear or indeed read the story but it will appeal to their sub-conscious. As German poet Schiller wrote “Deeper meaning resides in the fairytales told to me in my childhood than is in the truth taught by life” (The Piccolomini III).
There appears to be certain pieces of message-encoded children’s literature that simply doesn’t slot into a pigeonhole. A generation of empire builders may have found moral uplift in J.D. Wyss’s Swiss Family Robinson (1814), Captain Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841) and RM Ballantyne’s The Coral Island (1857) which detailed their plucky heroes in all four corners of the globe. Victorian girls were catered for by stories such as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Woman (1868), which detailed domestic dramas. Colin Mc Naughton’s Watch out for the Giant Killers (1992) and Jan Needle’s The Bogeymen (1992) are concerned with ecological awareness and anti-racism respectively and are framed in a time when this was big news. These are just but a few examples of such literature as there is no doubt many exist.
This idea of message-encoded children’s literature is not a thing of the past by any stretch of the imagination. Granted many of the examples given are from past times but this is due to research that has been carried out. The themes portrayed in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter are no less didactic than any of the tales, which emerged in the late eighteenth century. Indeed the morals which are readily given out by such protagonists as Captain Planet or He-man in their comics of the same name are equal to if not more moralistic than any of the past examples given.
It is clear to see that since children’s literature became big business and perhaps even before this time it has been heavily laden with messages from the wider society but confined by words there has only been time for a mere taste. It is by no coincidence that Bettleheim purports that a person’s favourite fairytale can reflect their life and their insecurities. This seems to throw the question of, are adults manipulating children manipulating children?, up for discussion. This literature is written, edited, published, selected and often read by adults so therefore they can make their children read whatever they want them to in a form of indoctrination if that is not too strong a word. As G.K. Chesterton was in doubt that “my first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in nursery”. This would give the impression that adults have a lot if not too much power over what children are to learn and thus can mould them through this message encoded literature, some may say that children have the choice not to take notice of such messages but as their minds and attitudes are in the early stages of development I ask you, do they have a choice or through indoctrination, so to speak, will they succumb to what adults want?
Bibliography
K. Thomas, “Children in Early Modern England” in Children and their books (ed. G Avery and J Briggs) (1989)
F. Eyre, British Children’s Books in the Twentieth Century, (1971)
J. Rose, The Case of Peter Pan: Or the Impossibility of Children’s Fiction
Prof J Morison, “Stories for Good Children” in Morison & Bell eds. Tall Stories? Reading Law & Literature (1996)
Maria Tatar, Off with their Heads: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (1992)
Alison Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups: Subversive Children’s Literature, (1990)
Claudia Nelson, Boys will be Girls: The feminine Ethic and British Children’s Fiction 1857-1917, (1991)
Bruno Bettleheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1978)
Maria Tatar, Off with their Heads: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (1992), p15
Morison, “Stories for Good Children” in Morison & Bell eds. Tall Stories? Reading Law and Literature (1996) pp113-44
Maria Tatar, Off with their Heads: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (1992)
Illich (1973) Indeed, the law did not fully recognise different ages for criminal responsibility: Tudor criminal law permitted hanging for theft at the age of seven and this continued until the eighteenth century. There are even reports of a child of six who cried for his mother on the scaffold.
K. Thomas, “Children in Early Modern England” in Children and their books (ed. G Avery and J Briggs) 1989 p45
Morison, “Stories for Good Children” in Morison & Bell eds. Tall Stories? Reading Law and Literature (1996), p126
Bruno Bettleheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1978)
