Language, Gender and Children's Fiction

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

Also available from Continuum Gender, Language and New Literacy, by Eva-Maria Thüne, Simona Leonardi and Carla Bazzanella The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Susan Mandala Opposition in Discourse, by Lesley Jeffries

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

Jane Sunderland

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Jane Sunderland, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Jane Sunderland has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-8264-4613-8 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sunderland, Jane, 1952Language, gender and children’s fiction / Jane Sunderland. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 978-0-8264-4613-8 (hardcover) 1. Children’s stories--History and criticism. 2. Discourse analysis, Literary. 3. Sex roles in literature. 4. Gender identity in literature. 5. Language and sex. I. Title. PN1009.5.S48S86 2010 809'.89282--dc22

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

2010000697

To Amelie and Eloise

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Contents

Acknowledgements

viii

1 Introduction

1

2 Language and Gender: Issues and Applications

21

3 Content Analysis: The Early Days

39

4 The Importance of Language and Linguistic Analysis

62

5 Happily Ever After?

89

6 Sixty Years of Reading Schemes

116

7 Stories Featuring Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families (written with Mark McGlashan)

142

8 ‘Miss Katherine Shot the Sheriff’: The Literary Affordance of ‘Achronological Intertextuality’

173

9 Hermione, Harry and Gender Relations at Hogwarts

190

10 Conclusion

215

Notes Bibliography Index

228 235 255

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for permission to reproduce the following copyright material: The visual of ‘Floss’, Copyright © 1992 Kim Lewis Ltd. from FLOSS, written & illustrated by Kim Lewis. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJ (Chapter 3). Mike Peters (‘The Cartoonist Group’) for ‘Disney’s Desperate Housewives’ (Chapter 5). Oxford University Press material: Illustrations by Alex Bychta from Silly Races and Dad’s Birthday by Roderick Hunt, illustrated by Alex Brychta (Oxford Reading Tree, Stage 1), illustrations copyright © Alex Brychta, used by permission of Oxford University Press (Chapter 6). The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) for use of the cover of Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums (Hedt Argent) (Chapter 7). I would also like to thank the following people for having provided considerable help in the writing of this book: Wesam Ibrahim for her painstaking reading of the manuscript, ideas and constructive comments, Elena Semino for her valuable linguistic insights, and Paul Baker, Elena Semino, Irmtraud Wolfbauer and Sue Wharton for comments on different chapters. I would also like to thank Graham Pinfield for his continual support and understanding, and Emily Pinfield-Sunderland for IT support and other research assistance.

Chapter 1

Introduction

‘In business you can’t ever stand still that way. If you’re not getting ahead every goddamn minute you feel as if you’re sliding back.’ ‘Like the Red Queen.’ ‘Yeh?’ Chuck blinks at her. ‘What queen was that?’ ‘In Through the Looking-Glass.’ ‘Oh, yeh? I never read that. You think I should?’ from Foreign Affairs (Alison Lurie)

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction is about the fiction young children read (at home and school), the language of that fiction, and the way female and male characters, and gender relations, are represented in the language of that fiction. Literacy practices and events vary hugely – how culturespecific is the bedtime story, for instance? – and much fiction is actually encountered through TV, film, computer games and theatre rather than the written word, but most children worldwide are also likely to encounter written fiction of some sort. Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction treats fiction as fiction. Let me exemplify this with an extract from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, used by Peter Hollindale in Ideology and the Children’s Book (1988). In the extract, Huck has to pretend to be his friend Tom Sawyer, and also has to invent an excuse for being late. The excuse concerns a ‘river-boat mishap’: ‘It warn’t the grounding – that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.’ ‘Good gracious! Anybody hurt?’ ‘No’m. Killed a nigger.’ ‘Well, it’s lucky. Because sometimes people do get hurt . . .’ Anyone reading this extract decontextualized (as it is here!) may be shocked at the casual use of nigger, and even more shocked that neither Huck nor

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his interlocutor appear to include black people in the social category ‘people’. The point, however, is that Huck is ‘performing’ someone else, in a strategic way, and that this extract occurs late in the novel, allowing us to appreciate that Huck himself is not as the extract suggests. Hollindale describes Huckleberry Finn as ‘the greatest anti-racist text in all literature’, but adds ‘you cannot experience the book as an anti-racist text unless you know how to read a novel’ (1988: 12). Treating fiction as fiction accordingly means taking on board its characteristics, affordances (a term I look at in Chapter 8) and constraints. First, most fiction is dialogic: characters talk to each other. This allows a range of ‘voices’ (discourses, points of view) to be heard while others remain absent. Also, typically, the author addresses the reader via a narrator, who talks about the characters (what Mick Short (1996) describes as different ‘levels of discourse’). Second, fiction includes works of fantasy as well as ‘realism’ (see Leech and Short, 2007; Stephens, 1992, for discussion of the distinction). Classic early examples of children’s fantasy fiction are the 19th century works The Water Babies (Charles Kingsley), Five Children and It (E. Nesbitt) and Peter Pan (J. M. Barrie); recent series (not just books) of note include Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Stephenie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga. However, even broadly ‘realistic’ works such as Louis Sachar’s Holes (see Chapter 8) may entail what can be seen as elements of fantasy (the possible-but-highly-improbable). The distinction is not watertight. Fantasy allows additional dimensions to those allowed by ‘realistic’ fiction (which limits empirical comparison of the two). In particular, fantasy gives the writer special scope for extending and broadening female and male characters’ practices and identities. Third, in fiction, there is the likelihood of humour and irony, making it impossible for meaning to be ‘read off’ an ironical or humorous text in any straightforward way. Humour and irony in the words of a character or the narrator afford the writer a myriad of literary possibilities. Take, as an example, the famous opening of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’, which nicely establishes Austen’s authorial tone (Leech and Short, 2007). To read this (if only retrospectively) as anything other than ironic would be to miss the point of Pride and Prejudice1. Some readers may read such propositions ‘straight’, but the possibility of humour and irony always allows a greater range of available readings of a given fictional text than of a non-fictional text (both for the analyst and, rather differently, the ‘real’ reader). Of course, fiction does not have a

Introduction

3

monopoly over irony: newspaper editorials, for example, carry their fair share. However, for still other genres (such as recipes), irony would be something of an oddity. Fourth, given that children’s fiction is often illustrated (making it ‘multimodal’), visuals are important, and have been so since the 18th century (see Harper, 2001). Analysis needs to consider the written text and visuals as a totality, and the relationship between them (see Johnston, 2000; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). Key questions include: What/Who is illustrated, and how? Do the visuals provide complementary, different or even contradictory details to the written text?

Some Parameters Without even venturing into the debates about what or who is the child, and of whether children’s fiction should be a category at all (see e.g. Hunt, 1991), what does the category of children’s fiction include (and exclude)? Kimberley Reynolds, editor of Modern Children’s Literature: An Introduction (2005), writes: the subject encompasses everything from the earliest literature such as myths, legends, folk and fairy tales to the latest work for teenage readers. Its audience ranges in age from newborns to those who are preparing to leave school. (p. 2) Reynolds’ ‘encompasses everything’ reminds us of further genres of children’s fiction: adventure, school stories, fantasy, teen romance, horror (for a discussion of genre and fiction, see Talbot, 1995). These are not watertight categories: Harry Potter is both school story and fantasy (see also Pinsent, 2005). Murray Knowles and Kirsten Malmkjaer, authors of Language and Control in Children’s Literature (1996) observe, simply, that ‘For us, children’s literature is any narrative written and published for children’ (1996: 2); relatedly, Peter Hunt, author of Criticism, Theory and Children’s Literature, proposes that in children’s literature, ‘narrative dominates’ (1991: 18). Children’s fiction remains a fuzzy-edged category for the further reason that children read books intended for adults and adults may enthusiastically read books written for children (yet again, Harry Potter provides a recent example; Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials (2000, 1997, 1995) is also read by (older) children and adults alike). Jack Zipes (2002: 42) cites

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an (un-named) UK writer who refused to categorize her work as for children or adults; the publishers then made this decision (on marketing grounds). This is important: Victor Watson, editor of The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English (2001), reminds us that (in a market-led world) the survival of children’s books . . . is directly dependent on the enthusiasm of their readers – though that enthusiasm may derive from the affectionate remembered allegiance of adult readers as well as from the loyalty of new young readers. (2001: vi) There is though no guarantee that young readers will share their parents’ loyalties, especially if the books in question look uninteresting by today’s standards (my daughter used to refer to my old Puffin books, because of the faded covers and small typeface, as ‘mouldy books’). Many readers of children’s fiction are in fact neither children, parents or teachers, but undergraduate and postgraduate students of the subject2 (see e.g. Charles Butler’s Teaching Children’s Fiction (2006)). Peter Hunt (1991) refers to such people as not ‘real readers’ – whatever, such students are unlikely to read in the same way as children. More seriously, can adults ever, really, write for children? Jacqueline Rose’s influential classic The Case of Peter Pan (1984) is subtitled The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction, meaning that adult writers of ‘children’s books’ are actually writing for themselves by representing children as innocent and asexual, or to promote their own standards.3 Since they are outside the scope of this book, I am not concerned with fiction on TV, film or videogames, or in stage plays or even theatrical adaptations of stories. I have chosen the word ‘fiction’ rather than ‘literature’, as the latter tends to connote ‘canonical’ texts such as Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women, Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes and Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. Although Little Women and Swallows and Amazons are mentioned in passing, neither receives systematic scrutiny. Any book on young children’s fiction must necessarily be selective about work discussed. This book does not, for example, look at older work by the prolific Enid Blyton, interesting and relevant as this might be for a proper understanding of gender and fiction (though see Chapter 4 for a minianalysis of a Blyton extract). Neither does it include ‘Western’ children’s classics such as Heidi, or girls’ school stories, such as those by Angela Brazil (but again see Pinsent, 2005). Most of the fiction explored is ‘modern’ (i.e. from the last 50 years). However, the book does encompass fairy tales,

Introduction

5

which are of interest because of their continual recontextualization (including in feminist versions). It also encompasses educational reading schemes, typically introduced at primary/elementary school, but used in the promotion of literacy at home as well. The language of fiction refers both to the words of the narrator and those of the characters (although characters’ words are narrated, and indeed the narrator may also be a character). I am concerned both with what is written (the ‘story’; see Leech and Short, 2007), and how. Some simple examples of the latter are: z z

z z

z

how characters are referred to in terms of descriptors (‘the earnest-looking girl’), given the connotations of different descriptors how characters’ actions are referred to (‘he climbed awkwardly . . . .’) and to what extent those actions ‘impact on the world’ (‘he knocked over the chair’) how characters’ speech is narrated (for example, as persuading, complaining, complimenting, and so on) how characters’ actual speech (and thoughts) are represented (or ‘construed’, see p. 7), most obviously, with direct or indirect speech: ‘ “I want to go” she said’ cf. ‘She said she wanted to go’, but there are other possibilities too (see for example, Leech and Short, 2007; Semino and Short, 2004) how ‘point of view’ is achieved

Gender in Fiction Gender in children’s fiction has been relevant since the early inception of children’s fiction itself, which, Knowles and Malmkjaer (1996) show, had a distinctly masculine orientation. But the modern study of gender in children’s fiction cannot be separated from the feminist work on fiction in general which began in the late 1960s. This started with a critique of the (largely male) literary ‘canon’, along with an examination of the absence of women writers, and sexist assumptions in such fiction. A key critical text here was Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics (1970). Some years later, Ellen Moers’ Literary Women (1977) and Elaine Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own (1977) constituted part of a shift in emphasis to the important but undervalued tradition of women’s writing, in which writers such as late 18thcentury novelist and children’s writer Maria Edgeworth and 17th-century dramatist Aphra Behn were brought to the fore.

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Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

These two approaches to gender and fiction had been largely AngloAmerican. Meanwhile a different, highly theoretical approach to women’s literature had been developing in France, key theorists being Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. The concern here was not gender representation but rather ‘the subject’ as constituted in language, and binary oppositions such as male/female and their deconstruction. (For more details on the three approaches, see Sara Mills et al. (1989).) Much late 20th-century work on gender representation, in its concern with marginalization of female characters in children’s texts (see Chapters 3 and 6), corresponds to the first of these approaches. Traces of the second can be seen in the work of Sue Adler (1993) and Gemma Moss (2007), who both talk about the importance of children’s books which detail female experience. Aspects of the third approach, which can provide literary theorists with categories for creating a poststructuralist feminist practice where texts are read as discursive constructs rather than reflections of an individual author’s experience. (Mills et al. 1989: 8) are evident in two notions relevant to this book: first, that different (gendered) discourses can be provisionally identified in texts, in the words of narrators and/or characters, and, secondly, that texts can be read in different ways depending on various factors, including what the reader brings to that text (see Watkins, 2004; also Culler, 1981). Arguably, young children, being less socially ‘schooled’, are capable of generating a particularly large number of meanings (including those unpredictable by adults) from a given work of fiction (Hunt, 1991). Most of this book, however, is about the textual representation/construal (see Hall, 1997) of female and male characters, through written text and visuals (see p. 7 on my use of ‘construal’). Textual representation is related to characterization, which I discuss in Chapter 4. Representation does not however tell us anything about interpretation (also known variously as ‘consumption’ or ‘reception’) of what is represented. The representation of gender in fiction is not about gender in the sense of what actual men, women, boys and girls tend to be like (in terms of their socially-shaped abilities, attitudes, language use, social practices, or whatever)4. Rather, this is gender in the sense of ideas about men, women, boys and girls, as well as about gender relations, and masculinity and femininity more widely (see Chapter 2). As Alison Easton (1996: 6) puts it, we need to distinguish between our experiences, and ‘the images we meet of

Introduction

7

these in the arts, media and other cultural texts’ (see also Hall (1997)). Representations of gender may be highly stereotypical, and there may be a wide gulf between representation and ‘reality’ (see e.g. Cameron, 2003). On the other hand, in fiction, even when there may be no intention of social groupings of characters being ‘like’ any non-fictional, real-life counterparts, if the characters are human (and, arguably, even if they are not!), authors will draw somehow on actual human social practices and experiences, which are frequently gendered. Mary Talbot characterizes fiction as ‘stories that do not pretend to be about real events’ but adds ‘The relation between fiction and reality is not a straightforward one. The two have a peculiar way of getting mixed up together . . . .’ (1995: 5). A book on language and fiction with a concern with gender must be interested in that ‘peculiar way’. Useful here is the distinction between what a book is ‘about’ (for example, a poor miller’s daughter who spins straw into gold), and what it can be read as ‘also’ or even ‘really’ about, which might be gender relations (see also Hunt, 1991). Representations are the result of choices – for example, the choice of one adverb to describe a character’s action rather than an available and allowable other. Or, as Leech and Short put it: ‘what might have been written, but wasn’t’ (2007: 106). This is not to say that all choices are equally available. Neither is it to say that representations are the result of conscious authorial or illustrator choices or intent (or even that the author is of particular interest). It is to say that the representational language of the text (in essence, a creative and considered combination of different linguistic items), merits systematic study. Consideration of choices may also sharpen powers of both observation and critique. Representation is sometimes seen as construction, in the sense that words in a fictional text (say) are not only representing something, they are also constructing that something anew (see Chapter 2, also Sunderland, 2004). This ‘new’ construction may be (clearly, is) ‘in’ the text, but may also ‘newly be’ in the mind or memory of a given reader, shaping that reader’s view of the world (and even practices). Norman Fairclough (2009) encodes the distinction between construction ‘in’ and ‘beyond’ the text lexically: he uses construe for the former, and construct to describe language only when it contributes to changing a part of the world. Linguistic construction by no means happens always. There is a relationship between the two, that is, that particular ways of construing reality may have constructive effects in changing reality, the main sorts being on (a) how people see the world

8

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction (beliefs, attitudes), (b) how people act and behave and (c) changes in the world beyond changes in thought and action, including physical changes. (p. 518)

However, even when a given linguistic construal contributes to construction, it is likely to be only one among several factors, including power differentials, existing alternative construals, and the relationship between relevant construals and hegemonic discourses (see Chapters 2 and 4). Fairclough also prefers construe over represent, given that the latter ‘suggests an overly simple picture of the relationship between language and the real world’ (p. 512), and because construe points to the real difficulty of expressing much of the world in language (he gives the examples of terrorists and terrorism). In this book, I also use construct to refer to actual, ‘beyond the (written) text’ effects, including construction of self or others in talk, since this in happening in the real world. However, given the relative familiarity of represent and relative unfamiliarity of construe, I alternate between these terms, as well as (where relevant) characterize (see Chapter 3), to refer to the act of representing/construing ‘in the (written) text’. Looking critically at representation/construal often entails evaluation, from a particular perspective. Different analysts of children’s fiction have chosen and developed deconstructionist, Freudian, Jungian, Bakhtinian and Marxist perspectives (Zipes, 2002; see e.g. Bruno Bettelheim’s (1976) Freudian approach to fairy tales). In this book, the perspective is a broadly feminist one. I discuss feminism (and its role in the study of the language of children’s fiction) more in Chapter 2, but will introduce it briefly here. Most basically, feminism has never been about women hating men5. Neither is it about all women being oppressed by all men, in a sort of global patriarchy. It is about looking at how both overt and covert practices in different societies and groups within those societies function to empower many men rather than many women in a range of ways, economically, legally, educationally, socially and linguistically (through both the written and spoken word). It is also about how gender intersects with other identities such as class, age, ethnicity and sexuality (e.g. some women will be less disempowered than others; some will be more empowered than some men). Lastly (for here), most understandings of feminism would accept the notion of fluctuations of power, so that, for example, a given woman will be differently empowered in different contexts (better: ‘Communities of Practice’; see e.g. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1999, 1992). She may also be differently empowered at different points in time in those CofPs

Introduction

9

(e.g. when she is drawing on what we might call a ‘dominant discourse’ (see Chapter 4, also Baxter, 2003)). To return to the notion of representation or textual construal from a feminist perspective: this is not straightforward when it comes to critical evaluation. Feminist analysts are often interested in whether a work of fiction is ‘progressive’ or ‘traditional’, but these terms are not easily defined. Even from a feminist perspective, which would see ‘progress’ broadly as ‘making things better for women, girls and gender relations across the globe’, there may be disagreement about actual practices (e.g. in some contexts, might a door being opened for a woman by a man be a form of progress? Might beauty contests?) Progressive representations in fiction, for example, in terms of the gendered nature of a given practice or episode or characterization, are in some ways even more complex, given that fiction must always be a ‘mediation’ of real life. Further, a work of fiction always also has the potential to be ‘progressive’ in its gender representation in some ways, and traditional in others (the Harry Potter series provides an excellent example; see Chapter 9). And, given the possibility of multiple readings, what may be seen as progressive in one text by one reader or analyst may be seen otherwise by another. Because of all this, analysts of children’s fiction (regardless of perspective) are encouraged not to look for ‘straightforward’ or single readings of a book.

Early Work Gender was not completely ignored in relation to children’s fiction prior to the modern Women’s Movement (see e.g. Child et al., 1946). However, with the inception of the movement (in the late 1960s), the topic rose in prominence. Hence a focus in this book on feminist critiques of the last 30 years of the 20th century, which means that the book is in part historical (see also, Chapters 3 and 6). The modern Women’s Movement has been active in identifying and documenting gender representation, representational inequalities in particular, and has had considerable influence on publishers’ guidelines, representation in mainstream publications, and indeed the children’s TV series Sesame Street (see e.g. Cameron, 1995). Gender representation in children’s books was the topic of a (surprisingly mild) article in the first issue of Women: A Journal of Liberation (Heyn, 1969); two years later the topic had made the mainstream New York Times (Fisher, 1970). Observing children’s books in shops and libraries, Fisher anticipated the findings of many studies to come: that women and girls

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were represented poorly in quantitative terms, not only in the books themselves but also in relation to their actual representation in society. Qualitatively, Boys’ achievement drive is encouraged; girls’ is cut off. Boys are brought up to express themselves; girls to please. The general image of the female ranges from dull to degrading to invisible. (1970: 6) Further early empirical studies of gender representation in children’s fiction include those by Alleen Pace Nilsen (1971), Mary Ritchie Key (1971), Feminists on Children’s Literature (1971), Denise Bradley and Mary Mortimer (1972/3), John Stewig and Margaret Higgs (1973) and Elena Belotti (1975). I report on these (very selectively), in order to give an indication of the range of objects of research here, and the similar findings (see Chapter 3, on ‘Content analysis’, and Chapter 6, on ‘Reading schemes’, for a more substantial discussion). Work includes both qualitative case studies of particular texts (such as Little Women), and relatively large scale, quantitative surveys. In 1973 Elena Belotti’s Little Girls was published, in Italian. This was translated into English and published by the Readers and Writers Publishing Co-operative in 1975. Belotti cites an Italian newspaper report of textbooks (presumably including readers) in primary schools. In these, she reports, the typical family follows certain patterns: father, mother, and two babies, the elder of whom is always a boy . . . . When they are all at home together, the father reads the newspaper with complete indifference towards his wife and children; the mother sits alone, sewing, since she obviously cannot be allowed either to be idle or to read; the boy, equipped with nuts and bolts, constructs or takes apart his Meccano, and the girl, wearing the classic flowered frock, plays with a doll as sad and disconsolate as herself. (1975: 93) Belotti analysed in detail the content of a children’s book called My Family (Denise Roques) produced by a publisher ‘who specialises in psychological, pedagogical and educational texts, and from whom one might have expected a more enlightened choice of reading for children’ (1975: 95). My Family concerns two friends, Paolo and Lucia, who marry and have twins, Sergio and Luisa (for more on the study of twins in fiction, see Chapter 6). All four characters are however construed in gender-stereotypical ways. Belotti was not a linguist, but (unusually) was concerned with the language

Introduction

11

of the text, including speech and thought representation (again see Chapter 3). The narrator, she reports, tells us that Paolo ‘has studied a lot at school’ and ‘has learnt a trade’ whereas Lucia ‘very much enjoys making herself look pretty’, and, when her little sister is born ‘knows how to look after her’. As regards their meeting, ‘Paolo knew many girls’ but ‘I think the one I like best is Lucia’. Paolo loves Lucia because ‘Lucia often smiles, she’s good at housework, Lucia has a gentle character’. On the other hand, ‘Lucia said to herself: “I love Paolo very much. Paolo has a good job, Paolo is kind, Paolo understands me” ’ (1975: 96)6. The documenting of such stereotyping was typical of many such studies both before and after Belotti. In May 1974 an article appeared in the UK Women’s Liberation Movement magazine Spare Rib, entitled ‘What Katy didn’t do’. Again using a form of content analysis, Camilla Nightingale commented critically on a range of famous female protagonists in books for older children. She cites Jo in Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women (1868/9) and Katy in Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did (1872), who both eventually over[came] their desires for adventure and feelings of rebellion (described as their capriciousness and wilfulness) and transform[ed] them into acceptable feminine qualities like inner strength and imagination. (1974: 34–8) Nightingale showed that a female protagonist is no guarantee that such a protagonist will not end up reproducing predictable female stereotypes (see below on ‘Cop-outs’). Female protagonists who do not do this are more than counterbalanced by girls who do, making the former ‘exceptions that prove the rule’. The later tomboys7 Nancy (of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series) and George (christened Georgina, of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series) ‘openly attack the female role that outside people like parents and relations expect them to play’ and ‘George is openly scornful of the idea that girls are in any way weaker than boys. Nancy . . . fiercely defends a girl’s ability and right to do anything a boy can do’. Nevertheless, ‘Peggy and Susan in Swallows and Amazons spend their time in the galley being good girls, allowing Captain Nancy to have her aberrations’ (Nightingale, 1974: 38), and Anne in the Famous Five series is gender-stereotypically timid, domestic(ated) and dependent. The tomboy may not do much for her more ‘feminine’ sisters: Unfortunately the tomboy’s scorn for the trappings of femininity extends to girls themselves. George treats Anne in exactly the same way that the

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boys do, patronizing her weakness, and kindly looking after her . . . . (Nightingale, 1974: 38) Nightingale also looked at ‘girls’ books’ more widely, singling out Lorna Hill’s Saddler’s Wells series. Being proficient at ballet is commendable, in most people’s terms. However, Nightingale observed that Dance . . . plays a minor part in the stories, which are concerned with the social lives of the characters. There are illustrations of girls doing various ballet steps, but no real sense is given of the rigorous life a dancer leads, and the technical detail, so emphasized in boys’ books is studiously avoided. (1974: 35) In 1975 the US ‘Council on Interracial Books for Children’ published Racist and Sexist Images in Children’s Books (Papers on Children’s Literature #1), and in 1976 the UK Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative published Sexism in Children’s Books (Papers on Children’s Literature #2) (again see Chapters 3 and 6). Both were edited by the Children’s Rights Workshop. Reported again were impoverished roles for women and girls, both in range and number. Both collections were produced very much in a spirit of activism and intervention. The (anonymous) ‘Introduction’ to Sexism in Children’s Books by the editors comments on the (then) new UK Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, which has aroused a number of early hopes that the Act could be used against sexist literature, and in particular to prosecute local education authorities if they refuse to withdraw or replace the reading schemes and other children’s books from their schools after it has been shown that these were sexist and discriminated against girls, i.e. ‘by subjecting [them] . . . to detriment’ (Sex Discrimination Act, 22 [c] [ii]). It is now clear that these hopes are premature. In fact there is no mention in the Act of books, school materials and the media . . . . (1976: 4)8 The editors added: ‘nor is it very realistic to expect legislation to be at the front of social change’, presumably looking instead to ‘bottom-up’ change, resulting from new thinking on the part of parents, teachers and librarians. Nevertheless, the editors urged individuals and groups to contact the Equal Opportunities Commission (address provided) with cases of ‘the unreasonably persistent use of sexist materials in schools or the introduction of new materials that perpetuate sexist discrimination’ (1976: 4).

Introduction

13

In retrospect, it is noteworthy that there is no discussion here of what ‘sexist materials’ or ‘sexist discrimination’ actually were, and how they could be identified – and no conceptualization of a diversity of reader response, extending to ‘active readers’, who could recognize imbalances and challenge what they saw. The Children’s Rights Workshop collections were products of their time. But the papers they published were characteristic of the then optimism and feminist zeal associated with the quest to reveal disadvantage and discrimination, and were reacting against sexism of all kinds in the 1970s which was clearly less ‘subtle’ (see Lazar, 2005; Mills, 2008) than it is today. Sexism in Children’s Books did not focus on language per se. Nevertheless, consistent with its ‘interventionist’ stance, it did include the ‘McGraw-Hill Guidelines: guidelines for equal treatment of the sexes’. Published in the US, the guidelines briefly mention children’s books, but do not distinguish between fiction and non-fiction (see Chapter 3). Sexism in Children’s Books concludes with a double-page illustrated advertisement for four books which constitute the emerging genre of ‘Non-sexist children’s literature’ (Arthur and Clementine, The Real Story of the Bonobos who Wore Spectacles, Sugarpink Rose and A Fortunate Catastrophe), written by Adela Turin and published by the Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative. Note the confidence articulated here: These four titles are the first in the series, providing children with some alternatives to the kind of books available at the moment, which portray a world dominated by men and male values. In these new books, women and girls defy the restrictions conventionally placed on them. At a time when women everywhere are redefining their roles and engaging more fully in all sectors of life, children’s books which reflect this change and champion it are essential. These particular books are now (like many books) out of print, but second-hand copies of all are still available, and there are now indeed many books of a similar ilk (see Chapter 3). The drive in many of these early studies of gender representation in children’s fiction was not only to reveal negative representations and but also to look for, commend and recommend ‘positive role models’ (in the sense of gender equality and equal opportunities, both professionally and socially) for male and female characters – inside and outside the home. There was little consideration of the possibility that a ‘negative role model’ could be of value to the feminist project through characterization, including

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speech and/or thought representation (see Chapter 3), that is, little consideration of characterization in fiction as fiction. Interpretive claims also verged on the determinist. For example, Sexism in Children’s Books (1976) included the unmitigated claim that the ‘role models not only present children with future images of themselves but they also influence a child’s aspirations and goals’ (p. 18). Do they? Always? A diversity of readers and their responses, like the active, critical reader, had yet to be conceptualized.

Girl Readers and Boy Readers While Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction is about children’s texts rather than ‘consumption’ of those texts (i.e. how they are read, and interpreted), ideas about consumption are likely to inform authorial and publishers’ decisions around texts9. In a recent (2005) National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature (NCRCL) questionnaire study of children at 22 primary and 24 secondary schools in the United Kingdom (Key Stages 1 and 2, and 3 and 4, respectively, that is, children aged 5–16), Sally Maynard and colleagues asked children about their preferences as regards the main character in the stories they read. At all stages, ‘the majority of the girls like to read about other girls and the majority of the boys like to read about other boys’10 (see also Maynard et al., 2008). In her earlier (1997) study of 225 pupils between 11 to 12 years at a UK comprehensive school, Elaine Millard had similarly found that although both girls’ and boys’ cited Roald Dahl as one of their favourite authors, The boys’ choices included Fantastic Mr Fox ; James and the Giant Peach ; Danny, Champion of the World ; Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator ; Boy and Going Solo ; whilst the girls preferred Matilda ; BFG ; and Revolting Rhymes. (1997: 57) Going Solo (like Boy) is an autobiographical piece; the main characters in BFG and Revolting Rhymes are Sophie and Goldilocks are, respectively11. So, there may be a tendency for boys to prefer books about boys; girls, books about girls. But what about the ‘folklore’ that while girls will happily read ‘boys’ books’ (i.e. books about boys), the reverse is not true? It seems that there is some basis for this. In the NCRCL study, Maynard et al.

Introduction

15

found that ‘22.1% of the KS1 girls were happy to have a boy as the main character, whereas only 4.7% of the boys would choose a girl in this role’ (a statistically significant finding). The situation was similar for the KS2 respondents. This appears not to be a new phenomenon. In Reading Interests of Young People (1950), George Norvell documents a large-scale survey of American junior and senior high school students. One finding was that gender was a much stronger factor than ability or age in preferences for different types of reading material (e.g. plays and poems were preferred significantly more by girls, speeches by boys) other than novels. As regards the preferred sex of characters, however, girls are almost as ready as boys to read with interest of the doings of boys and men . . . . It is just as evident that boys refuse to be concerned with most selections in which female characters play the dominant roles. . . . .[from one report] ‘only 2 per cent of the boys’ reading was the human interest story of home or school life that girls so much enjoy’. (1950: 69; see also 2nd edition (1973)) Boys not reading books about girls may, then, not only be a matter of their reluctance to transgress the boundaries of masculinity (Sunderland, 1995): what boys did not read was ‘the human interest story of home and school life’. Alleen Pace Nilsen accordingly challenges the idea that the sex of the protagonist is all-important to boy and girl readers: the activity of the characters is probably of equal or greater importance . . . Could the books about boys be preferred because they are more exciting to both sexes? The cultural limitations we have placed on girls make it unlikely that stories about ‘dainty little girls’ will have the same appeal as stories about ‘rough and tumble’ boys . . . . Boys do read stories about females who are doing interesting things. They like Harriet the Spy, Charlotte’s Web and Island of the Blue Dolphins. (1977: 164; see also Zimet, 1976) This question remains to be properly explored. In this connection, it is interesting to contemplate what might have happened had J. K. Rowling written about someone called Harriet Potter, whose activities were every bit as interesting as Harry’s (see Chapter 9). Perhaps Rowling still thought this was just too much of a risk.

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Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

Of course, there may also be an unthinking turning of what is relative into an absolute: from boys being less willing than girls to read books with female rather than male protagonists than are girls to read about male protagonists, to boys being unwilling to read books with a female protagonist at all. It may also be self-perpetuating. Feminists on Children’s Literature (1971) noted that the category ‘Especially for Girls’, appeared on a number of publishers’ lists and on lists of recommended books . . . . The reason advanced by librarians and publishers for having such a category at all is that while girls are perfectly happy to read ‘boys’ books, no self-respecting boy will read books about girls. In our maledominated society, unfortunately, this is probably true. But listing a separate group of books for girls provides boys with a list of books not to read, further polarizing the sexes. (p. 23) While, nearly four decades later, such practices are now much less evident, the risk of exacerbating gender polarization continues.

Researching Children’s Fiction In looking at fiction written for children, this book naturally draws on existing research. However, Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction also encourages and guides readers to carry out their own empirical studies. The focus is thus not only on research findings, important as these are, but also on research methodologies. But first, a warning: perhaps contrary to some popular opinion, ‘children’s fiction’ is not an ‘easy’ field of study. As with adult literature, Kimberley Reynolds (2005) reminds us that knowledge of periods, genres, literary criticism, key figures, audiences, markets and so on is required – all complicated by the fact that there are effectively no borders or boundaries around the subject . . . knowledge of Puritan writing and early forms of printing may be required for some texts, while understanding of teenage fathers, the Internet, substance abuse, or current patterns of adolescent sexual activity is needed for others. (p. 2) Or, as Professor Virginia Miner, Alison Lurie’s protagonist in Foreign Affairs (1984), and authority on children’s literature, responds, when

Introduction

17

considering Chuck’s question (at the start of this chapter) about whether he should read Alice Through the Looking Glass: She sighs, anticipating the explications that will be necessary if Chuck Mumpson is to read Alice properly: Victorian education, Victorian social history, Victorian poetry and parody, chess, developmental psychology, Darwinism – (p. 168) Jack Zipes relates misconceptions about the easiness of the academic field of children’s fiction to gender issues more widely: About 90 percent of the professors in the field of children’s literature are female . . . and for many years children’s literature had been (and perhaps still is) associated with women and looked down on at the academy as ‘kiddie lit’, a viewpoint that ironically reveals the ignorance and arrogance of many male colleagues in English departments who have rarely studied children’s literature and probably still don’t. (2002: 55) The studies reported in this book investigate a productive diversity of variables and aspects of gender and children’s fiction, but new researchers in the area are encouraged to think inductively as well as deductively (see Chapter 3). What a study is looking at, or for (e.g. which aspects of the content, language and/or visuals), should always be reflected in the research question(s) (see Sunderland, 2009). The ‘object(s) of study’ will in turn shape methodological decisions about data needed, and how best to collect (or, more likely, unless the book in question is very rare, select), and analyse it. The issue of selection often centres on questions such as: What text(s) or extract(s) should I select? How long should these be? How many should I choose? What is my principle for selection? This comes back to what you want to find out – for example, whether you are carrying out some sort of quantitative survey or comparison, or doing a qualitative, in-depth study of one, carefully chosen book. Closely related to questions surrounding selection is the notion of generalizability: Are you making claims about your chosen text(s) only, or more widely? There are no simple answers here, although I propose two possibilities: that you are looking at a particular book (or set of books) for a particular reason (for example, that it deals with physical disability, that it is a stylistically cutting-edge work), or that you have chosen your book(s) with some idea of representativeness of a particular type (for example, prizewinning books, books featuring talking animals (Cosslett, 2006), a UK Key Stage 1

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reading scheme). In terms of ‘how much data’, then, the proverbial piece of string comes to mind. Again, this depends on the all-important research question(s). Analysing a short picture book for young children is in some ways more straightforward than analysing a novel. A full-length work of fiction cannot be analysed with the same close analytical scrutiny as can a picture book. In a novel, the grammatical notion of transitivity in relation to gender, for example, would be difficult to explore from cover to cover. With the advent of e-books, however, and the possibility of scanning a book not already in digital form which then can be electronically tagged, corpus linguistics can come into play (see e.g. Baker, 2008a, b, 2006, 2005; Semino and Short, 2004; Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996). Of course, fictional texts for young children may be as long as that for adults, or longer (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Bloomsbury) is 766 pages in length). In such cases, a decision must be made whether to macro-analyse a full-length book ‘broadly’ (see Chapter 4), perhaps with the aid of corpus linguistics, or to micro-analyse selected extracts (which again requires a principled decision about precisely which and why). Conceptually challenging is the question of the most appropriate methodology for analysis. In this book I make a distinction between content analysis, linguistic analysis and visual analysis. Ideally a study would take on board all three (with different emphases), although content analysis is always likely to constitute some form of backdrop. Questions of language and fiction (including children’s fiction) have been explored most obviously and over many years through stylistics (e.g. Semino, 1997; Short, 2009, 1996; Leech and Short, 1981/2007; see also Keith Sanger (1998) for a useful introduction). More recently, fiction has been looked at via Corpus linguistics (e.g. Semino and Short, 2004)12 and Critical discourse analysis (Wodak, 2009; van Leeuwen, 2008, 1996, 1995; Talbot, 1995). The methodology adopted will, again, relate to the research question, as well as the intellectual affiliation of the researcher (see Chapter 4). This book adopts a feminist, critical approach but also draws broadly on the insights of stylistics. While the former is definitely concerned with the social and the latter more with the individual, no clear line can be drawn between them – stylistics can be critical, and critical, feminist analysis of literary texts will almost inevitably draw on the insights of stylistics (see e.g. Sara Mills’ Feminist Stylistics (1995)).

Introduction

19

The Organization of this Book Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction is divided into ten chapters. Chapter 2: Language and Gender: Issues and Applications provides the ‘language and gender’ backdrop against which children’s fiction can be explored and understood. While language and gender study spans both talk and written text, this chapter is oriented toward the latter. Chapter 3: Content Analysis: The Early Days focuses on past studies of female and male characters’ attributes and activities in relation to gender, that is, at ‘who’ and ‘what happened’, rather than the language through which these were expressed. Chapter 4: The Importance of Language and Linguistic Analysis, discusses relevant linguistic issues and features and looks at those studies of children’s fiction and gender which have included a focus on language. Chapter 5: Happily Ever After? looks at a selection of traditional fairy tales, and in particular at the language surrounding marriage proposals and acceptances. It also includes a consideration of some original versions by Jacques Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Chapter 6: Sixty Years of Reading Schemes, looks at studies of reading schemes of the past (which have had a bad press with feminist researchers) and those of the present, considering content, language and visuals. The chapter acknowledges that gender balance has improved, but that the situation is far more complex than achieving equal numbers of female and male characters. Drawing on a study of the UK Oxford Reading Tree scheme, which found that boys tended to be represented as buffoons (Wharton, 2005), examination of a very recent edition of the scheme shows that although the female and male children are broadly equally represented, qualitatively and quantitatively, Dad is foregrounded over Mum in a range of linguistic and other ways. Chapter 7, written with Mark McGlashan, Stories Featuring Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families, explores the representation of sexuality and gender in those few children’s books set in such family contexts. We compare the representation of two-Mum and two-Dad families, and look in particular at the different approaches and strategies adopted to create positive representations. Chapter 8: ‘Miss Katherine Shot the Sheriff’: The Literary Affordance of ‘Achronological Intertextuality’ looks at ‘achronological intertextuality’ as a potential and sometimes actual characteristic of fiction, that is, the (knowing) incorporation of traces of particular discourses ‘anachronistically’ into stories set in previous historical periods (when they would not in fact have been available). The books chosen for exemplification are two Newbery prizewinners: Louis Sachar’s Holes and Linda Sue

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Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

Park’s A Single Shard. Chapter 9: Hermione, Harry and Gender Relations at Hogwarts looks at the female protagonist Hermione Granger, Harry’s loyal and intellectual friend, and compares the ways in which she is represented with representations of Harry and their friend Ron. I explore the language J. K. Rowling uses to construe Hermione, in terms of the narration of her actions and speech, and consider particularly the question of her ‘bossiness’. Chapter 10 Conclusion summarizes some key issues for gender, language and children’s fiction and the research approaches encountered, and proposes different topics and methodologies for further research, in particular those associated with the ‘consumption’ of fictional texts.

Chapter 2

Language and Gender: Issues and Applications

‘I’m joined this evening by two lovely young ladies, Vicky and Jo’ (Chief Purser, flight from London Gatwick to Verona, 2007)

The relationship between language and gender underpins this book, as application of the insights from the language and gender field to children’s literature requires a proper understanding of the gender-language relationship itself. This not a straightforward relationship, and the past decades have witnessed a series of changes in thinking, including a radical ‘turn’ (which I examine below). Current gender and language study (from the very early 1970s) has been hugely informed by feminism, more specifically, by both the ‘second’ and ‘third’ waves of the Women’s Movement (see e.g. Mills, 2008; Evans, 1995). This is not to say there was no interest in language and gender prior to 1970. There was, for example, large-scale sociolinguistic work (e.g. Labov, 1966), although William Labov’s work (and, following it, Peter Trudgill’s (e.g. 1972)) proved controversial to language and gender theorists (see e.g. Cameron, 1992). Other, later, sociolinguistic work, though not feministinspired, proved very relevant to the wider language and gender project (e.g. Gal, 1978; Milroy, 1980; see below). Whereas ‘first wave’ feminism is associated largely with voting rights for women (see e.g. Pankhurst, 1931, but also Liddington and Norris, 1978), second wave feminism (Evans, 1995) was concerned with material conditions (e.g. pay, equal opportunities, contraception and abortion, health, childcare, violence again women, housework arrangements, sexuality, and cultural representation (see e.g. Summerfield, 1996).). Cultural representation included advertisements, film, visual arts, magazines and fiction (see e.g. Gilbert and Gubar, 1986), and extended to language. Targets of

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critique were the so-called ‘generics’ he and man (including words such as chairman, mankind and one-man tents) (see below). New phrases (‘the personal is the political’, ‘sexual harassment’, ‘male chauvinism’) and neologisms were accordingly created (e.g. -person words, s/he) or fully utilized (Ms1). ‘Third wave’ feminism has brought with it an increased understanding of the range of meanings possible for a given linguistic item, the importance of Pragmatics (Christie, 2001) and of the ‘Community of practice’ notion (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1999, see below), and the existence of ‘indirect’ or ‘subtle’ sexism (Mills, 2008; Lazar, 2005). As regards the notion of ‘post-feminism’, this should not be seen not as ‘(the need for) feminism is over’, but rather something posing a new set of cultural challenges to women. Writing with reference to the Bridget Jones books, for example, Angela McRobbie claims that media and much contemporary popular culture ‘somehow’ reverses and displaces those arguments made by feminists in the early 1970s (2009: 24). The ‘somehow’ can however be quite subtle, as much media and popular culture engages with feminism with a veneer of a celebration of women’s freedom (showing clear traces of – among others – feminist discourses), and a very large measure of knowing irony.

Gender What do we mean by gender? Grammatical gender is a property of a language, for example whether the third person singular takes both a masculine and a feminine form. In English we have both she and he; Mandarin Chinese makes no distinction in speaking, but does in writing. Readers interested in this aspect of gender should consult Corbett (2004). But gender also refers to social gender, the sense in which it is used in this book. In this sense, gender is not just a ‘polite’ word for sex (though some people use it this way, when they refer to ‘the two genders’, or even, oddly, to the ‘gender’ of animals). Social gender is understood in different ways: here, I am proposing two models. The first (Model 1 of social gender) is ‘people-based’. The second (Model 2 of social gender) is what we can call ‘ideas-based’.

Model 1 of Social Gender (People-based) In Model 1, people are seen as socially-shaped. (This is not to exclude biological influences on behaviour and subjectivity (see below); it is to say that any biological influences will always be mediated by social considerations.)

Language and Gender: Issues and Applications

23

What is socially shaped includes literacy practices (e.g. what adults write for children, what girls and boys read and write) and any differential tendencies in the way women and men, boys and girls talk. Model 1 of gender has often been drawn on to look at differences concerning male and female human beings: what we can call the ‘who’ of gender. Having painted this very simple picture of Model 1, I now need to bring in several caveats. Most contemporary theorists who draw on Model 1 acknowledge and take these on board. z

Caveat 1: difference is not absolute (gender is a matter of tendencies rather than differences)

Women and men are not two separate groups, from Venus and Mars (or wherever) respectively (see Cameron, 2007). There are (obviously) differences among women and among men; we can argue that these ‘intragroup’ differences are greater than ‘inter-group’ differences (between women and men). In other words, despite a popular what we might call ‘vive la différence’ discourse (see Sunderland, 2004), as well as the perennial efforts of the media to exaggerate apparent ‘differences’ between women and men (something I explore in Chapter 9), women and men remain broadly more similar than they are different. (If this were not the case, we could neither co-exist nor communicate.) So similarities can and should be explored, as well as differences. But because of these similarities (hence, ‘gender overlap’), and intra-group variation, any ‘difference’ will not be absolute, and is accordingly better described as a gender-differential ‘tendency’. (It is always worth being vigilant to references to ‘men’ and ‘women’, rather than ‘some men’ and ‘some women’, where the speaker or writer would have probably modified, say, noun phrases like black people or white people. This vigilance should extend to claims about gender and language use as well as other behaviours.) z

Caveat 2: gender-differential tendencies vary with culture/context/ Community of practice (i.e. are ‘contingent’)

This caveat is again obvious but is still in need of pointing out. As an example: when I was working in China in the 1980s, I was struck by the number of women employed to paint the outsides of buildings (in the UK, this would have been extremely unusual). I will exemplify this ‘contingency’ principle with the findings of two classic sociolinguistic studies. Susan Gal (1978) looked at the language use of Hungarians in Oberwart (on the Austrian/Hungarian border).

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She found that the young women of Oberwart spoke German in a much greater range of situations than did the young men, and explained that whereas the men saw traditional farming as having something to offer, the women were motivated to marry Austrians to escape the life that an agricultural community would offer, as farming wives. Clearly, this sort of linguistic variation (a ‘gender tendency’) was highly contingent on the social and economic circumstances of the particular time and place. The second study is that of Lesley Milroy (1980) who found that in one Belfast community, the Clonard, the pronunciation of the young women was in some respects more vernacular than that of the young men. Milroy’s finding contrasted with earlier sociolinguistic work by Labov (1966) and Trudgill (1972), who had both found that women used the vernacular (in its different syntactic and phonetic manifestations) less than men of the same social class, and had attributed this to women’s greater statusconsciousness (see Cameron, 1992, for a critique). In the Clonard, the difference was that the women were all working outside the home – more relevantly, they worked and socialized together. Their husbands, in contrast, were suffering from the unemployment in the area at the time. Milroy noted that the young women were thus part of a very ‘dense and multiplex’ social network, which suggested that social network, rather than gender, was the more relevant sociolinguistic variable. In comparable situations elsewhere, any tendency towards greater vernacular use on the part of women might conceivably be manifested in different linguistic ways. One relatively recent theorization of context is the notion of ‘Community of practice’ (CofP). Originating from the field of education (Lave and Wenger, 1991), Eckert and McConnell-Ginet have demonstrated the relevance of the CofP notion to sociolinguistics and to gender and language study, famously conceptualizing a CofP as an aggregate of people who come together round mutual engagement in some common endeavour. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of their joint activity around that endeavour. (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992: 64; see also 1999) Examples of a CofP are a karate club, a parent-and-toddlers group, a family (when they are together), an orchestra, a weekly meeting of a bookpublishing team, a book club, a ‘library period’ at school. A CofP might also be transient: a ride in a taxi, a brief act of book-borrowing from a school library, or signing to acknowledge delivery of a package. In all these,

Language and Gender: Issues and Applications

25

participants normally behave in predictable ways associated precisely with their ‘mutual engagement’ in the ‘common endeavour’ in question. Linguistic practices (e.g. ways of talking/listening/reading/writing) are important, but always in relation to associated behavioural, material and often institutional practices. It is not hard to conceptualize and identify CofPs in relation to children’s fiction. One CofP might be a ‘library period’ for a particular class in a particular school, about which we can ask: is total silence normative? What do the children read? Is reading the only activity sanctioned? What does the teacher/librarian do during this slot? Another might be the bedtime story between a particular parent or carer and child (see e.g. Dombey, 1992): does the parent/carer read the book in a linear way or repeat parts? Does the parent/carer involve the child? How? z

Caveat 3: gender (identity) is not ‘fixed’ (but is ongoing throughout our lifetimes, and is always in a state of flux)

This caveat entails a view of identity as going beyond role to a sense of self. This arguably comes in part from what we affiliate to, in terms both of ideas (which may relate to what we read: did/do girl readers see themselves as Jo March, or ‘George’ (Georgina) of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, for example?) and also the important social roles in our lives (daughter, mother, aunt, lover, wife, partner). But identity may also come from those characteristics ‘assigned’ to us by others (which may relate to what they read), in their behaviour or words (see Ivanic, 1998). In the example at the start of this chapter, the Chief Purser is assigning stewards Vicky and Jo characteristics of attractiveness and youth, rather than professional competence (something airline passengers actually might be more interested in). Vicky and Jo may take these ‘assigned’ characteristics on board in their sense of self (to different degrees), i.e. affiliate with them, or they may not. This assigning of characteristics can also be seen as construction2 (see Chapter 1, also below) or ‘positioning’. As an example, someone who always asks about your job but never about your family – or vice versa – is positioning (or ‘subject positioning’) you as something, or attributing a certain identity to you, rather than another. Through affiliation and repeated attribution (depending in part on what we ‘do’ with that attribution), our identity as a man/woman (boy/girl, mother/father, lover, employee (perhaps in a ‘gendered’ profession), middle-aged person, elderly person, grandmother/grandfather, pensioner) will change in a range of nuanced ways over time.

