Problematic Favorites: A Little Princess - Part 15 The Axe Falls

[hrj]

In the second part of Chapter 7, we see the depths of nastiness that the adult characters are capable of. Captain Crewe’s soliciter comes to tell Miss Minchin the news that Crewe has died--and died a pauper after the diamond mines failed. The soliciter does get one rather delicious line in this conversation. In the initial conversation where he is railing against the fantasies spawned by the diamond mines, he notes, “When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend’s diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends want his money to put into.” After dropping the bomb that the Captain has died from a combination of jungle fever and business troubles, Miss Minchin asks exactly what the business troubles were. “Diamond mines,” answered Mr. Barrow, “and dear friends--and ruin.”

But the shock of the thought of Crewe’s fortune having evaporated (and Miss Minchin being on the hook for the funds she’d fronted for Sara’s party, as well as ordinary expenses), seems to drive a number of things out of both their minds. It seems implausible to me that neither of them thinks to try to locate someone who will stand in loco parentis for Sara. The soliciter presumably had the means to follow up with Captain Crewe’s military superiors, who might have ideas about what arrangements might be made--even assuming that Sara truly has no remaining living relatives. (Whatever did happen to her mother’s family?) For that matter, he is quite aware of the existence of Captain Crewe's "dear friend" who--though presumably equally bankrupt from the mine debacle--might well be expected to feel some responsibility for Sara (as, indeed, we later see he does), and might very well have relatives of his own in England who could step in and provide assistance.

But even Miss Minchin is aware of Sara having at least one potential sponsor, because she knows that Crewe chose her school on the personal recommendation of Lady Meredith. And there’s a clear indication in Chapter 1 that Miss Minchin had personal correspondence with Lady Meredith regarding Sara’s suitability for the school. So why doesn’t it occur to her to contact Lady Meredith and let her know that her dear friend Captain Crewe’s daughter is now friendless and destitute? At the very least, Sara might be taken off her hands. At the most, Lady Meredith might feel a moral obligation to pay Sara’s debt at the school as well.

This aspect has always troubled me. There is no reason other than plot logistics for Sara to be considered genuinely alone and friendless in the world.

Miss Minchin is so personally affronted by the loss of Sara’s fortune that she leaps to the decision to throw her into the street, rather than considering following up on any of these possibilities. It is noted that this is an indiscreet intention to voice. But the soliciter, rather than chiding her for her hard-heartedness, only points out that it would reflect badly on the school and that it would be more practical to exploit Sara as an unpaid servant. If nothing else, this is one more piece of evidence that Captain Crewe was extremely incompetent in his business decisions. One might think that when he chose an agent to look out for his daughter’s interests in England, he would have chosen someone capable of empathy and compassion.

But, no.

So Miss Minchin calls her sister in to do the dirty work and devises a way of informing Sara of her father’s death designed for maximum trauma. In this chapter, any sympathy one might have had for Minchin’s position vis a vis her pampered pupil is trampled into the dirt.

It’s left to Becky--who has been hiding under the table while all these conversations have gone on--to think what all this will mean for Sara herself, and to beg for permission to help soften the blow and assist Sara in the transition. And it’s Becky who sees the tragedy as a story arc: “It’s exactly like the ones in the stories--them poor princess ones that was drove into the world.”

Next week, we’ll finish Chapter 7 with Sara’s reaction to the news.

Comments

[legionseaglelj.livejournal.com]

Coming back to this after some further thought, we are operating (and, I would say, continue to operate) in a real world which is significantly affected by an overt and very real class system.

I'd further suggest that in the British class system (which is the one I know about) class status depends on the following, listed in order of importance though clearly they interrelate:

a) inherited. Family and connections.

b) social - class markers include accent, manners (that is, known and rigorously enforced and very class-essential formal manners - Becky is well ahead of most of the school including its principal when one considers natural courtesy, but the class system doesn't)

c) educational. The Foster Education Act of 1870 made education compulsory but did not make it free, and made it easy for children's formal education to end at 12 and become part time earlier so that they could go out to work. For that reason, btw, I believe Becky is probably younger than the 16 you suggest, especially given the weird age things about other characters. Furthermore, the kind of education given to the working classes through the Board Schools was designed to be different in nature from that given in private education, and private education itself was heavily stratified, particularly for boys (another of Captain Crewe's bizarre decisions is "why Miss Minchen's?" which is clearly a small and undistinguished private school, even given it's a girls' school at the relevant period.)

d) financial. A very long way behind the others*.

If you look at A Little Princess as A Study in Class, Miss Minchen's aim (which Sara consciously opposes, including by studying on her own in the deserted schoolroom) is to bring Sara down the class ladder using her poverty as the wedge strategy. The moral of the rest of the book (and it's even more so with the character of the Rat, in the Lost Prince) is that this effort is doomed to failure. But why?

