Poor Joan My Fat Foot!

This has taken me a bit longer than I expected, mostly because it is hard to get back into the swing of indignantly recounting of events. You'll forgive me if my ability to reach the heights of outrage is a little impaired ...

So this rant thing has expanded somewhat. What was meant to be a standalone rant on a subject has blown out into a three blog post extrantaganza. THREE SEPARATE POSTS.

No wonder I balked at writing it the first time around.

So I decided to turn it into a rant sandwich, because there are parts of this chapter that I do like, or rather, that I COULD like, if it weren’t wrapped up in all the Enid-ness, that niggling wrongness that creeps through the story like yeast through bread.

The three posts on this subject will be as follows:

• Poor Joan my fat foot;
• Redeeming qualities; and
• Why the regime really fails those who most need its benefits.

The chapter itself is just two short scenes. When last we left our (not so) intrepid heroine, she had just been caught going down to the shops by herself by no less a personage than the HEAD GIRL!!! (Dun dun DUUUUUUUUNNNNN). Rita, being one of the Keepers of the Zoo that is Whyteleafe, does what no one else has thought to do and actually TALKS to Elizabeth about why she is doing what she’s doing (I told you I actually like some stuff about this chapter). Then she goes and ruins it by appealing to Elizabeth’s sense of superiority and asks her to take pity on poor friendless Joan and to try and make her life a little easier. So Elizabeth tries – and Joan essentially tells her to @#*! Off, she didn't want Elizabeth lurking round her to laugh at her some more.

Gotta say, in that moment, I really liked Joan. I also have to say that part three of this rant-a-thon will come back to that ...

But herein lies my rant. Who is Joan? She’s a name that has popped up a few times in the book, one of the girls in the same room as Elizabeth. You don’t know much about her except that she is a bit obsessed with checking the post, and the other children mock her for this rather benign obsession.

So why should Elizabeth be friends with her? Rita explains

“She hasn’t a happy home, and she comes back to school very miserable each term. She worries about her father and mother all the time, because they don’t seem to want her or to love her. They never come to see her at half term.”

They don’t come at half term? The horror! That can mean only one of two things: either her parents are poor, or they are monsters! Either way, Joan clearly must have a rough trot of it. We’re expected to presume it’s the latter because Rita continues.

“ ‘Nobody knows except me,’ said Rita. ‘I live near Joan at home, so I know.’ “

Oh, so she knows the family? What a relief. That’s all right then – it’s fine that they are monsters, as long as they are the right sort, and not … *whispers* working class.

Rita continues

“I am telling you this, Elizabeth, because if you really do mean what you say about not wanting to make other people unhappy, you can just try to make things better for Joan. She hasn’t any friend, any more than you have – but for a different reason. She is afraid of making friends in case anyone asks her to stay with them for the holidays – and she knows her mother wouldn’t bother to ask any friend back to stay with Joan. And Joan is very proud, and can’t bear to take kindnesses she can’t return. Now – there’s a job for you to do! Can you do it?”

At first glance, you might be reading this and thinking “Fen, are you thick? Can’t you see that Rita is trying to encourage Elizabeth’s good qualities by focussing her on being kind to another person? Can’t you see how admirable that is?”

Others might say “WTF is she doing giving out personal information to an admittedly naughty child? Doesn’t she know what sort of damage could be inflicted by the untrustworthy being given confidential information?”

And I’d agree with you both – hence the rant sandwich.

But here’s my true problem with this: What reason is Elizabeth given to make Joan her friend? Pity. And while that is not a dreadful reason to befriend someone, it becomes problematic when it’s the ONLY reason to befriend someone.

You see, Elizabeth, being naughty in the Enidverse, is not permitted to have a friend with any redeeming virtues. She cannot make a strong friend, or a smart friend, or anyone with any social capital that may increase her social position. No, she has to have the ugly three legged dog with a flatulence problem as her friend.

So here are Joan’s Character traits:

• She has red hair;
• She has freckles;
• She’s quiet;
• She’s not smart – demonstrably bad at French and arithmetic;
• Her parents are strange;
• Her parents don’t write to her;
•  Nevertheless, she writes to her parents;
• Children laugh at her for this inequity of letters between herself and her home.

Basically, Joan has no redeeming virtues, according to Enid. She has nothing to offer except to make Elizabeth look good. She won’t challenge Elizabeth for brains or spirit (or looks, it’s implied – she never says Joan is ugly, but red hair and freckles are a marker for Enid. The freckles more than the red hair – In Malory Towers, Clarissa has red hair, glasses and braces, but becomes pretty in an ‘unusual’ way once the latter two items are gone). She can’t offer anything to Elizabeth on this reading, as Elizabeth is about to become her teacher and protector and superior. 

The only feature she has is that she appears to have is loyalty, which is praiseworthy, but which is also what you would attribute to your dog.