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The above is longitudinal, long-term, diachronic change. But our identities also fluctuate from one context to the next, and back: consider the case of a newly-appointed University lecturer who goes from a departmental meeting to teach a class of under-graduate students, and then later goes to an antenatal class (see also Baxter, 2003). Further, synchronically, our identity may at times be layered, or multiple, in the sense that we may experience more than one (perhaps conflicting) identity at the same time. Our newly-appointed lecturer, for example, may find herself planning her future childcare arrangements at some points during her departmental meeting. The relevance of this to fiction is manifold. The reader (as an ‘implied reader’ – see e.g. Leech and Short, 2007) may be positioned in a certain way by a narrator. Characters will certainly be positioned by the author via the narrator (e.g. as A, and not B, although these may fluctuate and change as the book unfolds). Characters will also construe themselves and position each other in their words in certain ways (see Fairclough, 2009; Culpeper, 2001). Lastly (for this caveat), our identities are not only gender-related, as identity extends, inter alia, to considerations of ethnicity, age, sexuality and (dis)ability. And, as I suggest below, gender (like ethnicity, etc.) may not be always be relevant (or may be more or less relevant). On the other hand, it can also be made relevant (see below). z

Caveat 4: agency

Despite socialization, identity attribution and positioning by others (as well as possible biological influences), I would argue that we always also have a measure of ‘agency’3, are never ‘deterministically’ made into this or that sort of person, and are rarely forced to behave, speak or write in certain ways with no room for manoeuvre. This is because agency includes resistance to positioning or even coercion, if only in very small ways. These might include silence, non-cooperation, or even being unenthusiastic. Such options may be open to Vicky and Jo in relation to the Purser’s characterization of them in their dealings with him later. Given agency, we are able to ‘perform’ (to an extent) what we see as our gender, our sense of masculinity/femininity. This is likely to be contextdependent (we may wish to behave and be seen in one (gendered) way at work and another after work), and our ‘performances’ (intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious) are likely to vary accordingly. For example, a given man might perform being a ‘new man’ in one context (say, at home with the family), and a more ‘macho’ man in another (say,

Language and Gender: Issues and Applications

27

when out with less ‘reconstructed’ male friends). This idea of performance (via agency) does not fit comfortably with the traditional idea of ‘identity’ – and Judith Butler’s classic Gender Trouble (1990, 1999) famously has as its subtitle ‘Feminism and the subversion of identity’, as it challenges the notion of an ‘inner being’, a ‘real me’. Nevertheless, it needs to be taken on board by any gender and language practitioner who wishes to work with a fully conceptualized version of Model 1 of gender (and indeed with Model 2). z

Caveat 5: constructing gender

This caveat, certainly the most important one theoretically, and one which allows Model 1 to segue into Model 2, entails a 180-degree turn away from seeing language use as reflecting gender (i.e. the idea that women/ men speak in a certain way because they are women/men), to seeing language as constructing gender (i.e. the way we use language shapes masculinity/femininity). I am conceptualizing construction as something more potentially enduring than the more momentary positioning, although the line is very fine. Construction here includes one’s own spoken language use functioning to construct oneself, and one can ‘construct’ gender in talk (or construe it in writing) in a very obvious way, for example with ‘As a woman . . . .’ or ‘My daughter . . . .’ (positioning ourself as a mother), or ‘Speaking as a father . . . .’ Of course, as regards the latter, such ‘construction of gender’ or ‘performing an identity’ does not necessarily mean that one is a father! But wider, societal language use also constructs a particular, dominant way of seeing things (I discuss this below, in terms of ‘Discourse’; see also Sunderland, 2004). In terms of the people-based nature of Model 1 of gender, accepting the idea of construction of gender goes beyond a comparison between women and men. As an example, Christine Mallinson and Becky Childs compare ‘language and identity practices’ among two different communities of black women in Appalachia, seeing these women as ‘constructing identities for themselves and their groups’ (2007: 173). It is possible to construct one’s gender such that it is at odds with one’s biological sex. One study of sex workers showed how a male employee (Andy) successfully impersonated women, in ways which his (heterosexual) clients enjoyed (Hall, 1995); he was thus using language to construct a particular form of heterosexual femininity. Kira Hall writes ‘To convince callers of his womanhood, Andy style-shifts into a higher pitch, moving the phone away from his mouth so as to soften the perceived intensity of

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his voice’ (1995: 202). This extreme but nevertheless very useful example neatly uncouples femininity and biological femaleness and reminds us that gender can be ‘unembodied’. The example also illustrates the fuzzy boundary and relationship between Model 1 of gender (people-based) and Model 2 (ideas-based), since this sex worker could only ‘successfully’ perform heterosexual femininity given certain societally-shared ideas about what heterosexual femininity apparently entails, including its linguistic characteristics. * * * To summarize what I am calling ‘Model 1’ of gender, which is still drawn on in much gender and language study: gender is here associated primarily with male and female human beings. This would make gender potentially omni-relevant (something I queried in Caveat 3, with the notion of ‘genderrelevance’). Model 1 was used by feminist linguists, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, as an attempt to focus attention on ‘gender differences’ as (a) non-natural (compared with ‘sex’), (b) potentially disadvantaging (i.e. when people treat each other as males and females, this ‘dualism’ often disadvantages women/girls), but also (c) as potentially responsive to remedial intervention and progressive change (for example, in the classroom and the workplace). And indeed, Model 1 still has strategic value in social contexts where gender differentiation is salient and deep-rooted, when it makes sense to investigate associated disadvantages. As a more specific example, if during a reading lesson in a mixed-sex primary classroom, only (or mainly) male students express their understandings of a text, this may be because female students are somehow discouraged from fully engaging with it. This would be particularly telling if the teacher did not recognize this genderdifferential, and even more so if s/he was encouraging it. The ‘message’ of Model 1 is: ‘Don’t ignore gender; be vigilant as regards gender-related disadvantage’. This is true too of social contexts where women appear to be as empowered as men in many aspects of life, but where there is still evidence of ‘subtle’ or ‘indirect’ sexism (see e.g. Lazar, 2005; Mills, 2008). There are, however, several problems with Model 1 of gender, even taking on board all five caveats. Although Model 1 has gone through several overlapping incarnations – the so-called ‘deficit’, ‘(male) dominance’ and ‘(cultural) difference’ frameworks (see Sunderland, 2006a; Litosseliti, 2006; Talbot, 1998; for summaries) – the focus of each was still people: women and men, the who of language use, and largely the who of talk. Model 1 does

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extend to written texts, including fiction (with research questions along the lines of ‘Do women and men (girls and boys) write differently?’; see e.g. Millard, 1997). However, gender-differential tendencies here still concern the sex of the writer rather than what is written. Model 1, then, cannot properly address the question of the construction/construal of gender in a spoken or written text in a way in which the sex of the speaker or writer may be of no concern.

Model 2 of Gender (Ideas-based) So what is the alternative to gender as associated with the who of language use? In Model 2, influenced by post-structuralist thinking (e.g. Foucault, 1972), gender is an idea (or set of ideas) about men/women, boys/girls and gender relations. This draws on the concepts of agency and language use as constructive (of ideas), exemplified above in Caveats 4 and 5. Constructive language use can include language about gender itself, about, say, ‘gender differences’, gender relations, about men, women, or even one particular individual, who is being linguistically constructed in a way in which gender appears important, either directly, for example, ‘Tim’s so unlike a boy’, or indirectly, for example, ‘I’m a bit worried – Tim wants to learn ballet’. The Chief Purser was constructing the flight attendants’ gender as clearly relevant to his (heterosexual male?) passengers (and indeed constructing his passengers as seeing gender as relevant as far as the flight attendants were concerned), just as Hall’s male telephone sex worker Andy was constructing (and contributing to) a particular view of heterosexual femininity. Of course, both men were also constructing themselves (the sex worker as a heterosexual female, the Chief Purser as a heterosexual male), but these constructions were only ‘successful’ given hegemonic ideas about gender characteristic of each community of practice. So what does the Model 2 conceptualization achieve, theoretically speaking? It usefully shifts the focus on biological females/males to what is said (not who says it). This is to see language as discourse (see below, also Fairclough, 2003). This means that ideas of gender can be expressed in both talk and written text, in the language of women, men, boys, girls – and that women and men, boys and girls can and indeed do articulate similar ideas about gender (including sexist ones). Although the construction of Vicky and Jo by the Chief Purser was articulated by a man, many passengers, including women, may not have seen this as being in any way

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objectionable or even remarkable (certainly there was no audible response from the passengers as a group) – and such complicity is not a million miles away from actually articulating the utterance. Let us take three examples of the workings of Model 2 of language and gender, from written (non-fictional) texts – extracts from UK newspaper reports.

Example 1 The government’s failure to instil a sports culture in schools is to blame for the persistent educational underachievement of boys, a new report warns. (Observer, 22 April 2007) Now, we don’t know exactly from the Observer article what the relevant report said, but let us assume it did indeed say something like this. Clearly, gender is being ‘made relevant’: boys are apparently underachieving (presumably in relation to girls). The idea is that boys need sports to help them avoid underachieving, the implication being that girls don’t (or wouldn’t benefit from sports in the same way). Note that there is no linguistic modifier of boys (a notable absence, considering that not all boys, and indeed only certain groups of boys (see e.g. Moss, 2007; Millard, 1997) are underachieving). Within the context of UK schools, masculinity is being talked about in a way which positions and construes boys and girls in certain, and very different ways.

Example 2 ‘We should value girls as girls and boys as boys, instead of pretending they are some sort of mythical mixed-sex race.’ (Scotland on Sunday, 7 July 2007; Bryan Lewis, Headmaster) [from an article on boys and girls following identical school curricula, including home science and mechanics] Again assuming that Bryan Lewis has been correctly cited, his idea of gender ignores key social changes over the last five decades – but, more importantly, ignores overlaps and similarities between girls’ and boys’ interests and abilities, and indeed differences ‘among’ girls and ‘among’ boys (intra-group differences). The phrase ‘girls as girls and boys as boys’ (which Lewis is using uncritically) emphasizes not only a gender binary,

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but also a socially- or even biologically-essentialist understanding of gender, one which does not allow for diversity, or educational and psychological change and development. ‘[G]irls as girls and boys as boys’ misleadingly suggests that this construct is a given, and that we all share an understanding of what the characteristics of ‘girls’ and of ‘boys’ are. Example 3 ‘Toddlers who are left in nurseries for seven hours a day are more ‘antisocial, worried and upset’ than others, government research has found. The disturbing study, which is likely to concern Britain’s 4.9 million working mothers . . . .’ (The Scotsman, 5 April 2007) Research into the impact of pre-school childcare has produced notoriously conflicting findings – and, of course, there are many variables to consider. However, my focus here is the second paragraph, which makes it sound as if Britain is a nation either of single-mothers, or indifferent fathers. If the government findings are correct, then, surely, unless Britain’s working fathers are cold, uncaring or downright sadistic, this research would concern them as well as their children’s mothers. Logically, any parent who works outside the home is responsible for not being at home to look after their young children (and hence, at least from a feminist perspective, jointly responsible for alternative childcare arrangements). This report thus uncritically positions and construes women as ‘main carers’ of children; at the same time, it indirectly positions and construes them as the culprits responsible for these toddlers’ apparent problems. Given the second paragraph, the use of the passive, intransitive verb form ‘are left’, without an agent, in the first, retrospectively invites the reading ‘are left by their mothers’. Semantically, the choice of left suggests a certain amount of uncaring (consider the phrases left luggage office, left alone), when the writer could have selected a verb with more positive connotations such as enrolled, or a pattern such as ‘Toddlers who attend nurseries . . . .’ As with all texts, non-fictional and fictional, words are chosen from a pool of available possibilities. Let us now look at a fourth example, from a fictional text, Louise Sachar’s Holes, the focus of Chapter 8. In Holes, because he allegedly stole a pair of sneakers, Stanley Yelnats is sent to Camp Green Lake, where the boys (only boys are at the camp) dig holes in the sand all day long (there is no lake, and hardly anything is green). One of the wardens, Mr Sir, continually

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makes references to Girl Scouts, and how ‘This isn’t a Girl Scout camp’. For example: Twitch fidgeted. His fingers drummed against the wooden shaft of his shovel, and his neck moved from side to side. ‘You won’t be twitching so much after digging all day,’ Mr Sir told him. ‘You won’t have the strength to wiggle your pinkie.’ He popped some sunflower seeds into his mouth, deftly chewed them, and spat out the shells. ‘This isn’t a Girl Scout camp.’ (1998: 146) Of course, no one in the book thinks that Camp Green Lake is a Girl Scout camp. Mr. Sir is implying that Girl Scouts have an easy time, compared to what the boys have to do every day, and, by implication, that girls would not be capable of what the boys have to do. This is of course a variation of reminding boys to be ‘like boys’, Mr Sir’s assumption being that being like a girl is a fate worse than death for a boy (compare the abuse term sissy with tomboy). Interestingly, despite Mr Sir’s repetition of the phrase (I counted six), the boys are never complicit with his gendered positioning of them (or indeed of girls). Mr Sir is construing masculinity as uniquely entailing strength and endurance, but because he is characterized unsympathetically, his characterization through his language cannot, I argue, be seen as making the book sexist. Model 2 of gender, because its focus is not on male and female human beings, emphasizes that gender (as we saw in Caveat 3) may not be relevant at all times and in all contexts and encounters. It may in some contexts and encounters be less relevant than other notions, such as ethnicity, and may be more relevant to some individuals than others. We may experience gender as relevant, for example, when we are the only woman in the room (but the men may not) – here, gender is relevant, but may not be seen to be so. Rather differently, before a visit to Baghdad (many years ago), I was told by a male Iraqi student how nice the city was at night – cool, after the intense heat of the day. What he did not add (perhaps could not have added) was that this was only true if you were a man, or in a family group. For a woman alone, or two ‘unescorted’ women, as I discovered, walking down the street at night (however pleasant the temperature) meant running a gauntlet of male comments. For us (and the producers of the comments), gender was in the event highly relevant4. Gender was here being made relevant – just as it is when a man opens a door for a woman, or says something like ‘ladies first’. The Chief Purser was also making gender relevant, and the same is happening in the examples above.

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‘Making gender relevant’ can, however, be resisted. In a 2007 BBC radio interview with the Chief Yeoman Warder (‘Beefeater’) at the Tower of London about the new Beefeater, Moira Cameron – the first woman in the job – the Chief Beefeater was asked if he thought she’d find it difficult. He agreed. But when the interviewer suggested enthusiastically that this might be because of the ‘masculine environment’, the Chief Beefeater said rather that he thought she would find it difficult because of the unrelenting attention from tourists and their cameras that all Beefeaters were subject to.

Discourse Discourse is famously used in many different ways, in particular in different academic disciplines. Below I follow the notion of discourse as used by Critical discourse analysis and in some post-structuralist writing (e.g. Foucault (1972), as this is applicable to fictional texts. Seeing gender as an ‘idea’ entails the idea of discourse, famously defined by Foucault (1972: 49) as ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’. In other words, discourse is (potentially) constitutive. This is to go beyond construal ‘in the text’. To cite Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak (1997), discourse constitutes situations, objects of knowledge and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It . . . helps to sustain and reproduce the status quo and . . . contributes to transforming it. (p. 6) Fairclough and Wodak also refer to ‘discursive practices’, which can refer to language and thought (as opposed to action). Discursive practices, they write, may have major ideological effects – that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between (for instance) social classes, women and men, and ethnic/cultural majorities and minorities through the ways in which they represent things and position people. (1997: 258) This is as true of fictional texts, non-fictional written texts, and talk. However, depending in part on recontextualization and accumulation, this ‘production and reproduction’ may remain at the level of ‘potential’

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rather than ‘actual’ (Fairclough and Wodak write ‘can help’, ‘contributes to’ and ‘helps’); hence Fairclough’s later (2009) construal/construction distinction (see Chapter 1). Discourse as an abstract noun is often uncountable (e.g. ‘classroom discourse’), but some theoretical approaches (e.g. post-structuralism, and Critical discourse analysis) also entertain the notion of ‘a discourse’, that is, a way of seeing or representing/construing the world (see e.g. Fairclough, 2003, 2009) which, because a discourse is knowledge-related, often involves power or domination. In an earlier study, I provisionally identified a discourse of what I called ‘Men as part-time fathers’ in ‘parenting’ magazines such as Parent and Child (Sunderland, 2006b). Similarly, in the examples above, we might provisionally identify a ‘discourse of gender essentialism’ – recall Bryan Lewis’ use of ‘girls as girls’. Sue Nichols (2002) considers discourses of gender in relation to parents’ construction of their children as ‘literate subjects’. Provisional discourse identification such as this is in keeping with current language and gender study, one significant approach to which draws on (critical) discourse analysis (see Wodak and Meyer, 2009; Harrington et al., 2008; Wodak, 1997). The concept of ‘a discourse’ is an important and complex one, and ‘discourses’ have been theorized in various ways (see e.g. Sunderland, 2004; Fairclough, 2003; Foucault, 1972). Siegfried Jäger and Florentine Maier propose the useful image of ‘a flow of knowledge throughout time’ (2009: 35), which nicely points to a given discourse’s continuity, fluidity and flux. They continue: ‘Different discourses are intimately entangled with each other and together form the giant milling mass of overall societal discourse’, which reminds us of the importance of interdiscursivity5. Discourses themselves are however somewhat elusive. They cannot be ‘seen’, and there is no finite checklist of discourses which can be consulted (hence the use of ‘provisionally’ two paragraphs up). Rather, discourses need to be carefully and provisionally identified (hence ‘proposed’), and indeed interpreted, by the analyst. ‘Provisional’ identification is done in part through relevant lexical and grammatical ‘traces’ in the text (Fairclough, 2001; Talbot, 1998). An example is boys in Example 1, boys as boys and girls as girls in Example 2, and are left, an agentless passive, in Example 3. As noted, discourses are realized in part by choices (e.g. mothers rather than parents, and the use of left, in Example 3, and of lovely young ladies rather than colleagues in the Chief Purser example) and by absences (e.g. of ‘fathers’ in Example 3, of ‘some/many/most’ in Example 1). They are also realized by recurrences, in particular of particular discourses across

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different texts, fictional and non-fictional. Given the degree of mediation, discourse identification I would however argue is harder in fictional than non-fictional texts. Accordingly, claims about discourses in fiction are best expressed tentatively and with particular caution. Recurrence and recycling of topics and themes, together with stances taken, are important. A single text on an unfamiliar topic articulated in an unfamiliar way is likely to be constitutive of nothing. As Jäger and Maier write: A single text has minimal effects, which are hardly noticeable and almost impossible to prove. In contrast, a discourse, with its recurring contents, symbols and strategies, leads to the emergence and solidification of ‘knowledge’ and therefore has sustained effects. What is important is not the single text . . . but the constant repetition of statements. (2009: 38) This would have particular implications for the constitutiveness of discourses evident in the fairy tale, for example (see Chapter 5). However, in addition to linguistic traces, discourses also need to be identified by the analyst drawing on a wide understanding of context, extending from micro-linguistic co-text to knowledge of similar texts to social practices and historical considerations (Wodak and Meyer, 2009; Wodak, 2008). This is a reminder of the importance of intertextuality: Mr Sir’s continual reference to ‘Girl Scouts’ in Holes can only be interpreted as derogatory against a backdrop of gender-related stereotypes and linguistic usages, across a range of spoken and written genres. It is possible to see discourses as ‘subject positioning’ people (i.e. as certain sorts of people). Accordingly, fictional texts can be seen as subject positioning their ‘implied readers’ (Leech and Short, 2007) in particular, sometimes diverse ways. One way is as the people they may be (e.g. heterosexual teenage girls), but another is as the narrator, or as a main, ‘focalizing’ character (see Chapter 4). To put it another way, the reader’s ‘subjectivity’ is being produced. The number of different positions offered by a work of fiction will vary hugely with the text: in principle, all texts also offer ‘subjected’ and ‘interrogative’ positions (in the former position, the reader does not question what she reads; in the latter, she does). In practice, depending in part on narrative strategies (such as focalization), some fictional texts will offer a greater range of, and less restricted, subject positions than others (see also Stephens, 1992).

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Language as ‘Code’, Sexist Language and Inclusive Language I will conclude this chapter by noting another ‘prong’ of language and gender study: issues of ‘sexist language’ and (intended) correctives. This was of concern in the 1970s, particularly in English – and indeed bore certain similarities to the feminist concern over the representation of gender in children’s books and other media (see Chapter 4). The focus of this concern has shifted (though see Pauwels, 1998; Hellinger and Bußmann, 2001–2), and the new focus is relevant to this book. Early feminist linguistic concerns over ‘code’ (as opposed to ‘use’) in English included that z z z z

‘generic he’ was not fully inclusive, but had a masculine bias ‘generic man’ (and words with –man as suffix, e.g. chairman) was not fully inclusive (as above) Mrs/Miss and Mr were linguistically asymmetrical -ette words, together with girl, woman doctor, a blonde and their equivalents, were all problematic

Early feminist assumptions were that, individually and together, these linguistic items marginalized, degraded and/or trivialized women, and that this shaped thought in ways which were damaging to women (this was similar to a belief in the damaging ‘effects’ on girl readers of children’s books with impoverished female representation; see Chapters 3, 6 and 10). These analyses resulted in the production of different ‘Guidelines for inclusive language’ (often relevant to age, ethnicity, disability, sexuality as well as gender) by academic institutions, publishers and other institutions, including some of the media (see Chapter 1). Such guidelines were well-intentioned, probably made people think more about the language they used (if only after hostile exchanges) and may indeed have reduced the use of non-inclusive language such as the masculine ‘generics’ (see e.g. Pauwels, 1998; Cooper, 1984). Corpus linguistic studies have identified change here over time, for example, an increase in the use of him or her and he or she, and a decrease in mankind, between 1975 and 1993 (Baker, 2008a: 38), a possible but very slight decrease in the use of girl to refer to an adult woman (Sigley and Holmes, 2002), and an increase in use of Ms between 1991 and 2006 (against a backdrop of a decline in titles altogether) (Baker, forthcoming). There were (and are) however problems with the notion of ‘non-sexist language’ (see Cameron, 1995). First, several linguistic items can be used

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in sexist and non-sexist ways, depending on speakers and context. For example, girl might be demeaning when used by a boss to refer to a female employee, when her male peer and colleague is not referred to as a boy. However, if women going out together in the evening refer to themselves as girls, it would seem inappropriate and patronizing to condemn this. Relatedly, even ‘common gender’ words (e.g. person, neighbour, guest) can be used in sexist ways. From a notice in a German hotel (Hellinger, 2002): Vergeßliche Hotelgäste Wir müssen immer mit dem klassischen Fall rechnen, daß die Ehefrau nichts vom Hotelaufenthalt ihres Mannes weiß. Deshalb schicken wir die gefundenen Gegenstände grundsätzlich nur zurück, wenn der Gast darum bittet. In English, this reads: Forgetful hotel guests We will always have to reckon with the classic case that a wife may not know about her husband’s stay in the hotel. Therefore we return lost property only at the guest’s request. That ‘guest(s)’ can be used apparently unproblematically, to mean male guest(s), in ways which not everyone would even notice, is a matter of ideology (see Chapter 4) and discourse. The hotel notice ‘works’ because of the existence of certain hegemonic discourses. One of these is what we can call ‘Male as norm’, that is, an extension of the tendency to ‘think male’ when we come across the so-called ‘generic’ man or he (e.g. Schneider and Hacker, 1973) to also ‘think male’ even with a ‘common gender’ noun such as ‘guest’. Another is a normative (rather than critically-named) discourse we might call ‘Male infidelity’ (in which men’s extra-marital affairs are conceptualized as less ‘marked’ and transgressive than those of women; consider the related phrase ‘boys will be boys’). Note that this situation is referred to as a classic case, that is, well-established and barely worthy of comment. The ‘normativeness’ of the notice is confirmed by trying to construe an alternative discourse of ‘female infidelity’ – or even ‘marital infidelity’. Hypothetically, we might read: We will always have to reckon with the classic case that a husband or wife may not know about their spouse’s stay in the hotel. Therefore we return lost property only at the guest’s request.

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This may, for many readers, be more ‘marked’ than the actual example. (And certainly if a female Chief Purser had said ‘I am joined by two handsome young men . . . .’, I am sure that there would have been some sort of audible reaction from the passengers.) * * * The notion of discourse represents a bringing-together of both early gender and language ‘prongs’, that is, language use and language as code. This broad understanding of discourse, together with an understanding of the theoretical shift from Model 1 (people-based) of gender to Model 2 (ideas-based), is important to the subsequent chapters of this book. Chapter 4, ‘The importance of language and linguistic analysis’, provides an important additional linguistic basis for understanding the workings of language and gender in children’s fiction. Next, in Chapter 3, however, I look at content analyses of children’s fiction, since these pre-dated linguistic analyses, had been prevalent in the early days of the second wave of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement, and remain an important part of the study of language, gender and children’s fiction.

Chapter 3

Content Analysis: The Early Days

‘Simple’ stories give handholds, points of connection, to the larger continuum; readers are exposed, consciously or subconsciously, to a mass of thematic concepts that may only show as tiny tips on the surface, but that are part of deep structure, like icebergs. Rosemary Ross Johnston (2000)

In this chapter I begin to focus explicitly on research into gender and children’s fiction. I start with past research carried out in the early days of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement (mainly in the 1970s), which largely took the form of Content analysis. Like much early work in all fields, it can retrospectively be criticized for its conceptualization and methodology, but also needs to be acknowledged for its pioneering contribution, for the empirical base it provided, and indeed for its ‘wake-up’ call. Inspired by feminism, early Content analysts of children’s books, including reading schemes, were very concerned about effects. This chapter, as might be expected, is concerned with texts. It does not address, for example, texts’ impact on self-image, or identity, or perceptions of gender. These important (but complex) questions are beyond the scope of this book. Many of the studies reported do however address these questions, and interested readers are advised to go back to the original. However, they will probably do so critically. Understandings of ‘effects’ have changed radically: it is now recognized that readers have ‘agency’ to resist (or re-appropriate) what they read, further, responses to a given text are now recognized as potentially multiple: not only will different readers have different responses, but the same reader might too (see e.g. Fish, 1980; Tompkins, 1980; and for a classic gender perspective, Radway, 1984).

Content Analysis Content analysis is a systematic way of looking at texts for their content (what they are ‘about’, and the elements in them) rather than structure or

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language. The data is typically qualitative, and the analysis quantitative. In its simplest, descriptive form, content analysis involves identifying particular content-related categories, for example, different types of protagonists in a work of fiction, such as male and female, adult and child, and/or different social and occupational roles, and then counting occurrences of those categories. This can extend to looking at, say, happy and sad endings, as well as visuals (see below). Categories may be deductively pre-decided (for example, occupational roles of adults in children’s fiction), or decided inductively after familiarization with the text(s) in question (for example, the analyst might after reading become aware of recurring references to particular possessions associated with boys and with girls). In either case, a coding scheme incorporating the different categories needs to be developed (see also Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007; Silverman, 2004; Taylor, 2003; Mason, 2002). As an example, the ‘Women on Words and Images’ group, who analysed elementary school readers from 14 publishers and produced Dick and Jane as Victims (1972, 1975), wrote: A general classification system was developed . . . for subsequent use in doing a Content analysis of all stories in each book. A statement summarizing each story was recorded on a work sheet and was placed in the appropriate category or categories, such as stories focusing on girls, stories focusing on boys, stories about both boys and girls . . . . (1975: 8)1 For their Content analysis, Sharyl Petersen and Mary Lach (1990) used five categories: gender of author, gender of main character, number/ gender of other characters, type of main character (e.g. person/animal/ other) and genre (the study is described below). I am arguing in this book for the importance of linguistic study of children’s fiction. My focus on Content analysis here, preceding the chapter on linguistic analysis (Chapter 4), reflects the historically earlier concern with Content analysis. Further, Content analysis in some shape or form also always needs to be carried out, if only to document what the book is broadly ‘about’, who the characters are, and the story and plot. (Following E. M. Forster (1927), in this book, I am using these two terms to mean ‘what happened and in what order’, and ‘why’, respectively.) Like many categories, however, the content/linguistic ‘opposition’ is not watertight. For example, while counting numbers of different female and male characters is Content analysis, if names are put into two lists and counted, this is technically linguistic analysis.

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Early Content Analyses Most early Content analyses of gender and children’s fiction were carried out for or reported in feminist publications. I summarize some findings and methods below, broadly chronologically, with the aim of showing how the field developed in conceptual terms. Of course, the date of a given study does not in itself indicate the date of the books under study; further, older books continue to be stocked in certain bookshops, libraries and homes, and read. A second aim is to suggest the wide range of textuallyconstrued variables that can be explored. (Given that reading schemes are the subject of Chapter 6, I do not include Content analyses of reading schemes in this chapter.) One of the earliest Content analyses of gender and children’s fiction was done by Alleen Pace Nilsen (1971), for whom an experience turned into a mini-research project: I sat down in front of the fifty-eight picture books which happened to be on the display cart for use by the children’s literature teachers at Eastern Michigan University. As I thumbed through the books looking specifically at the way women and girls were pictured, I was struck first by what appears to be a cult of the apron. Of the fifty-eight books, twenty-five had a picture of a woman somewhere in them. And of these twenty-five books, all but four had a picture of a woman wearing an apron . . . . I also found a mother alligator, a mother rabbit, a mother donkey and a mother cat all wearing aprons. In the four books which showed women without aprons, the leading characters included a teaching sister whose habit had a long white frontispiece, a queen who was knitting, an Indian squaw who was stirring a pot of food, and a mother who was taking her children on an outing. (p. 918–19; for more on aprons, see Jackson and Gee, 2005) Pace Nilsen went on to analyse 80 picture books: Caldecott Medal Award winners2 from the previous 20 years. She found that: z z z

all books included at least one male; in 6 there were no females 24 books had boys and only 10 had girls as leading characters there were 579 pictured males and 386 females.

Linguistically, the titles included 14 names of males and four of females (see also Pace Nilsen’s 1977 follow-up study).

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This over-representation of male characters was to be a recurring finding. In the same year (1971), ‘Feminists on Children’s Literature’ looked at 49 Newbery Award winners3, in which ‘books about boys outnumbered books about girls by about three to one’. The group identified four categories of books. In ‘Sexist books’, ‘girls and woman are exclusively assigned traditional female roles’. ‘Especially for girls’ (a phrase which used to appear on publishers’ lists) were about love, dating, romance, shyness, being overweight . . . . In ‘Cop-Outs’: The actual cop-out may be only a crucial line, a paragraph, the last chapter. But somewhere a sexist compromise is made, somewhere the book adjusts to the stereotyped role of woman, often for the sake of social pressure and conformity. This compromise brings with it a change, and this change is not only disturbing, but often distorts the logical development of the character herself. Suddenly her development is re-directed – or, rather, stunted. (1971: 21) Peter Hollindale similarly refers to dénouements in which the happy ending (say) of a novel ‘amount[s] to a “contract of reaffirmation” of questionable values which have earlier seemed to be on trial’ (1988: 19–20). John Stephens further critiques those ‘closures’ of children’s fiction which promote ‘fixed meanings’, and which are ‘apparent in the socializing, didactic purposes of much children’s literature’ (1992: 41). ‘What happens in the end’ accordingly may be key to any work in which gender is important: Does the tomboy become an assertive and independent woman, for example? Does she calm down, get married, look after the house and live happily ever after? Does she come to a sticky or sad end? ‘Cop-outs’ logically extend to any work of fiction in which a spirited young girl falls in love, marries, and loses the spirit she once had. This is an important reminder that a book cannot be evaluated for its representation or construal of gender in total on the basis of, say, chapter 11 (although there may be a key episode of interest in chapter 11). There are important precedents here: three 19th century works of fiction with women protagonists who were unhappy with and transgressed expected (gendered) social boundaries – but, in the end, died (Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Hedda Gabler) (see also Mills, 1995; Russ, 1984). Of course, despite the discursive constraints (not to mention material limitations) in every age, it is possible for fictional women characters in principle to transgress dominant social expectations and not pay a price. Yet the function of women in fiction as being concerned with emotion – often

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in the form of the hetero-normative question of popularity with the opposite sex – remains. In Helen Fielding’s mainstream Bridget Jones (1996), Bridget herself may be autonomously sexually-active, and a journalist, but her focussed and driven concern with finding the right man is not very far from that of Jane Austen’s female protagonists. The fourth category identified by ‘Feminists on Children’s Literature’ was ‘Positive images’. This ‘allow[ed] for character development beyond the stereotype and [did] not disappoint us in the end’, an example being Scott O’Dell’s (1960) Island of the Blue Dolphins. Commendably, this group appreciated that sexist passages in themselves may not be a problem, especially if they correspond to ‘real life’, as long as the book ‘leave[s] the child feeling something is wrong here’ (p. 21). In 1972/3, the Australian feminist magazine Refractory Girl included an article on ‘Sex role stereotyping in children’s picture books’. Denise Bradley and Mary Mortimer analysed a corpus of books taken from the ‘Recommended’ lists of the School Library Services, looking at the gender representation not only of children and adults, but also animals, folk/fantasy figures and inanimate objects. In addition to their overrepresentation, male characters also did a greater range of things, and more interesting things, than female characters – anticipating Pace Nilsen’s (1977: 64) claim that ‘boys’ books’ are not only about boys, but about boys who do more interesting things than do girls (see Chapter 1). Bradley and Mortimer were also concerned with whether girls’ and boys’ behaviours were ‘rewarded, punished or had no consequences’. Boys (but, we infer, not girls) ‘are sometimes punished for their activities [often involving danger and disobedience], but often manage to escape unscathed and unpunished’ (1972/3: 10). As regards the anthropomorphic male and female animal main characters (23 males, 5 females): [The male animal main characters] show high scores on activity, autonomy, exploration, physical mastery, bravery, disobedience and aggression. All of these traits are acceptable in moderation in males . . . . Among the female main characters . . . there are no examples of successful autonomous behaviour . . . . These characters are all victims. (p. 11) The evidence for differential construal by gender, often according to predictable stereotypes, and even exaggerating those stereotypes, seemed to be growing.

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In 1973, John Stewig and Margaret Higgs selected 154 picture books (by 798 authors) at random from a collection of 957 in a university education department library. These reflected a spread of publication dates. Despite being sceptical about earlier work, Stewig and Higgs confirmed previous findings: more male characters, men in a wider range of professional roles, women portrayed in homemaking roles (aside from the few who were teachers, maids or nuns), and claimed that what women were represented as doing at home was neither creative nor intellectual. Stewing and Higgs also asked whether these representations (however regrettably) reflected reality – for example, Elena Belotti had noted at the time that ‘in reality 40% of American mothers work in factories and offices’ (1975: 90) – and concluded that it did not even do this. But this is an important question often not asked, that is, what is desirable in gender construal: a reflection of some sort of societal reality? Or a more ‘progressive’ construal of that reality? Their predecessors Bradley and Mortimer (1972/3) had proposed two basic requirements for children’s books: z z

that they reflect the reality of the society in which they live that they indicate the kinds of approved behaviour which society ideally aims to encourage and develop in its children

However, these requirements were (and are) problematic. The first, ‘reflecting reality’, is near-impossible given that a given ‘society’ is both highly diverse (not only as regards gender), and continually changing (today’s reality might not be that of five years hence, when the book is still being read). The second is in a well-intentioned way encouraging ‘positive role models’, presumably people treating others equally and not in limiting ways as boys, girls, women or men. However, opinions (even feminist ones) about ‘approved behaviour’ in relation to gender are also diverse and even conflicting. Further, the requirements seem only to refer to ‘realistic’ stories. The question remains open. Published in 1975, Papers on Children’s Literature #1, entitled Racist and Sexist Images in Children’s Books (see also Chapter 1) included three papers relevant to gender. ‘Children’s books from the New China’ (anon.) (looking at translations) comments on the challenge to stereotypical gender roles associated with women’s traditional oppression in feudal China. For example: In The Little Doctor . . . it is the girl Ping Ping who is the doctor, treating her little sister’s doll, prescribing a good wash for her brother’s Teddy

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bear and matter-of-factly using tools (usually reserved for boys) to fix a broken rocking horse. . . . . [Red Women’s Detachment] . . . uses the historical formation of the first Women’s Army unit in 1930 to show women as rebels and efficient fighters. In this story one woman joins the army to free herself from a ten-year marriage to a wooden dummy, the effigy of her fiancé who died just before their wedding, which had been forced on her by feudal custom. (p. 32) These unusually progressive gender construals are clearly a product of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1970s (notorious rather than famous in other ways). The paper is however also critical of these Chinese stories, identifying one book, Observation Post 3, as characterizing a boy as more active, resourceful, brave and commanding than his sister, and having him embraced by the guerrilla chief after the defeat of the Japanese, ‘while his sister looks on from a distance, even though it was she who actually got the message through’ (p. 32). With the wisdom of hindsight, such evaluations sound particularly unsophisticated: Is the point of this story, for example, that it was the sister who should have been commended? Also, unless female characters’ construed actions in a given dataset regularly go unacknowledged, it is hard to talk convincingly about gender here. The other two papers in Racist and Sexist Images in Children’s Books are about Puerto Rican books (i.e. books for children on Puerto Rican themes, published and available in the US). The first is a study of racism and colonialism, but the writer observes that ‘The books are flagrantly sexist and reflect a problem common to all children’s literature that stereotype women in subordinate and demeaning roles’ (p. 38). This is confronted further in a paper by Dolores Prida and Susan Ribner (1975), who, by identifying how ‘female Puerto Rican-ness’ is represented, bring ethnicity into the equation: Of the 18 books, 9 depict mothers exclusively as housewives, 6 are housewives who also work at low-skill jobs in factories, hospitals or as cleaning ladies, and all cook, clean and mother after work. (p. 47) Prida and Ribner claim that ‘What this says to a Puerto Rican girl is that if she decides to become a mother, the odds are close to 100% that she will be a housewife or a combined housewife and low-income, low-skill worker’ (p. 47). We now appreciate that Puerto Rican girls may not read these books this way (certainly, not all will!), but this rather ‘determinist’ analysis was characteristic of work in the 1970s.

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Papers on Children’s Literature # 2 (1976), Sexism in Children’s Books, included articles on ‘Sex-role socialization in picture books for preschool children’ (Weitzman, Eifler, Hokada and Ross), ‘Sexism in award winning picture books’ (Czaplinski) and ‘Sex roles in reading schemes’ (Lobban)4. I look at Czaplinski’s paper in ‘Visuals’, below, and Lobban’s paper in Chapter 6. The title ‘Sex-role socialization in picture books for preschool children’ now has a somewhat dated ring to it. ‘Sex-role’ sounds fixed and ‘socialization’ determinist, in the light of today’s constructionist lens, and concern with identity, agency and flux (see Chapter 2). Following Pace Nilsen’s 1971 study (see above), Weitzman, Eifler, Hokada and Ross looked mainly at US Caldecott Medal winners, for the good reason that many children are likely to come into contact with these. They noted that the Caldecott books were ‘clearly less stereotyped than the average book’ (p. 7), and this makes them an interesting object of study. Nevertheless, of the Caldecotts they looked at (18 from 1967–1971, winners and runners-up), they found that (predictably), female characters were grossly underrepresented (in different ways), including in visuals and titles, and were usually ‘insignificant or inconspicuous’ (1976: 10). This is important: we are not just talking about visibility of female characters, or social and occupational roles, but also about prominence and status of those roles. The authors found in addition that most adult women were identified only as mothers or wives (men in contrast were ‘storekeepers, housebuilders, kings, spiders, story tellers, gods, monks, fighters, fishermen, policemen, soldiers, adventurers, fathers, cooks, preachers, judges, and farmers’ (p. 20)). Further, girls were much more passive than the boys, and more often found indoors, where they pleased and helped their brothers and fathers. A newer finding was the frequency of male camaraderie, whereas ‘one rarely sees only girls working or playing together’ (p. 15). Bob Dixon’s (1978) Catching them Young: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction5, examines classic girls’ stories in a chapter called ‘Birds in gilded cages’: In fiction for the very early years, we saw the cage being built. More and more now, women will take the task upon themselves, in fiction as in life. Most grow up believing that the role society has set out for them is a ‘natural’ one, innate and inborn. This process, by which the oppressed takes on – internalizes – the attitudes of the oppressor, is a well-known one . . . . (1978: 6) Dixon sounds determinist and dated here, as theorizations of gender have changed, and professional and educational opportunities for women

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have increased since the 1970s. Dixon’s focus on ‘classic’ girls’ stories is worth reading, but critically. In considering different forms of ‘the construction of the cage’ (its ‘supports’), he examines books by Louisa M. Alcott (starting with Little Women) and Susan Coolidge (the Katy series). Dixon emphasizes not only the predictable gender stereotyping (girls looking after brothers, being praised for being neat and ladylike), but also the constant theme of the ‘taming of the tomboy’ (Jo, Katy – something that had been categorized as ‘Cop-outs’ by ‘Feminists on Children’s Literature in 1971). However, as is often the case, feminist arguments invite feminist counter-arguments. Writing in defence of Little Women, Alison Lurie (2003) points out that Alcott replaced the single central character of the standard juvenile with four heroines, each with a different personality. Before Little Women there was one ideal type of girlhood in most American juvenile literature: modest, dutiful and obedient. Alcott suggested that there was a range of possibilities, and also that a heroine could have serious faults – vanity, jealousy, sloth, or anger – and still earn a happy ending. (2003: 18) The ‘little women’, Lurie notes, did not only have different personalities, but rather ‘represented’ the Victorian ‘angel in the house’ (Beth), the ‘Domestic Movement’ (Meg, learning to control her own household), the entry of women into the arts (Amy), and the ‘New Woman’ of the contemporary feminist movement (Jo). Dixon also addresses the genre of girls’ (exclusive) school stories, such as Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School stories, and Enid Blyton’s The Twins at St Clare’s. These are clearly female-centred (even male teachers are rare), but hardly agents of change: Dixon claims in fact that ‘All schools are agents of conformity, and while this is strong in boys’ school stories, as well . . . [g]irls’ school stories are more inward-looking’ (1978: 18). Dixon takes issue too with ‘horse fiction’, ‘read almost exclusively by girls’ (1978: 24), such as Janet Must Ride and Show Jumping Secret, and sees the popularity of these stories as indexing some form of compensation: ‘A girl will feel important to be in control of a large animal, she’ll feel needed and will, not least, have the opportunity for exciting activity in the open air – all aspects of her life not catered for enough elsewhere’ (1978: 24). Such analyses – and Dixon’s is now more than 30 years old – which basically position girls as victims, seem dated and over-stated. Dixon’s is also empirically unsupported. His uncompromising approach neither allows for books to be progressive in some ways and conservative in others, nor for

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readers to be critical (rather than dupes) while at the same time getting pleasure from a book. His work was very much a product of the time, a form of early feminist literary criticism (e.g. Millett, 1970; see also Mills et al., 1989, and Chapter 1). The findings of these early Content analyses can be summed up as providing ‘an unrelenting picture of female oppression and marginalisation’ (Adler, 1993). Many of these early studies however took a rather crude view of children’s fiction as fiction. There was little or no suggestion that a gender-stereotypically-represented character could be presented as a target of (proto-)feminist critique, that a female protagonist could be portrayed in a sexist manner, or that sexist behaviour could creatively be represented as something transgressive. Without a linguistic dimension, Content analyses made no systematic distinction between different characters’ dialogue, or even between narration and dialogue. Still further away was any consideration of the workings and literary/ideological potential of focalization (e.g. of an oppressive male character, of an oppressed female one) (see Chapter 4). However, just as the books studied may have been conservative or progressive for their time, the studies themselves were also products of their time. The UK Educational Publishers Council Working Group of 1981 argued that . . . the world is in a constant state of change . . . there are many books which were written some time ago, and which still have much to offer children. Many of these books will reflect the attitudes of their own time rather than those of today. We would in no way wish to suggest that the content of these books should be tampered with, or that they should be banned from use. Teachers, librarians and all those who are responsible for advising children in their reading should be able to set these books in their proper context. (p. 3) I would agree. Whether and how this is done would be the subject of interesting further research on ‘consumption’ of children’s books.