Speaking on a Doylist level, here, I think it is because Hodgson-Burnett is being pulled in two different ways. I ranked the elements of class indicators a) b) c) d) because that's how they are generally rated (hence the Woosterish 'silly ass' stereotype, who can get away with being shockingly ignorant precisely because he scores so highly on a) and b) as well as doing well on d), but see how nouveau riche characters are treated in that universe).

However, I actually think H-B orders things c) a) b) and also has a touching faith** that d) comes from working hard on e) and b) - and in b) emphasising the "natural courtesy" above "formal structured manners" to boot.

So she's got a different take on the class system, while still regarding it as important. I actually think this is going to be important for Becky's ultimate future, and when the read-through gets there I'd be interested in talking about what we think the final appearance means, and whether it's Becky's last state.


* I've ranked education behind inherited and social, because although some aspects of education - Eton (in the case of Captain Crewe and his dear friend) are important, they're important in their social aspect and not because of their other effects. A First from the "wrong" university counts less than a Fourth from Christchurch, Oxford etc. Also, if one has a) it opens up a lot of opportunities to improve financial status eg flats to borrow from relatives so one can live in expensive cities for unpaid internships, connections to get one into interviews etc

** Borne out in her own life, to be fair

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I both agree with you completely and deeply want Becky to be rewarded for her essential goodness. It's a contradiction I can live with.

[legionseaglelj.livejournal.com]

How could you see a reward for Becky happening that didn't cut across the historical (not as historical as I'd like it to be) issues?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I can't. But I want it. In the same way I want to read about queer people in history getting happy endings that don't involve masquerades and compromises and the constant threat of disaster. The heart wants what it wants. That doesn't mean it would be reasonable to get it.

[legionseaglelj.livejournal.com]

I can understand the impulse, but I also get antsy about the way issues like this tend to get tackled, especially in fanfic or in historical fiction written from that perspective.

I've found it very offensive in the past where writers have airbrushed out the very real difficulties working class people have suffered from, which have prevented their reaching their potential, because I come from a working class background and have seen at first hand the enormous frustration and suffering caused by this cutting off of opportunies and how insidious and soul-destroying it is on so many levels, including internally and including its manifesting as resentment against the limited number of people who have achieved a degree of social mobility, and how it ends in the constant threat of imposter syndrome and families being torn apart.

A superimposed conflict free happy ending is basically a big kick in the teeth to anyone who's had experience of the alternative, because it's basically saying to everyone who hasn't achieved that sort of ending that the fault is in them, not in the system. A bit as if you went and read Secret Garden to a bunch of kids in wheelchairs and told them, "Now, Colin did it, so the only reason you lot aren't walking is because you aren't trying hard enough."

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yes. And me being American, I have a lot of blind spots around this topic. (Though I hope not as many as people who aren't trying to pay attention.)

Um...I don't suppose you'd be interested in being a subject-matter-expert beta reader for my *next* Alpennia book? Protagonist is a teenage girl in domestic service who ends up being something of a catalyst between other characters. I specifically wanted to explore what my world and its magic look like to someone who isn't rich, powerful, or magical, but who rubs elbows with those who are. *Her* idea of a happy ending is to become a dressmaker's apprentice. Well, that is...after her idea of a happy ending is not starving on the streets after losing her position.

[legionseaglelj.livejournal.com]

Happy to give it a look, certainly.

ETA Does your universe have workhouses?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Good question. That is -- since the stories are set in "our history - plus", of course there are workhouses. The question is what sort of equivalent institution exists in Alpennia. I've never intended Alpennia to be any sort of utopia. It's just a question of whether my viewpoint character have been forced to confront things like this. Of the on-stage (but not viewpoint) characters, the one who's been most outspoken on behalf of working class issues is Akezze. She's cautiously trying to raise Margerit's consciousness a bit.

My viewpoint character in Floodtide will find other options before getting to the point of dealing with workhouses, but you're right that it should be one of the possibilities confronting her. (I'd already pencilled in several of the other options, but not that specific one.)

[legionseaglelj.livejournal.com]

From the persepective of English history, from 1834 onwards to their final abolition in 1948 (formal abolition 1930 - vestiges of old system remained) I think it's important not just to see workhouses as an awful fate for individuals who fell out of the system, but as a weapon of systemised psychological oppression of the working classes. It's the stick Miss Minchen wields over Becky and, indeed, the cook (the cook blames Becky for theft from the kitchen which are in fact things that the cook gives to her "follower" the policeman) but the whole system depends on the ultimate sanction that the cold breath of the workhouse is on the backs of all the servants' necks (it's an aspect of Sara's privilege that even when destitute throwing her out onto the street with only the workhouse (or, of course, child sexual exploitation, more probably) to support her is socially unacceptable in Sara's case for class reasons, but not so in Becky's or the cook's.