And She really is written as Elizabeth’s pet. She’s given no character, no agency, nothing that could teach Elizabeth anything – even the fact that she is pitiable doesn’t rouse any new feeling in our naughtiest girl – Rita brings the subject up because Elizabeth says she doesn’t like to see other people upset. You might argue that Rita was enacting a cunning plan, one which would put benefit both girls, and that her heart was in the right place. You might well do that. But she never says anything like "you could learn a lot from Joan" or says one single positive thing about Joan. No this is all about  Elizabeth and her doing a good deed for the day. 

I loathe this characterisation. I abhor it. I am willing to get a thesaurus out to detail how much I dislike it. Truly and passionately dislike it. I mean, really: She’s unattractive and stupid and not even her parents like her? THAT’S the girl you’re going to go with, Enid?

In Malory Towers, you had Sally and her jealousy about her new sibling, and you had Marylou and her timidity. But what they had was one isolated characteristic in an otherwise independent character. Sally is smart, Marylou is liked by other people. They are rounded characters who are part of the machine and accepted despite their negative characteristic.

With Joan, you get this piling on of (apparently) negative characteristics, with an underlying sensation that this is her fault. It is HER fault for expecting the basic level of communication from her parents, and the fact that she does not receive it is a point of mockery from the other children. Her red hair and freckles are noted by Enid, which is significant because she uses physical characteristics as personality markers (see Irish Nora, Fat Ruth, and pretty Elizabeth). Joan is part of the system, but is set apart by the others. She causes no trouble, she does all the right things, but the children ostracise her, with the reader invited to join in the mockery. 

To accept this description of Joan makes the reader complicit in this warped hierarchy within the school precinct. She doesn't fit in and it's her fault. Point at her and laugh, everyone. This underlying meanness, which underpins all of the “Rah Rah” decent Enid Britishness of the school, really leaves an icky feeling under my skin as I read. Enid has created this Lord of the Flies institution, one which on the surface is all about decency and fairness, but which, as you look at Joan and her treatment, exposes its rotten core at its heart. 

And the oddest thing about that core is that I don't think that the establishment can see it. They are too young to think it anything other than part and parcel of the whole Rah Rah thing. I think that irks me the most.

So much for part one of the rant-sandwich. Next time I shall tackle the chocolate chips in this turd cookie.

Gwendoline Mary - a Heroine of Our Time

Let’s talk about Gwendoline Mary. I really want to talk about Gwendoline Mary. I have been restraining myself over the past two books, knowing that I have a good one or two thousand words to say on the girl. I’ve been waiting to tell you my revelations about the Draco Malfoy prototype. Yes that’s right, Gwendoline Mary is the original Draco Malfoy (more of that later).

I have to admit, on re-reading this series, particularly after discovering the manipulation by Blyton of the reader, I have come to see Gwendoline in an entirely new light. I don’t love her, but I certainly identify with her a whole lot more than I thought I did (in fact, I see a bit of my teenage self in her, something I would never have admitted when I first read this series – I thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread). And I certainly have a lot of sympathy for a girl who is really given no chance to fit into the school, but who is constantly bullied and ostracised for no reason other than the fact that she is different.

Why you don’t like Gwendoline

Gwendoline is sulky, she’s lazy, she has a high opinion of herself, she’s catty, and she doesn’t play well with others. The others don’t like her, and by extension you the reader don’t like her (you little conformist). You even think that it’s fine to not like her. But there are two things you have to remember about darling Gwen when you are disliking her:

1) Gwen might have all of these bad qualities, but so do the other girls. EB just doesn’t dwell on them. Alicia is catty and has a high opinion of herself, Belinda is lazy, Darrell doesn’t play well with others. You see this, but it does not register through the EB glasses. The others fit EB’s idea of the perfect child, so the imperfections are seen as only further perfection. To EB, these girls sweat champagne and flush little nuggets of gold down the toilet every day.

Reality is not so simple. Teenage girls are complex creatures. Not quite children, not quite grown up, they are often very insecure. At the same time, there is this enormous amount of excitement that the future is coming for them and that they are going to be BIG. So you get this situation where all these children are starting to see themselves as superior beings, yet having a pressing need to shore up that opinion of themselves with the good opinion of others. That combination of mental workings can turn female adolescence into a nightmare of cats and claws. (I was going to say that all teenage girls are bitches, but I know a couple of my readers are teenage girls. Of course I’m not referring to you, dear reader. You are an amazing, wonderful person – but please, do come back and re-read this description in a decade or so …)

Malory Towers positively seethes with this tension – the girls have no reprieve from one another. They eat, sleep, study and relax within metres of each other. Do you honestly think that there are girls who are immune to the pull of raging hormones? So why is Gwendoline singled out?