Modern Content Analyses The Content analyses which followed these early studies showed some improvement, although this was limited. In 1990 Sharyl Peterson and Mary Lach decided to explore possible reduction in gender stereotyping and

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looked at 136 picture books for young children: half of those listed in The Horn Book (a resource available to US librarians and pre-school teachers) for 1967, 1977 and 1987. In 1987, the numbers of female and male main characters were closer than in the two previous decades, and ‘girls were just as likely to have adventures as . . . to be shown in a domestic setting’ (p. 187). However, neither trend was statistically significant. For animals and subsidiary characters, the ratio of male to female characters was an improvement on 1977 – but was still 1.5: 1. In 1993 the journal Sex Roles published an update. Carole Kortenhaus and Jack Demarest analysed the roles of children in both Caldecott award winners and ‘non-award’ children’s books from the 1940s to the 1980s. The books published after 1970 ‘show[ed] a more equitable distribution of male and female characters’ across titles, central roles, pictures, and animals (1993: 225). However, ‘more equitable’ was often far from ‘equal’: males are still depicted in titles nearly 50% more often than females in the non-award books, and male animals are still represented twice as often as female animals in both types of books. (p. 225–6) Kortenhaus and Demarest also looked at children’s represented activities in the relatively recent books, categorizing activities as ‘instrumental independent’ or ‘passive dependent’. There was an improvement on books published prior to the 1960s, but males still ‘dominated the instrumental behaviours . . . , while females outnumbered the males . . . in almost all passive and dependent roles’ (1993: 226). Such an analytical framework need to be deployed carefully (for example, in terms of reliability), but may be more nuanced and revealing than looking at activities per se. Although the most overt forms of gender imbalance in representation may have been disappearing, there are many possible different textual ‘indicators’ of sexism in children’s books. Further such indicators, cited by Kortenhaus and Demerest include disparaging statements, character traits or physical attributes, such as young girls being valued for their beauty while older women are often denigrated as hags and witches . . . . (1993: 227) ‘Disparaging statements’ are exemplified in this book in Chapter 6, on reading schemes, and the ‘beauty/ugliness’ binary in Chapter 5, on fairy tales. A given book is quite likely to be sexist in some aspects of its gender

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construal and ‘progressive’ in others, and analysts need to be alert to both. Angela Gooden and Mark Gooden, who analysed ‘Notable Books for Children’6 published 1995–1999, point out how the issue is not only female characters not being represented in a wide range of professional roles, but also what male characters are not represented as doing: in their own study, ‘males were seldom seen caring for the children or grocery shopping and never seen doing household chores’ (2001: 96). Research reports do not always make clear how the research question was arrived at: Was it pre-determined, did it come about after familiarization with the texts, or a bit of both? Certainly research questions for Content analyses do not have to ‘replicate’ previous studies with comparable research questions. Sometimes an analyst may take a more inductive approach: s/he may become aware of a particular theme, and explore this in a particular sample of children’s fiction – as in the study by Weitzman et al. (1976) which looked at camaraderie. A further example is Ruth Berman’s (1998) study, entitled ‘No Joe Marches’. ‘Joe March’ is the non-existent male equivalent of Louisa M. Alcott’s ‘Jo March’, one of the four female protagonists of Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men and Jo’s Boys, and inveterate writer. Berman’s point and finding is that boy writers (and readers) are under-represented in children’s fiction (something many readers and analysts may not have picked up on). Another example is Moore and Mae’s (1987) study of responses to death and dying in older children’s books and how these varied by gender. Now that the androcentric nature of much previous children’s fiction in terms of numbers and types of roles has been established, more interesting is whether and how such particular responses and social practices are gender-differentially construed in earlier and modern children’s fiction. It will probably have been noticed that the work reported here comes largely from ‘Western’ countries. A recent exception is Jariah Mohd Jan and Jacqueline Ambrose’s (2007) study of a Malaysian class reader, Tales and Tails, written for Year 4 students, and consisting of four stories. Numerically, and in part predictably, females were the main characters in two of the stories and males were the lead character in the other two stories. However, upon tabulating all of the characters, then there are more males compared to females. (p. 59) More interestingly, in terms of represented emotion, ‘the males displayed a wider range of emotions ranging from happiness to fear and excitement’ (p. 61). While the ‘greater range’ for male characters is predictable, the

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greater range of emotions is less so. This suggests it is well worth continuing such explorations in ‘non-Western’ countries, not only to advance gender and language study in those countries, but also to enrich the field worldwide.

Some Important Distinctions Young children’s fiction is not monolithic. Content analyses need to make a distinction between books for babies, preschool children, and so on, up to teenage fiction. Another distinction, cutting across these, is between what we might call ‘realistic’ stories (the focus of much of the work reported above) and ‘fantasy’ stories. Of course, fiction can never be completely ‘realistic’: for one thing, this would mean including an infinite number of details; for another, there are likely to be degrees of realism (and accordingly shades of fantasy in ‘realistic’ books7); thirdly, and in any case, it is not really possible to fully represent reality (which is only in part linguistic) with fiction (which may be entirely linguistic) (see also Leech and Short, 2007). But, taken with this pinch of salt, a loose fantasy/realism distinction is worth holding onto. Another distinction, which cuts across realism/ fantasy, is between ‘human’ stories and ‘animal’ stories (see Chapter 7 for examples). Animal stories can be seen as ‘realistic’ in the sense that they are only minimally anthropomorphized, or in the sense that they are about animals who adopt human ‘real life’ behaviour, as in Wind in the Willows. (For some, that would be ‘fantasy’ – but a different sort of fantasy to, say, stories about animals exploring new planets.) These distinctions are important. Whereas we might reasonably expect ‘realistic’ stories to reflect social realities (for example, depending on the setting, a sizeable proportion of adult female characters working outside as well as inside the home), we cannot expect this of ‘fantasy stories’, in which the notion of ‘paid work for adults’ or even ‘work’ may simply not be relevant. For the above reasons, it makes little sense to unthinkingly compare works of realism and works of fantasy. However, this explicit comparison might be precisely the focus of a study. In her own small scale study of ‘realistic’ and ‘fantasy’ children’s fiction, in relation to gender, for example, Grace Green (2007) compared the fantasy stories Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J. K. Rowling, 1997) and The Chimney Witches (Victoria Whitehead, 1986) with two ‘realistic fiction’ books: The Boy Next Door (Sinclair Smith, 1995) and Sweet Valley Twins: Against the Rules (Francine Pascal, 1998).

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Defining ‘realistic fiction’ as ‘literature that is not based on a true story . . . yet it has a running theme that could technically be true and one day could happen’ and fantasy as ‘a work of fiction where magic and supernatural phenomena are central to the plot and so could never be a true reality’ (2007: 13), Green in fact found several similarities, including cases of stereotypical and non-traditional gender roles. In contrast, both male and female characters were portrayed more as physically attractive in the realistic fiction (perhaps corresponding to actual social stereotypes). Animal stories may be of particular concern. Those that are anthropomorphic have a particular metaphorical potential, and perhaps intention (see e.g. Chapter 7). Writing in 1977, Alleen Pace Nilsen claimed that ‘practically all the animals in books for young children are males, including Albert the Albatross, Zeke the Raccoon, Julius the Gorilla, Harry the Dirty Dog, Little Bear, Chester the Horse, and Sam the Firefly’ (1977: 170), as shown in both the written text and illustrations (see also Kortenhaus and Demarest, 1993; Zimet, 1976). The few female animals, Pace Nilsen proposed, tended to be foolish, silly, lonely, fashion conscious and/or in need of protection. Pace Nilsen’s explanation related to ‘grammatical gender’ in English: It appears that unless we have evidence to prove that an animal is female, we use the masculine pronoun, whether or not we make a conscious decision that the animal is male. (p. 170) This claim needs further research: whether authors did overuse the (specific) masculine pronoun, and, if so, why. Of course, more than three decades later, the situation may have changed. My own impression is that animal stories today are less likely to be ‘automatically’ masculine, but that gender stereotyping still applies. The last distinction to mention here is in relation to ‘progressive’ children’s fiction, for example between ‘non-sexist’, ‘anti-sexist’ and ‘feminist’ stories, and I look at these on p. 56 (‘Responses to Content analyses’). But first, a brief look at visuals.

Visual Analysis: Some Brief Observations Technically, visual analysis falls under ‘(social) semiotic’ analysis (see e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). Here, however, I am simply making some general points and putting forward some observations. Fiction for young children almost always includes visuals, making them noticeably multi-modal,

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and indeed these are presumably what pre-literate children look at when they are being read to. We can make a distinction between ‘illustrated books’ (when the function of the illustrations are simply to support the text, as in books for teaching children to read), and ‘picture books’, which go way beyond this (Hunt, 1991; see also Stephens, 1992). Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott (2000) identify a ‘spectrum’ here: at one end, visuals are subordinate to words (i.e. the story could stand alone), at the other, words are subordinate to visuals (i.e. the visuals could stand alone): illustrated and picture books, respectively. Whether they were framed as such, almost all the previous studies are highly likely to have looked at what were in effect picture/illustrated books, but did not employ the distinction. Indeed, as the chapter so far will have made clear, it is often hard to separate even ‘content’ and ‘visual’ analysis. As an example, in her study of 60 award-winning picture books (Caldecott, Carroll and New York Times Book Review of Children’s Books awards), and best-sellers in the US, Czaplinski identified (predictably) a huge imbalance in favour of male characters in both the written text and visuals: the ratio of males to females in the written text was 4:1 and in the images 7:3. Female characters may thus be ‘pictured but not mentioned’ (1976: 33). Czaplinski suggested that: ‘Starring roles may be a determining factor in the above, with females being reserved for crowd scenes or supporting roles’ (1976: 33). (In some contrast, Pace Nilsen (1971) cites a student research project in which it was found that the illustrations in Dr Zeuss books were overwhelmingly male (a ratio of seven males to one female).) Relatedly, Gooden and Gooden (2001), in their study of ‘Notable’ books published 1995–1999, report that, [Statistically] [s]ignificantly fewer female and female animal characters appeared alone in the illustrations and significantly more male and male animal characters appeared alone in the illustrations than were expected. (2001: 93; my emphasis)8 As with Content analysis, then, it is possible to carry out frequency counts on visuals – but then to take the investigation further. In this case, being illustrated alone is presumably more likely to be associated with a protagonist rather than a supporting character, who may be more likely to be male, but that would need to be explored. Visuals in children’s books thus appear to demonstrate a noticeable amount of gender stereotyping. Of course, analysing visuals can mean far more than looking at represented characters in relation to gender: we can also consider posture, gesture, clothing (Remember all the aprons worn by

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pictured female characters noted in Chapter 1?), hair, size of characters relative to each other, proximity, gaze, actions, and more. As do words, visuals constitute characterization (see Chapter 4), and, like words, visuals represent choices. It is however always important to be open to new categories. Jackson and Gee (2005), for example, looking specifically at early school readers (see Chapter 6) in New Zealand, found that From the Janet and John books right through to the most recent books in our collection from the late 1990s, illustrations depicted girls holding objects close to them, snuggling, cuddling or cradling them to their bodies. This stood in contrast to boys who consistently held objects away from their bodies (2005: 120). Inductive work can result in interesting new findings and directions. An important question with visual representation in children’s fiction is whether gender-differentiation is actually exaggerated. Citing Davies (1993), Jackson and Gee point to hair length, noting that although it became fashionable for men to wear long hair in the 1960s (a trend that continued in following years), illustrators continued to represent them in a way that emphasizes physical difference to girls and women. (2005: 123) There are noticeable echoes here, in particular, of claims (exemplified earlier in the chapter) that gender representations in children’s books (for example, of adult women’s occupations) are not only ‘traditional’ but even more traditional than is the case in a given social reality. Such observations also anticipate some of the linguistic findings reported in Chapter 4, that is, that gender differentiation is exaggerated in some adult fiction, both in the language of characters (e.g. Shibamoto-Smith. 2004) and the language used to describe those characters (e.g. Talbot, 1998). Gender representation in written text and visuals can never correspond perfectly. Text is linear; visuals may or may not be. Further, visuals ‘interpret’: the illustrator must make decisions about, say, colour, size and background. A particular point of interest is non-correspondence between written text and visuals in picture books (rather than illustrated books): the images may ‘extend, juxtapose, supplement, interrogate, problematize and contradict’ (Johnston, 2000: 3). When they contradict, this is likely to be intentional, for example, John Burningham’s Come Away from the Water, Shirley (1977), which shows Shirley’s imaginings of adventure, in contrast to the mundane orders of her parents (see also Burningham’s Granpa (1984);

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other examples are Babette Cole’s The Trouble with Mum (1983) and The Trouble with Grandad (1988)). Whatever the word-image relationship, the words and images will always interact to create meaning (see also Hunt, 1991), but ‘contradictory interactions’ (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2000) such as the above immediately point to different possible readings. More usual is when the visual conveys less or more information than the text (what Nikolajeva and Scott call ‘enhancing interaction’). Take the following example, from Floss by Kim Lewis (1992), presumably intended as an illustrated rather than picture book. The text refers to ‘the children’ and ‘their ball’. Yet the visual shows the boy as more foregrounded, taller and more active than the girl, and interacting more actively with the dog. I should point out that this visual is not, in this respect, characteristic of Floss as a whole, and, accordingly, that such diversity means that all or a random (but substantial) sample of visuals in a given book should be considered.

Figure 3.1 Visuals vis à vis text in young children’s fiction. Copyright © 1992 Kim Lewis Ltd. From FLOSS, written and illustrated by Kim Lewis. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJ

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There remain particular challenges here. In 1977, Pace Nilsen proposed that: ‘When an author uses a masculine pronoun to refer to an animal, an artist is committed to follow suit and make the illustration ‘masculine’ ’ (p. 170). Without further research, we do not however know whether this is so, and, if it is, why. A study of production would explore the negotiation (if any) between illustrator and author (see Zipes, 2002). Further, an illustrator may wish to distinguish between male and female animal characters, but, given that male and female bears (say) may look rather similar, how is she to differentiate ‘humanoid’ male and female bears without recourse to (say) aprons and braces? Because of these special challenges, the visuals in animal stories are worthy of further research in their own right.

Responses to Content Analyses Early Content analyses, limited as they were, played an important role in awareness-raising. And feminist critique did not stop with a focus on what was wrong with children’s fiction in gender terms, or indeed critiques of earlier critiques. It also (as we saw in Chapter 1) promoted different sorts of stories, and recommendations for writers and publishers. (i) Different sorts of children’s stories Children’s books have witnessed a noticeable shift away from traditional gender roles and stereotypes. There is now a whole crop of feminist stories (see below), some marginal and some less so (but see also Stephens, 1985, on the danger of tokenism). In Chapter 5, I refer to a range of ‘feminist fairy tales’ such as Babette Cole’s Prince Cinders (1987) and Princess Smartypants (1986; see also Davies, 1993, 1989). There also exist stories featuring gay parents (see Chapter 7, co-written with Mark McGlashan), which provide a reminder of the important relationship between gender and sexuality (see e.g. Baker, 2008a). As I and others have done, Bronwen Davies (1989) makes a distinction for new sorts of stories between realistic and fantasy stories (see also Leech and Short, 2007; Stephens, 1992). For the former, Davies further distinguishes between stories ‘with an explicit feminist message’ (e.g. Tomie de Paola’s Oliver Button is a Sissy (1981)) and those ‘with no explicit feminist message but with non-sexist content’9. For fantasy stories, Davies’ further distinction is between ‘feminist retellings of traditional stories’ (e.g. Prince Cinders) and ‘new feminist stories woven out of some of the elements of the old but

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introducing a new narrative form’ (e.g. Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko’s The Paper Bag Princess (1980)). Sue Adler (1993) responded to Davies’ categories by distinguishing between non-sexist, anti-sexist and feminist children’s books. Adler took issue with the notion that a female character doing a traditionally ‘boy’s’ activity is feminist, and sees feminism rather as valuing women’s experience. Accordingly, in a non-sexist book, ‘men and women, boys and girls, are shown in equal numbers, performing similar tasks, and behaving similarly’. Adler here cites Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (science fiction, for adults) which lacks gender differentiation. An anti-sexist book has gender as its ‘subtext’, and may ‘tackle stereotypical and limiting male gender roles, and the consequences of sexism for boys as well as girls’. Adler’s example is Anthony Browne’s (1986) Piggybook, which challenges the assumption that all housework and cooking is done by wives and mothers. Piggybook resolves it by having male family members ‘help’ with the cooking10. In contrast, a feminist book ‘is always anti-sexist and may overtly or covertly challenge sexism or misogyny’ but, most importantly, is ‘a woman/girl-centred book . . . truthful about the reality of being female, showing both the upside and the downside’ (p. 114). Here Adler cites Valerie Flournoy’s The Patchwork Quilt (1985): ‘Mother, daughter and grandmother spend time sewing the quilt, and the story shows them cooking and baking for the Christmas celebration’ (1993: 118). Adler concedes: ‘There is a thin line . . . between extolling feminine values and contexts, and slipping into traps made by biological determinists, eugenists [sic] and sexual fundamentalists’ (1993: 118; see also Gemma Moss (1989) on a ‘pro-woman’/feminist pedagogy of reading and writing). Such categories and distinctions are bound to be not only fuzzy-edged but problematic. In particular, there are probably unresolvable problems with definitions of feminism and sexism. Further, although books for young children may be comparatively straightforward, different parts or episodes of longer books may warrant different classifications (although there may also be an ‘overarching thrust’ of the book as a whole). Topic, story and plot alone can be misleading, since the subjugation and marginalization of, and discrimination against, women and girls can be fictionalized by the feminist (exposing and challenging it) and the sexist (celebrating it) alike. And feminist/anti-sexist discourses may also be apparent in largely ‘traditionallyminded’ books, including those written prior to the second part of the 20th century. Peter Hollindale reminds us that ‘many major works will sustain more radical and subversive readings that we are accustomed to’ (1988: 20; see also Foster and Simons, 1995).

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(ii) Guidelines and recommendations Content analyses prompted a whole series of recommendations and guidelines (not only for children’s fiction, but also for textbooks and journalism). These were not about banning or rewriting books or dictating language use, but rather encouraged writers and publishers to think about more inclusive and broader representations of gender. One of the earliest official ‘gender inclusive’ guidelines was Sexism in Children’s Books: The McGraw-Hill Guidelines for Equal Treatment of the Sexes (produced originally in 1974). Responding to the above critiques, these Guidelines were very much to do with avoiding gender stereotyping, and representing women and men ‘primarily as people, and not primarily as members of opposite sexes’ (1976: 46). The paragraph on ‘Books designed for children at the pre-school, elementary and secondary levels’ (i.e. with no distinction between fiction and non-fiction) includes such points as: z z

z

z

‘[these books] should show married women who work outside the home and should treat them favourably’. ‘Teaching materials should not assume or imply that most women are wives who are also full-time mothers; but should instead emphasize the fact that women have choices about their marital status, just as men do: that some women choose to stay permanently single and some are in no hurry to marry; that some women marry but do not have children, while others marry, have children and continue to work outside the home’. ‘Instructional materials should never imply that all women have a ‘mother instinct’ or that the emotional life of a family suffers because a woman works. Instead they might state that when both parents work outside the home there is usually either greater sharing of the child-rearing activities or reliance on day-care centres, nursery schools or other help’. ‘Both men and women should be shown engaged in home maintenance activities, ranging from cooking and house-cleaning to washing the car and making household repairs. Sometimes the man should be shown making the meals, doing the laundry . . .’

There was thus much promotion of positive role models, but no acknowledgement of fiction as fiction. The main aim of the Guidelines, however, was to bring about a situation where ‘Equality in Description will mean an end to the Sexual Cliché’. There is a strong focus on language (for example, the recommended use of office cleaner instead of cleaning lady, primitive people instead of primitive

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man, and women rather than the fair sex), but the authors do concede that ‘the language of literature cannot be prescribed’ and that the recommendations are ‘intended primarily for use in teaching materials, reference works and nonfiction works in general’ (1976: 45).This is absolutely right, of course: the fair sex might for example be voiced in a work of fiction by a particularly traditionally-minded character (or indeed ironically by one of more progressive inclinations). Similar concerns for language use were shown in Casey Miller and Kate Swift’s The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1981, second edition 1989): ‘for Writers, Editors and Speakers’, although there was again no mention of fiction (the only genres specifically referred to were letters and sports reporting). In ‘Pour out the Cocoa, Janet!’: Sexism in Children’s Books (1983), however, Rosemary Stones proposed a detailed range of ‘Questions to ask about children’s books’. The ‘questions’ fell into different categories, such as ‘the invisible sex’, ‘images of female and male’ and ‘female and male activities’. For example (and to explain the title of Stones’ manuscript), we have the following category, question and example: Category: Female and male activities Question: Does the book depict females as the natural servants of males? Example: ‘ “Pour out the cocoa, Janet,” said Peter, “and remember that we all like heaps of sugar.” ’ Go Ahead Secret Seven by Enid Blyton (most recent reprint, Knight, 1982) I hope it is clear by now that such an instruction by Peter to Janet, however typical, does not in itself make a book sexist. Peter might, for example, be portrayed more widely as a bully whose behaviour is rejected by all those he encounters. As Stones herself points out, ‘What matters . . . is the perspective which the writer brings to bear on the sexist incident, event or character. Obviously, a sexist character can be included in a story to make an anti-sexist point’ (p. 15). The danger is however that such checklists may be (may have been) used without this important caveat in mind – especially as identification of ‘the perspective the writer brings’ is by no means straightforward (see also Chapter 4, for Stones’ more linguistic recommendations). Such ‘interventionist’ guidelines (including their strategies of persuasion, underlying assumptions, and objections) are discussed in Deborah Cameron’s Verbal Hygiene (1995). Cameron points out that such guidelines

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are not like newspapers’ ‘style guides’, but rather are overtly political (1995: 132). This, together with their lack of teeth, may have ensured such guidelines remained primarily symbolic – but it is safe to say that they prompted discussion which played a role in changing gender representations. In 1981 the UK Educational Publishers Council’s pamphlet ‘Sex Stereotyping in School and Children’s Books’ critically summarized the sort of stereotypes seen in this chapter. However, it also warned against a straightforward condemnation of sexist representations, for the reason identified by Stones (above). I reproduce the relevant extract below at length because it seems to get to the nub of the issue, and because of the combination of content and linguistic concerns: Judgement of creative fiction needs to be based upon liberal criteria which take into consideration the intent and impact of the book as a whole and do not involve taking the work apart and judging its various elements piecemeal or superficially . . . Criteria for the judgement of the working out of relations between the sexes . . . in a work of fiction would lose their essential purpose if they led by extension to fictional characters all presenting ideal modes of speech and behaviour . . . (p. 3) Quite. And, in particular: A boy character making sexist remarks may be an essential part of the creative tension between the people in the story, not an index of the author’s attitude or the moral, ethical thrust of the whole book. An instance of this occurs in a particular short story where girls are insulted and patronized because they are girls: ‘ “Girls have no idea about kicking a ball” teased Danny. He pretended to kick a ball in a silly way and fell over. Everyone laughed’. The book shows, however, how the victim of abuse feels about it: ‘Georgia didn’t think it was funny. She walked away.’ – and as the plot develops the abuse is shown to be without foundation. This provides a useful reminder of the value of focalization in fiction (i.e. Georgia’s perspective – see Chapter 4) for ‘progressive’ gender construal, as well as the need to see the book as a whole. Further: Allowance needs to be made for humour, fantasy, symbolism, irony and other devices where words do not mean exactly what they say. In this

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respect, much may hang on how the author handles the double meaning – is the irony so subtle that the effect produced is the reverse of that intended? The assessment of potential readership is important here. How much irony and double meaning can a particular age group cope with? (p. 3) The comment, now nearly 30 years old, remains crucial.

Conclusion Content analysis is important for the basics of a story: who, how many, what, what happens, what happens in the end? The content of a given book also needs to be looked at in terms of different aspects, including visual ones. Content analysis needs to be done with great care and sensitivity. There is a very finite value to counting numbers of male and female characters and comparing their roles. There may be very few characters in a work of fiction, who cannot be expected to provide ‘gender balance’ (in the same way that, say, a language textbook might be expected to). Fictional characters are individuals as well as members of social groups. Further, a writer may wish to tell a story about men/boys only, or women only, and different masculinities/femininities can be explored without being discriminatory or sexist (and, indeed, should be explored). However, used selectively, and with qualitative as well as quantitative analysis, Content analysis can deal with nuance and contextualised characterization. But I would argue that a full analysis of a children’s book also needs a measure of linguistic analysis, in reference to the narration, the dialogue, or both. This is the subject of the next chapter.

Chapter 4

The Importance of Language and Linguistic Analysis

. . . it is through language that the subject and the word are represented in literature, and through language that literature seeks to define the relationships between child and culture. (Stephens, 1992: 5) . . . feminist stylistic analysis is concerned not only to describe sexism in a text, but also to analyse the way that point of view, agency, metaphor, or transitivity are unexpectedly closely related to matters of gender . . . . (Mills, 1995: 1)

There is currently a huge amount of work available on the topic of gender and children’s fiction, especially when we take into consideration ‘consumption’ or ‘reception’ of children’s fiction as well as the texts themselves, and, relatedly, boys’ and girls’ literacy practices (e.g. Moss, 2007; Millard, 1997). In some contrast, there are to my knowledge just two monographs on language and children’s fiction, namely Murray Knowles’ and Kirsten Malmkjaer’s Language and Control in Children’s Literature (1996) and John Stephens’ Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (1992). (The similar titles are telling.) There is accordingly little written specifically on gender, children’s fiction and the language of that fiction, a gap this book aims to address. We need to carefully distinguish between what Siegfried Jäger and Florentine Maier call the ‘discourse plane of fiction’ and the ‘discourse plane of everyday life’ (2009: 48, see also Chapter 2). As an example, naturally-occurring talk by women and men has for many years been of interest to the field of language and gender (again see Chapter 2) – and, most basically, stereotypes of gossipy, garrulous women who talk more than men have been roundly and empirically challenged, especially with reference to institutional contexts (see e.g. Baxter, 2003). There has been

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debate around whether gender-differential language use is best seen as a question of masculine ‘dominance’ or masculine and feminine ‘subcultures’, and, more recently, gendered talk has been considered in relation to notions of speaker agency, performance (Butler, 1999) and ‘Communities of practice’ (including linguistic practice) (e.g. Mallinson and Childs, 2007; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1999, 1992; see also Litosseliti, 2006, Sunderland, 2004; and Chapter 2). But naturally-occurring talk is very different from speech representation in fiction (see also Leech and Short, 2007). In fiction, the author selects what words are spoken by a character (usually, by characters in dialogue) from a pool of what logically could have been selected. Talk in fiction cannot thus be analysed in the same way as naturally-occurring talk (and certainly cannot be used as evidence for naturally-occurring gendered talk)1. Gender issues there are, but these have to be addressed in the context of fiction and representation. As we have seen (in Chapters 1 and 3), most work on gender and children’s fiction to date has focused on content, for example, roles and actions of male and female protagonists. In much of this, little attention was paid to how characterization – what the characters were like, or did, or said – was linguistically represented. Further, little distinction was made between the language of the narrator and the narrated language of the characters. Some studies made observations about the language, and documented it accurately, but looked at it in an unsystematic way. The focus on the relative (in)visibility of women and girls, though important, tended to obscure fiction-related linguistic issues such as dialogue, humour, irony and point of view (see below). Linguistic analysis – looking closely at language in a principled and often systematic way – can provide a nuanced understanding of the less visible workings of texts. Because ‘less visible’ may also mean ‘pernicious’, linguistic analysis is of particular interest to feminist investigation of children’s fiction, given the prevalence of sexism (however subtle) and pressures on women across different cultural contexts (see e.g. McRobbie, 2009; Mills, 2008). In linguistics, the study of fictional texts (prose, plays and poetry) has been the particular province of stylistics (see e.g. Leech and Short, 2007)2. Less often, but importantly, fiction has been explored via Critical discourse analysis (CDA). CDA is more usually concerned with non-fiction (for example, newspaper reports), but there is every reason why fiction should also be of interest to CDA. Thirdly, fiction can be (and often is) explored via corpus linguistics, which can deal with large amounts of text – for example, an entire book, or a reading scheme consisting of a set of short books. All are concerned not only with description of linguistic

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patterns, but also how literary effects are achieved (again see Leech and Short, 2007). Combinations of approaches are also possible and none of the above are essentially incompatible (see Harrington et al., 2008). For example, corpus linguistics is often used to ‘serve’ stylistics, by producing findings about large amounts of data which allow the analyst to contextualize her work, and make robust claims about representativeness (or otherwise). It may make excellent sense to integrate stylistics and CDA when looking at gender in fiction, in particular from a broadly feminist perspective. Although there may be intellectual tensions between the two, CDA putting greater stress on the social and political, and on power (and sometimes empowerment)3, stylistics allowing for a greater consideration of individual response and pleasure, in many ways the two approaches complement each other, not least because both prototypically use written texts4. It is also possible to see stylistics as having the capability to ‘serve’ CDA, for example in its consideration of how particular, arguably powerful/empowering textual effects are stylistically achieved. No language analyst these days would dispute the importance of genre, for example, that a recipe is linguistically patterned differently from a newspaper editorial: we would expect to find a greater proportion of imperative verbs in the former, a greater proportion of speculation (for example, through ‘If . . .’ clauses) and attribution of responsibility in the latter. Of course, neither adult nor children’s fiction is a monolithic genre (consider thrillers, crime fiction, romances, fairy tales, animal stories), but fiction arguably has certain generic characteristics (see Chapter 1). A work of fiction is normally populated by different characters, who usually speak, and usually to each other. Thus, as I mention in the beginning of this book: ‘fiction is typically dialogic, allowing a range of ‘voices’ to speak and points of view to be articulated’. Two aspects of gender construal – the broad concern of this book – are accordingly characterization, and the related notion of point of view. I look at linguistic manifestations of these below.

Analysing the language of fiction: transitivity and mood In the chapters that follow, I draw on the grammatical notions of transitivity and, to a lesser extent, mood. Like Murray Knowles and Kirsten Malmkjaer (1996), who apply these concepts to children’s fiction, I draw on Michael Halliday’s (1985) Systemic-Functional grammar, in which the clause (minimally, a predicate, containing a verb (phrase), and often a subject5)

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constitutes representation6. Both transitivity and mood are located (inter alia) in any given clause. Systemic-Functional grammar is associated with ideology, in that different linguistic representations may serve different ideological purposes, including construing/constructing, maintaining and contesting particular power structures. Hence the importance of linguistic selection by an author. Transitivity is part of Halliday’s ideational function of language (how meaning is represented, what message is conveyed), what Halliday calls ‘clause as representation’ (see Halliday (1971) for a classic study of Golding’s The Interitors using the notion of transitivity). Knowles and Malmkjaer accordingly characterize transitivity in a three-part way as the ‘processes which take place in the (fictional) world, the participants in them and the circumstances attendant on them’ (1996: 77). In this book I am mainly concerned with the first two of these. The ‘participants’ in a work of fiction are the narrator and the characters (adult, child, human, animal, female, male, protagonist, subordinate). Grammatically, they may be subjects, direct objects or indirect objects (e.g. ‘Tony took the baby to Linda’, respectively), expressed in the form of a ‘nominal group’, which can be quite long (one Hallidayan example is ‘those two splendid old electric trains with pantographs’ (1985: 159)). ‘Processes’ are material, mental, relational or verbal. Material processes refer to ‘doing’, Mental processes to ‘sensing’, Relational processes to ‘being’ and Verbalization processes to ‘saying’. Of particular interest for the study of gender representation in fiction are Material processes – which include the question of ‘who does what to whom/what’, or how the ‘Actor’ affects the ‘Goal’. In her study of James Herbert’s science fiction novel Lair, Mary Talbot (1995) shows how in one scene the distribution of transitive verbs (which normally require a direct object), and intransitive verbs (which normally do not) establishes one person rather than another as ‘making things happen’, and in a gendered way. The hero’s actions are most often construed by the narrator’s use of transitive verbs (e.g. reach, grab, shield, take), the female character’s by intransitive verbs (e.g. stand, lean back, watch). A second study of (in)transitive verbs in gender representation is Alessandra Levorato’s (2003) analysis of 12 different versions of ‘Red Riding Hood’, including modern, radically different versions by James Thurber, Angela Carter and Roald Dahl. Levorato found very different representations of female characters: the passive girl so typical of traditional versions has consistently been represented through the same grammatical choices: few action verbs,

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few goal-directed actions, frequent role as a goal and/or phenomenon of other people’s doing . . . . Opposite choices correspond to the representation of the girl as a strong and self-reliant personality in radical versions. (2003: 198–9) Importantly, as characters develop, who is the Actor and who the Goal is likely to change over the course of a work of fiction. Knowles and Malmkjaer (1996: 79) cite the example of Mary Lennox (protagonist of Francis Burnett’s A Secret Garden) who is the ‘actor’ rather than the ‘goal’ of clauses proportionally more often in Chapter 8 than Chapter 1. Theo van Leeuwen (2008) builds on and extends Halliday’s work on ‘clause as representation’ to refer to Social actors (i.e. ‘participants’) and Social action (see also 1996, 1995, respectively), on the grounds that ‘all texts, all representations of the world and what is going on in it, however abstract, should be interpreted as representations of social practices’ (2008: 4). Van Leeuwen goes beyond traditional structural frameworks of linguistics to analyse what characters are construed as, and as doing, in a whole range of linguistic ways – sometimes unpredictable ones. Van Leeuwen categorizes ‘Social action’ as ‘Reaction’ (cognitive/affective/ perceptive) or ‘Action’. ‘Action’ may be ‘material’ (doing) or ‘semiotic’ (meaning); if ‘material’ it may be ‘transactive’ or ‘non-transactive’; if ‘transactive’ it may be ‘interactive’ (affecting people) or ‘instrumental’ (affecting other entities). I use the notion of ‘transactivity’ in the analysis of reading schemes (Chapter 6) and the Harry Potter series (Chapter 9). Van Leeuwen’s ‘Social actor network’ entails a range of categorizations, the broadest of which is ‘Exclusion’ or ‘Inclusion’, that is, here, of a (potentially included) character. Exclusion can take the form of ‘suppression’ or ‘backgrounding’. ‘Suppression’ means that there is no reference to a character at all (for example, a book about a child and her mother may ‘suppress’ the father, for different possible reasons). ‘Backgrounding’ means the social actor in question is de-emphasized. For example, in Judith Kerr’s classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea (1968), ‘Daddy’ is at first backgrounded, simply referred to (by Mummy and the narrator), until he appears at the end of the book and resolves the problem created by the tiger, which Mummy could not resolve (when of course he is no longer backgrounded)7. I look at a particular category of the representation of Social actors within ‘Inclusion’, that is, ‘nomination’, in Chapter 7, on stories featuring two-Mum and two-Dad families. Mood (e.g. Declarative/Imperative/Interrogative verb forms) relates to what Halliday (1985) calls the interpersonal function of language

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(inter-relationships and interaction), as expressed in part by word (subject/ predicate) configurations (compare the declarative ‘He will go’ with the interrogative ‘Will he go?’ and the imperative ‘Go!’). I look at mood and the interpersonal use of language in the Secret Seven extract below, and also in Chapter 5, on fairy tales. Knowles and Malmkjaer (1996) note that individuals try to affect each other in part through mood choice, but that roles are often distributed in such a way that certain persons have, or claim for themselves, the right, duty or need to issue commands or encouragements to action, to ask questions . . . . This means that ‘the distribution of questions, commands and statements among . . . characters in fiction, can reveal a good deal about the relationships between them’ (1996: 74; see also Simpson, 1993, on ‘modality’). However, this is not straightforward. First, a given ‘speech act’ (see e.g. Searle, 1969; Austin, 1962; and more recently Thomas, 1995; Levinson, 1983) has many different linguistic realizations: we can make a request for sugar interrogatively with ‘May I have . . . ?’ or simply by naming it, declaratively: ‘Sugar, please’. Secondly, a given utterance can be seen in pragmatic terms as constituting more than one possible speech act, hence the TV melodrama question: ‘Are you threatening me?’, which is asked when it is not clear whether a preceding utterance such as ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea . . . .’ is a ‘threat’ or not. Thirdly, contextual features always need to be considered. A command in a kitchen is likely to have narrower impact than one outside the domestic realm, and a question (say) can be used by the powerful and the powerless alike, for different ends (the powerless, for example, can use questions to attract attention).

Characterization Characterization can refer either to how a reader makes sense of characters in a novel, or how a writer ‘construes’ them (see Culpeper, 2001, also Chapter 2). Here, I am using characterization in the second sense, to mean ‘the textual cues that give rise to information about character’ (Culpeper, 2001: 163). In this sense characterization includes ‘gender representation’, and extends to the language used by the characters and of them, by the

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narrator, and to the characters’ represented points of view (see below). It can be explored in relation to the notions of both transitivity (participants and processes) and mood. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan (1983) makes a distinction between ‘direct definition’ and ‘indirect presentation’ in characterization. ‘Direct definition’ refers to what we are told directly about a character by the narrator or to what one character tells another about a third. Rimmon-Kenan sees direct definition as normally involving an adjective (‘he was good-hearted’) or abstract noun (‘his goodness knew no bounds’) (1983: 59); a more recent example (involving neither), from Harry Potter, might be ‘Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon’8. Taking as given that modern readers prefer ‘suggestiveness and indeterminacy . . . to closure and definiteness . . .’, Rimmon-Kenan argues that ‘[direct] definition is less frequently used in twentieth-century fiction’ (1983: 61). This may however be less true of children’s than adult’s fiction; indeed, direct definition may be highly characteristic of fairy tales. ‘Indirect presentation’ in contrast refers to a trait which is displayed and exemplified, for example through action, external appearance, what Rimmon-Kenan calls ‘environment’ (e.g. where a character lives), or speech. An example of the use of speech would be the early characterization of Mrs Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s [Philosopher’s] Stone, specifically, her advice and reassurance, when Harry asks her for help getting to Platform 9 ¾. She talks to him ‘kindly’: ‘Not to worry,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is . . . .’ (and so on; 1997: 93). This is important. Whereas an actor on stage can indirectly present her or himself in a range of non-linguistic ways, a character in a book can only do so linguistically. Authors can enable characters to represent or construe themselves indirectly (‘I saw the bright blue sky above me’), as well as directly (e.g. ‘I’m a cheerful sort of fellow’). Looking at drama rather than novels (but the same applies), Culpeper (2001) identifies some ‘implicit cues’ about characterization as (inter alia) conversational structure, lexis, syntactic features and accent (i.e. what is said, and how). Dialogue is thus particularly important in fiction – there are few novels with no dialogue, and in children’s texts, there may be a relatively large amount of dialogue (Hunt, 1991). This is very important for characterization, as ‘reader access to characters in conversation is considered to be less mediated than the presentation of those characters in narrative or descriptive modes’ (Stephens, 1992: 33). Of course, in dialogue (as opposed to monologue), authors are also representing characters’ interpersonal dealings; in realistic fiction, in particular,

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Stephens observes that power is frequently encoded through conversations (1992: 263). Let me take an example provided by Tison Pugh and David Wallace (2006) in relation to the Harry Potter series. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dudley (Harry’s cousin) is taunting Harry ‘for crying out during the nightmares in which Harry relives Voldemort’s murder of Cedric Diggory’: Dudley gave a harsh bark of laughter and then adopted a high-pitched, whimpering voice. ‘ “Don’t kill Cedric! Don’t kill Cedric!” Who’s Cedric – your boyfriend?’ This interaction allows a very particular indirect characterization of the relatively powerful (in some senses) Dudley, in particular in relation to his childish homophobia. In addition to a high proportion of dialogue, Peter Hunt (1991) also proposes a relatively high frequency of ‘reporting clauses’ in children’s books, used by the narrator: shouted, whispered, asked (examples of van Leeuwen’s (2008) ‘semiotic action’). Such ‘tags’ (as they are sometimes known) may indicate the narrator’s attitude (John Stephens invites us to compare ‘he asserted’ with ‘she demanded’ (1992: 33)), and hence control. Like narration, dialogue can be seen as representation (in the sense of Systemic-Functional Grammar), and is characterized by clausal transitivity and mood. However, much dialogue in fiction is structurally quite complex, and Halliday refers here to representation ‘above the clause’ (consider a simple example, from a reading scheme: ‘ “Look at this rabbit,” said Kipper.’ (see Chapter 6)). Such linguistic constructions Halliday calls ‘Projection’, and cases of talk ‘Locution’, in that ‘one clause is projected through another, which presents it as a locution, a construction of wording’ (1985: 197). ‘Look at this rabbit’ is a locution. Much other work has since explored speech and thought representation, in particularly in fiction. Speech and thought representation refers both to ‘locutions’ and ideas, as well as to reporting clauses (if any), and the verbs therein. Stylisticians have identified a range of categories beyond the familiar ‘direct speech’ and ‘indirect speech’ (see Leech and Short, 2007; Semino, 2004; Semino and Short, 2004; Semino, Short and Wynne, 1999; Semino, Short and Culpeper, 1997; Short, 1996; Fairclough, 1995; Stephens, 1992). Each category is associated with particular linguistic features, but these are characteristic rather than defining. The most obvious method of speech representation may be direct speech (DS) (‘ “I don’t know,” said Tina.’), and Hunt’s observation above

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suggests that DS is particularly frequent in children’s fiction. Elena Semino (echoing Stephens, 1992) notes that DS often results in the foregrounding of the utterances it relates to, since it gives us the impression that we are listening directly to the characters’ voices, apparently without the mediating interference of the narrator. (2004: 435) Leech and Short’s (2007) continuum of ‘directness’ however starts with ‘Free direct speech’ (FDS), one form of which involves omitting the reporting clause altogether, for example, ‘Er – I need to be at King’s Cross tomorrow to – to go to Hogwarts.’9 This is the form freest of narratorial control (see also below). Indirect Speech (IS) means that the character’s words are reported by the narrator in the narrator’s own words, for example ‘Tina said she didn’t know’, that is, with a change in tense and pronoun, and removal of the inverted commas. IS has traditionally been defined in terms of the presence of a reporting clause and a reported clause, where the reported clause is typically finite: for example, in the above example, ‘she didn’t know’ (see Leech and Short, p. 256, also Semino and Short, 2004, for alternative linguistic characteristics). ‘Free indirect speech’ (FIS) minimally involves omission of the reporting clause, that is, ‘Tina didn’t know’, but can take many possible forms, and ‘is typically associated with the creation of distancing effects’ (Semino, 2004: 439). ‘Narrator’s representation of speech acts’ (NRSA) means that while the act is reported, the actual words are not; an example from Leech and Short (p. 260) is ‘he promised his return’. To these we can add ‘Narrator’s representation of voice’ (NV), where there is even less reference to the actual words (see Semino (2004) whose example is ‘She talked on’, from Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point); here it appears to be the narrator who is in control. There are equivalent categories for thought representation. Leech and Short (2007) propose that typical of the literary representation of speech is direct speech, and of thought, indirect thought (‘He wondered if she still loved him’ (p. 271).) Thought representation has particular implications for ‘point of view’ (see below). A given author may have a tendency to construe the speech/thought of male characters in one way, female characters in another, or might find it relatively easy (or hard) to construe the speech and thought of characters of their own and the opposite sex in the same way. There

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might be gendered tendencies among authors here. From a modern feminist perspective, however (see Chapter 2), such broad-brush, authorfocused concerns are of less interest than the speech/thought representation of male and female characters within a given work of fiction and what this may contribute both to the particular, gendered, represented nature of those characters and hence to the representation of gender in the work as a whole, including to the literary construal of ‘point of view’ (see below).

Collocation in Characterization A further linguistic contribution to characterization is collocation (see e.g. Chilton, 2009). Collocation refers to two or more words recurring together (usually closely) in a text – sometimes predictably, sometimes not (what words most frequently precede and follow boy and girl in a given reading scheme, for example?). The notion of co-occurrence is important for any properly contextualized linguistic analysis of fiction: what is often relevant is not whether a linguistic item occurs, but what it tends to co-occur with, in both narration and dialogue. Collocation is very often explored through corpus linguistics, which can look at large quantities of text and establish the statistical significance of particularly frequent lexical co-occurrences (see e.g. Baker, 2006; Hoey, 2005). Collocation has the potential to draw on gender stereotypes such as ‘pretty girls’ and ‘strong boys’, as well as non-stereotypical associations. Knowles and Malmkjaer provide the example of dragon in Martin Baynton’s Jane and the Dragon (1988) and The Dragon’s Purpose (1990), and propose that its recurring adjectival and verbal collocates of unhappy and sobbed conflict with ‘standard’ dragon stereotypes. There are obvious implications for gender representation here: consider phrases such as strong girl and gentle man. Collocation may be relevant to both indirect and direct characterization. Collocation, Knowles and Malmkjaer claim: allows writers, without explicit statement, to encourage certain reader reactions to characters and phenomena in the fictional worlds of realistic novels, and it allows them, further, to encourage associations between phenomena in the fictional world and those of the readers’ extra-literary experience. (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996: 71)

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Exploring this empirically would, of course, require a ‘reader response’ study of some sort.

Ideology All written texts can be seen as ideological, not least because, as Peter Hunt puts it (in relation to children’s fiction), ‘The child may be innocent . . . but if we, the adults, are to talk usefully about children’s literature, we cannot afford the pretence that we are similarly innocent’ (1991: 154). Or, to quote Peter Hollindale, ‘A large part of any book is written not by its author but by the world its author lives in’ (1988: 15). I am using ideology here to mean ‘value system’ or what Hollindale calls a ‘climate of belief’ (p. 19; this in contrast to a political policy). Beliefs may be held in relation to a particular class or group or institution (of which gender is one), and may be used to justify something (including covertly, for example, by taking it as read). Ideology is therefore central to the workings of power. Fiction (including, perhaps especially, children’s fiction) is frequently concerned with the clearly-ideological institutions of marriage, family, race, religion, education and/or friendship, as well as gender. Most studies of gender in children’s fiction accordingly entail a concern with social and textual relations of dominance, which may involve identification of conservative ideologies or of more ‘gender-progressive’ ones. Ideology can be identified in children’s fiction in different ways, many relevant to linguistic choices, but cannot be straightforwardly ‘read off’ from texts: while ‘traces’ of ideologies may seem evident to a reader, any ‘meaning’ depends on that reader’s interpretations (for which s/he will draw on her/his own ideologies). Ideology associated with fiction ‘subject positions’ readers (see Chapter 2): Since in presenting their imaginary versions of social relationships in the actual world, fictional narratives are imbued with ideology, a key part of the outworking of ideology is then the situating of readers, who, in taking up a position from which the text is most readily intelligible, are apt to be situated within the frame of the text’s ideology; that is, they are subjected to and by that ideology . . . . (Stephens, 1992: 67) While a reader may thus be successfully ‘subject positioned’ or ‘interpellated’ by a text (Althusser, 1971), for example as a certain sort of person with a certain point of view, she or he may also be able to recognize and

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resist that interpellation (see also e.g. Fairclough, 1989). Children are often seen as being less able to do this than adults. This has often been capitalized on, by representatives of both traditional and progressive social forces. But the educational, ‘socializing’ function often associated with children’s fiction (past and present) may in any case make it particularly ideological, especially given that authors are in a position of power in relation to their intended audience (see Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996; Stephens, 1992; Hunt, 1991). Ideology in children’s fiction is however likely to work in different ways, and Peter Hollindale (1988) proposes three ‘levels’ of ideology here. The first is when a writer’s explicit intention is to promote a particular view. The 19th century, for example, is characterized by didactic fiction, written largely to educate, and with a clear ideological function (Tom Brown’s Schooldays is frequently cited), but there are many modern, less explicit examples, including feminist fairy tales (see Chapter 5, also Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996; Stephens, 1992; Hunt, 1991). However, given that this is fiction, writers with such intentions are unlikely to arrange for the ‘message’ to be spelled out by the narrator, in a ‘Dear Reader’ sort of way, but rather for it to be manifested in the story, perhaps in the words of particular characters. In contrast with, say, newspaper editorials, which explicitly express particular political perspectives, a fictional text’s ‘axe to grind’ is always likely to be at least a little less obvious and more nuanced. Hollindale’s second level of ideology comes from the writer’s ‘unexamined assumptions’, when . . . the values at stake are usually those which are taken for granted by the writer, and reflect the writer’s integration in a society which unthinkingly accepts them . . . . Unexamined, passive values are widely shared values, and we should not underestimate the power of reinforcement vested in quiescent and unconscious ideology. (1988: 13) These ‘unexamined assumptions’ may be implicit: as Hollindale reminds us, ‘There are hundreds of books which passively borrow and reproduce the sexual stereotyping they inherit from earlier fiction’ (1988: 11). Accordingly, they may be recognizable through textual distancing from particular power relations (see Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996; Hunt, 1991). The third level of ideology, Hollindale proposes, concerns the text and the language of the text itself, for which I think we can read ‘discourse’. Against a backdrop of the two previous levels, Hollindale reminds us that

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‘The writer’s ability to reshape his [sic] world is strictly limited’ (p. 15). Let us take as a phrase-level example the familiar wording: ‘the oldest profession’ (i.e. prostitution). This phrase ‘naturalizes’ the social practice of (usually) men buying sex from women/women selling their bodies to men. The oldest profession suggests it is so well-established as to be unchangeable, and the addition of ‘the world’s oldest profession’ suggests it is ubiquitous, that is, again, unchangeable. Add to this the phrase’s euphemistic nature, and the jocular use of profession, and it trivializes the practice into the bargain. Yet the phrase persists. We do not have to use it; indeed, we can challenge it – but we need to know the weight of ideology we are up against. More broadly, a related example of ‘fixing the limits of expression’ in fiction is the idea of young women being rescued (in different genres and ways) by brave men (see Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996; Hunt, 1991; Hollindale, 1988) – which can, again, be challenged, but, again, with difficulty.

