Problematic Favorites: A Little Princess - Part 9 The Ill-Used Heroine

[hrj]

Chapter 5 introduces Becky, the scullery maid. I think it’s a virtue of Burnett’s writing that she is able to portray Sara as being less essentialist about Becky’s nature and character than Burnett herself seems to be. While the narrative descriptions of Becky regularly focus on her timid and fearful personality (well, duh! when she could be dismissed from her position on a whim) and portray her as worshipping Sara as a near-goddess, not merely a princess, in Sara’s interactions with Becky, she treats her as nearly as an equal as their respective positions allow. And Sara’s kindness and charity to Becky are usually sensitive to what Becky herself wants and needs, not simply what will make Sara feel good. Still, there are a lot of wince-worthy moments around Becky.

The chapter begins by returning to Sara’s love of storytelling and how it was one of the behaviors that gave her social status among the other students. She not only makes up stories but acts them out in the telling, drawing the listeners into her imaginative fantasy worlds of fairies, mermaids, kings, and queens.

And then, in the midst of this, we switch to Sara’s observation of a new servant at the school, seen from a distance as Sara is getting out of her carriage “wrapped in velvets and furs”. Becky is working around the area steps (the lower front entrance to a townhouse, used by servants) and staring at her as if she were a vision from another world--which, in fact, Sara might as well be.

The first of the cringe-worthy moments comes in the first description of Becky as “a dingy little figure”, but more to the point, in that first descriptive paragraph, Becky (whose name we don’t know yet) is referred to as “it” three times. Now, this isn’t a matter of gender uncertainty--clothing is highly gendered in this era and even if Becky’s face were obscured it would have been instantly obvious that she was female. There seems no useful reason for this “it”-ing, especially given that the narrative switches to female pronouns in the next paragraph. If I were looking for deep meaning, I’d suggest that the change in pronouns represents the near-instant process of Sara recognizing Becky as a unique and individual human being, but if so, it still feels like a slap in the face to do that by means of literal objectifying at first.

Becky’s initial reticence is played as humorous in the narration, by virtue of noting that Sara does not laugh at the way she pops out of side like a jack-in-the-box, because she feels pity instead. And this is only the beginning of the divergence between Sara’s attitude and the narrative position. Later that day, while Sara is telling a story to a group of other girls, Becky comes in to tend to the fire and becomes so enraptured by listening to the story that she stops working to listen. Sara, noticing this, projects her voice more clearly to make sure that Becky can hear the story too and, when Lavinia (who, as usual, represents the archetypal Mean Girl) also notices and scolds Becky out of the room, Sara defends her right to listen.

Mariette, Sara’s French maid, fills her in on the details of Becky’s life, including her name, and communicates that she considers Becky to be unusually put-upon and burdened with all the hardest work of the school. (I rather suspect the nature of Becky’s position wasn’t at all unusual.) And after this, Sara makes a point of noticing and observing Becky around the school and turns her into a character in a story (presumably one she doesn’t share with the other girls) in which Becky is an “ill-used heroine”, presaging the role they both will share later in the book.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Oh, Becky! Becky was often one of my favorites in this book, perhaps because she starts out ill-used, rather than falling to that point. Lots of my favorite daydream plots involved scrappy kids in terrible situations who'd never known better, and Becky fit that perfectly. (I mean. Aside from being scrappy. She's a lot more realistic as a nervous, deferential child-servant than any of my spunky kid protagonists were.) Even as a child I remember being irate at how her happy ending worked.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yes, it would be so unrealistic to expect her personality to be bold and defiant. It's even believable that she retains a deferential relationship to Sara even after Sara's fall--though not for the implied reasons. (The implied reason is that Sara's natural nobility always shines through. The believable reason--other than being a survival reflex--is that Becky understands at heart that Sara's fall is a temporary condition, whereas her own position is permanent. An understanding that is borne out.)

[rosefox]

I know I've seen that casual use of "it" for unknown/unfamiliar people in Heyer, though of course she was attempting to mimic Regency-era language and not really succeeding. But it doesn't feel like it's intended to be dehumanizing, exactly--more a note that one has questions about this person.

[zeborah]

I've also seen 'it' in older stuff for children, though I don't recall whether Becky is young enough to qualify under that account.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I've also seen "it" in older British literature when talking about children; the term seems used very frequently with babies, sometimes with older children. I think in particular of Bronte's Villette, when a child of somewhere between 4 and 7 is introduced (very small for her age and very precocious, which makes identifying her age tricky), and is referred to as "it" for at least a full scene, including while speaking to other people and having her high-quality feminine clothing described.