2) You don’t like Gwendoline because you ARE Gwen. Don’t deny it. As a teenager reading the books you secretly identify most with Gwen’s antics and attitudes. You may like to think that you are Darrell, but you know that you are Gwen. This scares you, as you want to be friends with the popular girls. So you pretend that you are like them, become complicit in the bullying of little Gwen, and hope against hope that they don’t realise what you are really like.

Just like real life.

Essentially, this is high school idealised – a world in which you can become one of the popular crowd by being ostensibly individual, but essentially conformative. Giving up cozy little bitch-fests with Gwen is a small price to pay for popularity in your imagination …


Malfoy?

This is just a side-note, but anyway …

I know there are a couple of you desperate to know what Gwendoline and Draco could possibly have in common, apart from being the designated baddies of their respective series. There has to be a ‘baddie’, but really, neither of them are in the true sense. They are really just people that the ‘goodie’ doesn’t’ like.

It’s actually that ‘baddie’ designation that is part of the similarity of the characters. From the very start, we know that they are the baddies because of who they are. They are the children of their parents, and as such, they are judged before given a real chance to show themselves. Of course, as children of their parents, they are influenced by the example shown them by said parents, and act in accordance with that example as young children. Malfoy’s parents were the magical equivalent of Nazis. Gwen has a dim, superficial mother and an absentee father from whom she learnt her values. Both children display those values early on, but later do try to reform a bit (with varying levels of success – we’ll talk about Gwen’s transformation later). Neither will ever be completely accepted by the mainstream, but you do tend to like them better as adults.

… And that’s enough Harry Potter for one day.

Treatment

From the beginning, the regime doesn’t like Gwendoline, and sets out to break her. Unfortunately, the regime is a self-glorifying and stupid beast; in its wisdom, it decides that negative reinforcement is necessary to cure her 'bad' character.

Looking at the facts:

• she is an only child,
• she has been homeschooled (presumably in the country – you can’t be proper aristo without a country manor),
• she hasn’t really had that much interaction with children her own age, and
• her chief companions are her mother and governess.

At the age of twelve, her father summarily decides that this isolation is a bad idea and ships her off to boarding school, without integrating her into outside interaction with children her age first. Is it any wonder she is socially awkward?

Thrust out of her native surroundings, she begins to behave in a manner that has always been rewarded in the past, yet that only brings down scorn and mockery from her fellow students, tacitly encouraged by Miss Potts, who hears but ignores the malice of the ‘well brought up’ girls. So begins Gwendoline’s induction to Malory Towers. In my reading, I really cannot say that I have come across any instances in which anyone was nice to Gwendoline, yet she is treated as though her lack of friends is her own fault. Darrell is accepted quickly because she has learned the rules to the whole ‘school game’ long before she attended this centre of re-programming. There is no buddy system that would help Gwen acclimate to her surroundings, there is no praise for any good work done (carrot and stick doesn’t work without the carrot) – just because we don’t see her good moments doesn’t mean that Gwen is consistently bad (at one point Gwen starts working hard, but this is really not rewarded by the teacher, so she gives up).

The rest of the girls feel that they are teaching her by giving her harsh treatment, but all they are really doing is replacing one sort of behaviour with another. A pattern is established by which malice is exchanged on both sides, but with unequal power bases it was never going to be a fair fight. Gwendoline, hobbled by the animosity of the author as well as the general unfairness of the situation, retreats from the precepts of the school – she has not benefited from them, she has had no experience of them, therefore she sticks with what she knows – the lessons of her mother, reinforced every holidays. I don’t really blame her – it’s the only positive experience she has during her school years.


Case Study: Daphne

Take as an example the similarities between Gwen and Mary-Lou and their friendship with Daphne in book 2.

Gwen starts out as friends with Daphne, as Gwen sees her as pretty and of a similar social standing to her. With the precepts of her mother drummed into her, she makes friends with the one person who would earn her mother’s praise. Having made the friend, she is happy to be the lesser party in the friendship, listening to Daphne’s stories of her family and wealth, running errands, and generally being something of a slave.

Mary-Lou is captivated by Daphne’s prettiness and sets about becoming something of a dogsbody to her. She is happy to be treated as something like an also-ran to Gwen. She does Daphne’s homework, listens to her long stories, runs errands for her, and generally acts as a slave.

There is very little difference in the two separate friendships. Both are founded on rather superficial facets of Daphne’s make-up. Both are subservient, slavish type roles that leave no room for a friendship based on equality.

YET, Gwen is seen to be rather silly over Daphne, and Mary-Lou a true friend.