Authorial Point of View Authorial point of view, relevant to Hollindale’s first and second levels of ideology (see also Simpson, 1993; Fowler, 1986), can never be read off automatically. In fiction, the narrator is speaking, not the author, and the author’s point of view will always be mediated by the narrator; this is probably more true of fiction than other text-types. Mikhail Bakhtin (1981: 324) refers here to the ‘refracted’ intention of the author. Unless we have the author’s own account (and not necessarily even then), it is impossible to identify equivocally, empirically, his or her perspective in a given work of fiction (see Barthes, 1982). Representation of, say, a reticent, inarticulate female protagonist and a verbose, articulate male protagonist in a novel (the ‘what’) does not for example entail authorial (or narratorial) approval of or complacency about this state of affairs; the opposite may be the case. An interesting example of point of view in theatre is Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers (1985), which tells the story of twin boys, born to an impoverished cleaner, who gives one away to her employer. The story ends tragically. At the end, the narrator, who had previously appeared only briefly, asks whether superstition is to blame, or ‘could it be what we, the English, have come to know as class?’ (p. 158). We could hazard a guess that Russell intends us to answer with a resounding ‘Yes’, endorsing his own point of view, and indeed rationale

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for the play. But we cannot be sure. The narrator is not Russell; we can only infer Russell’s view. Neither can sentiments expressed by a character be taken as indexing approval by the author, nor the author’s views equated neatly with those of a character. Apparent traces of a sexist discourse (see below, also Chapter 2) in a character’s words may for example be included precisely to characterize that speaker, so that the discourse can be contested, for example though one character arguing with another, or to show the negative material impact of the discourse on the story. A racist term (say) in the mouth of a generally unpleasant character may mean that a critique of racism is an aspect of the book (see below)10. Relatedly, the previous example of Dudley taunting Harry concerns homophobia. Of this, Pugh and Wallace comment: Since Dudley, one of the most unappealing characters in the books, voices this homophobic jibe, it is clear that the books do not explicitly endorse homophobia. (2006: 277; see also Chapter 1) It thus makes little sense to ‘read off’ from a character’s words what the author thinks or wants the reader to think.

Characters’ Point of View and Focalization Roger Fowler (1986: 127) makes a distinction between story and point of view. ‘What happens’ (the former) tells us nothing about the latter. Yet point of view (in a general sense) is likely to be present in a work of fiction – but where? John Stephens observes that Most recent fiction . . . tends only to introduce the argumentative mode – the most overt agent of ideology in the text – by locating it within conversations carried out by various fictional characters inside the narrative. (1992: 20) Fowler considers ideological point of view in two ways: direct, and less so. Directly, a character (or narrator) may use modality in a conversation to make explicit comments (e.g. must, certainly). But it may also be expressed more implicitly, for example through the changing point of view of a character ‘as the book progresses to express ideological development’ (1986: 133; see also Stephens, 1992).

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The notion of ‘point of view’ in stylistics and the study of narrative fiction corresponds less to ‘opinions/values/beliefs’ and interpretations (the ‘ideological plane’, which is the ‘usual’ sense of ‘point of view’) than to the more ‘localized’ psychological, spatial and temporal ‘perspectives’ or ‘planes’ (see also Simpson, 1993; Fowler, 1986): what characters see, smell, feel, taste and touch, what they are thinking and feeling, what they know about. Rosemary Ross Johnston encourages us to ask ‘Whose eyes are we seeing with? Whose ears are we hearing with?’ (2000: 2). All four ‘planes’ can contribute to characterization. This construal of characters’ different types of ‘points of view’ – which can be seen in visuals as well as written text – is known as focalization (Benwell, 2002; Mills, 1995; Rimmon-Kenan, 1983; Genette, 1980). Focalization is relatively clear in the case of a first-person narrator – the ‘focalizer’ (e.g. ‘I felt . . . .’, ‘I saw . . .’). The second of these could concern focalization’s spatial dimension, which concerns how restricted the physical viewpoint is, or it could refer to the psychological dimension. But firstperson focalization does not have to be achieved through ‘I’. Phrases such as ‘It was cold’ may construe the perception of a particular character, perhaps retrospectively (consider the opening of the fictional autobiography Jane Eyre: ‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day’)11. This is an example of focalization’s temporal dimension: here, Jane Eyre is looking back to a particular point in time (‘that day’). (However, see also Booth, 1961, on ‘unreliable narration’.) Third-person narration, often omniscient, is more usual than first-person narration. In third-person narration, focalization can however be seen as something rather special: while the characters are going about their fictional business, every so often the narrator shows us an event (‘focalizes’) from one of the characters’ particular perspectives. Other ways of expressing this are to say that an event is focalized through a particular character, or that a character is (for a time) a focalizer. Focalization can be variable (i.e. shifting; see below), or even multiple (i.e. the same event is seen from different points of view). The different forms of thought representation are very important here, in particular in relation to psychological point of view. As Leech and Short (2007) observe: ‘When an author chooses to represent the thoughts of a character . . . we are invited to see things from that character’s POINT OF VIEW’ (2007: 273). Leech and Short provide the example of Iris Murdoch’s ‘He picked up the dagger and drew the beautiful thing lightly through his fingers’ (An Unofficial Rose); note the focalized beautiful. Such represented thought (here, ‘Free indirect thought’ (FIT)), Leech

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and Short claim, ‘makes us feel that we are getting a more vivid and immediate representation of the characters’ thoughts as they happen’ (2007: 276). Focalization by a third person can thus be achieved in a range of linguistic phrasings, beyond ones like ‘Sue felt . . . .’ As an example from Harry Potter (and much of what happens in the series is focalized through Harry himself): ‘There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words’)12. Both this and the An Unofficial Rose examples are of psychological point of view. I refer to focalization throughout the chapters that follow. A focalized perspective is necessarily (temporarily) privileged, as focalization ‘may manipulate the readers’ sympathies by means of the vision which is presented and the evaluation which is implicit in that representation’ (see Semino, 2004; also Mills, 1995: 182). A first-person narrator who is also the protagonist may be in a particularly good position to convey not only his or her perspective, but also to make us aware of his/her particular point of view, and in doing so merit our sympathy and understanding. This is particular relevant if the point of view in question is an ideological one, and is highly relevant to gender and characterization: who is focalized, how, and who not? Sara Mills quotes from Barbara Taylor Bradford’s A Woman of Substance (1981): ‘Silken arms and legs entwined him, fluid and weightless, yet they pulled him down . . .’, and comments on how even ‘supposedly neutral narration’ may focalize in a gendered way. There is nothing like ‘he felt’ here, given the grammatical subject of this sentence, but the experience is described from ‘his’ psychological perspective. The (presumably) woman concerned is not focalized, and indeed is construed, in this extract, metonymically through her limbs. Arguably, we are likely to sympathize or empathize with a first-person narrator even in the form of (say) a fictional abuser if we are given his perspective. Leech and Short (2007) point to Humbert Humbert of Nabokov’s Lolita (a murderer and child seducer); see also John Fowles’ The Collector and Martin Amis’ London Fields (discussed by Mills, 1995; see also Stockwell, 2002). All three narratives are focalized through the male protagonist. Leech and Short (2007) however also point to the limits of this, for example our (probable) lack of sympathy with first-person narrator Alex of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. Conversely, a reader can be ‘distanced’ from a character, either through that character not being focalized, or being focalized in a way which the narrator shows is inaccurate (e.g. misinterpreting other characters’ motives) (see Stephens, 1992). The fact that fiction is almost always dialogic in nature means that a fictional text affords a range of focalizations. One character may be focalized

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a lot; another not at all. Stephens observes that in children’s fiction, ‘it is unusual to find narratives extensively focalised by more than a narrator plus, say, one main character’ (1992: 27). Accordingly, focalization of all kinds may shift in a given work of fiction (e.g. from narrator to one character to another and back again to the narrator, perhaps even within a sentence); through such ‘variable focalization’, sympathy may be sometimes extended to and sometimes withheld from a character (Stephens, 1992: 233). Focalization and gender representation in fiction (adults’ and children’s) is important beyond a single narrator, character or even novel. It would be foolish to argue that focalization should always be written into the characterization of female characters: the point of a novel may be the irony of never getting to learn a particular woman character’s point of view. But focalization may be important if, say, across a given corpus of books, the focalization of female characters is less prevalent, or less substantial, than that of male characters, or, of course, vice versa.

Intertextuality Intertextuality, the explicit or implicit borrowing of aspects of previous texts by a ‘new’ text (Bakhtin, 1986; Kristeva, 1986), is highly characteristic of fiction (including staged and filmed drama), often to the point where it is seen as interesting multi-lamination rather than plagiarism (see Hutcheon, 2007). Shakespeare famously borrowed stories and plots from Ovid and Plutarch. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995, 1997, 2000) draws explicitly on both Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and on ‘Genesis’ of the Old Testament Bible. More recently, Harry Potter draws broadly on the school story genre, more specifically on Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch series (1974–2007; see also Chapter 9), and all-in-all is highly derivative (see also Talbot, 1995). The orphan (Jane Eyre, Mary Lennox, as well as Harry Potter, and indeed Tree-ear in A Single Shard (see Chapter 8)) is also a familiar fictional character, in part because being an orphan increases the nature of challenging forces (the orphan is unlikely to be properly loved and protected) and (relatedly) increases the orphan’s autonomy. We are all thus intertextually familiar with the (fictional) associations of ‘being an orphan’, and many of us with Mary and Jane. While Harry does not draw directly on either, his creator J. K. Rowling may well have been very familiar with both. Certain themes in children’s fiction are familiar because they span genres in an intertextual way. Orphans populate both fairy stories and

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‘realistic’ fiction; journeys occur in fairy tales and other fantasies; other such themes are friendship and journeys, dragons and princesses, ‘rags to riches’, and heroic (but safe) adventures (see Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996). Intertextuality is particularly obvious in the endless rewriting of fairy tales, which are usually and predictably constituted by particular (highly gendered) themes, characterizations and social practices (see Chapter 5). I look at a particular form of intertextuality in Chapter 8, with reference to children’s books Holes (Louis Sachar, 1998) and A Single Shard (Linda Sue Park, 2001).

Gendered Discourses Related to intertextuality (via interdiscursivity; see Fairclough, 1993) is discourse, and discourses (see Chapter 2). The dialogic nature of fiction (characters and probably a narrator) means that traces of a range of discourses can be articulated. These may include alternative and oppositional discourses, as well as socially dominant ones, and the former may constitute an implicit or explicit challenge to the latter (see also Talbot, 1995). It may thus be possible to identify ‘competing discourses’ (Sunderland, 2004; Foucault, 1972) flowing through a book or manifesting at different points. A given discourse might be dominant in one chapter, marginal in another, or increasingly marginal/dominant as the book goes on. Linguistic traces of different discourses may accordingly be evident at different points in the story, depending on the unfolding of the plot, the interlocutor(s) and indeed characters’ own development. In Chapter 8, I provisionally identify some gendered discourses in Holes and A Single Shard, selecting particular ‘telling’ extracts for qualitative analysis (see also Chapter 1), and looking intertextually at these different discourses. * * *

Existing Studies on Language, Gender and Fiction Written for Adults Perhaps surprisingly, there is still relatively little linguistic work on adult fiction from a feminist, stylistics perspective. I report on a selection of such work here, for findings, methodologies and connections with children’s fiction.

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Fiction for adults is often not only about gender, but also sexuality, which intersect. In a study of Japanese romances using what might be called ‘critical’ corpus linguistics, Janet Shibamoto-Smith (2005, 2004) looked at characterization in a small corpus of nine Japanese ‘romance fictions’, and found that ‘the signalling of a prospectively successful heterosexual attractiveness/attraction came less in the description of the lovers than in the dialogue [direct speech] between them’ (2004: 119). Relevant linguistic features were those associated with joseego (‘women’s language’) and danseego (‘men’s language’), including gender-differential first- and second-person referring forms and sentence-final particles. These were more salient for heroines than for heroes, and more salient than in actual, real life use (see e.g. Okamoto, 1995). A second example of critical linguistic work is Mary Talbot’s (1998) analysis of Harlequin Mills and Boon (popular light romance) stories (see also p. 98). Talbot cites the following extract from a story called No Guarantees, by Robyn Donald (1990): Her glance fell to his hands. Lean-fingered, tanned, they were more than capable of physically silencing her. She had a momentary vision of them, dark and strong against the transparent pallor of her skin, and swallowed, appalled at the flicker of forbidden excitement it aroused in her. Again, what is selected for inclusion from the pool of available choices in this section of third-person narration is important. Talbot points to the contrasting lexical items transparent pallor (of the woman’s skin) and the man’s tanned hands, noting ‘the eroticised power . . . located in the character’s hands’. While this is not about actual violence (the woman and man are at an auction and the man has jokingly told the woman he will clap his hand over her mouth if she bids), it is about strength and power, as well as eroticism, which in these books, like the romances analysed by ShibamotoSmith, depends on the ‘maximization of gender difference’ (Talbot, 1998: 199; see also Talbot’s (1995) Fictions at Work). Citing extracts from authors Ian Fleming, Gavin Lyall and Desmond Bagley, Janet Batsleer et al. (1985) critically point to the prevalence of references to heterosexuality in ‘masculine romances’: ‘the hero is typically registered at the outset . . . in terms of an explicit and normative heterosexuality’ and masculine romance ‘seems compelled, with sometimes pettish insistence, to repeat the fact’ (pp. 75–6). This construal of heterosexual masculinity was achieved linguistically in different ways, including asides of a traditional, heterosexual nature in represented thought, and

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male-focalized descriptions of women’s sexual and other bodily features. Women’s romances did not include equivalents. The authors put forward a possible explanation of men’s insecurity in their own heterosexuality, but propose, somewhat problematically, that it is more about a view of men as ‘made’ (unlike women who are ‘born’), which requires unceasing effort, a tense and vigilant posture of the will, ever on the alert against the terrible, the unthinkable humiliation of being unmasked . . . as a cissy, a pansy or a weed. (p. 78) Reflecting on the extracts by the three authors provided by Batsleer et al., Sara Mills (1995) comments on how whereas male (adult) characters are often described in terms of their heads (hair colour and eyes) and overall size, women ‘are more likely to be described in terms of their legs and parts of their bodies’ (p. 160). Gender-stereotypical knowledge thus functions non-progressively as a kind of shorthand in gender representation. Mills observes that this ‘fragmentation’ tends to co-occur with male focalization – often in relation to the sexual desires of a male character (p. 172). It is tempting to relate these findings to the gender of the three authors, but this may be erroneous (and is certainly reductionist), given the discourses of (hetero)sexuality by which we are all subject positioned13.

Linguistic Analysis, Gender and Children’s Fiction: Frameworks and Findings In the remaining part of this chapter, I look at work on gender and children’s fiction done from a linguistic perspective. There is far from a substantial body of work here, although both Language and Control in Children’s Literature (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996) and Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (Stephens, 1992) make frequent reference to gender. I start with a reminder of the importance of associating linguistic analysis with Content analysis. (i) Starting with Content analysis In The Language of Fiction (1998), Keith Sanger looks at gender representation in the opening of Enid Blyton’s first Secret Seven book (1949). The Secret Seven is a club organized by seven children. In the extract below,

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two members, Peter and Jane, are about to organize a meeting of the Seven (the numbers are Jane’s utterances, referred to in (ii) below):

‘There you are,’ said Peter, passing his sheet of paper to Jane. ‘You can copy that.’ (1) ‘It doesn’t have to be my best writing, does it?’ said Jane. (2) ‘I’m so slow if I have to do my best writing.’ ‘Well – so long as it’s readable,’ said Peter. ‘It hasn’t got to go by post’. (3) ‘Oh, I say – what was the last password we had?’ said Jane in alarm. (4) ‘It’s so long since we had a meeting that I’ve forgotten.’ ‘Well, it’s a good thing for you that you’ve got me to remind you,’ said Peter. ‘Our latest password is Wenceslas, because we wanted a Chrismassy one. Fancy you forgetting that!’ (5) ‘Oh, yes, of course. Good King Wenceslas,’ said Jane. (6) ‘Oh, dear – now I’ve gone and made a mistake in this note already. (7) I really mustn’t talk while I’m doing it.’

Content analysis, as shown in Chapter 3, often includes counting female and male characters and documenting their social and professional roles. A simple Content analysis of this extract would note the fact that the ‘social actors’ are one male and one female (brother and sister), who are involved in the activity of note-writing, which includes the conveying of a password, and in which Jane is copying Peter’s note but in the process makes a mistake. Status is also important. Peter and Jane are siblings, but there is no indication that they are twins. It could be surmised from Peter’s manner (and visuals, not shown here) that he is in fact Jane’s older brother. If he is, differences in their discourse could be attributed to age as much as (or even instead of) gender – that is, we need to question the extent to which it is valid to compare Peter and Jane only in terms of gender (see Chapter 2 on the ‘relevance’ of gender). For reasons such as these, Content analysis always needs to be done, as background to linguistic analysis. As Mills (1995: 197) points out, ‘language analysis alone cannot help us to make the link between language and ideology, because if we focus on individual language items we risk . . . excluding the context of the text’. This likely age difference prompts the rather different question of whether, in such fictional male-female pairings, common in young children’s fiction (see Davies, 1989), the boy is usually older – to which the answer

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is, I suspect, Yes.14 We can then ask not just why, but also what this age difference allows, in respect of story, plot, characterization and dialogue. But it allows more than this. The male-female pair, as Baker and Freebody point out, referring to the Ladybird (coincidentally) ‘Peter and Jane’ series, ‘nicely illustrate[s] how the device of having one female and one male character can offer a description of gender relations in childhood’ (1989: 141). And, of course, it can do this in different ways! If the boy is consistently older, reiterations of gender relations will be consistently unequal. The best comparison that can be made in terms of both content (and linguistic) analysis may accordingly be of male and female twins (for examples, see Chapter 6). But let us assume for now that Peter and Jane are broadly comparable in role (children, members of the same family, with shared friends), if not quite in status. Without broad comparability, specific comparisons are invalid. Invalid comparisons are, however, often made. Sanger (1998) himself, for example, looks at Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story ‘The Speckled Band’, and compares the male protagonist, Sherlock Holmes, with the female protagonist, a ‘young lady’ who is consulting him. Sanger observes that the young lady is ‘presented very much as a damsel in distress’. He compares the language used by the narrator, Dr Watson, to describe her, with the language Watson uses to describe the famous detective. While the young lady is in a ‘pitiable state of agitation’, Holmes ‘ran her over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances’ (1998: 66; as he is the narrator, this event is focalized from Dr Watson’s perspective). But the ‘young lady’ is primarily a worried client (as all Holmes’ clients are likely to be); Holmes is famously all-knowing and selfassured. Surely it makes little sense to compare male and female characters who are not of broadly comparable status and role. Sanger cites the actual words used in Conan Doyle’s story, spoken by Peter and Jane (above), and by Blyton’s narrator, that is, he is not content with paraphrase. He thus shows how, linguistically, Peter ‘instigates the action’ and how Jane’s role is represented ‘very much as one of support’ (1998: 64) and contextualizes this gender stereotyping historically, that is, they are books written in the 1940s. Sanger thus provides useful pointers in terms of the sort of language that might be relevant. However, his analysis is constituted largely by unsystematic comment, so the above remains largely an example of Content analysis. (ii) Linguistic analysis: mood and dialogue Content analysis thus needs to be supplemented by systematic linguistic analysis. As regards their indirect characterization, it is obvious from the

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extract even at first glance that Peter is represented as dominating and Jane as self-deprecating. However, such a ‘broad-brush’ approach would miss the linguistic nuances which characterize Peter in one way and Jane in another, and which cumulatively allow us to form these impressions of them. Most obviously, the speech acts of Peter and Jane vary widely. As regards mood (see above), which indicates the interpersonal relationship between them, most of the utterances are declaratives. The reporting clause verb is always said. There are only two interrogatives, but both are Jane’s: she asks for confirmation from Peter (about her writing (1), about the password (3)). In three of her five remaining declaratives, Jane confesses having forgotten the password (4) and having made a mistake in the note she is writing (6), and indicates that she is not able to talk and write (7). Jane is thus construed as self-effacing and lacking in confidence. Peter, in contrast, provides reassurance and information/explanation, evaluates Jane’s writing, and makes a big deal of her having forgotten the password. (Given that, as the subsequent co-text shows, he has actually forgotten the name of the seventh member of the Secret Seven, and is reminded of it by Jane, his construed confidence is quite remarkable!) In looking systematically at the language of the text, we can identify both mood and speech acts in this dialogue, as shown in Table 4a. Identifying the Speech Act being ‘realized’ by a given utterance is not straightforward, and has to be interpreted, as the alternative labels in columns 3 and 5 indicate. Nevertheless, the distribution of Speech Acts across Peter and Jane’s conversation points to a clearly gendered patterning and contributes to their indirect characterization by Blyton. Of course, this patterning has been shown only across this episode, which tells us nothing about its representativeness. Any generalizations to the book or even series would require that this gendered pattern is broadly replicated across this first book, which may not be the case. Works of fiction often show character development (at least of the protagonist) as the book progresses (see observations about Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, above), especially if the character grows older (which the Secret Seven members do not), and particularly in series such as Harry Potter, and the bildungsroman genre. There may also be a gradual change in characters’ power and agency, which is reflected in their language use and the narrator’s language about them (both transitivity and mood). Methodologically, just as content analyses of children’s fiction often involve frequency counts, so may linguistic analyses of characterisation, for example of particular linguistic items, such as Material and other verb types referring to what the characters do, say, think, feel and perceive (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1995). As a simple example, a linguistic focus of naming

Language and Linguistic Analysis Table 4a

Peter and Jane: mood and speech acts

Mood

Peter

Peter’s Speech Acts

Interrogative

Declarative

85

‘Well – so long as it’s readable’

Giving reassurance

Jane

Jane’s Speech Acts

‘It doesn’t have to be my best writing, does it?’

Requesting reassurance/ confirmation

‘Oh, I say – what was the last password we had?’

Asking for information

(i) ‘I’m so slow if I have Expressing selfto do my best writing.’ deprecation (ii) ‘It’s so long since we had a meeting that I’ve forgotten.’ (iii) ‘Oh, dear – now I’ve gone and made a mistake in this note already.’

(i) ‘It hasn’t got to Giving (i) ‘Oh, yes, of course. go by post’. information/ (ii) Good King (ii) ‘Our latest Explaining Wenceslas’ password is Wenceslas, because we wanted a Chrismassy one’.

Confirming understanding

‘Well, it’s a good thing for you that you’ve got me to remind you,’

Telling someone what’s good for them

‘Telling oneself off/Expressing obligation’

‘Fancy you forgetting that!’

Putting someone down/Being disparaging

‘I really mustn’t talk while I’m doing it.’

via address terms in Roald Dahl’s Matilda (1988) showed that Matilda’s father never uses her name to address her, whereas she frequently calls him ‘Daddy’ (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996). This ‘nomination’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1996) is both relevant and subtle, as Matilda’s use of ‘Daddy’ does not necessarily express affection. (iii) Linguistic analysis: narration Studies of narration in characterization, exploring the representation of ‘Social actors’ and their ‘Social actions’ (van Leeuwen, 2008), include that of Carolyn Baker and Peter Freebody (1989), who carried out a very substantial study of children’s reading schemes (described in see Chapter 6),

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including of collocation (see above): the adjectives and verbs associated with male and female characters. To give a flavour of their findings, as regards social actors: z

30% of boys were described as little; for girls the figure was just over 50%

and social action: z

some Material verbs – including paint, pump, fix, drive – were only associated with fathers, and others – including bake and hug – only with mothers (see also Freebody and Baker, 198715).

These point (again) to a very gender-stereotypical representation of girls, boys, mothers and fathers, and echo the findings of the Content analyses reported in Chapter 3. However, they do so in an empirically robust and replicable way: others could carry out the same linguistic analysis on the same books (to verify the findings), or on a later set, to investigate change. A little more recently, Diane Turner-Bowker (1996) similarly analysed 30 Caldecott winners and runners-up from 1984–1994 for collocation: adjectives (including comparatives and superlatives) used to describe female and male characters. Regrettably, no distinction was apparently made between narration and dialogue, but the documented instructions given to the research team members suggest a focus on the former. The 20 most commonly used adjectives for male and for female characters included several that were shared (old, little, good, poor, happy, ugly, young, small), little and old being at the top of both lists. However, this left twelve ‘most commonly used adjectives’ used only of male or only of female characters. These were, in rank order (and I have adapted and simplified Turner-Bowker’s table): ‘Female’ adjectives

‘Male’ adjectives

beautiful frightened worthy sweet dear weak angry heart-loving wicked sick kind scared

fat big hungry horrible fierce great tired terrible sad furious brave proud

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Interpretations of the lists will vary, but I suggest that two very different profiles emerge, suggesting gender-stereotypical construals of social and psychological boundaries around the characters these adjectives refer to. Granted, as indicated, eight of the most frequent were shared. However, good (one of the eight), was fourth in frequency in the female list, and nineteenth in the male list, which adds to the profiles suggested by the lists above (and again echoes findings of previous Content analyses). Lastly, for here, Grace Green (2007) looked at transitive and intransitive verbs in her small-scale study of the language of ‘realistic’ and ‘fantasy’ fiction for older children (see also Chapter 3). Green found the male characters in both genres to be more active – as shown by material ‘movement’ verbs and verb phrases such as pushed off and smashed. The female characters were more ‘affected’ by male characters’ actions (i.e. through being the grammatical object of transitive verbs). Green also found more ‘metaphorical’ language associated with fantasy, largely because of a disproportionate number of similes in Harry Potter. However, across both genres, more metaphors were associated with male than with female characters. While metaphor is not a focus of this book, metaphors (and gender) in children’s fantasy may be an interesting avenue for a future, larger-scale research study, given that, as Green suggests, such ‘[metaphors] are set in a world which we cannot imagine and so need more help within the text to enable us to compare them to our reality’ (2007: 47). * * *

Guidelines: Language In Chapter 3, on Content analysis, I referred to guidelines for writers and publishers in relation to gender representation. One of the few sets of guidelines which considered both children’s fiction and language is Rosemary Stones’ ‘Pour out the cocoa, Janet!’: sexism in children’s books (1983)16. Stones’ ‘Questions to ask about children’s books’ included the category of ‘Language and sex roles’. For example: z

z

Does the book employ a ‘two-value system’ in the language applied to female and male characters (e.g. are girls ‘giggling’ and boys ‘laughing’; are girls ‘sensitive’ and boys ‘sissy’?) Are females described as male appendages rather than in their own right (e.g. ‘the clever wife’, ‘the wise daughter’)?

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Is the female member of a partnership presented as unequal? {

Example: ‘The farmer’ and ‘the farmer’s wife’ are the designations in The Naughty Little Goat by Helen Piers (Methuen, 1980), thus not recognizing the woman’s farm work.

While there was merit in such Recommendations, there was no indication of the need for systematic examination of language, and indeed language was used in a rather impoverished way, basically as something potentially derogatory. But it has to be said that the ubiquity of ‘giggling girls’ has also been a target of critique of J. K. Rowling’s much more recent Harry Potter series (Heilman, 2003), pointing to a need for ongoing vigilance.

Chapter 5

Happily Ever After?

. . . children’s literature is a poor relation in [Professor Virginia Miner’s] Department – indeed, in most English departments; a stepdaughter grudgingly tolerated because, as in the old tales, her words are glittering jewels of a sort that attract large if not equally brilliant masses of undergraduates. Within the departmental family she sits in the chimney-corner, while her idle, ugly siblings dine at the chairman’s table – though, to judge by enrolment figures, many of them must spout toads and lizards. From Foreign Affairs (Alison Lurie, 1984)

Traditional fairy tales have for several decades been a target of feminist critique (e.g. Cosslett, 1996; Zipes, 1986; Rowe, 1979; Lieberman, 1972). In contrast to many books in the firing line, however, which can broadly be described as ‘realistic fiction’, fairy tales are fantasy. In principle, then, the nature of social practices and events therein are, in contrast, potentially unlimited. But this is far from the case in actuality. ‘Fairy tales’ need not be about fairies – although some are, for example fairies are invited to the Sleeping Beauty’s christening. They should, however, include something ‘fairy’, that is, magical, or fée. Geoffrey Brereton, Charles Perrault’s translator, characterizes a fairy tale as a ‘familiar tale with magic elements’ (1957: xi). Knowles and Malmkjaer make a distinction between fairy tales (which involve fantasy) and ‘fantasy fiction’, of which the Harry Potter books are a good example (see Chapter 9): The fairytale assumes magic . . . . Fantasy fiction may incorporate a magical element, but when it does, the magical element, far from being assumed, is fantastic relative to the realistic aspects of the work. (1996: 157) So, we can see a fairy tale as including spells and transformations, which need little or no explanation, but, at the same time, characterization is needed such that fairy tale characters are recognizable to human readers.

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Fairy tales have a range of ‘pre-texts’, although not all are written. Most fairy tales started life as oral folk tales, with no identifiable source and hence have been documented (and, later, revised) rather than authored. Cosslett notes that the earlier versions were originally not directed at children, but When the tales were written down . . . they were directed at an aristocratic or middle-class audience, and especially addressed to children; consequently, they were ‘cleaned up’, and made more moralistic and patriarchal . . . . (1996: 82; see also Robinson (2010)) Some, perhaps most famously ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, are accordingly usually described simply as ‘traditional’. Most fairy tales are however revised versions from one of three possible documented sources. The first is Perrault (1628–1703) himself, who in the 1690s collected European folk tales, the most famous of which include ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Bluebeard’, ‘Puss-in-Boots’ and ‘Cinderella’. Brereton reports that Perrault wrote ‘for a sophisticated French public’ but ‘had an evident relish for the traditional turns of speech and respected them whenever they suited his reasonably broad taste’ (1957: xv). The second source is the two Brothers Grimm, Jakob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), who collected and documented German folk tales, and who, Jack Zipes (2002) claims, have been more influential in our understandings of fairy tales than either Perrault or Hans Christian Andersen. The Grimms’ concern was to preserve actual oral tellings. Including ‘Cinderella’ (a different version from Perrault’s), their final collection amounts to nearly 200 tales, the most well known of which include ‘The Frog Prince’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘(Little) Snow White’, ‘Tom Thumb’ and ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’. Most were originally published in German in two volumes (1812 and 1814), under the name of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales). An English translation by Margaret Hunt was published in 1884. In this chapter I am using the 1983 version of The Complete Grimms’ Fairy Tales, which (like many others) appears to be based on Hunt’s translation1. Thirdly, Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) documented 28 Danish and other folk tales, including ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, ‘The Ugly Duckling’, ‘The Little Match-girl’, ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’, ‘The Princess on the Pea’, ‘The Red Shoes’, ‘Thumbelina’ and ‘The Snow Queen’. An early (1872) English translation of some of the tales was done by H. P. Paull.

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There have of course been numerous versions since Perrault, the Grimms and Andersen; Zipes notes that revisions and adaptations of the Grimm’s tales ‘began in the nineteenth century and increased by the beginning of the twentieth’ (2002: 105). All seem to be told by an omniscient thirdperson narrator (with varying degrees of focalization). Any rewritten familiar fairy tale will be richly intertextual (see Chapter 4), influenced not only by previous versions, but also by recontextualizations in different modes (Disney films, videogames, pantomimes), and by indeed modern, including feminist discourses (again see Chapter 4). Fairy tales can be seen through many lenses. Bruno Bettelheim has famously proposed ‘universal’ psychoanalytic readings in his (1976) The Uses of Enchantment, where he comments on the value (indeed, necessity) of fairy tales for children (but see Rowe, 1979/1986; Zipes, 1986; Stone, 1985; Rose, 1983, for contestations). Psychoanalytic readings are not however the concern of this book. Like other stories for young children (see Chapter 3), fairy tales were a focus of concern in the early days of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement. Consider this cutting description of Snow White by Elena Belotti (1975, translated from her 1973 book Little Girls): Snow White is . . . a silly little goose who accepts the apple she is offered, although she has been severely warned not to trust anybody. When the seven dwarfs accept her as a guest, the roles reappear. They go off to work while she keeps their house clean, mends their clothes, sweeps and cooks and waits for their return. She . . . lives with her head in the clouds. The only quality she is recognized as having is beauty. Since beauty is a natural gift, which is not affected by the will of the individual, this does her very little credit. She always manages to get into trouble, and in order to get her out of it a man must, as usual, intervene: Prince Charming, who will marry her according to rule (1975: 102; Belotti offers a comparable description of Little Red Riding Hood). In The Gender Trap: Education and Work (1980), Carol Adams and Rae Laurikietis similarly identified fairy tales’ cumulative ‘hidden messages’: z z z z

lovely maidens and princesses usually have to wait passively for some prince to come along all other females are ugly hags, witches or stepmothers (usually wicked) none of the females do anything worthwhile happy endings are those in which the couple ‘got married and lived happily ever after’

92 z z z z z

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction men do the rescuing and the brainwork. They are independent, brave and given to overcoming insurmountable difficulties the most important decision a woman can make is – who her future husband is going to be beauty equals success which equals marriage women are rarely friends with each other – they compete women can rarely change their own lives – they have to wait for men to do it for them

These characteristics are particularly relevant to ‘Snow White’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘The Frog Prince’, ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Accordingly, Adams and Laurikietis ask, ‘Have you ever heard of an ugly stepfather or a brave princess rescuing a poor, lonely prince?’ (1980: 40). The cartoon below makes the point well2:

Figure 5.1 ‘Disney’s Desperate Housewives’ by Mike Peters (‘The Cartoonist Group’)

Marriage is a very frequent element of fairy tales, and Zipes (1986) cites tales in which princesses who refuse to marry are construed as being ‘stuck-up’, rather than of an independent mind. Marriage usually follows ‘love at first sight’ despite (or because of) total inexperience on the part of the (very) young woman concerned. As Karen Rowe puts it: Allowed no opportunity for discriminating selection, the princess makes a blind commitment to the first prince who happens down the highway, penetrates the thorny barriers, and arrives deus ex machina to release her from the charmed captivity of adolescence. (1979/1986: 217)

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Of course, the young woman may not be a princess. And marriage may not be something that she wants, but it may rather be what she gets: as Alison Lurie observes, ‘It is assumed that what the heroine or hero wants is to become rich and marry well’ (2003: 133). Even in the Grimms’ ‘Twelve Dancing Princesses’ [‘Die zertanzten Schuhe’, i.e. ‘The Dancing Shoes’], where the princesses’ goal seems to be to outwit their suitors, the soldier who discovers their secret is offered a princess by the king. The soldier responds ‘ich bin nicht mehr jung, so gebt mir die älteste’ (1819: 625) (‘I am no longer young, so give me the eldest’). There are economic considerations here: as the narrative goes on to remind us, choice of the eldest princess means that ‘the soldier was chosen to be the king’s heir’. Similarly, in Grimms’ ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, the king thinks of the young woman who is spinning straw into gold: ‘Wenns auch eine Müllerstocher ist . . . eine reichere Frau finde ich in der ganzen Welt nicht’ (1819: 316) (‘Even if she be a miller’s daughter . . . I could not find a richer wife in the whole world’ (1983: 266)). So, if would-be royal bridegrooms tend to see such matches in terms of power and money, do (would-be) princesses see them in terms of love? Often, we simply do not know, as there is no indication of their point of view: they are not narrators, neither are they given the privileged status of focalizers (see Chapter 4). The oldest, chosen princess in the ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ remains silent about her selection (see also the Grimm’s ‘The Golden Goose’, which similarly provides no details about the response of the ‘requested and awarded’ princess). Similarly, when the miller’s daughter in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ is told by the king ‘You must spin this [straw], too, in the course of this night; but if you succeed, you shall be my wife’ (1983: 265), no response is provided. When she does succeed, and ‘when the king came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty miller’s daughter became a queen’, again, how she feels about this is not documented. Further examples abound (see e.g. the Grimms’ ‘Goose-Girl’). Such marriage arrangements thus appear conventional and almost defining of the fairy story genre, regardless of the earlier needs of the plot. Take the ‘traditional’ ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ in The Second Armada Lion Book of Fairy Tales series (1973). Although there has been no mention of a princess, this version ends: ‘And what with the harp and the hen that laid golden eggs [Jack and his mother] were rich and happy from that day forth, and as for Jack, he married a princess – and deserved to’. But what of his bride? What may at first sight look like knowing irony may not be so at all, as this ending can also be found in other versions – for example, in Joseph

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Jacobs’ English Fairy Tales (1970) and My Ladybird Treasury of Bedtime Stories (1998).The latter though does add a note of scepticism: ‘It’s even said that Jack married a beautiful princess. Maybe he did!’ (p. 77). Some fairy tales follow rather different story lines. In Andersen’s ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ (1937, trans. Paul Leyssac), for example, the tin soldier falls in love with a paper girl (‘That’s the wife for me’), and after his adventures they burn together in a fire. There is no wedding. However, again, although we learn a lot about the soldier’s feelings, we learn nothing about those of the girl. Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’, in contrast, although told by the usual third-person narrator, is at many points focalized (see Chapter 4) to show the mermaid’s point of view (one reason why this story is so tragic), with very little focalization on the part of the prince. The mermaid falls in love with the prince, and the goal of marriage is secondary (mentioned only, and briefly, by the sea-witch, from whom the Little Mermaid seeks advice). The feminist issue here is the notion of a young woman’s sacrifice for a particular idea of beauty and for a single, romantic goal: the mermaid willingly loses her beautiful voice and has her much-needed tail replaced with legs in order that she can be in the human company of the prince. Echoing Belotti, Marcia Lieberman (1972/1986) identifies beauty as a fairy-tale girl’s ‘most valuable asset, perhaps her only valuable asset’ (p. 188). And the mermaid is, of course, beautiful – as is the human princess who eventually marries the prince – and it is the princess’s beauty that is the mermaid’s undoing, for because of it the prince comes to believe that it was she who had rescued him, not the mermaid. There is an implicit element of competition here. Tess Cosslett (1996) refers to ‘beauty contests’ in fairy tales, with particular reference to the ball in ‘Cinderella’, and we can add the queen’s conversation with the mirror in ‘Snow White’. These contests are not however between virtuous, benevolent young women (like the Little Mermaid and the princess). Those between the stepmother and Snow White, and between Cinderella and her ‘ugly’ sisters, assume that ‘greater beauty means greater virtue’ (Cosslett, 1996: 81). Lieberman (1972/1986) similarly argues that fairy tales ‘establish a dichotomy between those women who are gentle, passive and fair, and those who are active, wicked and ugly’ (p. 197). Fairy tales are thus replete with binaries. The most obvious is between the female and male protagonist. Although either may be rich or poor, would-be princes are invariably active, would-be princesses invariably passive. Young men rescue, young women wait (and sometimes do the housework – and, we are given to believe, do it well: consider ‘Cinderella’ as well as ‘Snow White’). Snow White waits ‘dead’ in her glass coffin,

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Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel in their towers, and Lieberman also cites a more unfamiliar fairy tale, the Norwegian ‘The Princess on the Glass Hill’ (from Andrew Lang’s The Blue Fairy Book (1889), collected by Peter Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe), in which the princess has to wait on top of the glass hill for a man who can ride a horse up the glassy slope. These are all nicely satirized by the makers of the film Shrek, in which the knowing Princess Fiona has her rescue all planned out (see Unger and Sunderland, 2007): PRINCESS FIONA: But wait, Sir Knight. This be-eth our first meeting. Should it not be a wonderful, romantic moment? SHREK: Yeah, sorry, lady. There’s no time. PRINCESS FIONA: Hey, wait. What are you doing? You know you should sweep me off my feet, out yonder window and down a rope onto your valiant steed. SHREK: You’ve had a lot of time to plan this, haven’t you? PRINCESS FIONA: Mm-hmmm. Lieberman (1972/1986: 192) reminds us too of Cinderella waiting for the prince to arrive with the shoe – though note that in Perrault’s ‘Cinderella’, when Cinderella (‘Cendrillon’) is watching her sisters unsuccessfully try on the shoe: Cendrillon qui les regardait, et qui reconnut sa pantoufle, dit en riant: ‘Que je voie si elle ne me serait pas bonne !’ Cinderella, who saw this, and knew her slipper, said to them, laughing:– ‘Let me see if it will not fit me.’ (Trans. Charles Welsh, 1901)3 Another set of binaries is between female fairy-tale characters. As Belotti puts it, ‘Female figures in fairy tales belong to two fundamentally different categories: the good, but useless, and the wicked’ (1975: 103). The ‘wicked’ are often stepmothers (‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Cinderella’; see also Andersen’s ‘The Seven Swans’ and the ending of Perrault’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’). The stepmothers in the first two attempt to bring about the death of their stepchildren; in the third she is guilty of abuse and exploitation (‘The stepmother gave her the meanest work in the house to do’), attempting to spoil any chances of Cinderella’s happiness. These stepmothers can be read as being jealous of their stepdaughters (‘She could not bear the goodness of this young girl, because it made her own daughters appear the more odious’), and by implication their husband’s previous wife. This brings together the themes of ‘female competitiveness’ (and the related notion of ‘Women beware women’4) and of the importance of appearance for women

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(largely construed as greater than the importance of appearance for men, and sometimes, for women, greater than the importance of anything else!). Of course, not all fairy-tale female protagonists are equally passive or construed in the same measure of binary opposition to their male counterparts or other female characters (see below). Yet, as Alison Lurie perceptively observes of children’s classics more broadly Usually the social system is implicitly unquestioned, and remains unchanged; what changes is the protagonist, and what he or she hopes for is to succeed within the terms of this system. (2003: 133) And this is where the Bridget Jones books, for older readers, come to mind5. The ‘system’ relevant to fairy tales is, however, a particularly patriarchal one, as illustrated further, linguistically, below. One reason for all these unpalatable gender issues may be the genre itself and its original: the traditional ‘tale’ (folktale/folklore), which is told and retold orally, in different ways, but preserving the key elements. Such retelling, John Stephens and Robyn McCallum (1998) observe, is more characteristic of children’s fiction (in general) than that of adults. Relevant to retellings, they claim, is not only ‘infinite intertextuality’ but also ‘finite conservative (including anti-feminist) meta-narratives’ (but see Levorato, 2003). A metanarrative is ‘a total or globalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience’ (1998: 6), and which actually constrains interpretation. Knowles and Malmkjaer also observe that ‘Because the magical is commonplace in the fairy tale, the language of the fairy tale is fairly matter-of-fact, and devoid of long explanatory passages’(1996: 163) – although we could add that it is particularly empty when it comes to female protagonists. Relatedly, fairy tale characters are all what E. M. Forster (1927) characterized as ‘flat’, which ‘inhibits long passages of indirect thought or speech’ (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996: 163; see also Stephens, 1992). Rather than indirect characterization (see Chapter 3), readers are told (a bit) about characters’ thoughts by the (almost always) omniscient, third-person narrator. Further, that narrator allows little character focalization – Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ being something of an exception6.

The Diversity of Traditional Fairy Tales and of Rewrites Fairy tales are products of traditional, by-gone, patriarchal eras. But their ongoing popularity suggests that they at least resonate with desires of today; more, that they may play a role in recycling such desires.

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The genre is of course more complex than described above. Not only is there diversity of female protagonists and their practices (as shown), but there exist far more fairy tales than the very familiar ones, and this diversity is greater than is generally appreciated. In many tales princesses or other young women do not marry princes. Fairy tales which do not end in weddings include ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Tom Thumb’, ‘The Ugly Duckling’, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ – and the misogynist ‘Fisherman and his Wife’. In some tales females are rather positively construed. Zipes for example reminds us of . . . the compassion and heroism of a sister who saves her brothers (The Seven Swans7 [Andersen], Brother and Sister [the Grimms]) . . . the shrewd behaviour of a cook who outwits her master (Clever Gretchen. (1986: 6)8) Over the ages, the numerous rewrites of fairy tales have deleted, sanitized (compare the Grimms’ stories with the Disney versions), added, and created new twists.9 One question is whose interests the changes over time might serve. Zipes cites ‘the sexual preferences of males and the conservative norms of the dominant classes in America and England [for which read the UK]’ (1986: 7). But it may be broader than this. Similar to the process we saw in Chapter 4 (Shibamoto-Smith, 2004; Talbot, 1998), sanitizing the original may involve further exaggeration of different gender roles, and construing ‘gender differences’ that did not exist in earlier versions.10 This process may have started with Perrault, the Grimms and Andersen. Citing Jane Yolen (1977), who claims that the ‘original’ Cinderella ‘had always fought actively for justice and truth’, Zipes notes how towards the end of the seventeenth century . . . Perrault began to transform the Cinderella protagonist into a passive and obedient young woman. (1986: 7) Indeed, one sentence reads ‘la pauvre fille souffroit tout avec patience, & n’osait s’en plaindre à son pere’ (Perrault, 2005: 156)11 (‘The poor girl bore everything in patience and did not dare to complain to her father’). Zipes goes on: His adaptation paved the way for the Grimms and numerous American authors who produced dainty and prudish Cinderellas en masse in the nineteenth century. The final result of this mass-market development

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was the Walt Disney film of 1949, which presented Cinderella in her most ‘perverted’ form – the patient, submissive, defenceless young woman, whose happiness depends on a man who actually defines her life. (Zipes, 1986; see also Yolen, 1977) Tess Cosslett proposes that ‘the tales that were chosen to turn into [Disney] cartoons . . . are the ones with passive female heroines, and are also the ones endlessly reproduced in storybooks for children’ (1996: 82–3). It is not a coincidence that, as Belotti reminds us, ‘our culture is saturated with these same values that these stories propagate, even if they are somewhat diluted and obscured’ (1975: 103). Consider the relatively recent public fascination with Princess Diana and her search for love . . . . And yet modern versions of fairy tales including (especially) Disney can be seen to be simultaneously, intertextually influenced by progressive values and contemporary social discourses (see Stephens, 1992). In the Disney book-of-the-film Aladdin (1993), for example, although Princess Jasmine’s father introduces her to many prince suitors, Jasmine continually rejects these. Her father is placed under a spell to instruct her to marry Jafar, the villain, but Jasmine’s response remains ‘Never!’ and ‘Father, I choose Prince Ali!’ (aka Aladdin). (None of this happened in the original, pre-Arabian Nights ‘Aladdin’.) The book ends with Jasmine’s father saying ‘From this day on, the Princess shall marry whomever she deems worthy’. (For more on retellings of ‘Aladdin’, see Stephens and McCallum, 1998.) Consider also ‘knowing’ expressions in modern versions such as: Princes must marry princesses. There’s no point in them falling in love with ordinary girls, however pretty they are. Everyone knows that, especially princes. which starts ‘The Princess and the Pea’ (My Ladybird Treasury of Bedtime Stories (1998)) with an irony reminiscent of Jane Austen (see Chapter 1). Andersen’s original version (‘The Princess on the Pea’) in contrast opens with: Once upon a time there was a Prince; he wanted to get himself a Princess, but she must be a real Princess. (1937, trans. Paul Leyssac) Pre-postmodernism, it is probably safe to read this translation of the original ‘straight’.