Becky's age being qualifying or not is actually an interesting question, because I seem to recall that she's thinner and smaller than she ought to be at her age (and, I think Burnett implies or states, mentally younger to match), because of childhood malnutrition. So she may look eight or ten when she's actually 12 or 14 in this scene.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Ok, you-all have convinced me not to get my knickers in a twist over the "it" reference. There are some bits of archaic language use in the book that I can just mentally translate. This one I was taking though modern filters and wincing.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I find it jarring! But it doesn't seem to imply anything more pejorative than, mm, oddity, maybe? in context. When it comes up in Villette, the narrator is also a child (if one some years older), and seems to be using it as a marker of how the little girl in the scene is strange and otherworldly. Or it could just be a marker of age.

Damn. Now I want to track down someone who's actually studied more literature of that era and ask them to find me a paper on it.

[touhou mother (from livejournal.com)]

"The first of the cringe-worthy moments comes in the first description of Becky as “a dingy little figure”, but more to the point, in that first descriptive paragraph, Becky (whose name we don’t know yet) is referred to as “it” three times. Now, this isn’t a matter of gender uncertainty--clothing is highly gendered in this era and even if Becky’s face were obscured it would have been instantly obvious that she was female. There seems no useful reason for this “it”-ing, especially given that the narrative switches to female pronouns in the next paragraph. If I were looking for deep meaning, I’d suggest that the change in pronouns represents the near-instant process of Sara recognizing Becky as a unique and individual human being, but if so, it still feels like a slap in the face to do that by means of literal objectifying at first."

That's the point. It was similar to Dickens referring to the poor street sweeper kid Jo as "that creature", "that beast", and "that animal" over and over again in Bleak House. It's satire.

"Sara, noticing this, projects her voice more clearly to make sure that Becky can hear the story too and, when Lavinia (who, as usual, represents the archetypal Mean Girl) also notices and scolds Becky out of the room, Sara defends her right to listen."

Lavinia is obviously Burnett's take on your typical 19th century blonde cheerleader girl. She's like a less humorous version of Fanny from Little Dorrit.

And you can tell she got her meanness from her mother.

[touhou mother (from livejournal.com)]

Why are you irate? Becky is happy enough.

[touhou mother (from livejournal.com)]

"The implied reason is that Sara's natural nobility always shines through. The believable reason--other than being a survival reflex--is that Becky understands at heart that Sara's fall is a temporary condition, whereas her own position is permanent. An understanding that is borne out."

The implied reason makes more sense. Your "believable" reason is just headcanon with no basis in the text.

And the whole point of the story is how Sara doesn't change even though her circumstances change. She keeps holding on to her inner nobility, even though it's not expected and even discouraged to do so. That is also why when she was given the penny by the Carmichael kid, her sister told her afterwards that she doesn't look like a beggar like he had thought she was.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I love that you've found my re-read series and enjoy it enough to enter the conversation! I'm going to discuss this here, but it applies to a few of the other comments you've added on other entries.

I suspect we're coming at this analysis from different directions. One of the underlying purposes of my re-read discussion is to acknowledge that, while I love this book deeply, it carries a fair amount of classist, racist, and colonialist baggage. In that context, I believe one has the choice between either dismissing a work entirely (which I don't want to do) or engaging with the problematic elements and critiquing them.

Authorial intent is not god, particularly when an author is writing the Other. For example, if an author is writing the inhabitants of a colonized land as vaguely mystical, subservient, happy-go-lucky children, I consider it irresponsible to think, "Well, maybe it simply is the case that these particular characters really do have those characteristics and the author has portrayed them accurately."

Considering the internal motivations for the behavior of a working-class or racially-marginalized character toward a relatively privileged character isn't just a matter of having a "head-cannon". It's also a matter of integrating the personal testimony of people from those marginalized groups regarding their experiences and motivations.

To suggest that the motivations I discuss have no basis in the text is to suggest that the text is not describing human beings with human experiences. Instead, I believe that the author was *trying* to describe real human beings, but was hobbled by the limitations of her own understanding. She isn't describing smeerps--something entirely of her own invention--where no one else has any knowledge or understanding of the topic. She's describing real people from real cultures and real social contexts. And she is allowed to be mistaken and flawed in her understanding of them.

[touhou mother (from livejournal.com)]

"To suggest that the motivations I discuss have no basis in the text is to suggest that the text is not describing human beings with human experiences. Instead, I believe that the author was *trying* to describe real human beings, but was hobbled by the limitations of her own understanding. She isn't describing smeerps--something entirely of her own invention--where no one else has any knowledge or understanding of the topic. She's describing real people from real cultures and real social contexts. And she is allowed to be mistaken and flawed in her understanding of them."

I don't think Burnett was trying to do that. Sara is, after all, more of an ideal than an actual real life person. Same as Cedric in her other work.

And you base your headcanon on Becky from said "ersonal testimony of people from those marginalized groups regarding their experiences and motivations.". Which book?