Later, when it is revealed that Daphne is not only not rich, but the class thief, Gwen is portrayed as being small minded for not wanting to forgive her straight away. It’s never pointed out that Gwen has been the main victim both of Daphne’s lies and her stealing (Daphne steals money off her and then borrows more from her, which she never pays back), nor is Gwen given any time to digest this information – she is just expected to suck it up and forgive Daphne because she is a hero. Let me be clear: GWEN IS THE WRONGED PARTY. If it were you, you would be quite rightly pissed off. I would want some sort of repercussion. But no – under duress from the rest of the form, particularly knuckle-dragging Darrell, Gwen is forced to capitulate.
(AND Gwen is honest about money – she won’t borrow money of anyone, even when she is short, and is shocked when Daphne wants to share borrowed money with her. I actually rather liked her at that point. It showed that she was taught ethics and follows them, even when she has the opportunity to ignore them.)
Mary-Lou is grateful to Daphne for the whole saving-her-life thing, but is that really enough on which to base a friendship? Daphne is still a rather obnoxious person – and we don’t know if she gets better, as she only turns up from time to time after book two.

I really feel that this skewed perception of Gwendoline is misleading, given her similarity to the rest of the girls.

Gwendolinitis

Book two is not the only book in which people make friends with Gwen, only to dump her at the end. It happens in book three and book four. It is as though friendship with Gwen is an illness that one must be cured. Generally the people friends with Gwen are have a character flaw, usually an ego, and enjoy having Gwen run around after them. When their fault is cured, they automatically dump Gwendoline for some new BFF. Gwen generally hasn’t done anything to warrant such treatment, so I always get annoyed when I get to these parts and find that everyone is happy that another student has been ‘cured’ of Gwen.

It is odd. After Book one, Gwen really doesn’t do anything cruel to the other girls. She’s generally sulky, but fairly innocuous. Even her tricks in book one don’t get any worse than smashing someone’s pen and sneaking a spider into someone’s desk. But there are only a number of second chances that are on offer at MT, and Gwen is always passed over. Bashing up a fellow student – free pass; stealing from your classmates – free pass and a pat on the back; poison pen (this comes later) – a stern talking to , but ultimately reprieve. But being unpopular? You have no chance.

Of course, this is news to no-one in the real world, but I really object to the Way Blyton dresses it all up. I really object to the idea that being unpopular is the fault of the unpopular, rather than intolerance on the part of the right thinking element.

Conclusion

There is hope for Gwen. There really is. I really feel that she actually comes out the best character in the end (I won’t spoil the story – I know you are all on the edge of your seat, but you have to calm down!). I like her because I get her. And so do you. She is that little ball of insecurities that haunted you during adolescence. She is all those fights you had with friends and former friends. She is how you look back at yourself (if you’re being really honest). Gwendoline is what you see when you take off the rose coloured glasses.

Gwendoline IS adolescence.

Call For Book Suggestions

I’ve come to the realisation that a diet consisting solely of EB goodness might be a little damaging to my psyche. Ra Ra Ra and all that. I might decide that Pauline Hanson, although very common, has her heart in the right place about … ‘foreigners’. I might start smacking down people who do things I don’t like, wielding my hairbrush with a mighty and vengeful hand. I might start thinking nostalgically of my high school, remembering it fondly rather than as the truly horrific place that it was. No one actually likes being a teenager, especially when they are one, so why is it perfectly acceptable to look back fondly at those years of misery?

Anyway, I propose that I intersperse my reviews of EB books with other childhood ‘favourites’ and just random crap that I happen to come across. I’ll try and keep it old school, but as a child of the 90s, there are a few gems from that era bound to sneak in …

First up on my hit list (at the moment – this is a working list, some books might not really suit my style of deconstruction …):

Hating Alison Ashley (at my primary school, everyone studied that in year six)
Are you there God, it’s me, Margaret – Judy Blume (Just ‘cos it’s so awesome)
Baby-Sitters Club (do you know that Anne M. Martin is writing a prequel?)
Tomorrow When the War Began (Film tie-in – am I showing my age when I say I remember waiting for these books to come out?)
Sweet Valley (??? Really not sure about that, I thought they were kinda lame, even for my low standards)
Grug (he’s awesome)
Random books I happen to find (‘cos that’s always fun)

I was also thinking of dipping into other old favourites such as Goosebumps, Biggles, Trixie Belden, Hardy Boys … the older the book/s, the better.

I sat down to write a comprehensive list and I drew something of a blank – I read so many books growing up that they mixed together and petrified in that chaotic mess. Look into the crystallised lump of words and you might find a gymnast, much like one of these (Oh, how I loved these books in primary school! I borrowed them from my school library about 50 times each! And I think I now love this blog – totally on my wavelength …) I must find old copies of them.

So I want to know what you would like to see reviewed, and why. Feel free to stick the knife in if you think the book truly worthy of such treatment.

Oh and Malory Towers book two is coming … I just have to go back and re-read Darrell’s latest smack-down one more time!

P.S. I now have the theme tune to the old Baby-Sitters Club TV show … GAH!!!