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‘Marriage Arrangements’ in Fairy Tales: A Simple Linguistic Analysis Marriage appears in many fairy tales – usually at the end. In The Blue Fairy Book (Andrew Lang’s first, 1899, collection), Lieberman (1972/1986) identifies marriage as a key component in 30 out of the 37 stories. Of the 30 stories, 18 ended with the wedding, and most of the remaining 12 showed little of later married life. Lieberman argues that, While it would be futile and anachronistic to suppose that these tales could or should have depicted alternate options or rewards for heroines or heroes, we must still observe that marriage dominates them, and note what they show as leading to marriage, and as resulting from it. (1972/1986: 189) Given that in fairy tales marriage frequently takes place between two people only one of whom is born into royalty, we can make a distinction between who marries into royalty. But, the institution of royalty being what it (still) is, that is, patriarchal in many ways, a young male ‘commoner’ who marries into royalty has more to gain than does his female counterpart, which is presumably part of the attraction (and explains the economic motivations for male protagonists noted earlier). Marriage into royalty is prototypically and explicitly associated with great riches. But economics are relevant to female protagonists too. Karen Rowe observes that, for the female ‘commoner’: Because the heroine adopts conventional female virtues, that is patience, sacrifice and dependency, and because she submits to patriarchal needs, she consequently receives both the prince and a guarantee of social and financial security through marriage. (1979/1986: 217) Lieberman wryly adds, ‘Beauty has an obviously commercial advantage’ (1972/1986: 190). In the following small-scale study, I look at ‘marriage arrangements’ in rewrites of 14 different fairy tales, most in more than one version. Data selection when dealing with fairy tales is notoriously difficult, not only as there are so many (especially if a very broad definition is adopted, that is, any tale in which something ‘fairy’, or magical, happens), but also because of the many versions. If it is decided to include a representative selection of the tales documented by Perrault, the Grimms and/or Andersen, this

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excludes the many tales which are cited as ‘traditional’, that is, cannot be attributed to a particular author, such as ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The sample below comes from the fairy tales that my own family has amassed. This may seem somewhat arbitrary, but any criteria would be. The sample includes tales in fairy-tale collections and in collections of children’s stories more generally, and single fairy-tale books. Note that none of these is the original version. The collections were: z z z z z z z

English Fairy Tales (1970) (EFT) The Second Armada Lion Book of Fairy Tales (1973) (SALBFT) Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1977) (FTBG) Classic Fairy Tales (1989) (CFT) Treasury of Stories for Children (1992) (TSC) My Ladybird Treasury of Bedtime Stories (1998) (MLTBS) Great Illustrated Classics (n.d.) (GIC)

To narrow the selection, I excluded those fairy tales of which I had never heard. This was by definition subjective but also meant avoiding skewing the dataset. For example, if I had selected all the fairy tales in Joseph Jacobs’ English Fairy Tales (1894/1970), this would have weighted the data towards Jacobs’ versions of English tales. I then selected those stories which included what I called a ‘marriage arrangement’, which may or may not include a proposal. Lastly, I added the single books which included a ‘marriage arrangement’. These were: z z z z z

Snow White (Read-With-Me Fairy Tales, Peter Haddock, n.d.) The Princess and the Frog (Polly Perham and Sue King, 1994, Ladybird) The Sleeping Beauty (Ladybird Read It Yourself, 1993) Dick Whittington (Ladybird Well-loved Tales, Vera Southgate, n.d.) Aladdin (Disney, 1993)

This gave 14 different fairy tales, as shown in Table 5a below. At least one member of each couple was a prince or princess (with all that this traditionally entails about wealth, property, gender and power), but the tales varied according to whether the other boy or girl was not a prince or princess. In looking at the language of the ‘marriage arrangements’, the intention was that a simple linguistic analysis could support or refute ‘content-related’ assumptions, for example, that princes propose and young women accept

Happily Ever After? Table 5a

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Sample of fairy tales containing ‘marriage arrangements’

Fairy tale

Versions

1

‘Aladdin’

Disney

2

‘Beauty and the Beast’

MLTBS

3

‘Cinderella’

(i) MLTBS (ii) GIC (iii) CFT

4

‘Dick Whittington’

(i) EFT (ii) Ladybird Well-loved Tales

5

‘Jack and the Beanstalk’

(i) SALBFT (ii) MLTBS (iii) EFT (iv) TSC

6

The Princess and the Pea

7

‘The Princess and the Frog’/‘The Frog Prince’

(i) Ladybird (ii) FTBG

8

‘Puss in Boots’

(i) SALBFT (ii) MLTBS (iii) TSC

9

‘Rapunzel’

(i) SALBFT (ii) MLTBS

10

‘Rumpelstiltskin’

(i) MLTBS (ii) GIC (iii) FTBG

11

‘The Sleeping Beauty’

(i) Ladybird Read It Yourself (ii) MLTBS

12

‘Snow White’

(i) Read with Me (ii) MLTBS (iii) FTBG (iv) CFT

13

‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’

(i) FTBG (ii) MLTBS

14

‘Thumbelina’

MLTBS

MLTBS

without comment or demur. Initial readings of the stories pointed to seven actual or logical possibilities: (a) the boy proposes to the girl/expresses a choice/tells her he will marry her (b) the girl proposes to the boy/expresses a choice/tells him she will marry him

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(c) the father proposes the marriage (in general or particular) or gives his consent (d) the mother proposes the marriage (in general or particular) or gives her consent (e) the boy asks the father/mother if he can marry their daughter (f) the girl asks the father/mother if she can marry their son (g) no proposal is detailed, but a marriage takes place Relevant here is mood (see Chapter 4). For example, will the ‘proposal’ (prototypically possibility a) be in the form of an interrogative (as might be expected), a declarative, or even an imperative? We can bring these together with different forms of speech representation (see Chapter 4). Within each of possibilities (a) to (f), the proposal might be in the speaker’s own words (Direct speech (DS), or ‘Free direct speech’ (FDS)) or a paraphrase (Indirect speech (IS), ‘Narrator’s representation of speech acts’ (NRSA)), or, if in between, ‘Free indirect speech’ (FIS).

Who Proposes/Expresses a Choice/Tells the ‘Object of Desire’ that S/He Will Marry Him/Her? Such ‘proposals’ took place in 7 of the 14 fairy tales: ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Princess and the Frog’, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (in the last four, in two versions). Tables 5b and 5c, below, show these proposals and near-proposals. Predictably, most of the proposals come from the boy/man. Only slightly less predictably, with only three exceptions (‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ in Table 5b), (‘Beauty and the Beast’ in Table 5c), they come from royalty (even the Beast is really a prince). Interestingly, in the different versions of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’, the proposer is different! Proposals from the boys/men are interrogative, declarative and imperative, in direct and indirect speech12, in different combinations. The most frequent (though this is a very small sample and hence not statistically significant) is, as might be expected, interrogative/direct speech, in ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. In contrast, in both versions of ‘Rapunzel’, the prince tells Rapunzel via indirect speech that marriage is what he wants. In both versions of ‘Rumplestiltskin’, the matter seems closed, both proposals being declaratives

Table 5b Proposals from boy to girl Fairy tale

Version

Speech representation

Mood

‘Beauty,’ he asked, ‘will you marry me?’

‘Beauty and the Beast’

MLTBS

DS

Interrogative

The two sisters could only look on as the Prince knelt and asked Cinderella to marry him.

‘Cinderella’

MLTBS

IS

Interrogative

‘Do you think you could love me and be my friend now?’ the prince asked.

‘The Princess and the Frog’

Ladybird

DS

Interrogative

. . . [the prince] told [Rapunzel] that he wished to take her away and marry her ....

‘Rapunzel’

SALBFT

IS

Declarative

MLTBS

IS

Interrogative

FTBG

DS

Declarative

The third day, the King promised to marry the girl if she did the trick one last time . . . . The King was as good as his word and they were married.

MLTBS

IS

Declarative

‘You must spin all this away in the night; but if you succeed this time you shall become my wife.’

GIC

DS

Imperative

. . . the Prince gently explained how he’d heard [Rapunzel] singing and fallen in love with her voice. When she felt less afraid, he asked her to marry him . . . . ‘If you complete your task before morning,’ he said, ‘I will make you my Queen.’ The King announced his wedding to the pretty girl who had won his heart . . . .

‘Rumpelstiltskin’

‘Will you marry me?’ the prince whispered.

‘The Sleeping Beauty’

MLTBS

DS

Interrogative

‘I am not so young myself,’ the suitor laughed. ‘I will choose the eldest . . . .’

‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’

FTBG

DS

Declarative

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104 Table 5c Proposals

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction Proposals from girl to boy Fairy tale

‘But I love you, Beast!’ Beauty said. ‘Beauty and the ‘I want to marry you.’ Beast’

Version

Speech Mood representation

MLTBS DS

Declarative

He was about to drink [the glass of ‘The Twelve MLTBS DS drugged wine] when [the youngest Dancing Princesses’ Princess] knocked it out of his hand. ‘I don’t want you to be like the others!’ she cried. ‘I want us to live in the everyday world, even if it does mean I become a gardener’s wife!’

Declarative

(one direct, one indirect speech). This is presumably because the proposer is a king, ‘proposing’ to a miller’s daughter. More interestingly (although we have only two cases), neither Beauty nor the youngest princess propose using a traditional, formal interrogative: ‘Will you . . . . ?’ Both proposals are declaratives in direct speech: perhaps intended to convey immediacy and excitement rather than feminine modesty. Does this compare with the king’s declaratives in ‘Rumplestiltskin’, that is, they do not expect to be refused? Not necessarily. Comparable language forms may have very different functions, depending on context (see e.g. Thomas, 1995; Cameron et al., 1989), and it may be that by not giving their female proposers interrogatives (i.e. conventional requests), the authors are representing these girls as not willing to stick their necks out and be met with a polite (or otherwise) refusal. Of course, the princess is also proposing to a gardener, and Beauty to a ‘beast’.

The Role of Parents Unsurprisingly, there are no cases of a mother proposing a marriage (possibility (d)), or of a girl asking for the permission of the father/mother of a boy she wishes to marry (possibility (f)). The father proposes marriage or consents to a request in four cases: ‘Aladdin’, ‘Puss in Boots’, ‘Dick Whittington’ and ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ (possibility (c); see Table 5d). All these proposals are declaratives; all but that in ‘Dick Whittington’ (EFT) are in direct speech (one case of ‘Indirect Speech’13, one of ‘Narrator’s

Table 5d

Proposals and near-proposals from a father Fairy tale

Version

Speech representation

Mood

‘From this day on [declared the Sultan], the Princess shall marry whomever she deems worthy’.

Aladdin

Disney

DS

Declarative

Mr Fitzwarren soon saw their [Dick Whittington and Alice’s] love for each other, and proposed to join them in marriage . . . .

Dick Whittington

EFT

IS

Declarative

Ladybird Well-Loved Tales

NRSA

Declarative

TSC

DS

Declarative

SALBFT

DS

Declarative

FTBG

DS

Declarative

MLTBS

IS

Declarative

Mr Fitzwarren was glad to give his consent.

‘I think it would be safe, My Lord Marquis, to say (for I’ve been watching you in the carriage) that you admire my daughter: and just as safe, I’m sure, to say that – er – she greatly admires you. In short, you have but to say the word, and – er – the hand of the princess in marriage is yours

Puss in Boots

At the end of [the banquet] the King, who had noticed that the Princess and the young man were holding hands under the table . . . said, ‘Marquis, I know of no-one whom I would rather have for a son-in-law than yourself. I can see that my daughter likes you, and if she is willing, let the wedding take place immediately.’ ‘Then you may choose whichever one of these troublesome girls you would like for your bride,’ the King told the soldier. But the King didn’t believe that [all his daughters did was sleep]. He announced that if any prince discovered their secret, he could choose one of the Princesses for his bride.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

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report of a speech act’). The father proposes the marriage in ‘Aladdin’, ‘Puss in Boots’ (SALBFT, TSC) and ‘Dick Whittington’ (EFT). In ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ (FTBG, MLTBS), the proposal is jointly constituted by the father and the future husband. In FTBG, the suitor says ‘I will choose the eldest’14 only after permission has been given by the king (there has previously been a royal proclamation that ‘whoever could solve the mystery [of where the princesses went at night] might choose one of the girls to be his wife and become heir to the throne’). In MLTBS, the princess’s proposal (Table 5c) comes after the father ‘has announced that if any prince discovered [the princesses’] secret, he could choose one of the princesses for his bride’. In neither of these cases is the boy/man in question a prince. Princes are clearly much more able to propose marriage themselves. There is just one case of a boy asking the father’s permission (possibility (e)) and of the father giving consent (possibility (c)): in ‘Dick Whittington’ (LWLT), Dick ‘asked Mr Fitzwarren if he could marry his daughter, Alice’ and ‘Mr Fitzwarren was glad to give his consent’.

No Explicit Proposal In ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ (all versions), ‘Snow White’ (all versions), ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ (GIC), ‘Puss in Boots’ (MLTBS) and ‘Thumbelina’ there is no explicit proposal at all. In some of these, perhaps as a sort of textual substitute, we learn more about the girl’s feelings, through rare cases of focalization. For example: As soon as the Marquis was decently dressed, the King invited him to ride in his carriage and meet his daughter. The Princess took one look at the Marquis . . . and fell in love with him . . . . by the end of the week, they were married (‘Puss in Boots’, MLTBS) She sat up, wondering where she was, and the first thing she saw was the handsome young Prince. It was love at first sight. Within a few weeks she and the Prince were engaged to be married (‘Snow White’, LTBS) In other cases, however, there is no account of the girl’s feelings – for example, the notorious ‘Rumpelstiltskin’: When the King came in the morning, and found everything as desired, he straightway made her his wife. (GIC)

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Neither has the miller’s daughter any construed ‘agency’: he made her his wife represents the king as the agent of the verb made, which is transitive, that is, capable of taking an object (see Chapter 4). In this case made takes her as its direct object and his wife as the object complement. This is notable considering other possible and available phrasings such as ‘They were married’ or ‘They became husband and wife’. Given when these tales were originally told and first documented, we cannot expect a host of proposals by the girls in question (still less explicit challenges to the institution of marriage itself), but, to return to the quotation from Lieberman (1972/1986: 186), we can ‘note what [fairy tales] show as leading to marriage’. Representations of the marriage proposal element of this are mixed, but, from a feminist perspective, not very impressive!

Acceptances How are the marriage proposals of the boys to the girls (possibility (a)) accepted (or declined)? This is interesting, as a girl is conventionally expected to say something here. A marriage proposal constitutes the first part of an adjacency pair (see e.g. Myers, 2009), and its acceptance or ‘decline’ the second (we can see this as a special case of a ‘question-answer’ adjacency pair). Excluding declaratives (e.g. promises or announcements that the marriage will happen, or expressions of choice, as in Table 5b), there are explicit interrogative proposals by boys (in direct and indirect speech) in just 4 of the 14 tales: ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Rapunzel’ (two versions of the latter). These are shown in Table 5e, with the subsequent acceptance or ‘decline’. The only ‘decline’ comes from Beauty – and this is temporary, as she later asks the ‘beast’ to marry her. Otherwise, the answer is ‘Yes’ and acceptance immediate, expressed in some sort of declarative. In ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Rapunzel’ (SALBFT) acceptance is indicated with direct speech (‘Yes’). Both Rapunzel and the Sleeping Beauty respond physically (the latter quite assertively) as well as verbally, showing a refreshing element of agency and indeed transgressing traditional ideas of feminine modesty. These girls do not ask questions. Yet Rapunzel’s construed acceptance is in fact not automatic: rather, she does a quick calculation to the effect that, whatever else, she is likely to be better off with the prince than she is now. We are not given Cinderella’s words of acceptance, even in indirect speech (rather ‘And she did [marry him], of course’). Indeed, there is no

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Acceptances of marriage proposals15

Table 5e Fairy tale

Proposal

Acceptance/Decline

‘Beauty and the Beast’ (MLTBS)

‘Beauty,’ he asked, ‘will you marry me?’

‘No, Beast, Never.’

‘Cinderella’ (MLTBS)

. . . the two sisters could only look on as the Prince knelt and asked Cinderella to marry him.

And she did, of course!

‘Rapunzel’ (SALBFT)

. . . [the prince] told [Rapunzel] that he wished to take her away and marry her . . . .

. . . he looked so kind and handsome that she could not help thinking, ‘He is better by far than old Mother Gothel, and surely he will love me better’. So she put her hand in his, and said ‘Yes’ . . . .

‘Rapunzel’ (MLTBS)

. . . the Prince gently explained . . . blushing, Rapunzel agreed. how he’d heard [Rapunzel] singing and fallen in love with her voice. When she felt less afraid, he asked her to marry him . . . .

‘The Sleeping ‘Will you marry me?’ the prince Beauty’ (MLTBS) whispered.

‘Yes!’ The princess said, and she kissed him back.

representation of any verbal response. The ‘of course!’ could refer to different things: an unquestioning assumption that young women are automatically interested in marriage and particularly to a prince, or a more ‘knowing’ comment on such conventions of the genre. Lastly, the MLTBS Rapunzel: ‘blushing, agreed’. This Rapunzel is more traditionally construed than the first: she accepts (we are not told how) without demur or calculation, and her blushes correspond to traditional expectations of her as a bride.

‘Marriage Arrangements’ in the Original Tales How do these ‘marriage arrangements’ compare with those in the original versions, especially in terms of their language? Below I look at a selection, that is, ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ and ‘Rapunzel’. (i) ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Perrault’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ includes: At last [the Prince] . . . saw on a bed, whose curtains were drawn aside, the loveliest sight he had ever seen: a princess of about fifteen or sixteen, whose radiant beauty seemed to glow with a kind of heavenly light. Trembling and wondering, he drew near and knelt down before her. Then, as the spell had come to its end, the Princess awoke and, looking at

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[the Prince] more tenderly than would seem proper for a first glance: ‘Is it you, my Prince?’ she said. ‘You have been a long time coming.’ . . . . He was more confused than she was, and it was scarcely surprising. She had had time to think out what she would say to him, for it seems very probable (though the story does not say so) that the good fairy had arranged for her long sleep to be filled with pleasant dreams. In short, they went on talking to each other for four hours, and still had not said half the things they wanted to say. . . . . And after supper, without wasting time, the chaplain married them in the palace chapel and the lady-in-waiting drew the bed-curtains around them. They slept little. The Princess hardly needed to and the Prince had to leave her early in the morning to get back to the town, where his father would be growing anxious about him. (1957: 12–14, trans. Geoffrey Brereton)16 Perrault’s version is so much more interesting than the revisions! The princess is unsurprised and in control (something which may have been picked up on by the makers of Shrek for the scene of Princess Fiona’s rescue). This is a ‘rational’ princess (it is the prince who is confused). Her conversation is made as much of as her beauty. The account is also eroticized: we can imagine the highly-charged nature of their four-hour talk! This Sleeping Beauty is a much more compelling young woman than in either of the versions cited in this chapter. The first part is focalized by the prince – but it is the princess who speaks (in direct speech). And note the frequency of they and them in the last two paragraphs, which suggests a much more symmetrical relationship than some of the other representations. There is, here, no marriage proposal (and accordingly no acceptance/decline), as in the MLTBS version17. (ii) ‘Cinderella’ Perrault’s ‘Cinderella’ is, however, as we have seen (p. 97), rather more disappointing. Cinderella’s kindness to her stepsisters is expanded on, and she goes to two balls (on subsequent nights). She thus has more time to get to know the prince, who on the second night ‘was constantly at her side and made love to her [in the old-fashioned sense] the whole evening’ (1957: 60). But when the slipper fits She was taken to the young Prince in the fine clothes which she was wearing [provided at the last minute by the fairy godmother]. He thought her more beautiful than ever and a few days later he married her.

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There is no explicit proposal here either, probably because the prince has already declared ‘that he would marry the girl whose foot exactly fitted the slipper’ (and presumably any girl who declined would be considered mad or guilty of treason). The choice of ‘he married her’ (Perrault wrote ‘il l’épousa’) over ‘They got married’ is an interesting one18 – and, in the 21st century, would normally be distinctly marked. In this Perraultian sense, the meaning of ‘marry’ as something that two people do, though one is more agentive than the other, is approaching the meaning of ‘marry’ as something that a priest does (to/for others), through a particular set of performative speech acts. Perrault’s ‘Cinderella’ concludes: Cinderella, who was as kind as she was beautiful, invited her two sisters to live in the palace and married them [Perrault: ‘& les maria’], on the same day, to two great noblemen of the Court. (1957: 63) which points to the ‘performative’ nature of marry: in this sense, an ability/ action that carries real power (i.e. ‘she ‘had them married’). This reminds us of the huge social and economic importance of marriage for women in many past (and some present) cultural contexts. The Grimms’ (later) version of ‘Cinderella’ was considerably more elaborate than Perrault’s. A three-day festival is organized by the king ‘und wozu alle schönen Jungfrauen im Land eingeladen wurden, damit sich sein Sohn eine Braut aussuchen möchte’ (1819: 156) (‘to which all the beautiful young girls in the country were invited, in order that his son might choose himself a bride’ (1983: 122). Cinderella gets to the festival on the first day, and the prince went to meet her, took her by the hand and danced with her. He would dance with no other maiden, and never left loose of her hand, and if any one else came to invite her, he said, ‘This is my partner.’ She danced till it was evening, and then she wanted to go home. But the King’s son said, ‘I will go with thee and bear thee company,’ for he wished to see to whom the beautiful maiden belonged. (1983: 124) (original: ‘denn er wollte sehen, wem das schöne Mädchen angehörte’ (1819: 158)) All this is highly patriarchal, of course. Cinderella similarly attends the ball on the second and third nights, and dances again with the prince. When Cinderella runs home, the prince declares ‘My bride shall be no other than she whose foot this golden slipper fits’ (1983: 126). There is

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then a gory episode in which her two stepsisters cut off their toe and heel respectively in order that the shoe should fit19. Cinderella successfully tries on the shoe, and the king’s son recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, ‘That is the true bride!’ [‘das ist die rechte Braut’ (1819: 163)] [and he] took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her. What is striking here is Cinderella’s silence (which we saw also in the later MLTBS version): beyond asking her father to bring her home a bough (which develops magic powers), asking if she can go to the festival, and invoking magic so that she can, she is documented by the Grimms as saying nothing at all, in direct or indirect speech, either at the festival, when her sisters are trying on the shoe (unlike Perrault’s version, see p. 140), when she is trying on the shoe, or after the prince has declared her to be his bride. (iii) ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ In the recent versions of the Grimms’ ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ (MLTBS, GIC, FTBG), the king announces that he would make the miller’s daughter his queen, if she spun straw into gold. In the original version, he similarly proclaims ‘You must spin this . . . in the course of this night; but if you succeed, you shall be my wife.’ which is followed shortly by And when the King came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty Miller’s daughter became a Queen. (1983: 265–6) There is no comment by or focalization of the miller’s daughter (who is never given a name) on this state of affairs. Unlike those fairy tales in which there are elements of love (or at least physical attraction) as well as pecuniary gain, in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ the king’s motive appears to be solely the latter. He justifies his proclamation: ‘Even if she be a miller’s daughter,’ thought he, ‘I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.’ (1983: 266). Rumpelstiltskin has not been misrepresented by subsequent rewrites.

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(iv) ‘Rapunzel’ Newer versions of the Grimms’ original Rapunzel (SALBFT, MLTBS) have similarly emulated it reasonably faithfully, at least in the ‘marriage arrangement’ episode (there is no ‘marriage arrangement in FTBG). The Grimms’ (translated) original reads: At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her; but the King’s son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband [und als er sie fragte, ob sie ihn zum Mann nehmen wollte], and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, ‘He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does;’ and she said yes, and laid her hand in his [und sagte ja, und legte ihre Hand in seine Hand]. (1983: 75; 1819: 106) When the couple discuss how she will escape, however, Rapunzel is much more resourceful and assertive than in the subsequent versions. The tale continues ‘I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse’. They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. (1983: 75) Rapunzel’s cleverness (which she actually denies) is replicated in The Second Armada Lion Book of Fairy Tales, and My Ladybird Treasury of Bedtime Stories tells us that ‘The clever girl had a brilliant idea’. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm however omits her plan altogether. I will finish by returning to the original ‘Rapunzel’, which, unusually, continues well beyond a marriage proposal or wedding. Having related the prince’s demise at the hands of Mother Gothel, who foils their plan, and how Rapunzel is despatched to a desert, the Grimms then tell us that the prince ‘wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife’ (the Grimms document no wedding or marriage). He eventually ‘came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given

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birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness’ (1983: 76). Rapunzel’s children are not mentioned in any of the three rewrites. Amusingly, though, the Second Armada Lion Book of Fairy Tales does tell us – and this is the writer Helen Cresswell’s own invention – that ‘the Prince began to visit Rapunzel every evening, and they would sit together while Rapunzel sang and wove her silken ladder’ (p. 89). Cresswell may have been trying to make the marriage more credible to 20th century readers.

Moving on . . . Because traditional fairy tales are so well known, they provide excellent (commercial) material not only revisions, but also for subverting (and spoofing)20. Stephens and McCallum point out that ‘retold stories have the potential to disclose how old stories suppress the invisible, the untold and the unspoken’ (1998: 22). Regrettably, for reasons of lack of space, discussion of this potential is beyond the scope of this book – beyond noting that one way of realizing it, as Stephens and McCallum observe, is through new focalization strategies (see their Chapter 7, also Chapter 4 of this book, also Levorato (2003))21. There now exist a range of ‘feminist fairy tales’ for children22, both (to borrow Davies’ (1989) classification) ‘Feminist retellings of traditional stories’ and ‘New feminist stories woven out of some of the elements of the old but introducing a new narrative form’ (see Chapter 3; also Zipes, 2002, 1986). The first group includes Babette Cole’s Princess Smartypants (1986) and Prince Cinders (1987), Amanda Vesey’s The Princess and the Frog, Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter by Diane Stanley (1998), Sleepless Beauty by Frances Minters (1996), Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep (Gail Carson Levine, 1999), and Kate and the Beanstalk (Mary Pope Osborne, 2000). To this we can add the much older Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf (Catherine Storr, 1955), which was clearly not prompted by the second wave of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement, but which construes a very assertive and clever female protagonist. The second group includes The Clever Princess (Babette Cole, 1983), The Knight and the Dragon (Tomie de Paola, 1980), Dragons’ Breath (Michael Dugan and Allen Hicks, 1980), The Paper Bag Princess (Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko, 1980), The Princess and the Dragon (Audrey Wood, 1981), The Tough Princess (Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson, 2002), The King’s Equal (Katherine Paterson, 1992) and Petronella (Jay Williams, 1973). In Petronella: The years passed, and the time came for the princes to go out and seek their fortunes. Michael and George said good-bye to the king and queen

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and mounted their horses. Then out came Petronella. She was dressed in travelling clothes, with her bag packed and a sword by her side. ‘If you think,’ she said, ‘that I’m going to sit at home, you are mistaken. I’m going to seek my fortune, too.’ (Williams, 1979; cited in Zipes, 1986: 55) Note Petronella’s attributed agency (she is the grammatical subject of the last three sentences), the phrases used to describe her clothes and possessions, and her assertive speech style: she uses a declarative, announces her intentions without being asked (and indeed without asking permission), challenges her parents’ likely assumption, and her words are reported in direct speech. The point about these ‘new’ fairy tales is that, given the familiarity of the ‘standard’ versions: . . . the audience will be in a position to weigh one against the other . . . [T]he significance of the story will not be in the focused text but in the process of interaction between the texts. That is, the effect is intertextual in its fullest sense. (Stephens, 1992: 88) It is also, and again regrettably, beyond the scope of this book to explore children’s own readings and understandings of such feminist fairy tales, but see Davies’ classic study of pre-school children (Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales, 1989), in which she used The Princess and the Dragon and The Paper Bag Princess (as well as the feminist stories Oliver Button is a Cissy (de Paola) and Rita the Rescuer (Hilda Offen)).

Conclusion Leaving aside Petronella and the like, we can say, ‘Yes, but these fairy tales are just stories. Everyone knows they’re about girls marrying princes and everyone knows they’re not true.’ And this is true, up to a point. John Stephens claims, ‘the ideological dimension of fantasy is present as allegory’ (1992: 7; see also Chapter 3). True – but we cannot draw a line between fairy tales and our lives today: there are just too many echoes of them, both in our discourse and in our social practices. Let us revisit Adams and Laurikietis’ (1980) list of fairy tale characteristics. One was ‘lovely maidens and princesses usually have to wait passively for some prince to come along’; we still have the phrase ‘Finding Mr Right’ (but Miss or Ms Right?). A second was the prevalence of witches and wicked

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stepmothers; we still have words like harridan and battleaxe (without masculine equivalents), and Harry Potter’s mean stepmother Mrs Dursley. (And let’s not forget the wicked mother-in-law in the Grimms’ ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and the bad press mothers-in-law still get today.) A third was happy endings ‘in which the couple “got married and lived happily ever after” ’; we still hear about a woman’s wedding day being the ‘biggest’ day of her life (but not a man’s being the biggest day of his). A fourth was men doing the brainwork; we still have stereotypes of men being rational, women sensitive and emotional (hence suitable for childcare and the low-paid caring professions). A fifth was ‘beauty equals success which equals marriage’: the first part of this, at least, is echoed in the far greater importance attached to appearance in women than men (and the amount spent on cosmetic surgery, etc.), and gendered phrases such as ‘dress to impress’ and her hair being ‘a woman’s crowning glory’. A sixth was ‘women are rarely friends with each other – they compete’, and while this is clearly untrue in most social practice, linguistic traces of what we can call a ‘Women beware women’ discourse is still evident in, for example, claims that women do not like working under other women (see also Sunderland, 2004). These echoes, and the fact that fairy tales are endlessly recycled, sold, and (in the UK) watched as pantomimes, which similarly means that we are, at some level, comprehending of and receptive to what they have to say, suggests that magical romances are still a (gendered) aspiration for many.

Chapter 6

Sixty Years of Reading Schemes

‘Poor Floppy!’ said Mum. ‘I’ll take him for a walk.’ (The Real Floppy, Oxford Reading Tree (‘Read at Home’ series))

Reading schemes, that is, book series used in schools to help young children learn to read, are part of many countries’ educational systems and literacy programmes. This gives them a special place in the study of language, gender and children’s fiction. As Glenys Lobban put it more than 30 years ago: ‘[reading schemes] are . . . presented within a context of authority, the classroom, and most children read them’ (1976: 38). In her more recent study, of a UK reading scheme, Sue Wharton adds that reading scheme books are often read by children with adults, which ‘can lend weighty authority to the social representations offered by the text’ but that ‘Much depends . . . on whether or not adults contest the text’ (2005: 239). They thus have the potential to be particularly influential, pedagogically and perhaps conceptually. Further, reading schemes are very often about children (boys and girls) and their families (a mother and father); they are therefore potentially fruitful sites for the identification of gendered discourses and exploration of their workings (Sunderland, 2004; Adler, 1993). The earliest schemes for novice readers start with books with very few words, gradually building up, but recycling words all the time. These texts thus demand special exploration in terms of the possibly gendered nature of recycled construals, for example, whether male/female characters are repeatedly associated more with, say, (in)transitive verbs or certain speech acts or reporting clauses – or indeed with lexicalizations of particular gender-stereotypical practices. Arguably, then, given the presumed importance of lexical and syntactic repetition, readers should be analysed as a scheme, or at least a set within the scheme, since being part of a scheme is a defining characteristic of these books. Methodologically, as reading schemes typically

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consist of several sets, each including several books, they constitute potential small ‘corpora’ ready for analysis (either digitalized, and explored with the aid of corpus linguistics techniques (see e.g. Baker, 2008b), or simply in the sense of a ‘set’ of related texts).

Early Studies of Reading Schemes Reading schemes have merited more scholarly attention than any other type of children’s fiction when it comes to the exploration of gender and language (see e.g. Jackson, 2007; Wharton, 2005; Luke, 1991; Baker and Freebody, 1989; Gupta and Yin, 1989; Freebody and Baker, 1987; Freebody, Baker and Gay, 1987; Pace Nilsen, 1977, 1971; Lobban, 1976/1987; Children’s Literature Collective, 1973; Women on Words and Images, 1972/ 1975). Reading schemes do not have to be explored through content analysis, but many have been, perhaps because data is plentiful, and hence amenable to quantitative investigation (including tests of statistical significance), and characters, roles and activities are clear. (In this book, Content analysis per se, and Content analysis of books other than reading schemes, is addressed in Chapter 3.) One of the earliest studies (mentioned briefly in Chapter 3), carried out in 1972, was documented in Dick and Jane as Victims (1975), by the group ‘Women on Words and Images’1. This collective of US writers and researchers analysed 34 elementary school readers (2,760 stories) from 14 different publishers. Some of the team ‘were dubious at first but finished with unshakeable convictions that these readers contained a distorted view of reality’ (p. 9). Quantitatively, and distinguishing by ‘sub-genre’, they found gender imbalance in favour of males in boy-/girl-centred stories, animal stories, and folk/fantasy stories. Adult women characters were represented in 26 different jobs, men 147 (men were job holders and fathers; women job holders or mothers). By now, such findings will be familiar: many of the findings about content and gender representation in readers echo those found in other children’s books (see Chapter 3). While this is important, similar findings do not need repeating. In this chapter I will therefore focus on (a) new findings, (b) findings characteristic of readers, and (c) linguistic analysis of gender representation in readers (since this was not addressed in Chapter 4, on linguistic analysis and fiction). A little more about the findings of the Dick and Jane as Victims study. Girls and women were worryingly domestic: ‘Little girls endlessly play with dolls, cry over dolls, give tea parties, look on helplessly or passively or

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admiringly while boys take action’ (p. 23) and ‘rehearse their domestic roles continuously’: They stand at sinks high with pots and pans, scoop up broken eggs, set the table, scrub floors, wash laundry while their brothers scoot out to play. (p. 25) Girls’ mishaps, accordingly, come from domestic responsibilities (in contrast to boys’, which come from adventures). Relatedly, the ‘reader mother’: is a limited, colorless, mindless creature. She wants nothing for herself, you have to assume, since her needs are mentioned only once in this entire study when she treats herself to some earrings on a shopping trip . . . . Not only does she wash, cook, clean, nurse, and find mittens; these chores constitute her only happiness. In illustrations she frequently appears in the classic servant’s posture, body slightly bent forward, hands clasped, eyes riveted on the master of the house or the child. (p. 34) Rather more interestingly (and specifically), the research team also looked at ‘Victimising and humiliating the opposite sex’. In 65 stories boys demeaned girls; in only 2 did girls demean boys. Also, both boys and girls demeaned girls as a group. For example, in a section called ‘Sample sexist quotations’, from different books: ‘Look at her, mother, just look at her. She is just like a girl. She gives up.’ (Around the Corner, 1966) ‘Oh, Raymond, boys are much braver than girls.’ (Trade Winds, 1966) ‘Just like a girl!’ said Eddie. ‘Always thinking about clothes.’ (Young America Basic Reading Program Level 9, 1972) ‘We don’t want to play girls,’ said Jeff. ‘They’d be too easy to beat.’ (Roads to Follow, 1965) (pp. 51–55). The phrase ‘just like a girl’, used twice, has an implicitly negative connotation (it’s hard to see ‘just like a boy’ being used to do the same rhetorical work). The demeaning of girls, the team noted, ‘always goes unpunished and is never commented upon as such’ (p. 28). Boys were never demeaned as a group. As in real life, any behaviour of an individual with a ‘minority identity’ (gender, ethnicity, disability) is all too easily attributable to that identity, unlike the behaviour of an individual with a ‘majority identity’ (e.g., depending of course on context, a white, broadly middle-class boy/man).

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Although it is the content of the above utterances that the team focuses on, in actuality it is the construed talk of the characters that is at issue. Aside from ‘said Eddie’ and ‘said Jeff’, we are not dealing with the narrator’s words (see Chapter 4, also Short, 1996, on ‘discourse architecture’). Another linguistic question is accordingly whether such ‘social categorizations’ of girls and women are then challenged by any of the other characters in interaction, since social groups (and individuals) can be demeaned in fiction precisely to allow challenge and critique. One question concerning the actual narration however is how the characters’ words are ‘framed’, including the ‘reporting clause’ (imagine ‘whined Peter’ added to the first example, and the replacement of said in the last two by ‘jeered’). Of course, the range of ‘reporting verbs’ is likely to be restricted in reading schemes, the more so in those aimed at novice readers, which may make it harder for authors (via narrators) to ‘take a stance’, of course in mediated form, should they wish to do so (see Hollindale, 1988). To return to content, gender characterization (e.g. ‘Boys . . .’, ‘Just like a girl . . .’) which may appear to be gender stereotyping, seen in the context of the story as a whole, may not be. Utterances like ‘Roger was a brave boy’ and ‘I can skate with Mark to help me’ [says Janet] (from the same study) need to be balanced against still other utterances: Roger may have a ‘timid’ male friend, Janet may have a female friend perfectly capable of skating alone, and it may turn out that Mark is as fearful as Janet. Sensitive analysis needs to take on board these possibilities, if claims about any form of fiction are to be properly informed and convincing. Further, in the case of a book from a reading scheme, claims about gender are best made in the light of the scheme or at least a set as a whole (one construal of a protagonist boy as fearless or a protagonist girl as fearful may say little about the scheme). Gender stereotypical construals can also act against the interests of boys (and as such are not helpful to the construction of mutually beneficial gender relations more widely). Consider the expectations behind ‘Oh, Raymond, boys are much braver than girls’: Raymond may be being exhorted to do something that he does not wish to. (At the same time, this represents a compliment to boys as a social group, in contrast to the girl-demeaning utterances noted above.) The Dick and Jane as Victims team identified a stronger taboo against boys being dependent (sissies!) at any age than . . . against young girls breaking out of their mold (tomboys) a little bit . . . This is partly carried out . . . by showing boys of all ages alone and away from home, courageously coping with anything that comes along. (p. 39)

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Accordingly, showing emotion was ‘off-limit’ for boys: ‘only on the pages of a reader does a boy remain impassive while his canoe proceeds out of control through the rapids’. The team comment, ‘It is cruel to urge young boys to suppress all feelings . . . .’ (p. 29). The Dick and Jane as Victims team also consider what these reading schemes omit – anticipating van Leeuwen’s later (2008, 1996) notion of exclusion. Omissions are what were not included, but could logically have been (it would be perverse to complain about an omission of fantasy in a ‘realistic’ story). Omissions in terms of practices (van Leeuwen’s ‘social action’) included ‘fathers complimenting their daughters on their intelligence and perseverance, rather than their looks’ (‘semiotic social action’) and in terms of participants (‘social actors’): ‘one-parent families, adopted children, divorced and/or fighting parents’2. In a small follow-up study of 88 readers published between 1972 and 1975, the Dick and Jane as Victims team found some females who ‘were clever, competent and initiating, as well as a few males who did not have to hold back their tears’, and women (and men) in a wider variety of occupations. Further, ‘Teachers are given some directions for dealing with the sexism in the books that are still in use in classrooms’ (p. 66). However, they also found an increased proportion of boy-centred stories. All-in-all, progress appeared patchy across publishing companies. (Patchiness in progress is something which should by now be familiar.) In another early study, Glenys Lobban (1976; see also Chapters 1 and 3) analysed six UK schemes covering a 20-year span: z z z z z z

Janet and John (1950) Happy Venture Reader (1958) Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme (1964) Ready to Read (1964) Nipper (1968) Breakthrough to Literacy (1970)

Nipper and Breakthrough to Literacy were designed with urban children in mind. These schemes included 225 separate stories. Unsurprisingly, not least because Lobban’s sample pre-dated those in the Dick and Jane team’s follow-up study, of the 179 stories with people as their central characters, twice as many had ‘heroes’ as had ‘heroines’. Boys had a greater range of activities than girls (including ‘single-sex activities’). Only boys sailed boats; only girls went shopping. Women had 3 occupational and social adult roles, (mother, aunt, grandmother), men, 13.

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Less predictably, in terms of possessions, Lobban noted that in one scheme (Janet and John): while both children had dogs, Janet’s was a puppy while John had a big dog. Boys were frequently more responsible for the care of the pets, and owned larger versions of a common toy such as a boat. (p. 39) Lobban concluded that ‘The world [the reading schemes] depicted was not only sexist, it was more sexist than present reality . . . .’ (p. 42), a point made also in Chapter 3. Whether readers should reflect current social arrangements or represent more ‘progressive’ ones is a matter for debate, but depicting a world ‘more sexist than present reality’ seems indefensible. In Catching Them Young: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction (1977), Bob Dixon summarized studies of reading schemes with, Girls just often are. Boys do – they invent, plan, think about their future careers and are shown as moving into the world. They are confident, outgoing and give instructions (usually to girls). (p. 2) Dixon cited improvements in two schemes, Breakthrough to Literacy (1970) and Ladybird Key Words, which between 1964 and the early 1970s had undergone a ‘facelift’, with Peter and Jane often in jeans. But Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell (1982) still noted that, despite the jeans, ‘the new Jane keeps her feet firmly on the ground and looks on in admiration as her brother climbs trees and scores goals on the football pitch’ (p. 174). Dixon similarly observed ‘still little difference, either in the text or in the illustrations, as regards stereotyped activities’ (1977: 2) and that children were still being introduced to traditionally gendered adult roles. For example, from Things We Do: Jane likes to help mummy. She wants to make cakes like mummy. ‘Let me help you, Mummy’ she says. ‘Will you let me help, please? I can make cakes like you.’ ‘Yes,’ says Mummy. ‘I will let you help me. You are a good girl.’ ‘We will make some cakes for Peter and Daddy’, says Jane. This is may be an extreme example (and Dixon makes no comment on counter-examples, beyond that ‘a very few of the books have always

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shown sex-role swapping’ (1977: 2)). But rather than the traditional gender stereotyping of the above, what is striking is the very ‘straightforward’ nature of it all: Jane likes cooking, wants to cook, asks if she can do so, her mother agrees, and they will make cakes for the male members of the family. There are no tensions of any sort3. Dixon confirms, yet again, that progress in this area is likely to be slow, and patchy rather than comprehensive.

Linguistic Analysis There exists to my knowledge one major, large-scale linguistic study of reading schemes, by Carolyn Baker and Peter Freebody (Baker and Freebody, 1989; Freebody and Baker, 1987; see also Freebody, Baker and Gay, 1987), working in New South Wales, Australia. Because of its scope, I report this at some length. Baker and Freebody put together a corpus of reading schemes for children in their first year of primary school. This consisted of 163 books used in New South Wales and/or published recently by major Australian publishing houses. There were 13 schemes, including the Ladybird Key Words scheme, and the schemes started and finished a few years later than those in the Lobban corpus. The corpus consisted of 83,838 words in total (‘tokens’), and 2,477 different words (‘types’). Baker and Freebody used quantitative analysis to establish various features of language in the corpus, both that used by the narrator and by the characters. Baker and Freebody were concerned, among other things, with ‘the nature of the social world’ in these books, because ‘they provide the child-readers with a definition of what their identities, interests, attitudes and experiences are conventionally deemed to be’ (1989: 47). They thus saw the books as potentially constitutive (a case of construction rather than just construal; see Chapter 1). To start with basic representations of ‘social actors’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1996; see also Chapter 4), a frequency count of the words boy and girl (singular and plural forms) revealed: z z

more boys than girls (ratio approximately 3:2) more occurrences of boy than boys; this was not true of girl/girls

The former was predictable, given previous Content analyses of protagonists and subordinate characters by gender (see Chapter 3). The latter was more subtle, that is, ‘a girl is equally likely to appear singly or with other

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girls, while a boy is more likely to appear as a single character’ (Baker and Freebody, 1989: 50), suggesting that boys, being characterized more as individuals than were girls, were more likely to be protagonists. In some contrast, when it came to parental terms, mother, father, and so on, ‘females are about as well represented as males, and, at the grandparental level, they are better represented’ (1989: 51). However, though this did not appear to be statistically significant, children were more likely to address their mother than their father formally (e.g. mother rather than mum or mummy) and the narrator referred to parents likewise. Baker and Freebody speculate that this can be seen as ‘marking [more] explicitly [mothers’] public identities’ (compared to fathers), something which is ‘likely to operate unnoticed in the text’ (1989: 52). This would be worth following up in future studies. When two social actors co-occur (for example, as the subject or object of a clause or sentence), a decision must be made about sequence. Freebody and Baker’s (1987) analysis of the ‘Peter and Jane’ books in the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme (about 20% of the corpus) showed a predominance of ‘male firstness’ (e.g. Peter and Jane rather than Jane and Peter). Peter was also introduced first far more often (p. 98). Adjectives are often part of noun phrases representing boys and girls as ‘social actors’, and noun phrases/‘social actors’ can be subjects or objects in a clause (‘Brave Susan crossed the river’/’We thanked brave Susan’). The adjective little was used statistically significantly more of girls (big was used rarely of anyone); only boys were described as sad, kind, brave, tiny and naughty; only girls as young, dancing and pretty. Verbs characteristically constitute part of the predicate in clauses, and are also characteristic part-realizations of ‘social action’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1995). In their consideration of transitivity (processes) (see Chapter 4), Baker and Freebody explored the represented activities of boys, girls, mothers and fathers, and in particular of ‘which verbs are male and female children, and male and female parents, uniquely subject or object?’ (1989: 53). Only boys were the subject of sentences in which they answered, shouted, thought (‘semiotic actions’), hurt or worked (‘material actions’, both expressed by transitive verbs). No verbs applied only to girls as subjects. Only boys were the objects of the material and transitive phrasal verbs come to, jump with, play with, talk to and walk with; only girls were objects of the transitive phrasal verb hold on to and ditransitive verb kiss. Baker and Freebody comment that Almost all of the verbs of which boy/s are exclusively the subject or object . . . involve energetic interaction with others. In contrast, the activities

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uniquely done by, to and with girl/s . . . clearly depict what we have called the ‘cuddle factor’ in action . . . . (1989: 54) Yet again is the range – this time, of verbs (and hence construed ‘social action’) – greater for boys than girls. Both mothers and fathers as social actors and grammatical subjects say and ask (‘semiotic actions’), go, come and look (‘material actions’). However, only fathers paint, pump, fix, drive (cars), pull, start (cars), water (gardens), light (fires), milk (cows) and draw (all ‘material actions’, and all transitive or ditransitive). Mothers also had unique ‘material actions’: dress, hug and kiss (children), bake, splash, pick (flowers), set (the table). These are also either transitive or ditransitive – but, again, ‘demonstrate first the cuddle factor, and second a fairly stereotypical presentation of the mothers’ chores in the house. Mothers are more firmly located in emotion-related activities . . . .’ (1989: 56). And, again, mothers’ range of ‘unique verbs’ was narrower. Freebody and Baker, together with Jan Gay (1987) also looked at ‘expressive words’. They focused on the transitive verb like (an ‘affective’ verb of ‘Reaction’, as opposed to ‘Action’, in van Leeuwen’s (2008, 1995) ‘social action’ categorization), and its objects. While girls tended to like animals, boys liked inanimate objects (p. 30). An examination of laugh (probably best described as ‘semiotic’ social action), revealed that Boys and animals are most frequently the instigators or targets of laughter. Boys and pets seem to perform a clown-like function significantly more than any other group. Parents and girls are virtually never laughed at . . . . (p. 33) This observation anticipates the much later findings of Sue Wharton (2005, see below) about ‘buffoon’ representations of masculinity. Most of the above concerns narration. Baker and Freebody however also looked at gender relations in the dialogic interaction of brother-and-sister pairs, or, occasionally, female and male friends. In the ‘Peter and Jane’ books (Ladybird Key Words), Peter uses I significantly more often than Jane, and Jane uses you to refer to Peter significantly more often than Peter uses you to refer to Jane (i.e. Jane and Peter both talk more about Peter) (1989: 146). In Freebody and Baker’s examination of speech acts (see Chapter 4) and turn-taking (see e.g. Myers, 2009: 502), in one story, ‘Let’s play’ (Young Australia Language Development Scheme): Across the 54 lines of text that comprise this story, both Jill and Jack ‘initiate’ topics, ideas and activities; both offer comments to the other

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which can be construed as responses to or developments of these initiations. Both Jill and Jack make announcements of their preference or intentions or feelings. They have an equal number and length of turns at talk. From this, Jack and Jill appear to be conversational equals. (p. 96) However, as we have seen, a children’s book which includes nongender-stereotypical representations often includes stereotypical ones too, all of which contribute to accumulating indirect characterization. Here: it is only Jack who issues an order (‘Put it on too’) and only Jack who comments (twice) on how Jill looks . . . . it is only Jack who makes a reformulation (from Jill’s comment on another hat that has been found): ‘It looks like a grandmother’s hat’ to ‘It is a grandmother’s hat’. (p. 96) Freebody and Baker rightly point out that these ‘may or may not be interpreted as pronouncements or assumptions of gender status’ (for some readers, gender may be relevant here, for others it may not be) and conclude: to the extent that they are so heard, gender differences, in this case male dominance, appears to be built into the conversational exchange in subtle ways, not immediately observable. (p. 96, my emphasis) Whether these features are ‘so heard’ may depend on whether there is an ongoing accumulation of features indexing male dominance. To cite Jager and Maier: ‘A single text has minimal effects . . . What is important is . . . the constant repetition of statements’ (2009: 38). In a similar study of conversational exchanges between Peter and Jane (Ladybird Key Words), Baker and Freebody identify both segments in which Peter expresses initiative and leadership and Jane is supportive, and those in which Jane ‘appears to be the leading member of the interactional pair’ (1989: 142). More detailed quantitative analysis however reveals that z

z

the speech acts of ‘stating preferences’ and ‘announcing courses of action’ are performed more by Peter (who, like Jack above, also redefines comments or initiations by Jane) statements or actions of concurrence or defence usually come from Jane (1989: 146)

All this is fairly damning. Yet one factor that Baker and Freebody seem not to have considered is age (as with Sanger’s analysis of Enid Blyton’s own Peter and Jane; see Chapter 4). There is no indication that Peter and Jane

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are twins, and in the illustrations Peter appears taller, hence is probably supposed to be older. An older sibling might be expected to behave in the way Peter does, linguistically, to a younger one. At the least, gender is being inflected by age here. The question is whether in such pairings, the male character is normally the older one, something which would facilitate normative masculine conversational dominance (see also Bronwen Davies’ (1989) challenge to the ‘consistent male-female coupling’ in children’s books per se, also again Chapter 4, on age, and below, on ‘twins’).

Useless Boys?: Modern Readers and the Oxford Reading Tree In contrast to the above, children’s books of all sorts published in the late 20th and early 21st centuries appear – and, I believe, are – more ‘progressive’ than their predecessors in their construal of gender, as a result of greater gender awareness and professional activism in the last decades of the 20th century. Of course, the construal of girls as relatively marginal and dependent may simply now be more nuanced and subtle. Modern reading schemes accordingly need to be explored through nuanced and subtle analyses, and linguistic analysis has a lot to offer here. A study of readers published after those documented in the first part of this chapter is Sue Wharton’s (2005) analysis of Stage 3 of the Oxford Reading Tree (published 1989). This scheme consisted of 18 short stories (1871 words in total). The Oxford Reading Tree was (and still is) very widely used in UK primary schools, a good reason for selecting it for analysis. The stories were about two families, one including girl and boy twins (Biff and Chip) and a younger boy (Kipper), the other including a girl of the twins’ age (Wilma) and her younger brother (Wilf). Comparing twins is highly appropriate for the study of gender representation in fiction as the ‘age differential’ (characteristic of most storybook siblings) is removed4. Working within a broad Critical discourse analytical framework (see e.g. Wodak and Meyer, 2009, and also Chapters 1 and 4), Wharton employed a two-pronged approach. One prong was a ‘macro-structural’ perspective, drawing on Michael Hoey’s (1983) Problem-Solution pattern, that is, an issue which is actively addressed and has a major effect on the following narrative; this is characteristic of children’s stories (indeed, many text types). This allowed Wharton to see patterns of ‘who typically has problems, and who typically solves them’ (p. 241). The second prong, taking the

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clause as the unit of analysis, was a focus on transitivity: participants and processes (based on Michael Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar). In a perhaps surprising lack of contrast to previous studies (given the widely-documented gender imbalances in children’s books in the 1970s and 1980s), Wharton identified 177 ‘appearances’ of human male participants and only 69 human female ones. The stories were thus largely ‘about males’, some stories being particularly masculine. Male participants were (as would be expected) ‘numerically dominant in material, verbal and relational-attributive processes’ (p. 244), that is, doing, saying and ‘being’. However, they were disproportionately dominant in the latter two (e.g. ‘ “I am a juggler,” he said.’ and ‘Kipper was a clown’.) Accordingly, female characters were relatively prominent in material processes. Proposing a relationship between socio-political change and gender representation, Wharton writes: ‘Consciousness raising in the 1970s and 1980s arguably led to an increased portrayal of females as active participants in events, but had less effect on the portrayal of processes of communication and being’ (p. 244). This may, however, in itself be nothing either to smile or cry about. As Wharton observes, ‘numerical dominance is not necessarily the same as advantageous representation’ (p. 244). As regards the Problem-Solution pattern, 11 of the 18 stories fell into this category (for example, ‘By the stream’, in which Kipper drops his teddy in the water). In 7 of the 11, the problem is ‘owned’ by an individual male (in 3, by a mixed-gender group and in only 1 by a female). But who solves the problem? Males were not good at solving their ‘own’ problems (and did so in only one story: Kipper turns a mocking picture of him by his classmates into an art project for the class). In two stories, an individual male’s problem was solved by an individual female: in one, Dad needs some strawberries, so Mum organizes this; in the second, Wilf and Wilma’s mum buy Kipper some new trunks when he loses his. But, Wharton writes, in each case, there is a twist in the tale . . . Kipper discovers that he had his own trunks with him all the time . . . Dad, now driving, reverses the car and squashes the strawberries that have been picked . . . . (p. 246) She concludes In terms of gender, then . . . there are two predominant messages associated with the Problem-Solution discourse in these stories. The first is simply that males have more problems. The second is that males are inept problem-solvers who need to rely on females for a sensible response

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to a difficult situation5. And even when they get the help they need, their continuing ineptitude may render the response useless! (p. 246) It may also retrospectively and indirectly invalidate the remedial response by the female. Relatedly, Wharton identifies 13 ‘male buffoon’ patterns in 10 of the stories (in three stories there are two such scenarios): for example, Dad driving over the strawberries and Kipper mistakenly thinking he has lost his trunks. Wharton observes that while making people laugh is in part a positive representation, it is significant that ‘as regards the adult men, these displays of “incompetence” occur in domestic settings, and not in traditional domains of male competence such as the world of paid employment’ (p. 247). Of course, given that these readers are fiction, a ‘buffoon incident’ needs to be properly contextualized ‘by looking at how these incidents are presented, commented on and reacted to in the text. What do the narrator or other characters say about them?’ (p. 247). In several cases, the male in question turns the incident into a joke (e.g. ‘ “Traffic jam!” said Dad.’ [retrieving the squashed strawberries from under the car]): a coping strategy, rather than one which suggests a need for criticism. Wharton relates this ‘buffoonery’ to identifications of the ‘bumbling assistant’ father (Sunderland, 2000) and ‘fun Daddy’ (Lazar, 2000), noting that these loosely intertextual echoes increase the power of the representations of masculinities in the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. As with all such construals, it is important not to jump to conclusions about their ‘effects’. Echoing Valerie Walkerdine (1990) and Chris Weedon (1987, 1996), Wharton writes that ‘texts may construct and offer powerful social identities which enter into the discourse “mix” to which children are exposed and with which they must interact as their own social identities develop’ (p. 238); that is, children’s books are, and need to be seen as, part of wider cultural practices.

Oxford Reading Tree: Read at Home (2005) I conclude this chapter with a follow-up of Wharton’s study, using a 2005 Oxford Reading Tree set of readers called Read at Home. This is not a longitudinal comparison: the Read at Home books are a scheme for really novice readers (from 3–7), intended to be read with parents rather than in class. Further, I am looking at slightly different things (see below). The characters, however, are the same: Mum and Dad, girl and boy twins Biff

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and Chip, younger brother Kipper, and the dog Floppy. The other named characters are Wilma and Wilf, another friend, Anneena, and Gran. There is also a male alien, Zig, and his dog, Zog. The numbers of words in each book, and the range of characters, increase as the set goes along. In terms of importance and representativeness of this data, Oxford University Press claim (on the back of each reader) that ‘Oxford Reading Tree is used in 80% of [UK] primary schools’6 – a claim which may be aimed at parents who want their children to have a head-start. This set comprises 12 books, four ‘stages’ with three books in each (1 a–c, 2 a–c, 3 a–c, 4 a–c). All are written by Cynthia Rider or Roderick Hunt and illustrated by Alex Brychta (the same team as the books in Wharton’s study). The stages, titles and ‘summaries’ (my own) are:

Table 6a

Titles in the Oxford Reading Tree ‘Read at Home’ set

Stage

Title

‘Summary’

Getting Ready to Read

Funny Fish

Family is fishing. Everyone brings up something on their line. Only Floppy catches a fish.

1b

Silly Races

Family is running ‘silly races’. They all get prizes. Dad falls in paddling pool.

1c

Dad’s Birthday

Family is celebrating Dad’s birthday with cake; Dad rides new exercise bike; shows off and falls off.

Poor Old Rabbit!

Finding, washing, mending old toy rabbit. Dad washes it in machine. Chip and Wilma sew it up.

1a

2a

Starting to Read

2b

I Can Trick a Tiger

Floppy’s dream. Meets tiger, crocodile, snake, rabbit.

2c

Floppy and the Bone

Floppy steals bone; is followed by children.

The Old Tree Stump

All family digging up old tree stump. Dad digs and initiates. All family asked to pull (Mum first). Floppy succeeds inadvertently by digging up a bone.

3b

The Real Floppy

Floppy not allowed on beach so Mum takes him for a walk. Dad and children make ‘sand Floppy’. Mum comes back with ice-creams.

3c

The Spaceship

Floppy dreams about going in a spaceship with Kipper, Zig and Zog. Floppy flies spaceship out of danger.

Looking After Gran

Gran looking after Floppy. She takes him shopping in her motorbike sidecar. Gran forgets about motorbike on beach and tide comes in. Floppy alerts her.

4b

Hungry Floppy

Family is camping; Floppy gets lost; goes into Anneena’s family’s tent. Anneena’s family brings him back.

4c

Husky Adventure

Floppy taken by magic to a snowy land. Joins a pack of huskies and pulls a sledge to take a boy to hospital.

3a

4a

Becoming a Reader

Building Confidence in Reading

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Let us start with some conventional quantitative content analysis. In general terms, most of the books are about the family, children and (usually) parents. The exceptions are interesting, however: 3c and 4c (above) have a particularly ‘masculine’ orientation, in terms of the characters involved. None of the books could be said to have a ‘feminine orientation’ (4a, which features Gran and Floppy, doesn’t really compare as there is not the same notion of people of the same sex being jointly involved in a particular endeavour7). Specific research questions are: (i) What is the ratio of male to female characters (main and supporting), that is, ‘types’? (ii) How many ‘tokens’ are there of each named character? There are three male human protagonists (Dad, Chip and Kipper), and two female human protagonists (Mum and Biff), that is, a 3:2 male: female ratio. Floppy the dog is also a protagonist and referred to as ‘he’, but I have chosen to ignore him in the count. In terms of ‘types’ of protagonists, then, Read at Home can be said to be somewhat male-dominated.

Named protagonists (types) Dad Chip Kipper Floppy Mum Biff

The male named supporting characters are Wilf and Zig; the female named supporting characters are Wilma, Anneena, and Gran.

Named supporting characters (types)8 Wilf Zig (3c only)

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Wilma Gran (4a only) Anneena (4b only) Zog (dog: no he/she) (3c only) As regards supporting characters, then, the series may seem femaledominated (with a 2:3 male: female ratio) – except that both Gran and Anneena appear in only 1 of the 12 books. Hence the need to count ‘tokens’ – the number of times each named character is mentioned by name, in both narration and dialogue. Possessive forms are included here (e.g. Anneena’s mum is another token of ‘Anneena’). We can first compare like with like, that is, peers. Biff and Chip, the twins, are named 13 and 10 times respectively, demonstrating slight female dominance. For Dad and Mum, however, the figures are a striking 28 to 12. For ‘token totals’, when we include Kipper, the younger brother, the number of male to female protagonists is 59:25 – more than twice as many for male characters, which is notable as there are not twice as many male characters (and this excludes mentions of the male dog Floppy). (Given that the male:female ‘type’ ratio for main characters is 3:2, the ‘total token’ ratio ‘should’ be something like 38:25.) This greater repetition of male names arguably represents males as the more ‘normal’ representatives of the human race, and females as more marginal, and, hence, marked. Why these token-differentials (at least in terms of the text)? The Dad/ Mum ratio of 28:12 is because of the frequency of ‘Dad-tokens’ in books 1c (Dad’s Birthday) and 3a (The Old Tree Stump) – a story about getting rid of the stump, a project initiated by Dad. The imbalance is not because Dad is consistently named more throughout the set. However, in none of the books is Mum thus foregrounded. Let us add another research question: (iii) Are the represented activities (‘social practices’) of the adult and child characters differentiated by gender? Dad is of interest here, in the different ways he is characterized indirectly. He is again an ‘initiator’ in The Real Floppy, in which he organizes the children and their friends to build a ‘sand Floppy’ on the beach. He is also something of a buffoon, echoing Wharton’s findings (above). In Silly Races he ends up in the paddling pool, and in Dad’s Birthday he falls off his new exercise bike, as a result of showing off by standing up on it. (In the final

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visual, that is, Floppy taking advantage of the confusion to run off with the birthday cake, Dad, like the children (but unlike Mum) is shown grinning.)

Figure 6.1 Visual representation of Dad in Silly Races by Roderick Hunt illustrated by Alex Brychta © Alex Brychta, used by permission of Oxford University Press

Figure 6.2 Visual representation of Dad in Dad’s Birthday by Roderick Hunt illustrated by Alex Brychta © Alex Brychta, used by permission of Oxford University Press

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Although she is fully involved, and no more domestically portrayed than Dad (see below), Mum is neither a buffoon or an initiator. She is less prominent, and less interesting. In The Real Floppy, she just helpfully offers to take Floppy for a walk, as he is not allowed on the beach, that is, she is a problem-solver, again echoing Wharton’s findings. Yet Read at Home definitely includes progressive features. As regards the represented activities, none is really ‘gender-exclusive’. While five of the books concern only or mainly Floppy (2b, 2c, 3c, 4c) or Floppy and Gran (4a), several involve the whole family in the same way, for example, fishing (1a), running races in the garden (1b), camping (4b) – although in a further three, their involvement is not exactly the same: celebrating Dad’s birthday (1c), digging up the tree stump (3a), and making the ‘sand Floppy’ (3c). The representation of domestic tasks is interesting too. Dad started the digging up of the tree stump. Mum may have made Dad’s birthday cake, although we are neither told or shown that this is so (note that it is impossible to discuss the content of illustrated books without recourse to visuals, although, for clarity, I discuss ‘Visual analysis’ below). This is however where traditional gender representations end. Mum is shown doing no other domestic tasks. In Hungry Floppy, she takes an active part in putting up the tent (more actively and competently than Dad, according to the visuals). And when in Poor Old Rabbit, the old toy is brought inside, ‘Dad washed it’ (Dad is pictured by the washing machine with the detergent), and ‘Chip and Wilma mended it’ (and it is Chip who is pictured sewing on the rabbit’s ear, while Wilma holds it). Also interesting and rather subtle are the represented child raising/childcare arrangements. There is no suggestion that Dad is the main breadwinner. Mum and Dad are both fully involved in all the family ‘fun’ activities, and, as far as we can tell, childcare. In Poor Old Rabbit, we are told that ‘Kipper took it [the rabbit] to Mum’, but Dad is at least looking out through the window, having looked up from his newspaper to see what is going on. In I Can Trick a Tiger, which starts with a fancy dress party, it is Dad who is shown checking on the children, again through a window (but with Mum nowhere in sight). In Husky Adventure, yet again it is Dad checking on the children, again through a window. Lastly, although she is not a protagonist, it is perhaps worth mentioning Gran and her motorbike (4a), since this seems to flout convention in terms of both gender and age9.

Linguistic Analysis A content analysis of these books is thus in part quite encouraging (certainly in relation to the findings of previous studies). But are the findings

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supported by a linguistic analysis? In contrast to the linguistic analysis of fairy tales in Chapter 5, which was concerned with the characters’ dialogue, I first linguistically analyse an aspect of the narration in these children’s readers, that is, transitivity, in particular processes (see above, also Chapter 4). This includes whether ‘material’ and ‘semiotic’ verbs (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1995) can take an object (i.e. whether, which and whose ‘social action’ has an effect on the world, what van Leeuwen calls ‘transactivity’). A transitive verb associated with a participant (or ‘social actor’) who is represented grammatically as a subject in a clause represents that participant’s (here, character’s) actions having such an effect (e.g. throw, prod); an intransitive verb (e.g. sing, run) does not (for examples of findings of the relationship between transitive verbs and gender, see Talbot, 1995, and again Chapter 4). The research question then is: (iv) Are transitive verbs associated equally with male and female ‘social actors’ (characters) as subjects of clauses? Secondly, I look at the dialogue. One relevant feature here is the lexis of the ‘reporting clause’ (e.g. he said, she told), although, as indicated, little diversity can be expected in books which are part of reading schemes for beginners! Secondly, I look at what is said, both amount and type of talk. Including a consideration of mood, I focus on imperatives as forms of directives, since even a quick skim of these readers points to the prevalence of these. The research questions here are: (v) Does the amount of talk vary with gender? (vi) Do ‘reporting clauses’ vary with gender? (vii) Does use of directives vary with gender? (a) Transactivity Linguistic categories are rarely completely clear. Here, many verbs are ditransitive, in that they can be used with or without a direct object. The verb push, for example, might be seen as transitive (e.g. push a car), but of course we can complain that someone is ‘really pushing now’. In the analysis of transactivity in this reading scheme, I have treated as transitive any material verbs (including phrasal verbs) which are used transitively here (i.e. which are followed by a direct object) and which follow either names of human characters or their pronominals. I include narration only (dialogue is addressed below). I have included transactive actions shared by two characters, but not by more10. The results are shown in Table 6b.

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Table 6b Transactivity Male characters

Female characters

Dad got (a boot) got (a duck) got on (the bike) washed (it) pulled [the old stump] called (mum) called (Biff)

Mum got (a bucket) got (an apple) pulled [the old stump] x 3

Chip got (an octopus) got (an orange) [with Biff] mended (it) [with Wilma]

Biff got (a crab) got (an orange) [with Biff] pulled [the old stump]

Kipper got (a hat) got (a banana) took (it) brushed (it) bumped (heads)

Gran took (Floppy) [for walks] threw (sticks) threw (balls) put on (her crash helmet) parked (the motorbike) pushed (her motorbike)

The words in brackets are the object of the transitive verb in question (square brackets when this is implicit). Of course, the numbers are small, and the repetition and recycling of words inherent in readers is clearly relevant here. Again, however, the twins Biff and Chip are broadly comparable. Dad again is more prominent than Mum, this time meaning that his actions have more of an impact on the world than hers do. Gran has a respectable number, but these are all in ‘Looking After Gran’, which is almost entirely about her and Floppy. (b) Dialogue As shown in previous chapters, of interest in dialogue are both the words used, and potentially a ‘reporting clause’ including a semiotic verb (e.g. said), which together constitute ‘speech representation’ (see Chapter 4). In Read at Home, usually the characters’ words are in Direct speech and in the same sentence as a reporting clause, for example, ‘ “Go on, Dad,” said Biff.’ In five cases however a reporting clause comes between two utterances by the same character, for example, ‘ “Look at this rabbit,” said Kipper. “Nobody wants it.” ’ (Both types are in this analysis counted as one ‘case’ of talk.) Also of interest is dialogue which is not in Direct speech (DS).

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Table 6c Speech and reporting clauses Character

Cases of talk with reporting clauses

Books

Reporting clauses

Dad

15

3a, 3b, 4a, 4b

said (13) called (2)

Mum

3

2a, 3b

said (3)

Chip

4

1c, 2c, 3a, 3b

said (4)

Biff

6

1c, 2c, 3b, 4b

said (6)

Kipper

12

1c, 2a, 3b, 3c, 4c

said (11), called (1)

Gran

6

4a

said (5), shouted (1)

Cases of Talk and Reporting Clauses The distribution of talk and reporting clauses by character is shown in Table 6c. (There is no dialogue in Books 1a or 1b.) The reporting clauses are not diverse. They consist largely of said, with the occasional called (Dad, Kipper) and one case of shouted (Gran)11. Most saliently, Dad is given the most ‘cases’ of speech – in particular, five times as many as Mum. Clearly, a character who talks themselves (and is not just talked about by a narrator) is being characterized and is likely to come across as more rounded, more interesting and assertive than one who talks much less. Two of Dad’s cases, those with called, are not in Direct speech (DS). These are (from Book 3a, ‘The Old Tree Stump’): Dad called Mum to help. Dad called Biff. Using the principle that a non-finite verb in the reported clause signals Indirect speech (IS)12, we can categorize the former as IS and the latter as a ‘Narrator’s Report of a Speech Act’ (NRSA). Arguably, not only the almost unique use of called, but also the different type of speech representation, add to Dad’s individuality. Biff talks a little more than her twin brother Chip. Their younger brother Kipper however has far more cases than either – 12, nearly as many as Dad, pointing to male dominance of talk across the set.

What Is Said, and How? Let us have a look at what is said, and how, focussing on the many imperatives (mood). These may be deemed (by publishers, writers and educationalists) syntactically suitable forms for a set of first readers.

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As indicated above, Dad’s 15 ‘cases of talk’ include five with a further clause after the reporting clause (e.g. ‘I’ll pull as well,’ said Dad. ‘When I yell pull . . . PULL!’), giving a total of 20 ‘sentences’. Of these 20, 7 are clear imperatives: (i) Come on, then. (ii) When I shout pull . . . PULL! (iii) When I yell pull . . . PULL! (iv) Stop! (v) Look at that. (vi) Look after Floppy (vii) Stay and have some of our cake There is also an imperative with a subject: (viii)

You pull it

a phrasal imperative: (ix)

Never mind

two (non-imperative) directives: (x) Let’s give Mum a surprise. (xi) Now let’s pat it flat And three uses of the transitive verb want, with I (xii) When I say pull . . . I want you to PULL! (xiii) I want you to pull. (xiv) When I shout pull . . . I want you to pull. These three do not contain imperatives, but nevertheless function as directives. Dad’s remaining six cases of talk (including the two cases of non-Direct Speech) similarly suggest an autonomous social actor: (xv)

That old stump has to go. [he is able to make this decision, alone.] (xvi) I’ll push it. [he is able to do this, and to decide to do it] (xvii) Dad called Mum to help. [he feels entitled to call her] (xviii) Dad called Biff. [as above]

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(xix) I’ll pull as well. (xx) Dogs can’t go on the sand. [This edict does not come from Dad, but he is ‘re-voicing’ it, apparently accepting and recycling its authority.] Of course, there is little or no mitigation because these books are first readers. Nevertheless, the extent of Dad’s directives (and related talk) is striking, as such talk is simply not characteristic of the other characters. Mum says: Poor old rabbit Poor Floppy. I’ll take him [Floppy] for a walk. z A Floppy made of sand! z

z

z

Chip says Good old Floppy! And his ears. z Go on, Dad z Drop the bone!

z

z

Chip’s last two here are indeed imperatives, but consider the co-text: ‘Go on, Dad’ is spoken while Dad is showing off on his new exercise bike (and functions as much as a cheer rather than an instruction), and ‘Drop the bone!’ is of course addressed to Floppy. Biff’s utterances are slightly more directive than her twin’s: Let’s play here. Go on, Dad z Stop! Stop! z Let’s make his head. z Surprise! Surprise! What a surprise to see you! z

z

z

The first of these is said when the group gets to the beach. However, there is no indication (in the written text or visuals) that this suggestion actually makes any difference to what Biff’s family and friends actually do. ‘Go on, Dad’ compares with Chip’s identical utterance above, and ‘Stop! Stop!’ is similarly addressed to Floppy. ‘Let’s make his head’ is one of four suggestions (made by four of the children) when making the sand Floppy – a project proposed by Dad.

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Kipper’s 16 ‘cases of talk’ include five imperatives: Look at this rabbit. z Go on, Dad. z And make his tail. z Go on, Floppy! Pull! Come and pull my sled, Floppy. z

z

While the first of these is to his mother, the last two are to Floppy, and the second and third are equivalents of Biff’s and Chip’s, above. Clearly, then, Dad is represented as reigning supreme in making his own decisions about what he wants to do, and getting others to do things (or at least feeling entitled to do so; note that (vi) and (vii) above are directed to Gran and the children’s friend Anneena respectively). While this representation may be unsurprising in relation to his children (and Aneena), it is more surprising in relation to Mum.

A Brief Look at the Visuals I do not have the scope here to carry out a proper semiotic analysis of Read at Home (but see Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, 2001, also Chapter 3). However, some informal observations are in order, given that illustrations are such a key part of early readers13. Of the 12 covers of Read at Home, a striking 6 (1a, 2b, 2c, 3b, 4b, 4c) feature Floppy (and no humans). One (3c) features Floppy in the spaceship with Kipper and Zog, another (4a) Floppy in the sidecar of Gran’s motorbike (with Gran driving). Of the remaining 4, 3 (1b, 2a, 3a) feature Kipper and 1 (1c) features Dad. This means that Gran is the only female represented on the 12 covers: there is no trace of protagonists Mum or Biff (or, it has to be said, Chip). (In some contrast, the cover on the ‘Read at Home Handbook’, Helping Your Child to Read, rather stereotypically features Mum reading to Kipper, with Biff and Floppy looking on and listening.) Quantitatively, the frequency of representation in the visuals inside the books (some of which are single but most double-page spreads) can be calculated in different ways. In Table 6d I show simple frequencies of appearance of the protagonists across the series (these must include the face, minimally the eyes), and, secondly, frequencies of ‘solo’ appearance (i.e. ‘solo’ excluding being accompanied by Floppy and/or a non-facial

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Quantitative representation in the visuals

Protagonist

Frequency of appearances in visuals

Frequency of ‘sole’ appearances in visuals

Kipper

72

4

Biff

65

0

Chip

63

1

Dad

51

1

Mum

44

0

Gran

10

9

body part of one of the other characters (such as a foot), and/or a ‘random’ character (such as an incidental shop assistant)). Given that the books are aimed at teaching young children to read, the distribution in the second column seems appropriate, and it would be petty to quibble about the small differences in gender representation here. The third column is a little more worrying, since only Mum and Biff are never visually construed ‘alone’. Of the ‘immediate family’, again Kipper steals the show (presumably because he is around the same age as the children these readers are aimed at). Technically Gran has the most ‘solo’ appearances, but these are in fact all with Floppy (and all in the same book). I will finish with a few qualitative comments, in note form, on some of the illustrations, to show the (surprising!) complexity surrounding this first set of readers: Table 6e

Some visuals of note

Title

Visuals

1a

Funny Fish

Dad bigger than Mum on pp. 15, 16, 19. Mum at end of line on p.4. Double page for Dad fishing! (pp. 14, 15), cf. other human members of the family

1c

Dad’s Birthday

Dad and most of children smiling when Floppy runs away with the cake; Mum looking very cross (p. 20)

2a

Poor Old Rabbit!

All five children playing football together (p. 5) Chip sewing (p. 17)

2b

I Can Trick a Tiger

Dad looking in through the window at children’s party (no sign of Mum) (p. 4)

3a

The Old Tree Stump All family members of equal size and equally foregrounded (pp. 5–17, 20)

3b

The Real Floppy

Stereotypical family photo at end (Dad’s arm round Mum, Mum leaning in towards Dad) (p. 20)

4a

Looking After Gran

Dad/Mum at beginning and end (pp. 5, 28)

4b

Hungry Floppy

Both mum and dad put tent up; Mum not in secondary role (p. 6). Male camper cooking (p. 8)

4c

Husky Adventure

Dad ‘child-minding’ (p. 4). Biff’s bedroom not ‘girly’ (p. 6)

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As regards clothing, there is not a skirt as such to be seen. Mum and Biff wear trousers all the time (and shorts on the beach). Anneena’s mum (not a ‘named character’) is also pictured wearing cropped trousers. The only possible exception is Anneena herself, who is pictured wearing a short skirt over her jeans (perhaps reflecting 2005 fashion). The authors have clearly tried to be as ‘21st century’ as possible here.

Conclusion Much gender stereotyping has disappeared in the Read at Home (2005) books for new readers. At the same time, male dominance is still in evidence, in terms of content, prominence, language use and indirect characterization generally. Biff may be slightly more prominent and assertive than her twin brother Chip, but when ‘paired’ with Mum against Dad and both her brothers, masculinity still remains to the fore. The big disappointment is Mum, who in a range of content, linguistic and visual ways remains a pale and uninteresting shadow of Dad. The ‘buffoon masculinity’ identified by Wharton (2005) in an earlier Oxford Reading Tree series, with broadly the same characters, was less evident in this set (though it did appear in ‘Silly Races’ and ‘Dad’s Birthday’). Instead, we have a clear representation of Dad as both autonomous and as actively guiding the actions of others (including Mum), through his language use. Different aspects of what might be called ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (e.g. Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005) may thus still be evident in sets of modern school readers.

Chapter 7

Stories Featuring Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families (written with Mark McGlashan)

It was raining, that day, when I got out of bed. The grass was all wet, so I stayed in and read. Then right after lunch, when the sun lit the sky, We went off to the park, my two moms and I. Two Moms, The Zark, and Me (Johnny Valentine)

Gay relationships are now familiar in novels for adults and, more recently, teenagers. Kiss (2007), by popular British author Jacqueline Wilson, who writes fiction for young and older children which features divorced parents, children with absent parents and parents with mental health problems1, features a gay male teenage protagonist called Carl. Gay relationships are now often featured in theatre, film and TV soap operas. There is as well a significant amount of academic work on language and sexuality, with a focus on female and/or male homosexuality (e.g. Baker, 2008a; Koller, 2008; Morrish and Sauntson, 2007, Cameron and Kulick, 2003). Sexuality is increasingly seen as intricately interwoven with gender. Paul Baker (2008a) reminds us that traditionally in heterosexual relations, men were supposed to ‘hunt’ and women to wait (or perhaps lure), and in sexual intercourse men were expected to be more physically active. ‘Performing gender’ (see e.g. Butler, 1999, 1990) in a non-transgressive way in most contexts means ‘performing heterosexuality’. Raewyn Connell (1995) claims that ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is always heterosexual, while homosexual identities are accordingly subordinated, and ‘a performance of heterosexuality must also be in some sense a performance of gender, because heterosexuality requires gender differentiation’ (Cameron and Kulick, 2003: 72).

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The question of the relationship between gender and heteronormativity (basically, the assumption of universal heterosexual desire, behaviour and identity; see Warner, 1993; Baker, 2008a) is a complex one. Wendy Hollway (1984) sees (hetero)sexuality as shaping gender, ‘based as [heterosexual relations] are on the biological difference which overdetermines individuals’ positioning, both historically and in present interaction’ (1984: 260; but Paul McIlvenny (2002) takes a different view; see also Gatens, 1998). This largely philosophical question may not be resolvable empirically. Moving from theory to social practice, many gay couples live together with one or more children2. Such children may be the biological child of one member of the couple (and a gay woman may be the genetic or birth mother). In the UK, observation suggests that there may be more two-Mum couples than two-Dad couples. This raises interesting questions of representation of such families in children’s fiction. Gay relationships are very largely absent from young children’s fiction, in that construed parents are frequently an (apparently) heterosexual couple. This is despite a range of other social issues, including multiculturalism, now being common in books for young children, construed in both text and visuals. Just as the advent of non-sexist, anti-sexist and feminist books since the 1970s and 80s (see Chapter 3) can be associated with the second wave of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement, the growth and availability of children’s books depicting gay parents can similarly be associated with social movements and developments. In the 1970s the new ‘Gay Liberation’ Movement was closely associated with the new ‘Women’s Liberation’ Movement. The first book depicting gay parents, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (see below), was published in 1983. However, also in the early 1980s, the world witnessed the beginning of AIDS, and various tabloid UK newspapers blamed gay men for the spread of the HIV virus (see Paul Baker, 2005). Relating changes in gay men’s personal adverts to wider sociocultural change, Baker also notes that negative attitudes towards homosexuality rose between 1983 and 1987 (British Social Attitudes survey). In 1988 came the ‘notoriously homophobic’ (Morrish, 2002) Section 28 of the local Government Act, 1988. This stated that a local authority (which is responsible for the provision of state education) ‘shall not’: a. intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality b. promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship

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This shaped the range of books used in UK state schools: dependent on government funding, such schools were clearly dissuaded from stocking books in their libraries which featured gay families, characters or themes. The word promote was ambiguous: while including in a school library a storybook in which both parents in a family are women is not, strictly speaking, ‘promoting’ homosexuality, it could have be seen as doing precisely this. Section 28 was repealed in 2000 in Scotland, and in 2003 in the rest of the UK, but it may have left a legacy in terms of the availability of and openness to such stories. Most children’s books featuring homosexuality are produced by small publishers (see below) and, as far as we know, to date, no major publishers have produced a text of this kind for the current children’s book market. Elizabeth Rowell comments that Historically, homosexuals have been one of the most maligned subgroups in society. Incidents of violence and prejudice as well as negative portrayals of gays and lesbians continue [. . .] These realities directly influence the availability of materials and their use in early childhood settings. (2007: 1) Rowell (2007) is in fact the only article we have found on children’s books about gay and lesbian families, and she is concerned with recommending particular books for classroom use, rather than analysing them. There have been a few attempts to introduce texts such as King & King, And Tango Makes Three and Spacegirl Pukes (see below) into both UK and US curricula and libraries – on the grounds that, as Rowell (2007) notes, ‘children from same-sex parent families [then] feel that their families are included and other children learn about and gain respect and acceptance for other types of families.’ In her foreword to Judith Snow’s (2005) How it Feels to Have a Gay or Lesbian Parent, Felicia Park-Rogers shows that the negativity and homophobia which lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) families and their children frequently face can be incurred not only institutionally through ‘the law’, or as a result of ‘discriminatory public policy’, but also personally, from peers, teachers or extended family members. How it Feels . . . highlights several extremely personal accounts of the challenges children of gay parents face. Two key recurring themes in these testimonials are the lack of understanding other people had/have of their family make-up, and fear of people finding out about their parents’ sexual orientation. However, these attempts have resulted in considerable backlash from parents (Asthana 2007; Frank 2007) and religious groups (Asthana, 2007;

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see also Clark, 2008; Frank, 2007; Jan and Vaznis, 2006; Johnston, 2006; Bösche, 2000) and in the United States there have been federal lawsuits and organized campaigns. Steven Frank (2007) wrote: ‘One of the fiercest battles over gay visibility today is unfolding in the seemingly innocent arena of children’s picture books’. Particular titles have also made the headlines. And Tango Makes Three, a book based on fact (see Table 7a), was in 2008 declared the most ‘frequently challenged book’ by the American Library Association (Flood, 2009a); it has since, ironically, become a bestseller (Flood, 2009b). Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin, a story of a girl who lives with her gay father and his partner (again see Table 1), appears to have been a milestone on the road to the enforcement of the UK’s Section 28 after former Conservative MP David Wilshire read the book at a teaching centre (Walker, 2009)3. What are children’s books depicting homosexuality like? Rowell claimed that Typically, gay-friendly picture books, like books depicting heterosexual families, simply capture everyday family life [. . .] The fact that some characters are homosexual is evident but not the main focus of the story. (2007: 2) This does not however acknowledge the diversity within this small genre (including diversity of strategies to promote understanding and positive images of two-Mum and two-Dad families), as we show below. The representation of sexual identity (gay, straight or something else) shares many of the same issues as the representation of gender, for example, who is included, how often and how. Our broad initial research questions for this study were: z z

How are gay women, men and families represented in two-Mum and two-Dad books written for young children? Does the representation of two-Mum couples differ from that of two-Dad couples?

By ‘family’ we mean a gay adult couple and at least one child, for whom they are care-providers (we recognize that other definitions are possible). The study does not aim to compare the texts with any other genre of children’s books, but to look solely at the dataset as an independent small corpus. We use a combination of content analysis, visual analysis and linguistic analysis.

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Data We had a feeling that there would not be many two-Mum and two-Dad picture books in existence, and wanted our small corpus to ideally include all those in or out-of print, to ensure that our data was completely representative. We therefore conducted a thorough search for titles, including consulting members of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA). Our three essential criteria were books: z z z

aiming at young children depicting same-sex couples (whose depiction relates to the story and plot) depicting a child or children for whom these parents permanently care (exceptions were King and King and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, but see Table 7a).

This gave us 25 books in English (29 stories, one book being a collection). All appeared to be about promoting acceptance, understanding and/or celebration of two-Mum or two-Dad families, with an emphasis on what they had in common with families headed by heterosexual parents. Only eight of these books were ever published outside of the United States: one in Canada, five in the United Kingdom (including Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, which was first published in Denmark), and the King & King pair originate from the Netherlands. The difficulty we had acquiring them was striking. Most were bought online from the usual large international retailer (almost all had to be shipped from the United States); some others could not be shipped overseas; others were prohibitively expensive; several are now out-of-print. The most common publisher is the US-based Alyson Books4, one of whose specialities is the ‘Alyson Wonderland’ group of LGBT books aimed at children. Only three (One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads, Spacegirl Pukes, Asha’s Mums) were bought in the UK over the counter, that is, from an independently-run alternative bookshop in a major city (Liverpool). Only one, And Tango Makes Three, was found in our local (Lancaster) public library (and then with some difficulty). The books, with a brief description of the stories, are indicated in Tables 7a and 7b. (See Bibliography (3) for a list of other books which were unavailable, too expensive, or which we became aware of too late in the day.) Numerically, the two-Mum stories outweighed the two-Dad stories by 19 to 10. But note also the absence of books of either sort in the years 1984 to 19885, which is when the AIDS scare, and association of AIDS with gay men, reached its peak (and see also below).

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families Table 7a

147

The two-Mum texts

Year Title [author]

Narrative

1

1989 Heather Has Two Mommies (2nd ed. 2000) [Lesléa Newman]

Heather goes to day care and is told a story featuring a daddy. She gets upset because she feels different from the children who have a daddy.

2

1990 Asha’s Mums Asha’s teacher doesn’t believe that Asha has two mums and [Rosamund Elwin Asha is scared she might not get permission to go to the & Michelle Paulse] science centre.

3

1991 Dragon Sense [Johnny Valentine]

From the collection The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans And Other Stories. Peter lives with his book-keeper mother and her sorcerer ‘friend’ Daniela. Peter needs to trick the dragon so he can steal his jewels to pay the rent.

4

1991 Gloria goes to Gay Pride [Lesléa Newman]

Gloria and her two mums prepare for, and march in, the annual gay pride parade.

5

1991 The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans [Johnny Valentine]

From The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans . . . . . Anna has two mothers – Judith and Marian. The duke decrees that nobody can eat jellybeans, read books or have ‘too many mothers or fathers’. Anna finds that 12 of her friends don’t have the ‘right’ parents.

6

1991 The Eaglerider [Johnny Valentine]

From The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans . . . . . Scarlett wants to be an Eaglerider, but only boys are allowed. Her mother tells Scarlett how when she was young she fell in love with another woman but had to dress like a man so people wouldn’t guess their secret, so Scarlett could do the same.

7

1991 The Ogre’s Boots [Johnny Valentine]

From The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans . . . . . Little Jenny and her big brother Dan live with their two mothers, Barbara and Josie. The Ogre steals mother Josie and Jenny goes to rescue her and kills the ogre.

8

1993 Two Moms, The Zark, and Me

Rhyming picture book. A boy (narrator) goes to the zoo with his two moms. When he gets lost the conservative McFinks don’t believe he has two moms so try to find him an ‘okay’ family to live with. The Zark helps the boy find his moms.

9

1994 A Beach Party with Alexis [Sarita JohnsonCalvo]

A colouring activity book written from the perspective of the child. Alexis and her two mums have a beach party with their friends.

10

2002 Felicia’s Favourite Story [Lesléa Newman]

Felicia is going to bed and has her mums tell her the story of how she was adopted.

11

2004 Molly’s Family [Nancy Garden]

Molly joins other children in drawing pictures of their families. They don’t believe she can have both a mommy and mama, but her teacher and parents explain that she can. (Continued)

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

148 Table 7a

(Cont’d)

Year Title [author]

Narrative

12

2004 The Daddy Machine (1st ed. 1992) [Johnny Valentine]

Two gay mums give their children a present to play with while they go shopping. The children make a ‘daddy machine’, and end up with more dads than they had expected. While the other daddies are made to return to the machine, daddies 1 and 2 decide to rent a house together next door.

13

2005 Emma and Meesha My Boy: a two-mom story [Kaitlyn Considine]

Emma learns how to be nice to her cat; her two mums teach her.

14

2005 Mom and Mum are getting Married! [Ken Settering]

Rosie wants to be a flowergirl at her mom and mum’s wedding but she has trouble convincing them.

15

2005 Spacegirl Pukes [Katy Watson]

Spacegirl and her mummies get ill before she is supposed to go into space.

16

2006 The Different Dragon [Jennifer Bryan]

Go-ma, one of Noah’s two mothers, reads him a bedtime story about a magical world where Noah meets a dragon who would rather be nice than fierce all the time.

17

2007 Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums [Hedi Argent]

Josh and Jaz go to school and are told to draw a family tree, but get upset. As they don’t have a dad, they think they’re different from the other children. Their mummies tell them the story of how they were adopted.

18

2007 If I had a Hundred Mummies [Vanda Carter]

At bedtime a girl with two mummies wonders what it would be like to have a hundred mummies. She decides she is happy with the two she already has.

19

2009 Mommy, Mama, and Me [Lesléa Newman]

Board book. Mommy and mama and their child participate in different activities. The sex of the child is not clear.

Table 7b The two-Dad texts Year

Title [author]

Narrative

1

1983

Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin [Susanne Bösche]

The day-to-day events of Jenny’s weekend with her parents, including an encounter with homophobia, in the form of a photographic diary.

2

1991

Daddy’s Roommate (2nd ed. 2000) [Michael Willhoite]

A simple picture book, narrated from a child’s point of view. It talks about daily experiences and tasks that the child, his father, and his father’s boyfriend carry out.

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families

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3

1991

The Frog Prince [Johnny Valentine]

From The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans . . . . A story of Nicolas, a boy with two fathers, who kisses a frog. The frog turns out to be a prince called Jesse who gets adopted by Nicolas’ dads.

4

1992

The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones [Forman Brown]

A rhyming picture book which details the living arrangements of Jeff (the son). Jeff’s friends are jealous because they only have one busy dad who doesn’t do as much with them as Jeff’s dads do.

5

2000

King & King [Linda de Haan & Stern Nijland]

The queen wants her son to marry a princess so that he can take over as king, but he falls in love with a prince and they take over as King & King. (N.B. King & King features no child characters. However, its portrayal of marriage, and its sequel King & King & Family (see below) justify its inclusion in the data.)

6

2004

King & King & Family King & King go on their honeymoon in the jungle. They [Linda de Haan & return home with a princess hidden in their luggage and Stern Nÿland] adopt her.

7

2004

One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads [Johnny Valentine]

8

2005

And Tango Makes Three The story of Roy and Silo, a real couple of male chinstrap [Justin Richardson penguins in a New York zoo who foster a baby penguin and Peter Parnell] called Tango.

9

2008

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding [Sarah Brannen]

Uncle Bobby is getting married and niece Chloe doesn’t want to lose her favourite uncle because they always have a wonderful time together. She ends up with two favourite uncles.

10 2009

Daddy, Dada, and Me [Lesléa Newman]

Board book. Daddy and Dada and their child participate in different activities. Comparable to Mommy, Mama and Me . . . above; the sex of the child is unclear.

A rhyming picture book dealing with different types of fathers. Questions are asked by the narrator to ‘Lou’, a boy who has two blue dads.

Further Research Questions Even an initial look at the books evidenced their diversity. In particular, gay themes were addressed in very different ways, both ideologically/strategically and in terms of narrative approach (i.e. whether the stories are based on ‘realism’ or fantasy). We therefore drew up the following, more specific, research questions: (i) What narrative approaches are adopted to promote acceptance and understanding and/or celebration of families with same-sex parents? As regards the previous broad research question ‘Does the representation of two-Mum couples differ from that of two-Dad couples?’, and given

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that being gay involves a sexual element, whether of desire, identity and/or practice (Cameron and Kulick, 2006, 2003), we were interested in whether and how physical contact between the gay parents would be represented. This gave us the research question: (ii) Are two-Dad couples and two-Mum couples represented differently with specific reference to physical contact? This again raises questions of gender as well as sexuality. We wanted to know which parents, if either, were more likely to be represented as displaying overt signs of a physical or sexual relationship. The third specific research question was: (iii) What textual strategies are adopted to promote acceptance, understanding and/or celebration of families with same-sex parents? Here we were interested inter alia in whether gay sexuality was addressed explicitly, and, if so, how. This was clearly related to RQ (ii).

Content Analysis, Linguistic Analysis, Visual Analysis Quantitative content analysis (see Chapter 3) provided a sound basis and context for subsequent linguistic analysis. Linguistic and visual analyses were carried out alongside the content analysis. For example, we quantified the number of times characters were represented as making physical contact (including in the visuals), which was then explored linguistically through close analysis of the relevant written text. As shown above (Tables 7a and 7b), the data consisted of 10 stories about Dads (or, strictly, 9 about Dads and 1 about Uncles), and 19 about Mums. This imbalance may suggest that two-Mum households are less socially transgressive (and less threatening) than two-Dad households (and the books hence more marketable?) Or is it that the (presumed) greater number of two-Mum than two-Dad families simply creates a set of market forces in itself? It may also be that the topic of gay fathers is more threatening to a traditional notion of masculinity than is the topic of gay mothers to femininity. Further, if mothers are seen as ‘natural’ carers, they may be relatively easy to represent in this role; gay men who are fathers may accordingly be more difficult to represent (making this as much an issue of gender as of sexuality).

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families

151

Another interesting pattern is the sex of the child (or, in just five cases, children – always one girl, one boy6). The most frequent combination by far was two-Mum books which feature daughters (14), followed by two-Mum books with sons (6), two-Dad books with sons (4) and two-Dad books with daughters (3). (The texts Mummy, Mama and Me and Daddy, Papa and Me do not identify the sex of the children.) Of the three two-Dad books with daughters, one is the fantasy King & King and Family, one is Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, and the third is the ‘notorious’ Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin. This is interesting, but a little mysterious: although there may be more two-Mum than two-Dad families in reality, two-Mum families (one might think) are as likely to have sons as daughters. Perhaps a gay mother is seen as a less problematic ‘role model’ for a daughter than a gay father? Of the five cases where there are two children, four are two-Mum stories; only The Frog Prince is a two-Dad story.

Initial Linguistic Analysis: Names and Book Titles Names constitute part of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008, 1996) ‘social actor’ network (see Chapter 4). Names in these stories occur within clauses (as subject or object). Having two parents of the same sex raises the question of how these parents are addressed by the child and/or referred to by the narrator to differentiate them (something that may be influenced in the story by the role of and emphasis placed on biological parenthood). We are using the term ‘name’ broadly; van Leeuwen (2008: 40) uses ‘nomination’ to refer to an actual name (a person’s ‘unique identity’) and ‘categorization’ to mean ‘identities and functions they share with others’ (e.g. Mum/ Mom/Dad/Daddy). The ‘names’ (used by narrators and characters in dialogue alike) are7: Table 7c

Names of the Mums and Dads

Two-Mum books

Two-Dad books

Mama and Mommy

Blue Dads

Mama Katie and Mama Jane

Dad and Frank

Mama Linda and Mama Nessa

Daddy and Papa

Mama Rose and Mama Grace

Eric and Martin

Mommy and Mama Lu

Father and Karl

Mom and Mum

King and King (x2) (Continued)

152

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction Table 7c (Cont’d) Two-Mum books

Two-Dad books

Momma and Go-Ma

Pete and Joe

Mommy and Mama

Roy and Silo

Mother Marian and Mother Judith

Uncle Bobby and Jamie

Mother Barbara and Mother Josie Mother and Daniella Mum Alice and Mum Sara Mummy Sue and Mummy Fran Mummy Neenee and Mummy Loula Sarita and Sandy

For the two Mums, the recurring prototypical pattern is ‘categorization + nomination’: some variation of ‘Mum’, usually followed by a proper noun: a first name (‘informal nomination’).There is little indication which of the mums, if either, is the biological or birth mother (the one exception is ‘Mother and Daniella’). For the two-Dad stories, in contrast, ‘paternal relationship’ categorization words (Dad, Father) are used only four times (less than half), and only once in a parallel way (Daddy and Papa). It is nomination that is prototypical: the Dads’ first names alone (Roy, Silo, Frank, Eric, Martin, Karl, Pete, Joe) – Frank and Karl perhaps indicating non-biological Dads. These differences are striking. (Table 7d, showing book titles which include names of the adult characters, supports this.) It seems problematic for even a biological Dad to be called some variant of ‘Dad + first name’ and for a non-biological Dad to be addressed as a parent (by implication, a caregiver, a role usually seen as unproblematic for mums). Book titles, a rather different form of naming, often incorporate the names of the child(ren) concerned, and/or the Mums/Dads. Some explicitly or implicitly index gay families (or gay sexuality); those which do, we suggest, are. Of the 29 stories, then, 12, that is, a little under half, have titles which index the gay nature of the content, in about the same proportion for the two-Dad and two-Mum books. Four of the eight two-Mum stories which do this (Heather Has Two Mommies, Josh and Jaz have Three Mums, Asha’s Mums and Mom and Mum are Getting Married) do so explicitly, using ‘categorization’, and, in three of these cases, a complete declarative clause. However,

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families Table 7d

153

Titles which explicitly or implicitly index ‘gay-parent families’

Two-Mum Titles

Two-Dad Titles

Asha’s Mums

Daddy, Papa, and Me

Emma and Meesha My Boy: a two-mom story

Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin

Gloria goes to Gay Pride

One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads [?]

Heather Has Two Mommies

Daddy’s Roommate [?]

Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums Mom and Mum are Getting Married Mommy, Mama, and Me Two Moms, The Zark, and Me

those in the two-Dad group seem considerably less explicit, despite the parental categorization in three of the four. The construal of male homosexual parents in young children’s books seems yet again more problematic than the representation of lesbian parents. We now move on to addressing the three specific Research Questions (RQs). RQ (i): Narrative Approaches As indicated, some of the books could broadly be described as ‘Real world’ and some as ‘Fantasy’, which we refer to here as ‘narrative approaches’ (RQi); they could also be referred to as genres or sub-genres of children’s fiction. Both approaches portrayed gay sexuality in a broadly positive way. The books using ‘Real world’ approaches represented the characters and their activities as realistic and ‘everyday’. Those using ‘Fantasy’ often included fantastical imagery and/or unrealistic situations. The constraints of ‘Fantasy’ would seem to be fewer than those of ‘Real world’, as Fantasy affords many possibilities (including ideal ones) that ‘Real world’ does not. A third approach was the ‘Animal approach’. ‘Animal stories’ can be categorized in different ways, intersecting with Real world/Fantasy. We offer the following: (a) Animal-Real world (for example, using animals anthropomorphically and even parodically, subject to the same constraints, for example, animal-children go to school); this may be a metaphor for human behaviour, (b) Animal-Fantasy (for example, animals might explore new planets), or simply (c) ‘Animal’, that is, a story about animals as animals (with anthropomorphism kept to a minimum). In this data set,

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the two texts adopting the Animal strategy (And Tango Makes Three, and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding) were both Dad-books and were considered Animal-Real world. Table 7e shows a balance between ‘Real world’ and ‘Fantasy’ approaches in almost equal proportion. Neither approach appears to be particularly associated with either two-Mum or two-Dad books.

RQ (ii a): Representations of Physical Contact: Visual Analysis As the children these books are aimed at will have a limited grasp of written text, they may have the books read to them (see Harper, 2001; Dombey, 1992; Hunt, 1991). Accordingly, visuals may prove more important in communicating the narrative (see also Chapter 3). The question of whether to illustrate physical contact must always be a challenge for those involved in the production of these books: a story about gay parents does not have to represent physical contact between them Table 7e

Two-Mum books

Narrative approaches to representing gay sexuality Real World

Fantasy

A Beach Party with Alexis

Dragon Sense

Asha’s Mums

If I had a Hundred Mummies

Emma and Meesha My Boy

The Daddy Machine

Felicia’s Favorite Story

The Different Dragon

Gloria Goes to Gay Pride

The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans

Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums

The Eaglerider

Heather has Two Mommies

Two Moms, The Zark, and Me

Mom and Mum are Getting Married

The Ogre’s Boots

Molly’s Family

Spacegirl Pukes

Animal

Mommy, Mama, and Me Two-Dad books

Daddy, Papa, and Me

King & King

And Tango Makes Three

Daddy’s Roommate

King & King & Family

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding

Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin

One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads

The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones

The Frog Prince

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155

visually. However, it presumably needs to be made clear that the parents are not simply friends sharing a house (and the childcare), and physical contact between the characters is a strong indicator of the emphasis on the relationship between the parents and the family as a unit. Visual representation of physical contact – perhaps the most obvious way to show it – is then one indication not only of authorial/illustrator choice but also of overtness. On the other hand, given a climate of homophobia, and an intention that these books should be available in shops, schools and libraries, just how physical and intimate can the contact be? – especially as heterosexual parents in children’s picture books are not, or at least were not, normally shown as having physical contact (Women on Words and Images, 1975). And what about physical contact with the child(ren) of the family – bearing in mind also a social climate of fear concerning homosexuals and the association for some people of homosexuality with child abuse? (Vitagliano, 1999) To answer RQ (ii), we looked at the visuals and compared the number of times each pair of parents were in physical contact (touching, or in extremely close proximity) compared to the number of times they were not, when both were represented together (and, specifically, in a family setting). Tables 7f and 7g show the results:

Table 7f

Visual representation and physical contact in the two-Mum texts

Title

No. of Times Frames8 Mums Pictured Together

With Times both Times Contact Contact Mums Featured made in Family in Family Setting Setting

A Beach Party with Alexis

35

8

1

Asha’s Mums

20

2

1

2 (100%)

1

Dragon Sense

6

0

0

0

0

Emma and Meesha My Boy

15

5

4

5 (100%)

4

Felicia’s Favorite Story

21

11

3

5 (45.5%)

1

Gloria goes to Gay Pride

33

3

1

3 (100%)

1

Heather Has Two Mommies 24

5

4

5 (100%)

4

If I had a Hundred Mummies

20

1

0

1 (100%)

0

Josh and Jaz have Three Mums

17

5

1

5 (100%)

1

8 (100%)

1

(Continued)

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

156 Table 7f

(Cont’d)

Title

No. of Times Frames8 Mums Pictured Together

With Times both Times Contact Contact Mums Featured made in Family in Family Setting Setting

Molly’s Family

22

5

1

5 (100%)

1

Mom and Mum are Getting 12 Married

8

3

8 (100%)

3

Mommy, Mama, and Me

18

6

2

6 (100%)

2

Spacegirl Pukes

18

13

6

10 (76.9%)

3

The Daddy Machine

37

2

0

2 (100%)

0

The Different Dragon

17

2

0

2 (100%)

0

The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans

6

1

1

1 (100%)

1

The Eaglerider

4

0

0

0

0

The Ogre’s Boots

7

1

1

1 (100%)

1

Two Moms, The Zark, and Me

31

8

4

8 (100%)

4

TOTAL:

363

86

33

Table 7g

Visual representation and physical contact in the two-Dad texts

Title

No. of Frames

Times Dads With Times both Pictured Contact Dads Featured Together in Family Setting

Times Contact made in Family Setting

And Tango Makes Three

26

22

11

1 (3.8%)

0

Daddy, Papa, and Me

16

6

4

6 (100%)

4

Daddy’s Roommate

30

21

7

13 (43.3%)

2

Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin

56

22

6

21 (95.45%)

6

King & King

20

6

4

0

0

King & King & Family

27

21

4

3 (11.1%)

0

One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads

26

11

3

5 (45.45%)

1

The Frog Prince

5

1

1

1 (100%)

0

The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones

27

11

0

11 (100%)

0

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding

19

10

5

10 (100%)

5

Total:

252

131

45

196 TOTAL excluding Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin9.

109

39

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families

157

Of the 10 two-Dad stories, the Dads are pictured together in 131 frames out of a possible 252 (52%); for the 19 two-Mum stories, the Mums appear together in only 86 out of a possible 363 (24%). Proportionally, then, the relationships between the gay characters in two-Dad texts are explored visually much more. Further, the Mums are nearly always pictured together in a family setting (see the percentages in each column 6). Only in Spacegirl Pukes and Felicia’s Favourite Story are the Mums pictured together outside a family context. However, in the two-Dad texts, the opposite is true. In three texts (King & King, King & King & Family and And Tango Makes Three) the Dads are pictured together far more outside a family context, and in two (Daddy’s Roommate and One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads) they are pictured outside a family setting in less than half of the visuals. It seems that domesticity is a bit of a problem for these Dads: again, something that looks like an issue of gender. Physical contact is also more frequent in the two-Dad texts, that is, 45 pictured occurrences, compared with 33 in the (more numerous) twoMum texts. As a proportion of the total visuals (frames), physical contact between Dads is shown in approximately 1 in 5 (with or without the multiframed Eric and Martin); between Mums it is less than 1 in 10. As with the visuals in general, this physical contact is more likely to be outside a family setting for the Dads than the Mums. Represented contact is arguably especially salient outside the family context as it is then a public indication of a shared bond (and not, e.g., a sign of a ‘loving family’). However, such construed public contact between men is also arguably more transgressive. The visuals in the two-Dad texts thus address and foreground gay sexuality more explicitly than in the two-Mum texts. In particular, only in two-Dad texts (Daddy’s Roommate, Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin) do we see images of the parents sharing a bed; only in King & King do we see them kissing. This contrast with the greater foregrounding of gay Mums as gay Mums through naming and book titles. Are the women being represented as less sexual than the men (a gender stereotype) and/or less in need of physical contact? Several factors need to be taken into account here: the type of contact made, the author’s agenda in promoting acceptance of gay sexuality, and the narrative approach. Daddy’s Roommate and Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin use the ‘Real world’ approach (most of the two-Dad texts used the ‘Fantasy’ approach). This marked ‘upfrontness’ could be an indicator of the author promoting the normality of Dads sleeping together (i.e. in a family setting). Nearly all the two-Mum books that adopt the ‘Real world’ approach (see Table 7e) also show contact occurring in a family setting. In marked contrast, books adopting the ‘Fantasy’ approach display contact

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outside the family (for example, the Mums hugging in Felicia’s Favourite Story) more frequently (58.3%) than do the ‘Real world’ texts (33.3%). In summary, visually, gay contact in a family situation is predominantly a ‘realistic’ notion in these books. The ‘Real world’ texts address parents’ gay sexuality explicitly and purposefully, foregrounding it through represented physical contact. The ‘Fantasy’ texts address gay sexuality rather less explicitly and (perhaps unsurprisingly) present gay parents together in family situations less often. The two-Mum texts address gay sexuality realistically (for example, in childcare situations in Asha’s Mums, Heather has Two Mummies, Josh and Jaz have Three Mums and Molly’s Family, the Mums explain openly the reasons why other children see their families as ‘different’). However, they tend not to foreground contact, the physical side of gay sexuality, visually, and certainly not intimate contact and not as much as certain of the two-Dad, ‘Real world’ texts.

Figure 7.1

The cover of Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums (Hedt Argent)

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families

159

RQ (ii b) Representations of Physical Contact: Linguistic Analysis Physical contact was not only represented visually. Lexical references to physical contact are made by both narrator and characters in dialogue, in relation to physical contact between the parents, and between parent and child, as shown in Tables 7h and 7i. Speech marks indicate dialogue.

Table 7h Lexicalization of physical contact (two-Mum books) Two-Mum Books Title

Characters in Contact

Times Making Contact

Type of Contact and Times Made

Example in Context

Times Contact Made

Asha’s Mums

Mum Alice and Asha

3

hug (1)

Mum Alice gave me a big hug and a kiss

4

kiss (2)

‘Thanks mum,’ I said to Alice and kissed her cheeks.

1

kiss (1)

‘Thanks mum,’ I said to Sara and kissed her cheeks.

2

hold hands (1)

Mama Rose and Mama Grace hold hands [twice]

Gloria and 1 Mama Grace

hold hands (1)

I hold Mama Grace’s hand.

Family

hug (1)

Mama Kate and Mama Jane 6 both laugh and give Heather a great big hug.

kiss (5)

They kiss Heather good-bye. Heather gives each of her mommies two kisses.

Mum Sara and Asha Gloria Goes Mama Rose to Gay and Mama Pride Grace

Heather Has Two Mommies

6

3

If I had a Hundred Mommies

Hundred Mommies and child

2

kiss (2)

And they would all be really 2 bossy and talk about me on the phone and smother me with kisses and tell me off and moan . . .

Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums

Mummy Fran and Twins

1

hug (1)

Josh and Jaz rushed at her and 2 hugged her.

Family

1

cuddle (1)

Sue and Fran took the twins on their laps and they had a cuddle (Continued)

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

160 Table 7h (Cont’d)

Two-Mum Books Title

Characters in Contact

Times Making Contact

Mommy, Mommy and 1 Mama, and child Me Mommy, 1 Mama, and child

Type of Contact and Times Made

Example in Context

Times Contact Made

hug (1)

Mommy hugs me on her lap.

2

kiss (1)

Mommy and Mama kiss me goodnight.

Mom and Mum are Getting Married

Mom and Mum

1

kiss (1)

Then Jack and I gave mum and 1 mom our baskets. They unwrapped the rings and put them on each other’s finger. Then they kissed.

Spacegirl Pukes

Mummy Loula and Spacegirl

1

hug (1)

Mummy Loula hugged her.

Family

4

hug (2)

Mummy Loula and Mummy Neenee hugged Spacegirl and kissed her goodbye. The mummies hugged Spacegirl again and kissed her goodbye.

kiss (2)

The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans

Mother Marian and Anna

1

hug (1)

‘‘He can’t do that!’ exclaimed Anna softly. ‘I’m afraid he can,’ said Marian, reaching down to hug Anna.

Table 7i

Lexicalization of physical contact (two-Dad books)

5

1

Two-Dad Books Title

Times Making Contact

Type of Contact and Times Made

And Tango Roy and Makes Silo Three

1

sleep together Every night Roy and Silo slept (1) there together.

1

Daddy, Family Papa, and Me

2

kiss (2)

2

1

sleep together Daddy and Frank [. . .] Sleep (1) together

Daddy’s Roommate

Characters in Contact

Dad and Frank

Example in Context

Now Daddy and Papa are tucked in tight. I kiss them both and say, ‘Night-night!’

Times Contact Made

1

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Jenny Lives Martin and With Eric Jenny and Martin

2

kiss (2)

‘You are a sly one,’ says Martin, 3 laughing. Jenny gets a great big kiss.

Martin and Eric

1

kiss (1)

‘We do love each other – even if we argue sometimes,’ says Eric, looking at Martin. Martin gives him a big kiss right on the mouth and Jenny gets one on the nose.’

1

hug (1)

‘If they hug you too hard, does 1 the color run off?’

The Frog Prince

Nicolas and 1 Jesse (Frog/ Prince)

kiss (1)

He leaned over, wrinkle his nose, and, as lightly and quickly as he could, he kissed the top of the frog’s head.

1

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding

Uncle Bobby, Uncle Jamie, and Chloe

hold hands (1)

She jumped up and grabbed Uncle Bobby’s and Uncle Jamie’s hands.

1

One Dad Family Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads

1

The forms of physical contact represented linguistically are kiss, hug, cuddle, hold hands and sleep together (with morphological variations), kiss being the most frequent. Importantly, as shown in Column 2, contact is mainly represented linguistically in relation to the child(ren). Only five books include linguistic representations of physical contact between the parents: And Tango Makes Three, Daddy’s Roommate and Jenny lives with Eric and Martin (two-Dad books) and Mom and Mum are Getting Married and Gloria goes to Gay Pride (two-Mum books). In these, respectively, Roy and Silo, and Dad and Frank sleep together (once each), Eric and Martin, and Mom and Mum, kiss (once each); and Mama Rose and Mama Grace hold hands (three times). The linguistic representations of physical contact between parents thus do not really correspond to those in the visuals. The visual representations are far ‘fuller’ in this respect, thus ‘enhancing interaction’ (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2000; see Chapter 3). Physical contact is also linguistically negatively marked in three instances (not shown in Tables 7h and 7i), for example, in Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums, ‘the twins didn’t rush up to hug her’ (i.e. Mummy Fran). Such examples suggest that contact is usual, or expected, and the lack of wanted

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Linguistic representations of physical contact Two-Dad Texts

Two-Mum Texts

hug

1

9

hold hands

1

3

kiss

7

13

sleep together

2

0

Total:

11

25

or usual contact can be seen as a narrative device to achieve an (arguably) ideological end, that is, to show the normality of physical family interaction, and/or to subvert negative notions of homosexuality in fulfilling (in the case of a ‘Fantasy’ story) the narrative of a prototypical fairy tale. Table 7j shows the quantitative differences between the two-Dad/twoMum texts in terms of positive linguistic representation of physical contact. Given that there are nearly twice as many two-Mum stories, the frequencies for kiss are predictable. The frequencies for hug, however, are not, and hugging may function in these texts to represent a ‘mothering’ practice, and, again, may have more to do with gender than sexuality. The expression of physical contact, arguably a norm of family interaction, is addressed representationally here through the prevalence of hugging and kissing across the texts, normalizing it for these non-traditional contexts. This indexes a loving family relationship, as in books depicting families with straight parents. Represented physical contact can also be seen strategically as promoting acceptance of two-Mum and two-Dad families, by suggesting they have much in common with ‘straight-headed’ families (see below).

RQ (iii): Textual Strategies and the Promotion, Acceptance, Understanding and/or Celebration of Families with Same-sex Parents How is gay sexuality itself dealt with? Here we ask about the strategies employed by the authors of these books to represent gay sexuality in a positive way. A general observation (especially in the ‘realistic’ books) is an emphasis on ethnic diversity, which acts both as a metaphor and an extension of a positive embracing of gay sexuality to other identities and to social diversity and inclusion more widely. Of course, given the (sometime) possibility of adoption by gay and lesbian couples, the representation of multi-ethnic two-Mum/two-Dad families is far from unrealistic.

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(i) The ‘Gay strategy’ The word gay (along with inflected forms) appears in the dataset 17 times, but only in the three ‘Real world’ books Daddy’s Roommate, Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (both ‘two-Dad’) and, most frequently, in Gloria Goes to Gay Pride (‘two-Mum’). In what we call the ‘Gay strategy’, gay sexuality is discussed explicitly, in part through the device of explaining the word to the child in the story. The ‘Gay strategy’ references the gay identity of the parents, offers an explanation, and rationalizes it for their child. In Daddy’s Roommate and Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, gay is an unfamiliar term to the child. Although Jenny knows she lives with two men, and probably that this is unusual, she may not have fully conceptualized it. In Gloria Goes to Gay Pride, Gloria is familiar with the term, but is challenged to confront adverse attitudes to gayness. When the topic of gay identity is raised in these texts, it is normalized and ‘credited’ through reference to the value of love:

Daddy’s Roommate (Mommy has offered a simple answer to the child’s question about what ‘gay’ means.) Mommy says Daddy and Frank are gay. At first I didn’t know what that meant. So she explained it. Being gay is just one more kind of love. And love is the best kind of happiness. Daddy and his roommate are very happy together, and I’m happy too! Gloria goes to Gay Pride (During the parade some protesters bring a sign saying ‘Gays Go Away’.) ‘Why do they want us to go away?’ I ask. ‘Some people think Mama Rose and I shouldn’t love each other,’ Mama Grace says. I don’t understand. ‘But you always tell me love is the most important thing of all.’ Mama Rose picks me up. ‘Love is the most important thing of all,’ she says. ‘Some women love women, some men love men, (Continued)

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and some women and men love each other. That’s why we march in the parade – so everyone can have a voice.’ Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin (Jenny, Eric and Martin are returning from doing laundry. On their way home they bump into Mrs. Andrews. She proceeds to call them gay (abusively) and says they should stay at home where they can’t be seen. Eric rationalizes the situation with Jenny.) Eric starts to hang out the clothes. ‘Are you going to play for a bit in the sandpit?’ he asks. But Jenny doesn’t feel like playing. ‘Why did she say that about gays?’ she asks. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘We call it that when two men love each other and live together like Martin and I do,’ says Eric, taking the clothes pegs out of his mouth.

These explanations of gay are similar: ‘love’ and the gay characters being ‘together’. The three books which utilize the ‘gay strategy’ were published in 1983 and 1991. Their authors’ agenda may have been to normalize the idea of gay sexuality for a generation of children who were far more likely than previously to come into contact with openly-gay two-Mum and twoDad families. Of the first, Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin (1983), author Susanne Bösche states that ‘while researching for the book [she] became aware that there are a lot of children in Denmark living with a homosexual father or mother, and that there was a need for a book for these children to identify with’ (2000). This book was published just before AIDS became widely associated with gay men (see above). Daddy’s Roommate (1991) was published after the ‘moral panic’ about gay men and AIDS (and Paul Baker (2005) reports that attitudes of homosexuality in the UK improved between 1987 and 1990 (British Social Attitudes survey)). Gloria Goes to Gay Pride (1991) was of course less directly associated with gay men. Almost all the other books in our dataset (and in Bibliography 3 (p. 253)), were published in the 1990s or after 2000, and all the rest in our dataset use either the ‘different’ or the ‘backgrounding’ strategy. This may be for artistic reasons: the ‘Gay strategy’ may now look just too didactic. But the association of gayness with AIDS, and, in the UK, Section 28 (see above), may have both left their particular mark. Elizabeth Rowell’s (2007: 2) claim that ‘Typically, gay-friendly picture books, like books depicting heterosexual families, simply capture everyday family life’ (see above) appears to be an overgeneralization. Sometimes gay

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sexuality is the main focus of the story – explicitly, as above, or less explicitly, as follows. (ii) The ‘different’ strategy Perhaps because of the furore surrounding Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (1983) (see above), more, and later books use what we call a ‘different’ strategy, where having two Mums or Dads is conceptually recognized as different by the child. The two-Dad books which use this strategy are z z z z

And Tango Makes Three One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads The Frog Prince The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones

and the Two-Mum books: z z z z z

Asha’s Mums Heather Has Two Mommies Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums Molly’s Family Two Moms, The Zark, and Me.

In several of the above, either the child questions their own family after seeing other types of family - something like ‘everyone else has got a mum and a dad and we’ve got two mums instead’ (Josh and Jaz have Three Mums). The difference is then explained. In Heather has Two Mummies, Heather similarly questions the make up of her family when presented with other types of families (see below). Alternatively, the child is questioned about their difference by someone from outside the family. These texts thus ask different questions about gay parents, and show diverse approaches to rationalizing two-Mum/two-Dad families to children, while not using the word gay. The ‘difference’ of the gay parents can be questioned on more than one level, by using different types of narrative (‘sub-strategy’?), as these indicative extracts show:

And Tango Makes Three Every year at the very same time, the girl penguins start noticing the boy penguins. And the boy penguins start noticing the girls. When (Continued)

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the right girl and the right boy find each other, they become a couple. Two penguins in the penguin house were a little bit different. One was named Roy, and the other was named Silo. Roy and Silo were both boys. But they did everything together. Here, Roy and Silo are simply shown as being different to the more ‘normal’ boy and girl penguin couples.

Asha’s Mums (Asha is showing a picture of her family at show and tell.) Coreen said ‘How come you’ve got two mummies?’ ‘Because I do,’ I said. ‘You can’t have two mummies,’ Judi insisted. ‘Yes she can,’ Rita said turning around in her seat. ‘Just like you can have two aunts, and two daddies and two grandmas,’ yelled Diane from across the room. Diane likes to yell. ‘See,’ I said to Coreen. ‘My mum and dad said you can’t have two mothers living together. My dad says it’s bad,’ Coreen insisted. ‘It’s not bad. My mummies said we’re a family because we live together and love each other,’ I said. ‘But how come you have two?’ Judi asked. In Asha’s Mums, Asha meets a straight denial that you can have two mums. This isn’t a concern for Asha, or her mothers, but is for others. The question is ‘Why is your family like it is?’ (A similar confrontation is seen in Molly’s Family and The Frog Prince.)

Heather Has Two Mommies ‘My daddy is a doctor, too,’ Juan says, pointing at the book. ‘He takes care of sick people.’ ‘My daddy is a teacher,’ David says. ‘Once I went to school with him.’ ‘I don’t have a daddy,’ Heather says. She’d never thought about it before. Did everyone except Heather have a daddy? Heather’s forehead crinkles up, and she begins to cry.

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Heather has Two Mommies thus shows the child(ren) being presented with families with a dad; she gets upset and questions why she doesn’t. Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums follows a similar narrative.

One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads ‘My dad can stand on his head,’ I told Lou. ‘My dad plays me songs on his purple kazoo He even knows how to make chocolate fondue! Can blue dads do all of those things, too?’ ‘What funny ideas you have,’ replied Lou. ‘Do you think dads are different, because they are blue? My dads both play piano, and one of them cooks. (He makes wonderful chocolate cream pies.) I have never seen either one stand on his head. But I’m sure they both could . . . if the need should arise.’

Difference is here confronted through metaphor. The Dads are blue, but they can do things just as well as Dads who aren’t. The question being asked here is ‘Are gay dads as good as straight dads?’

The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones For Jeff, every weekend brought some special treat, and poor Kim and Chad simply couldn’t compete. They couldn’t help wondering why sometimes their fathers seemed often to feel that their kids were just bothers, always too busy for that hour or so that seemed easy and pleasant for Pete and for Joe.

The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones is unique in the dataset as it marks the two dads (Pete and Joe) as being something other children want rather than their own (one) busy father.

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Two Moms, The Zark, and Me ‘Two moms? And no dads? I’m shocked!’ said McFink. It’s wrong! It’s a sin! Not at all how I think! The only true family’s a family like ours: With a mom, and a dad, and two kids, and two cars. And a house, and a yard, and a dog (or a cat). You just don’t have a family if you don’t have all that.’ I replied, ‘Though I know this will not seem polite, From the books I have read, I do not think you’re right. Life is just not that simple,’ I cautiously said.

This shows a similar questioning of difference to that in Asha’s Mums and Molly’s Family, that is, what is stereotypically ‘essential’ to the family makeup. Two Moms, The Zark, and Me in contrast emphasizes these stereotypes and presents them satirically. (iii) The ‘backgrounding’ strategy The final group use what we call ‘backgrounding’. These books do not address the issue of gay sexuality directly or even indirectly, but rather issues surrounding the family or personal life, which are not specific to gay families. Gay sexuality is not the main focus of the narrative; certainly no attention is drawn to it; it is taken as read. The books which adopt this strategy, which Rowell (2007) saw as typical, are certainly in the majority. In this dataset, they are:

Two-Mum Books: z z z z z z z z z

A Beach Party with Alexis Dragon Sense Emma and Meesha My Boy Felicia’s Favorite Story If I had a Hundred Mummies Mom and Mum are Getting Married Mommy, Mama, and Me Spacegirl Pukes The Daddy Machine

Two-Mum and Two-Dad Families z z z z z

169

The Different Dragon The Duke who Outlawed Jellybeans The Eaglerider The Ogre’s Boots Uncle Bobby’s Wedding

Two-Dad Books: z z z z

Daddy, Papa, and Me King & King King & King & Family The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones

Interestingly, the two-Mum books (of which there were only twice as many) are represented disproportionately in this. So there are more twoMum books, but they are less ‘confrontational’. These less direct methods of addressing gay sexuality may be (seen as) a more beneficial strategy in finding a readership. (It would be interesting to know more about such ‘production’ issues.) In these books, none of the books mentions gay sexuality explicitly. A comment from Prince in King & King, for example, just hints at it:

Very well, Mother, I’ll marry. I must say, though, I’ve never cared much for princesses.

By backgrounding gay sexuality, the focus of the narrative is on happenings and topics that are not specifically related to the politics of homosexuality: adoption, falling in love, holidays, marriage, leaving home and day-to-day activities. All these stories could feasibly and in principle be told using heterosexual parents with no real impact on the narrative (but, importantly, here they are not). ‘Backgrounding’ can be achieved in a myriad of narrative ways. For example, If I Had A Hundred Mummies does not indicate until the very last line that this is actually about a two-Mum family. It ends: ‘If I had a hundred mummies . . . Hang on a minute!

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I thought it was a good idea but now I think it’s not. I DON’T want a hundred mummies, I’ll just have the two I’ve got!’ While gay sexuality may be very definitely backgrounded in the written text, it may however be indexed more explicitly in the visuals. For example, in King & King there is an image of the Kings kissing (disguised by a large red heart) on the very last page, but there is no related comment in the written text. (This is the only such example.)

The Strategy-Approach Relationship Readers may like to consider how the three strategies relate to the feminist/ anti-sexist/non-sexist categorizations of gender-progressive children’s books shown in Chapter 3 (see also Adler, 1993; Davies, 1989). For now, we ask how the ‘Gay’, ‘Different’ and ‘Backgrounding’ strategies map onto the ‘Real world/Animal/ Fantasy narrative approaches’, and onto the two-Mum and two-Dad stories. The graph below shows how: The Strategy-Approach Relationship

6

1 11

4 1 3

3

Real world

Animal 'Approach' used Gay

Different

Fantasy

Backrounding

The horizontal axis, ‘Approach used’, refers to ‘Real world’, ‘Animal’ and ‘Fantasy’. The shaded blocks show how frequently an ‘approach’ uses a

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‘strategy’. For example, the ‘Real world’ approach uses the ‘Gay’ strategy 3 times. The ‘Gay’ strategy is thus most closely associated with the ‘Real world’ approach, that is, it confronts gayness head-on through real-life situations. The ‘Different’ strategy is found across all three narrative approaches, but also most frequently in stories using the ‘Real world’ approach. ‘Real world’ texts may be more concerned with confronting ‘difference’ in family make-up and encouraging the idea of family diversity. ‘Backgrounding’ is very strongly associated with the ‘Fantasy approach’. Fantasy texts often pursue a complex narrative; confronting the reader with positive images of gay sexuality is less evident. Books characterized by Fantasy narratives with ‘Backgrounding’ strategies do not ask questions about why gayness may be an issue. Whereas the two-Mum stories that adopt the ‘Different’ strategy (proportionately as many as two-Dad stories) are more likely to use the ‘Real world’ approach, the two-Dad stories that adopt the ‘Different’ strategy are more likely to use Fantasy approaches. Johnny Valentine (author of several of these two-Dad books), for example, uses satirical poetry, metaphor and fairy tale-like narratives in representing gayness, adoption and difference.

Conclusion An author’s decision about ‘strategy’ here is a difficult one. As Peter Hollindale observes: If you present as natural and commonplace the behaviour you would like to be natural and commonplace, you risk muting the social effectiveness of your story. If you dramatize the social tensions, you risk a superficial ideological stridency. (1988: 11) Yet through their different strategies and narrative approaches, these stories are all negotiating and positively construing the ‘site’ of gay sexuality and the family. The representation of affectionate family relationships acts to obviate differentiation between families with a gay or a heterosexual partnership at the head. What is being promoted is the idea that families with gay parents are in very many ways just like other families. When gay sexuality is addressed specifically (which it is, though in a substantial minority rather than majority of cases), it is done so against such a background.

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We have, we think, included in our dataset the majority of stories about two-Mum and two-Dad families in existence, making our findings representative of this small (but probably growing) genre. We are aware however, that we have skimmed a very large surface: we have been descriptive rather than analytical, and have raised many more questions than we have been able to properly address. This may be inevitable for work in a new area, and we hope it provides a basis for further research. In particular, we have not looked at gender representation (practices and talk) among the parents (although initial observations suggest that this is minimal), nor how poetry comes into play, nor at the use of first- and third-person narration – or, in particular, at ‘point of view’ (see Chapter 4) – although we would have liked to have done so. Neither have we properly related the different literary strategies and approaches to sociopolitical events in different parts of the world (in particular in the United States, where most of these books are published) or social attitudes (for example, to legislation, Civil Partnerships, AIDS, fears about paedophilia). We hope others will build on this work in these and other directions.

Chapter 8

‘Miss Katherine Shot the Sheriff’: The Literary Affordance of ‘Achronological Intertextuality’

. . . the removal of an action from contemporary settings to a distant temporal moment can have the effect of increased emphasis on the discourse and its significance. (Stephens, 1992: 239)

Prizewinning books for children, such as American Newbery and Caldecott award-winners (see Chapter 3), I have suggested, constitute good ‘epistemological sites’ for the study of language, gender and young children’s fiction. As Frank Taylor suggests, ‘if gender stereotypes are found in awardwinning children’s books, progress towards gender equality is probably lacking throughout the genre of children’s literature’ (2003: 302). While I suspect the situation is less straightforward than Taylor proposes, awardwinning books can reasonably be expected to be of high quality on a variety of literary, educational and social dimensions. In this chapter, I therefore look at two Newbery winners for older children, Holes (Lewis Sachar, 1998) and A Single Shard (Linda Sue Park, 2001). The Newbery medal is awarded to ‘the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year’; the book will be one which ‘displays respect for children’s understandings, abilities, and appreciations’. The judges are expected to consider z z z

Interpretation of the theme or concept Presentation of information including accuracy, clarity, and organization Development of a plot

174 z z z

Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction

Delineation of characters Delineation of a setting Appropriateness of style1.

‘Children’ go up to the age of 14. The judges are members of the Children’s Librarians Section of the American Library Association. This is the first of two chapters of this book to look at the language of full length works of fiction. In this chapter, I consider two books broadly as a whole, but at the same time select certain extracts for qualitative analysis and exemplification. The relevant extracts all constitute ‘historical fiction’. Most are flashbacks, but not flashbacks about the earlier lives of the characters in the main story. The extract in Holes is embedded in the longer, late-20th century narrative (related extracts are embedded intermittently); the wider episode it describes is only partly known about by the protagonist of the main story. The flashbacks in A Single Shard take place several centuries before the main story, which itself takes place nine centuries ago; they concern a story known to one of the characters but not the protagonist. We can assume that neither of the flashbacks represents actual historical events. Two of the relevant extracts in A Single Shard are however part of the main story. Exploration of these extracts, as in previous chapters, follows a broad form of critical analysis. However, rather than looking for linguistic and other disadvantaging textual construals of women and girls, subtle or less so (as I have tended to do in previous chapters), here I propose some progressive (if rather subtle) features of these two books. Indeed, all is far from being bad for progressive gender representation in the world of children’s fiction. John Stephens points out that Since about 1960 there has appeared a variety of books for children which broadly share an impulse to create roles for child characters which interrogate the normal subject positions created for children within socially dominant ideological frames. (1992: 120) Stephens refers to such books as carnivalesque, ‘since they function to interrogate official culture in ways comparable to the traits of carnival identified in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1965)’ (1992: 121). He identifies three types. The first involves ‘ “time out” from the habitual constraints of society’: we can see this in the Harry Potter series (and, before this, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963)). The second type ‘strives through [inter alia] gender mockery to dismantle socially received ideas and replace

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them with their opposite, privileging weakness over strength, for example’. Stephens’ example is Prince Cinders; we can of course add other feminist fairy tales (see Chapter 5), and perhaps those Harry Potter episodes when Harry returns to stay with his uncle, aunt and cousin, the Dursleys (see Chapter 9). The third type ‘consists of books which are endemically subversive of such things as . . . received paradigms of behavior and morality’ and it is these I am concerned with here (although not necessarily, or only in relation to child characters). In looking at Holes and A Single Shard I also adapt Jim Martin’s notion of ‘Positive discourse analysis’ (Martin, 2004), in a quest for positive possible readings. I have chosen these two books not so that I can ‘read against the grain’ (Gilbert and Gubar, 1986) for these positive readings, but because such readings I see as going with the grain. This Martin calls ‘taking into account how people get together and make room for themselves in the world’ (p. 183)2. Fiction is one ‘macro-genre’ in which women and girls can ‘make room for themselves in the world’, because of the literary license (indeed requirement) to select participants and processes, to characterize and to represent point(s) of view – and this is true not only of works of science fiction or fantasy. Through these two specific works, Holes and A Single Shard, I hope to show that fiction is in particular very well placed to articulate progressive discourses (see Chapter 3), or what Hilary Janks and Roz Ivanic (1992) refer to as ‘emancipatory discourse’. My claim is accordingly that one way fiction can textually construct women, girls and gender relations in a progressive manner is to make full use of one of its particular ‘affordances’ (see also Chapter 1). The meaning of affordances has shifted somewhat since its introduction in 1977 by James Gibson in the field of design technology, who used the term to refer to the unchangeable physical properties offered to (‘afforded by’) something in the environment, as perceived by humans (see also Gibson, 1979). More than two decades later, Donald Norman (1999) distinguished between ‘actual’ and ‘perceived’ affordances. The latter allowed something in the environment to ‘offer’ different possibilities: a chair ‘affords’ support and sitting, but someone who wanted to reach a high shelf might rather see it as something to stand on. More recently, the affordance notion has been taken up by writers on semiosis and media: Gunther Kress in Literacy in the New Media Age (2003) cites affordances as possibilities and constraints offered by different modes and media, and in particular compares the affordances of writing and image. As different modes, these have different ‘potentials for representational and communicational

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action’ (2003: 5). The same is arguably true of fictional and non-fictional genres, and fiction writers are able to work with the potentials or affordances of fiction to achieve their representational, communicative and perhaps ideological goals. In relation to fiction, then, I take ‘literary affordances’ to be a set of possibilities and potentials associated with, enabled by and welcomed by fiction (with ‘constraints’ entailed but not foregrounded). ‘Literary affordances’ can be seen as ‘reduplicative’: as something ‘afforded’ by fiction, which means that the affordance itself then ‘affords’ particular creative possibilities. In Chapter 1, I looked at four characteristics of fiction, namely, its dialogic nature, the likelihood of humour and irony, visuals (especially in children’s fiction), making it multi-modal, and the possibility of fantasy. These can also be seen as affordances, in that fiction affords all these characteristics (which does not of course mean that every work of fiction will include all of them), and, as above, each characteristic affords all sorts of more specific possibilities. The affordance notion has however been little used in relation to fiction. One exception is educational practitioners Mary Juzwik and Michael Sherry, who, referring to oral narratives in the classroom, write: Few other spaces and forms of discourse in public schooling, particularly in middle and high schools, afford explorations of the consequences of particular actions and their impact on unfolding and future lives. This exploration of a variety of ‘what if?’ scenarios has long been recognized as an affordance of literary and poetic writing . . . .3. Such scenarios might be improbable rather than fantastic, but are a variant of fantasy. As Leech and Short put it, we expect that writers [of narrative literature] will freely use their imagination to conjure up potentialities, rather than actualities, of existence. (2007: 121) A fifth affordance of fiction, and the focus of this chapter, is what I call ‘achronological intertextuality’, adapted from John Stephens (1992). Stephens does not use this phrase as such, but he does discuss how one way intertextuality works is achronologically (1992: 85), for example a given text (such as a work of fiction) is likely to be seen in relation to subsequently-produced as well as prior different ones. For our purposes here, it is possible to see ‘text’ meaning both a complete work of fiction, and a more-or-less self-contained extract within that work of fiction. I am proposing that works of fiction which include flashbacks to previous historical eras (i.e. to more than a few years previously) provide particularly hospitable environments for achronological intertextuality.

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To recap from Chapter 4, intertextuality is the explicit or implicit borrowing of aspects of previous texts by a ‘new’ text (Bakhtin, 1986; Kristeva, 1986), and is highly characteristic of fiction. For fiction, these ‘intertexts’ extend from direct quotes (e.g. when someone in a novel cites an actual previous one), to themes (e.g. happy endings, rags to riches, a quest (for love, for meaning), a mysterious stranger), to genres, and to characters. The ‘orphan’, for example – such as Tree-ear in A Single Shard – has intertextual links across novels over time, given the many associations of this identity (perhaps one reason for the appreciation of the Harry Potter series). To these ‘intertexts’, Stephens (1992) adds previous specific works which are clearly alluded to, well-known stories which already exist in multiple versions, key socio-historical moments, and other modes, such as painting, popular songs, film and TV. The notion of achronological intertextuality conveys the idea of discursive relationships existing across and within texts with perhaps little regard for historical accuracy. We are familiar with the notion of ‘creative license’ in novels, films and theatre: if a novel, film or play is based on an actual historical event, we do not expect 100 per cent accuracy. We are not surprised if something is added for which there is no historical evidence, or omitted, or even if a documented event is changed (although we may not like it). ‘Achronological intertextuality’ is a discursive variation of this. And it is one with which most of us are familiar: anyone who has seen the film Back to the Future, or BBC TV’s Dr Who, will be used to the (fictional) idea of anachronistically applying or even transporting some sort of knowledge of the present to a previous era. Much modern children’s fiction is set in the recent or distant past. We would expect to find representations of people in such fiction broadly corresponding to the social and discursive practices of the time, with women and men, boys and girls often involved in traditional social practices. These practices might well mean a large measure of gender differentiation, with opportunities and restrictions relevant only to men/boys, or to women/ girls. Accordingly, traditional and gender-differential practices may be reflected in the construed discourse (words or thoughts) of the characters. However, historical stories written for children can also be thoroughly heterogeneous in terms of gendered (and other) discourses, in relation to the chronological conditions surrounding their availability and (possible) origin. (I say ‘possible’ because the genesis of a discourse cannot be neatly pinpointed; it is not like the source of a river.) The fictional representation of traditional gendered discourses does not preclude traces of different resistant, emancipatory or feminist discourses in the same book, articulated

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at the same fictional time – even though such discourses might not have been in circulation at the time in which the book is set (or at least not in any hegemonic or even recognizable sense). These will probably be most salient in ‘realistic’ historical fiction. ‘Achronological’ linguistic traces are particularly interesting and telling if the narrative could have proceeded in almost the same way without the ideational details they carry, this suggesting that the author may have made a conscious, perhaps ideological choice to invoke them. Of course, this ‘achronological intertextuality’ may not be apparent to adult readers, let alone children. As Stephens writes: Children (like adults) are very likely to encounter texts in a fairly random order, and, more importantly, children will have encountered many texts before developing a sufficiently sophisticated sense of time to be able to organise cultural artefacts into a meaningful order. (1992: 85) In this chapter I am extending Stephens’ observation into the more abstract realm of the language characteristic of certain discourses (and associated social practices). However, given that this is fiction, the ability to ‘meaningfully order’ texts arranged in non-chronological sequence (an issue of text ‘consumption’) may be neither here nor there. One affordance of fiction is surely that, just as she or he can ‘play with’ historical facts, an author can also ‘play with’ discourses in a text and intertextually place linguistic traces of them in the mouths and thoughts of characters who (probably) would not historically have had access to them. And whereas previously this might have been seen and negatively judged as anachronistic, it can now be seen as a creative literacy practice safely and creditably associated with postmodernism. The analysis that follows is entirely qualitative, in contrast to the many quantitative studies documented and reported in the previous chapters. Qualitative analysis of fiction is typically applied to such extracts rather than complete works. There are no frequency counts of content, visual or linguistic features. A qualitative approach allows a more in-depth study of fictional texts, and aims to be interpretative, even explanatory, as well as descriptive. The principle of selection is extracts which I propose constitute good examples of ‘achronological intertextuality’, and which I hope to show by pointing to what I see as linguistic traces of feminist discourses in these fictional historical and ‘traditional’ contexts in which they would in reality have been far less accessible. These extracts are not representative of each book as a whole – surely few extracts in fiction can be. They are, however, I propose, key to what can be seen as aspects of the ideology of each book.

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Holes and A Single Shard The data from Holes and A Single Shard comes from an earlier study of a wider set of American award-winners of children’s fiction (both Newbery and Caldecott)4. I had not seen any of the texts prior to conducting this earlier study in which, working from a critical feminist standpoint, I was looking for (and hoping to find) evidence of feminist discourses. Of course, I had no idea whether this would actually be the case5. The point is worth making since one of the criticisms levelled at critical analysis is that a particular text may be chosen for its already-identified capacity to allow the analyst to make a particular (ideological) point, which obviates the possibility of generalization (see e.g. Widdowson, 2000). I selected Holes and A Single Shard from the original eight texts because of their use of what I interpreted as achronological intertextuality. There was provision for this in the narrative of in both books, in that episodes from a previous historical era were embedded (though differently) in the chronologically much later main story. This meant that discourses associated in each book with either of the eras might be ‘deployed’ in the other. Holes is set in modern day United States but has flashbacks of connected episodes from more than a century earlier. A Single Shard is set solely in 12thC Korea but an episode from 500 years previously is cited in some detail. The other books did not utilize such historical embedding (another affordance of fiction). It is important to clarify that achronological interextuality need not only come from such historical embedding (or indeed that it will); indeed, this may be only part of the story. Logically, it may be evident in any part of any work set in the past (conversely, past or present day discourses may be achronologically ‘transported’ into the fictional worlds set now or in the future, although this may be less marked). My claim is that both Holes and A Single Shard contain traces of what I would call feminist discourses, articulated by characters who lived at a time when such discourses were not actually available to them. Feminist discourses may be evidenced in different possible linguistic or contentrelated ways. For example: z z z

there is textual evidence of struggle, material or discursive, against repressive traditional practices these practices are critically presented an individual woman, or groups of women, are lexically and syntactically construed in a progressive or counter-stereotypical way (in relation to the normative practices of the time)

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use of conceptual language which can be read as ‘feminist’ women characters are included in a non-trivial way where this is not necessary to the narrative

Both books have a young male protagonist, and both are in a sense ‘coming of age’ stories. In A Single Shard, the ‘main subordinate’ characters are both men; in Holes, the majority of the characters are boys. Both books would fare badly on a simple quantitative Content analysis of male and female characters. (Holes would fare better, with two key female characters: a teacher who becomes an outlaw, and a malevolent woman Warden). But as Peter Hollindale reminds us, critiques of such ‘surface ideology’ means we may miss ‘radical and subversive readings’ ((1988: 20), see also Foster and Simons, 1995). Both books use third-person narration, but there is also some character focalization, including through thought representation (see Chapter 4).

Holes Louis Sachar’s darkly humorous Holes, now also a film, is set broadly in the time in which it was written – the late 1990s. The protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is a quiet, somewhat overweight 14-year-old American White boy who is sent to the Green Lake Juvenile Detention Center for stealing a pair of sneakers (his actual crime is a lesser misdemeanour). Stanley is a fairly placid (even passive) boy, but he is also portrayed as thoughtful, tolerant and largely helpful. An important female character from another era is the feisty outlaw ‘Kissin’ Kate Barlow’, who robbed Stanley’s great-grandfather, and for whose accumulated loot the Warden of the Detention Center is making the boys dig the holes. Miss Katherine Barlow had been the schoolteacher in Green Lake (when there really was a lake) 110 years before Stanley’s story starts, and it is her story which is interspersed with (embedded in) Stanley’s own. Miss Katherine fell in love with ‘Onion Sam’, the Black man who ‘turned the old run-down schoolhouse into a wellcrafted, freshly painted jewel of a building that the whole town was proud of’ (p. 110). Their first and only kiss is observed, Sam and his donkey are shot, and the schoolhouse is destroyed. Miss Katherine runs to the sheriff for assistance: ‘You’re sure pretty’ said the sheriff. Miss Katherine stared at him in horror.

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‘Kiss me,’ said the sheriff. She slapped him across the face. He laughed. ‘You kissed the onion picker. Why won’t you kiss me?’ (p. 113) It is entirely possible to imagine a 19th century sheriff (or even a more recent one) saying this, and we can see it as an articulation of what we might call a traditional sexist ‘loose woman’ discourse, the idea being that if a woman has been romantically involved with one man, she has lost her virtue, and with it her right to be considered ‘respectable’. Accordingly, she is not only ‘fair game’ but (so the argument goes) also has nothing to lose by ‘favouring’ other men (any discourse of love, or choice, being completely absent). This idea, or at least echoes of it, I suggest, is still prevalent in the 21st century in some cultural contexts, and still recognizable in others. Miss Katherine however materially resists this discourse by slapping the sheriff across the face. What we can see here, and what Stephens (1992) sees as characteristic of such an ‘interrogative’ carnival text, is ‘a tendency to employ a range of discourses which may function oppositionally or dialectically, effecting a multiplicity of unresolved points of view . . . .’ (p. 124). In the above, neither the sheriff nor Miss Katherine can really be seen as focalisers. However, the phrase ‘in horror’, if it is read as psychological point of view rather than the narrator ‘reading’ her expression, does give us more of an insight into (and hence aligns us more with) Miss Katherine. The story does not end there. chapter 26 concludes: Three days after Sam’s death, Miss Katherine shot the sheriff while he was sitting in his chair drinking a cup of coffee. Then she carefully applied a fresh coat of red lipstick and gave him the kiss he had asked for. For the next twenty years Kissin’ Kate Barlow was one of the most feared outlaws in all the West. (p. 115) This is, I suggest, a very good candidate for a case of achronological intertextuality. Sachar’s construal of this female outlaw arguably includes traces of feminist discourse. The traces are Kate’s material actions, which constitute a critique and contestation of the sheriff’s sexist (and racist) assumptions. The feminist discourse also entails a critical awareness, and exposure, of a ‘sexual harassment’ discourse, as articulated in the words of

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the sheriff (who is generally portrayed in discreditable terms). In reality, the ‘sexual harassment’ discourse would not have been available 110 years prior to the very late 20th century, when young women in the United States not under the protection of a husband or father would have been relatively vulnerable. Miss Katherine may have been a ‘respectable’ teacher – but one ‘slip’, and she becomes fair game. The term ‘sexual harassment’ itself did not come into being until the second part of the 20th century. This does not mean that the concept did not exist prior to that, but it does mean that such behavior would have been much harder to talk about, especially critically. Accordingly, had the story been told 110 years prior to the present day, Miss Katherine’s story would probably not have been narrated in this way. She may or may not have been represented as reacting as she did in Holes. If she had been portrayed 110 years ago as reacting the way she did, this portrayal may well have been neither sympathetic nor positive; as regards readings of the story (not the subject of this book), it may have been seen as clearly transgressive. However, Miss Katherine’s behavior is portrayed sympathetically and positively (in contrast to that of the sheriff). The literary affordance of ‘achronological intertextuality’ thus allows the progressive fictional inclusion of traces of feminist discourse stemming from the 1970s within a fictional, previous actual historical period. Accordingly, we can argue that this feminist representation of Miss Katherine would not in fact have taken the form it did, nor be enjoyed by and recognizable to readers, before the advent of the second wave of the Women’s Movement (nearly a century after these fictionalized events). Now, we can recognize and appreciate it. If ‘intertextuality is a strategy whereby a text relates to existing discourses and achieves intelligibility’ (see Fairclough, 1992), then this text, set in the fictional past, does so because it ‘projects forward’, anticipating and relating to existing, actual ‘post-texts’. Of course, our recognition of ‘Kissin’ Kate Barlow’ is assisted by her real-life historical contemporary (and quasi-counterpart), Martha Jane Cannary6, the 19th century ‘Calamity Jane’ of Arizona and Dakota who did ‘men’s’ jobs, wore men’s clothes and was no stranger to a gun. Texts about and broad popular knowledge of Calamity Jane (including through the musical and film of the same name), whose actual social practice reportedly entailed a (short-lived) material countering of traditional discourses of femininity, constitute further important intertextual links. These I suggest contribute to our own appreciation of Kissin’ Kate Barlow (and, implicitly, the feminist discourse) apparent here.

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There are other cues to a positive, feminist reading of Kissin’ Kate Barlow. Importantly, she is not ridiculed, but rather admired by Stanley, who is proud of the family connection: . . . Stanley had been impressed when he first found out that his greatgrandfather was robbed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow. True, he would have preferred living on the beach in California, but it was still kind of cool to have someone in your family robbed by a famous outlaw. Kate Barlow didn’t actually kiss Stanley’s great-grandfather. That would have been really cool, but she only kissed the men she killed. Instead she robbed him and left him stranded in the middle of the desert. ‘He was lucky to have survived,’ Stanley’s mother was quick to point out. (p. 10) Here, the focalization (see Chapter 4) in paragraphs 1 and 2 is Stanley’s, achieved through representation of his ‘Free indirect thought’ (see Leech and Short, 2007). (Note in particular the subjective ‘It was still kind of cool . . . .’ and ‘That would have been really cool’.) This ‘apparently put[s] us directly inside the character’s mind’ (p. 276). The feminist discourses (for example, of bravado, particular forms of transgression, autonomy and agency) surrounding Katherine’s actions are recontextualized in Stanley’s thoughts. Importantly, ‘outlaw’ is not given a negative inflection but rather a romantic, exciting one. This is no less so through being embodied in a woman; interestingly, neither is it marked as female (there is no ‘famous female outlaw’ collocation). Related to his focalization indexing a progressive or at least positive characterization of Katherine is that Stanley is himself portrayed sympathetically. Gender at times cannot be analysed separately from ethnicity/race (see also Chapter 7). In Holes, the most explicit references concern ‘Onion Sam’, and traces of anti-racist discourses include the ironic: ‘Sam ‘wasn’t allowed to attend classes because he was a Negro, but they let him fix the [school] building’ (p. 109). The irony (‘they let him . . .’) can at a higher level of abstraction be compared with the anti-racism of Mark Twain’s dialogue given to Huckleberry Finn, shown in Chapter 1. Sam and Miss Katherine’s kiss is transgressive for the time both from a gender and an ethnicity perspective, but Sachar makes clear that ethnicity is the more relevant variable. As the sheriff ‘explains’ to Miss Katherine (i.e. as Louis Sachar selects these words for his ‘explanation’): ‘It ain’t against the law for you to kiss him . . . . Just for him to kiss you’ (p. 114). Given that discourses

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take their identity in part from accumulations of intratextually-related traces (see Chapter 4), in Holes, anti-racist discourses can be seen as intertextuallylinked with feminist discourses, and their co-occurrence and mutual support constitute (and simultaneously draw on) current discourses of equality, anti-discrimination and mutual respect more broadly.

A Single Shard The second example of ‘achronological intertextuality’ can be seen in Linda Sue Park’s historical A Single Shard (2001), set in 12th-century Korea. The story concerns Tree-ear, an orphan and beggar boy of around 12 who is looked after by his older friend Crane-man, and who eventually becomes an accomplished potter, under the apprenticeship of masterpotter Min. Traces of what we can see as broadly feminist discourses are, I suggest, apparent in several passages; these contest prevalent patriarchal practices and point to women’s agency and resistance. Two key passages are in the ‘historically embedded’ text, and I will start with these. The ‘historically embedded’ text refers to a fictional (but logically possible) historical event. Crane-man has advised Tree-ear to make a stop on his journey to the court at the ‘Rock of the Falling Flowers’, just before Puyo, an old capital city. Five hundred years previously, the T’ang Chinese had invaded. Crane-man tells Tree-ear: ‘The King and his party were forced to retreat to the very highest point of Puyo – a cliff overlooking the Kum River. There was no escape. Bravely, the King’s guards placed themselves a little way down the path between the enemy and their sovereign. They were overrun in moments. All of the King’s concubines and ladies-in-waiting crowded round him, determined to protect him to the last. The women knew well that the T’ang would not kill them; no, they would be taken prisoner, probably to be tortured. Their terror can hardly be imagined . . . The T’ang army charged up the hill. All at once, as if their minds had become one, the women began jumping off the cliff. Every one of them preferred death to becoming a prisoner. Can you see it, my friend? The women jumping one after another from the cliff, their beautiful silk dresses billowing in the air – pink, red, green, blue . . . indeed, like flowers falling.’7

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Tree-ear gasped, his eyes round. What courage it must have taken! ‘The T’ang were victorious that day, but the women’s efforts were not in vain, for they have since been an inspiration to all who have need of courage. Their memory will live for a thousand years, I am sure of it.’ (p. 116) This passage is problematic from a feminist perspective with its focus on the women’s suicide, and the colourful visual impression of this. It is nevertheless significant and ‘progressive’ on two counts. The first is Crane-man and Tree-ear’s interpretation of this mass suicide as an act of courage (the word is repeated), focalized mid-story as Tree-ear’s own perspective, again through ‘Free direct thought’: ‘What courage it must have taken!’ Before that, we have a display of strength and agency: that the women were ‘determined to protect [the king] to the last’ (my italics). Crane-man, the ‘narrator’ of this embedded story, is focalizing the women here. In being retold, the story is thus recontextualized by Crane-man, for whom it is not new, for the younger Tree-ear, for whom it is. Secondly, the women’s action can be seen as actively choosing suicide over both protecting the King (now left defenseless) and submission to torture (interpretable by an adult or older reader as rape) – and Craneman is again focalizing the women here (‘The women knew well . . . .’). Crane-man’s construal of the act as ‘flowers falling’ may be seen as sentimental, but this is his point of view (one stage away from the third-person narrator, who in turn is one stage removed from the author, Linda Sue Park). It is also significant that the word sacrifice (a trace, I would argue, of many traditional and modern discourses about women) is notably absent. The (muted) feminist discourse can be seen as linguistically evidenced by the representation of these women’s agency and their resistance to a particular set of patriarchal social practices (the transitive (phrasal) verbs and their direct objects are underlined): z z

All of the King’s concubines and ladies-in-waiting crowded round him, determined to protect him to the last. Every one of them preferred death to becoming a prisoner.

In van Leeuwen’s (2008, 1995) ‘Social Action’ scheme, crowded round is a ‘material Action’; determined (to protect) and preferred ‘cognitive Reactions’. Together these suggest autonomy and agency as well as thought.

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This story is returned to later in the narrative, that is, is further recontextualized, when Tree-ear reaches the Rock of the Falling Flowers: Crane-man’s words came to life . . . the cries of the women – their terror and then their sudden act of bravery, their colored dresses like the petals of thousands of flowers. (2001: 121) Here, Tree-ear’s ‘Free direct thought’ includes the word bravery, a nearsynonym of courage. The last two passages which I propose as examples of ‘achronological intertextuality’ do not involve historical embedding. The first concerns ‘Min’s wife’ (we never learn her name), whose subordinate status is gently problematized. First, Tree-ear, who has received a continuous supply of food for himself and Crane-man from her, wished he could think of a way to show his gratitude for her kindness. What was it she wanted? She seemed to have no desires of her own . . . or perhaps her wishes were those of her husband’s. (p. 90) This last sentence, with Tree-ear focalized again through ‘Free indirect thought’, is, I think, capable of being read ironically, as a critique of the gender relations of the time. I am suggesting this for two reasons. First, there are intertextually-related discoursal traces. On the following page, Min’s wife agrees to ask Min if Tree-ear can be his emissary to the court on the condition that ‘from now on, you will call me Ajima’ [i.e. auntie] (p. 91). There is no suggestion that this request originated with Min or had even been discussed with him; this wish appears to be hers (i.e. she does have desires of her own). Min’s wife is, I think we are expected to assume, quietly agentive in bringing about Min’s full acceptance of Tree-ear (whether a woman in her position at the time might have made such an arrangement we may never know). Secondly, from the point of view of the narrative, this sentence could have been omitted. The second passage, which I suggest evidences this ‘pre-feminist’ discourse, occurs when Tree-ear persuades Crane-man to accept Min’s wife’s offer of work while he (Tree-ear) is away. Crane-man says: ‘Are you thinking of me, my friend? Do not worry. I fed myself – and you, for that matter – for many years before you worked for Min. I can do so again. Do you think me so helpless now?’

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‘Not you!’ Tree-ear shouted, flapping his arms in frustration like a giant bird. ‘I am not talking of you! It is Min’s wife I am thinking of! She is an old woman now – would you have her poor back ache from pulling weeds? And those long walks into the mountains, for mushrooms or berries – she should long ago have earned rest from such tasks! From her husband she gets no help at all. He thinks of nothing but his work!’ (p. 102) For Tree-ear to point this out to Crane-man is an implicit criticism of Min and of course of the gender relations between Min and ‘Min’s wife’ as a couple. Again, the narrative could have continued without this (e.g. Tree-ear could have encouraged Crane-man to work for Min’s wife for his own sake, or the passage could have been omitted). That it was included points to Linda Sue Park’s active authorial choice. * * * The use of different historical periods in a work of fiction facilitates, I suggest, achronological intertextuality. Here we have two different ‘models’: (a) the present day and a previous era, and (b) a previous era and an era which pre-dates that. The former suggests two possible ‘sets’ of discourses, in terms of those circulating at the two different times; the latter three, as we can add the discourses of the present, the era in which the book is being written and read8. In these cases, neither author has direct access to those discourses actually circulating in the historical periods about which s/he is writing. But as this is fiction, the point is that the different eras allow ‘intertextual play’ with what was said when, and how, in order to make ideological points in a literary way, including through ‘achronological intertextuality’. The fact that our own era and the 12th century both appear relevant to A Single Shard suggests that achronological intertextuality can obtain even in sections of the book where there is no ‘historical embedding’. Interestingly, in neither book is there any ‘defamiliarization’ of the earlier episode, for example by use of a ‘pseudo-historical register’ (Stephens, 1992) in the (direct) speech representation of the characters. This may facilitate the smooth ‘importing’ of current discourses into these fictionalized historical eras (and hence the continuity between them). Both Louis Sachar and Linda Sue Park thus successfully allow the articulation of what can be seen as a feminist discourse in fictional periods of time well before the modern Women’s Movement. Such ‘achronological intertextuality’ may well not be atypical for work set in previous historical

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eras (I have already suggested that it can also be seen in modern re-writings of fairy tales; see Chapter 5, also Stephens, 1992), and is, I argue, one of the affordances of fiction. Having been ‘afforded’, the possibility of ‘achronological intertextuality’ in turn affords particular textual realizations: the juxtaposition of the discourses of different historical periods, associated recontextualization (including through different forms of represented speech and thought), and associated reiteration, which allows all-important cumulative discursive effects.

Conclusion John Stephens claims that historical fiction ‘has always performed a moral, and even didactic, function’, in its ‘capacity to transform events which appear to be historical into universals of human experience’ (1992: 205). Certainly the embedded extracts here both implicitly contain ‘lessons’ and the characters in these extracts serve to impress the protagonists of the wider narrative, who came after them. To the extent that the reader is subject-positioned in alignment with (and not distanced from) those protagonists, for example through the events being focalized through them (in particular with thought representation; see Chapter 4), Stephens’ didactic/moral function may thus be fulfilled. The focus of both A Single Shard and Holes can be seen as the maturing of their young male protagonists. Such ‘coming-of-age’ is a common theme in fiction. With its associated learning, ‘coming-of-age’ can be seen as a ‘carrier’ of ‘an ideological position [which] . . . includes a desire to promote social change in the modern world’ (Stephens, 1992: 238). In both, this ‘ideological position’ in relation to gender and gender relations is subtly accomplished in part through utilizing the literary affordance of achronological intertextuality, and the use of different and sometimes previous historical eras may be rhetorically particularly effective. I have argued, I hope convincingly, that a strong case can be made for progressive readings of these two children’s books as far as gender is concerned. I have attempted to respond to Jim Martin’s call for ‘constructive’ or ‘positive’ critical analysis, that is, ‘beyond a preoccupation with demonology, beyond a singular focus on semiosis in the service of abusive power’, which reconsider[s] power communally as it circulates through communities, as they re-align around values, and renovate discourses that enact a better world. (2004: 197)

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Here, the communities in question are those of writers and readers; realignment is in terms of progressive gender representation; renovating discourses which ‘enact a better world’ are those feminist ones which represent oppressive discourses in an aware, critical and resistant way and allow characters, whatever their era, to articulate traces of ‘progressive’ discourses. The essentially fictional affordance of achronological intertextuality arguably allows those discourses to be articulated ‘achronologically’ but perfectly artistically by 19th and even 12th century characters.

Chapter 9

Hermione, Harry and Gender Relations at Hogwarts

‘The Harry Potter novels constantly echo the faintly familiar’. (Gupta, 2009: 97)

The Harry Potter series thrives as a literary work on creative tension: its creativity and scope derive from the notion of magic not as something that a wizard or witch can just do, but from the surrounding, familiar restrictions and rules, tools and gadgets surrounding these skills and practices, and the need to learn and practice. As a work of ‘fantasy fiction’, it may incorporate a magical element, but when it does, the magical element, far from being assumed, is fantastic relative to the realistic aspects of the work. (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996: 157) Magic thus joins constraints in what is a fundamentally a continuation of the traditional (boys?) boarding school story – with all the usual elements (different sorts of teachers, punishment and praise, competition, friends and enemies; see also Tucker, 1999). The fact that it is a mixed-sex boarding school makes things more complex. But as well as fantasy, Harry Potter is also a work about heroic adventure, and (over its seven volumes) a bildungsroman: a coming-of-age story, about intellectual and emotional development. Accordingly, it is richly intertextual, and Harry joins a long tradition of ‘young heroes’ in children’s fiction, in school as well as adventure stories (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996). More specifically, Andrew Blake (2002) notes Harry’s resemblances to both Cinderella and the young King Arthur; I have already mentioned Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch stories; there are many more such ‘pre-texts’ on which Harry Potter directly or indirectly, intertextually, draws1 (see Chapter 4). As with any written text, it is possible to look at the Harry Potter series in terms of Fairclough’s still-relevant 1992 framework of social practice,

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discursive practice (distribution, production and consumption) and the text itself. In this chapter (as throughout the book) I focus mainly on the text, but a few remarks about the wider dimensions are in order. In terms of social practice, Harry Potter has thrived (to put it mildly) in an economic, cultural and political climate in which publishing and bookshops are multinational and big business, where in many countries there is a ‘free’ and compulsory primary/secondary education system, a statefunded library system, and in several there has been something of a ‘moral panic’ about children’s (especially boys’) reading (see below, also Blake, 2002). Harry Potter has been a success with young readers, young adult readers (see Seelinger Trites, 2001, on Harry Potter as adolescent literature), and indeed adult readers (see Gupta, 2003; Tucker, 1999). The distribution is global, involving translation into tens of languages; by the turn of the century, more than 120 million copies had been sold (Blake, 2002). There is a film associated with each book (two for Book 7), audiobooks, and a Theme Park (‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’) has been developed by Universal in Orlando, Florida. Harry Potter has also spawned numerous websites (many of which radically transform the original text)2 and videogames. Then there are model replicas of the characters, costumes, Harry Potter-specific memorabilia such as Hermione’s Yule Ball earrings (at a cool £59.993), her time-turner (£49.95 from Harrods4), ‘Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans’ (from ‘Muggleshop’5) and more general merchandise such as T-shirts, purses, lunchboxes, tents and clocks (see Gunelius, 2008). These spin-off products have made Harry Potter a substantial commercial phenomenon (and its author J. K. Rowling very rich). To these we can add Harry Potter’s role in education and leisure: children can attend Harry Potter summer camps; children and parents worldwide have queued for hours outside bookshops to collect their pre-ordered copy of the next book the minute it became available (i.e. just after midnight on the day of release); in UK primary schools, children produce Harry Potter pastiches as part of Literacy lessons (one school even attributes their overall improvement of academic standards and behaviour to a Harry Potter ‘theming’6 of the curriculum). And there is a whole range of books, both popular and academic (e.g. Gupta, 2009; Mayes-Elma, 2006; Heilman, 2003; Blake, 2002; Nel, 2001) about the series, and indeed Harry Potter conferences7. Production thus now involves huge numbers of different types of professionals. This material outpouring contrasts with the start of the whole project, with an initial print run of 500 (Blake, 2002), when Joanne Rowling was famously asked by her UK publisher, Bloomsbury, to use her initials on the cover (hence: ‘J. K. Rowling’8), on the grounds that ‘we think boys will like

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[Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone], but we’ll not sure that they’ll pick it up if a woman wrote it’ (cited in Nel, 2001: 23)9 – this coinciding with the concerns with ‘boys’ reading failure’, and literacy teaching more widely, in (UK) primary schools (see e.g. Moss, 2007; Rowan et al. 2002; Millard, 1997; see also Chapter 10). The issue of the gender of Harry Potter’s author paralleled a belief (see Chapter 1) that boys may be less willing than girls to read books with a protagonist of the opposite sex. Andrew Blake writes that It is worth speculating that the books were consciously written in order to address the problem of young male literacy. They were certainly marketed as boy-friendly from the first, when Joanne Rowling agreed with her publishers’ assumption that boys would not wish to be seen reading anything written by a woman . . . . (p. 38) Blake backs up this claim with observations about the importance of sporting contests in the series. Julia Eccleshare similarly suggests that Rowling might have been influenced by the ‘current publishing orthodoxy that boys do not read and certainly do not read about girls’(2002: 87). Of course, we do not know exactly what Joanne Rowling agreed with (as opposed to ‘agreed to’). Nevertheless, the popularity of Harry Potter (see e.g. Gupta, 2009) has been seen as contributing positively to literacy (see e.g. Blake 2002), especially in boys. Still, interesting questions remain: Which boys read Harry Potter? Do boys read Harry Potter more than girls? How does Harry Potter compare with boys’ reading of other fiction and non-fiction? How many of the books have boys read? do they buy them themselves? Has Harry Potter has positively impacted on their subsequent reading (in particular, of fiction)? Regrettably, these questions of consumption, which have not yet been properly explored, are also beyond the scope of this book (but see Zipes, 2002; also Chapter 10) – although as far as the texts go, it may be relevant that Harry (as well as Hermione) does a lot of exploratory reading, vital to the plot, himself. For those who do not know, like A Single Shard in Chapter 8, Harry Potter is also about an orphan, Harry, who does not realize he is a wizard until his 11th birthday, when he is sent to boarding school: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The seven books in the series each represent a year of Harry’s boarding school life. The story is told by a third-person omniscient narrator, with much focalization of Harry enabling the construal of his spatial, temporal and psychological points of view (see Chapter 4). There are many female characters in Harry Potter (staff and students of Hogwarts, and others), and several are powerful and agentive. The most

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focused study of gender in Harry Potter, to date, is Ruthann Mayes-Elma’s Females and Harry Potter (2006). Mayes-Elma analysed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone10 and concedes that it reflects a notion of power dynamics between men and women that is characterised by give and take, change and interplay. Agency here is not static; it is held at times by both women and men. Questioning, empowerment, and resistance do occur . . . (p. 105) Julia Eccleshare notes that there are equal opportunities at the school: ‘structurally . . . Hogwarts allows for equality’ (2002: 84). Gender stereotyping of different sorts has however been repeatedly identified and documented (e.g. Pugh and Wallace, 2006; Mayes-Elma, 2006; Heilman, 2003; Blake, 2002; Eccleshare, 2002). This is not too surprising: Harry Potter was produced against a background of several decades of social change as regards gender roles and relations and well-documented gender imbalance in children’s fiction (see Chapters 1, 3 and 6), the possibility of which critics are now well-aware. This chapter is concerned with gender construal and gender relations in the Harry Potter series. In particular, I look at the main female protagonist, Harry’s classmate, friend and confidante Hermione Granger. There is not sufficient space to look properly at gender representation in general in the series (although see below for some insights). It should be said however that Hermione is in many ways unique among the girl students, and as such may be something of an exception that proves the rule. Unlike most of her fellow-pupils, Hermione Granger is not from a wizarding family. She is a ‘Muggle’ – not of pure nor even half-wizard blood – and is thus a first-generation witch. This is not an issue for Harry or for Ron – the third member of the triumvirate, who comes from a poor but ‘pure wizarding’ family. However, it is an issue for several at the school, who would prefer not to see Muggles there at all. ‘Pureblood ideologies’ are widely spread amongst students in Slytherin (one of the four Hogwarts school Houses), in particular the threesome’s unpleasant enemies, their classmates Draco Malfoy and his acolytes. Harry, Ron and Hermione thus ‘represent a wide spectrum of types of wizards in terms of birth and wealth’ (Eccleshare, 2002: 77). Social inclusion is a theme throughout the series – although, aside from the ‘Muggle question’, this is usually implicit (there are several non-Caucasian students at Hogwarts, but ethnicity is not foregrounded), and limited. Jack Zipes (2002: 183) notes critically that the ‘people ‘chosen’ for the task of leadership

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[who] have the right magical skills and good genes . . . happen to be all white, all British, all from good homes’. They are, it also has to be said, largely male. To return to Hermione: she is an important member of her group of friends. Hermione is not only Hermione, or even a member of the social category ‘girl’, but has particular roles to play in the unfolding of the narrative. Eccleshare observes: Threesomes have the advantage of being able to produce three responses to any one situation . . . . Ron and Hermione have entirely different but equally important reactions to the desperate situations in which they and Harry are frequently found. (p. 39)11 This is important for the analyst. Harry, Ron and Hermione may articulate traces of different (gendered) discourses (see Chapter 4), or the thirdperson narrator may use different language about them. More importantly, as characters (or ‘participants’, or ‘social actors’), both Hermione and Ron are essentially Harry’s side-kicks (a change from the usual male-male Lone Ranger-Tonto arrangement). These narrative roles entail them both being different from Harry (as well as from each other). Any comparisons of Harry and Hermione in terms of, say, autonomy, agency, courage or influence, would thus be unlikely to reflect well on Hermione, because Harry is the protagonist and the main story is that of his growing up, against a particular set of fictional historical circumstances12. (Why the protagonist is a boy and not a girl is a relevant but different question.) However, the existence of Ron means that Hermione can be appropriately compared with him, as their side-kick roles are comparable. Hermione is renowned for her intelligence and quick-wittedness (she is not only more studious but also cleverer than Harry and Ron) and ability to use magic effectively. Yet she gets a bad press from a range of critics. She has been described variously as an ‘enabler of Harry’s and Ron’s adventures’ (Heilman, 2003: 224), ‘forever urging caution’ (Tucker, 1999: 229), as someone whose ‘considerable talents are nearly always used in the service of Harry’s quest’ (Pugh and Wallace, 2006: 270), and, relatedly, as not standing up to male characters. Mayes-Elma writes: in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry confides in Ron and Hermione that his scar has been hurting him . . . . of course Hermione is there to offer some suggestions as to why it might be bothering him all of a sudden. She of course is shot down and then ignored by both Harry

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and Ron. Just as in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione does not stand up to them and challenge their behaviour but instead accepts it graciously. (2006: 103) Hermione is also criticized for being a slavish follower of the school rules (although Philip Nel (2001) notes that as the series goes on, she learns that some rules are more valid than others), and a ‘blue-stocking bore’ (Eccleshare, 2002), because of her ‘complete allegiance to the rather traditional pedagogy of the school, and her reading of such works as An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe’13. Christine Schoefer (2000) adds that Hermione is no fun and ill-humoured and Zipes (2002) points to her support for strange causes, that is, the house-elves. These claims are certainly not without foundation. Yet, they may be overstated. Yes, Hermione is these things – but not only, and not always. What you find depends on what you look for. If we are unused to articulate, clever female characters, might Hermione’s articulateness and cleverness not almost inevitably come across as nerdiness and bossiness? Relatedly, is it the case that in what is still in many ways a ‘man’s world’, that the standard for female characters (including for feminist critics) is simply (if they wish to join this world) set higher for females than for males, and that even fictional, represented females’ deficiencies are more apparent than those of their male counterparts? Certainly, as the series progresses, Hermione is shown as not only clever and hardworking, but supportive of Harry in an active and thinking way, and indeed her quick thinking saves Harry’s life on more than one occasion14. Given that the Harry Potter series is essentially about Harry, both Hermione’s and Ron’s actions are aimed at helping him survive and achieve his goal. Pugh and Wallace (2006) refer here to ‘heteronormative heroism’: as Harry’s male side-kick, other than being a loyal friend, Ron is necessarily unimpressive when it comes to achievements of most sorts, in order that Harry’s intellectual, sporting and romantic achievements and courage are cast into high relief. Hermione (an unconventional, second, opposite-sex side-kick) fulfils other narrative functions. In particular, many of her achievements are due to her effectively applying the magic she has learnt, that is, as a result of her hard work. Harry’s talents, in contrast, for example flying, and talking Parseltongue, the language of snakes, appear to be innate (he is also attractive to girls without effort), and he possesses a huge amount of bravado and nerve. In these ways, both Hermione and Ron are carefully crafted to allow Harry’s uniqueness to shine through.

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Hermione and Ron (and Harry): Comparisons One purpose of this chapter is to explore how and to what extent Hermione’s characterization may be understood in relation to Rowling’s use of language – her words, and those of the narrator’s about her. As in previous chapters, this language is seen as a series of authorial selections from a wider pool. This is important. In real life, it would seem foolish to compare the talk and actions of three friends in terms of gender – the ‘sample’ is far too small (and hence too individualized) to say anything meaningful. But this is fiction. Rowling has created Harry and Ron as boys and Hermione as a girl: these are decisions authors make. Having made such decisions, they go on to ‘characterize’ their characters, including what they say and do, and how (see Chapter 3, also Culpeper, 2001). An author may or may not do this with one eye firmly on gender per se. But that characterization is highly likely to be influenced by a range of gendered considerations, including the author’s own attitudes and (gendered) experiences, access to ‘gendered discourses’ (Sunderland, 2004; see also Chapter 2), publishers’ agendas (see above) and authors’ awareness of research on gender representation in fiction. ‘Authorial choices’ may not be conscious ones. However, Hermione’s relative unusualness suggests that she was a very conscious creation. As the series progresses, she develops and matures, but remains recognizably Hermione, by Book 3 subject to the gendered and heteronormative (Pugh and Wallace, 2006) forces surrounding her teenage years. Despite Hermione’s surroundings, neither of these are magically transformed. Linguistic analysis of large bodies of texts (such as complete works of fiction, or series) is often done through Corpus linguistics (see e.g. Baker, 2006). And certainly a small corpus could have been built: the books could have been scanned, digitalized, keywords sought and collocations with Hermione – attributed characteristics, social action – compared in terms of those of Ron (and Harry). And corpus studies have been telling: for example, a finding of 380 narrated occurrences of the name Ron in Book 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, compared with only 208 of Hermione (Ibrahim, 2009). However, corpus analysis alone would have ‘flattened out’ and diluted the data, and would not have allowed properlycontextualized analysis of Hermione’s talk in relation to Harry’s and Ron’s. I have therefore analysed sections of an early chapter in which Harry, Ron and Hermione are on a quest, and in which, importantly, for most of the time, other characters are not present. This means that the talk and actions of each of the three is in relation only to those of the others.

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The section was ‘Through the trapdoor’, chapter 16 in Book 1 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997)15. I start the analysis by looking at ‘social action’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, 1995; see also Chapter 4), where the relevant linguistic realizations of Hermione, Harry and Ron can be seen as Rowling’s ‘representational choices’. While each choice may not have been highly considered, different possible others could have been made. And, as ever, related choices intertextually accumulate. To recap, van Leeuwen’s (2008, 1995) work on social action, building on Halliday (1985), uses the categories of ‘Action’ and ‘Reaction’ (Halliday’s ‘Mental’). ‘Action’ can be ‘Material’ (the same label as Halliday, to mean ‘doing’, e.g. fall, throw, wave) or ‘Semiotic’ (like Halliday’s ‘Verbal’, referring to ‘meaning’ (e.g. agree, exhort, burst out)). ‘Reaction’ can be cognitive, affective or perceptive, (e.g. continue to work out, shudder, notice) respectively16. The relevant linguistic features need not be verbs: both Actions and Reactions may also be ‘realized’ through nouns and noun phrases (van Leeuwen gives the examples of ‘unwanted’ and ‘tolerance’). In this syntactically rather simple text, almost all are verbs (including phrasal verbs). Specifically, I look at: z z

‘transactivity’ in relation to the characters’ Material actions (see Chapter 4) Semiotic actions (including directives)

As well as specific and careful reference to the text, this entails simple quantitative analysis of the qualitative data (the written text), that is, frequencies and proportions. The analysis below provides initial findings about Hermione (and Harry and Ron) in relation to the language of the text, and exemplifies this way of carrying out close examination of parts of a work of fiction.

Social Action in ‘Through the Trapdoor’ In ‘Through the trapdoor’, Harry, Ron and Hermione are tracking down the three-headed dog which is guarding the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. They have to pass through several doors, get past the dog to the ‘flying-key’ room, through a door guarded by giant chess pieces, and then through the doors in and out of the ‘potions room’. The relevant extract starts several pages into the chapter, when they set off on their quest, and

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continues to the end of the chapter (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 1997, pp. 271–87). As indicated, the most appropriate comparison is between Hermione and Ron. Nevertheless, there are also interesting comparisons to be made between each of them and Harry. Below I use van Leeuwen’s (2008, 1995; see also Chapter 4) categories of Social Action to identify the different Action (Material and Semiotic) and Reaction processes attributed by the narrator to Harry, Hermione and Ron in this episode. I use a simple frequency count of main and subordinate verbs (including phrasal verbs), including, metonymically, these which refer to body parts of Harry, Hermione and Ron (e.g. ‘her lip trembled’). Out of 220 ‘social actions’, the third-person narrator attributes to Harry 106, Hermione 60 and Ron 54. (This is in part because for the final section of the extract, the chess game, Ron is unconscious, having been knocked out by the stone arm of the White Queen.) Within these 220, Tables 9a and 9b show the distribution of these across the three characters in terms of raw frequencies and percentages. Harry, unsurprisingly, is associated with more verbs (106 out of the total of 220) and more of each type of verb than either Ron or Hermione. Most of the processes, and more of each of Harry’s and Hermione’s, are material. Yet the similarity of the percentages of Hermione’s and Harry’s action-types (rounded up or down), as a proportion of the whole of each, are striking. Table 9a Semiotic, material and reaction processes associated with Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

Total

Semiotic

34

30

23

87

Material

59

22

33

114

Reaction

13

2

4

19

Total

106

54

60

220

Table 9b Percentages of semiotic, reaction and material processes associated with Harry, Ron and Hermione Harry

Ron

Hermione

Semiotic

32

56

38

Material

56

41

55

Reaction

12

4

7

Total

100

101

100

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The proportion of material verbs pertaining to Harry is virtually the same as that pertaining to Hermione (and for both this is greater than for Ron). Harry and Hermione both do things. (Note, however, that over the seven books as a whole, material processes in the narration have been found to be associated largely with male characters (Ibrahim, 2009). This may be because Hermione is largely the ‘exception that proves the rule’ in terms of gender construal, but Hermione’s ‘processes’ may also become proportionally less material as the series continues.) In relation to these material processes, we can look at ‘transactivity’, that is, those material processes which can be (and here are) associated with an object (grammatically, here, a direct object), which both Halliday and van Leeuwen refer to as a ‘goal’. This means that these actions are represented as having an effect (however small) on the (fictional) world around them. van Leeuwen comments: ‘Clearly the ability to ‘transact’ requires a certain power, and the greater that power, the greater the range of ‘goals’ that may be affected by an actor’s actions’ (1995: 90). Table 9c shows the results. I do not look at ‘degrees’ of transactivity (or, hence, of power) here. Yet these similar proportions of transitive verbs (59%–63%) show that the representations of Harry, Ron and Hermione in Book 1 are strikingly consistent with regards to the extent to which their represented social actions have an effect on the world. A further distinction for van Leeuwen is whether ‘transactivity’ is ‘interactive’ (affecting people) or ‘instrumental’ (affecting things, or animals). This is, of course, a problematic distinction in a text in which people and animals change into each other, and objects can become people. Here, I am using ‘interactive’ to include reference to any beings (e.g. ‘black knight’), thus categorizing chess people who come to life as ‘people’.

Table 9c Transactivity and the material processes associated with Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

Total no. of material verbs Transitive

59

22

33

37

13

20

%

63%

59%

61%

Non-transitive

22

9

13

%

37%

41%

39%

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Table 9d Instrumental and interactive transactivity associated with Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

Total no. of transitive material verbs

37

13

20

Instrumental

30

11

16

%

81%

85%

80%

Interactive

7

2

4

%

19%

15%

20%

‘Instrumental’ here includes reference to a body part (‘shake one’s head’)17. The results are shown in Table 9d. Most of the ‘acting on the world’, then, is instrumental, that is, on things rather than people. Nevertheless, Harry and Hermione are again remarkably similar in terms of proportions, and both show more ‘interactive transactivity’ in their material actions than does Ron. (As shown above, one of Ron’s functions as side-kick of the hero is to allow such differential representations.) The numbers and proportions of the Semiotic processes, as shown in Tables 9a and 9b, above, were as follows. Harry

Ron

Hermione

Semiotic

34

30

23

%

32%

56%

38%

Harry speaks the most, but proportionately less than his friends (particularly Ron) in terms of their social actions in general. Even in raw score terms, both Hermione and Ron talk a lot. But it is important also to consider how these semiotic processes were actually represented lexically, that is, through ‘speech act’ verbs within reporting clauses (see Chapter 4). The predominant verb was said (for each of the three, in similar proportions, in relation to all semiotic processes):

Table 9e Number and proportions of said associated with Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

said

23

18

15

%

68%

60%

65%

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Table 9f Semiotic verbs unique to each of Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

croaked

exploded

cried

gasped

warned

shrieked

choked

snarled

ordered

asked

bellowed

screamed

snapped were his first words

All three also whispered; Harry and Ron called; Ron and Hermione muttered. The few semiotic verbs unique to each are shown in Table 9f. And here for the first time we see a small measure of differentiation18 between Hermione and the boys. The majority of these semiotic verbs are rather ‘extreme’ (unsurprisingly, given the challenging situation Rowling’s characters are in). However, the semiotic verbs uniquely used of Hermione (unlike those used by the boys) are only extreme. This must be seen in context, given the much greater frequency of said attributed to Hermione’s (and the use of muttered and whispered). The similarities between Harry, Ron and Hermione greatly outweigh the differences, and this is important (and, compared with many books written previously, unusual). Nevertheless, the tendency remains, and reportedly continues throughout the series: Elizabeth Heilman for example points out that in action scenes in Book 2, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, ‘Hermione speaks in a ‘terrified voice’ . . . or a petrified whisper . . . Harry and Ron are never described in this way’ (2003: 224). There is no scope here to look at Reaction verb types (cognitive, affective and perceptive) in this episode, but in the light of the above it would be interesting to explore the possibility of construed gender differentiation in the use of affective verbs – especially as Wesam Ibrahim’s (2009) finding from a Corpus linguistics investigation of the series showed lexical items associated with emotion (e.g. sob, cry, tears) to be associated largely with female and with ‘non-hegemonic’ male characters.

Hermione’s ‘Bossiness’ One word frequently used to describe Hermione is ‘bossy’. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone this comes in part from the third-person narrator, who introduces Hermione with reference to her ‘bossy sort of voice’ (1997: 105),

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but Rowling (via the narrator) also allows Harry and Ron to focalize here (‘Hermione was now refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus’, p. 164). Hermione’s ‘bossiness’ is taken up by critics (adult and child). One review of the film version (although no contrast is being made here with the book) of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone includes: [Rupert] Grint as Ron is the typical sidekick. Trustworthy, loyal and a bit goofy. In contrast there is [Emma] Watson as Hermione, bossy, know it all and yearning for friendship. (http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/ harry.htm; accessed 2 Jan. 2010) And part of a poem written by a school student reads: And as the year goes by at Hogwarts’ gate, Only Harry, only he can discover his fate. Hermione’s bossy, Ron’s sarcastic, But working together, this team’s fantastic19. But is Hermione really bossy, or does she just seem so because we are used to books in which boys tell girls what to do (remember ‘Pour the cocoa, Janet’ in Chapter 3?), rather than the other way round? Or is her bossiness simply exaggerated? One way of exploring this is to look at Hermione’s directive language, that is, when she is telling someone to do something. Directives are important in the Harry Potter series, given that (as in most boarding school stories) the protagonists are bent on outwitting their teachers and getting round the school rules (and of course the school itself is characterized by dangers as well as benign marvels). Outwitting teachers and getting round school rules requires co-ordination and talk, potentially including suggesting, giving advice, commanding, convincing and perhaps coercion (i.e. different forms of directive). Further, the famous and gifted Harry (as his friends know) is also vulnerable: Voldemort, his ‘Death Eaters’ and several of those who resent the presence of Muggles at Hogwarts wish him dead, and particular teachers and fellow pupils have different reasons for disliking him. Hence the need for directives from his friends when Harry is in trouble. How can we identify a directive in fiction? A command, suggestion, and so on, may be evident in the relevant ‘reporting clause’: she commanded, he suggested. From Table 9f above (‘Semiotic verbs’), there would appear to be only one example in the extract, and this is attributed to Hermione: ‘Stop

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Table 9g Imperative verbs attributed to Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

Hermione

Do something

Come on

Don’t be stupid

Look at you both!

If anything happens to me, don’t follow

You drink that

Keep playing

Stop moving!

Go straight to the owlery

No, listen, get back Give the flute to and get Ron Hermione

Shut up

send Hedwig to Dumbledore

Grab brooms from Harry, you take the place the flying-key room of that bishop

Go on

Well, hurry up

You drink first

So light a fire!

Quick, go, before it Harry, move diagonally wears off four squares to the right

Ron, you come at it from above

If anything happens Hermione, go on to me, don’t follow.

Hermione, stay below and stop it from going down

GO!

Hermione, you go next to Give me a minute him instead of that castle Be careful

Keep playing

moving!’ Hermione ordered them. ‘I know what this is – it’s Devil’s Snare’.’ Directive language is however more evident in the friends’ actual words of their direct speech imperatives (as in ‘Stop moving!’; a question of mood, see Chapter 4). These include imperatives with subjects (‘You drink that’). The imperatives are distributed across the three characters in Table 9g, arranged in sequence (Harry’s are arranged in two columns, to be read vertically). The frequency of Ron and Hermione’s imperatives are broadly comparable (8 and 6, respectively, though Ron’s imperatives are the more detailed), with Harry easily being given the lion’s share (16). Directives can be achieved in moods other than the imperative, for example declarative and other clauses of obligation and of suggestion, ‘If’ clauses, and Exclamatives, as shown in Table 9h. Whereas Harry and Ron are broadly equivalent in terms of amount and variety of their non-imperative directives, Hermione produces none at all. Her reputation for bossiness is therefore certainly not borne out by her total use of directives in this episode. A partial, textual explanation may be that whereas Ron’s ‘moment of glory’ is the chess game (chess being the one intellectual area in which Ron excels), when he has to verbally direct Harry and Hermione, Hermione’s is when she solves – by logic,

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Table 9h Non-imperative directives attributed to Harry, Ron and Hermione in ‘Through the trapdoor’ Harry

Ron

We’d better put the cloak on here, and make sure it covers all three of us . . . .

Better get the cloak

You can jump

Oh, let’s kick her, just this once

This way

We’ll just have to drop

We’ve got to catch the key to the door

We’ve got to play our way across the room

That one!

I think . . . we’re going to have to be chessmen

That big one – there . . .

I suppose we’ve got to take the place of three of the black pieces.

We’ve got to close in on it

You’ve got to make some sacrifices!

Hermione

Look, if you don’t hurry up, he’ll already have the Stone

quietly – the problem of which of the eight bottles to drink the magic potion from. On the other hand, despite Ron being knocked out (hence silent) for the last part of the episode, he still manages as many imperative directives as Hermione, and as many non-imperative directives as Harry. In this episode, then, other than a slight tendency for gender-stereotypical reporting clauses, gender asymmetry is not contributed to significantly in the language of or about Hermione, Ron and Harry. Certainly she does not appear linguistically bossy (though this may be less true of other books and episodes). But if the question of Hermione’s bossiness remains unresolved, what about construal of the other girl students? There is certainly an issue here, as formal and less formal content analyses bear out. In terms of visibility, Elizabeth Heilman (2003) reports 35 and 29 named male and female students respectively, not a figure to get too upset about. Yet, as observed in previous chapters, frequencies are not enough: the issue is not only whether female characters are represented, but how. A range of negative observations have been made here. Christine Schoefer (2000) writes: ‘Girls, when they are not downright silly or unlikable, are helpers, enablers and instruments. No girl is brilliantly heroic the way Harry is . . .’20. And from Jack Zipes: ‘Typically, the girls are always left to gawk and gaze at Harry’s stunning prowess’ (2001: 179). Heilman (2003: 227–8) comments on the frequency of giggling among the girl pupils, their obsession with their looks (demonstrated by Eloise Midgen and her acne, and even Hermione fixing her teeth magically), and the fact that they tend to be

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rather hazily drawn, often being presented in groups. Mayes-Elma (2006) observes that female agency is largely achieved by female characters enforcing rules; that when girls break the rules, it is to help boys in some way. As regards girls and teachers, Mayes-Elma observes that female characters constantly request validation from males; are consistently ignored by male characters (the frequency of such episodes increasing as the series goes on); and do express their agency through resistance, but then concede: ‘Rowling allows the women to resist up to a certain point but then always has them retreat’ (2006: 104). Writing of the first four books, Schoefer (2000) observes: ‘no woman is experienced and wise like [male] Professor Dumbledore [we can add: not even Professor McGonegal, the female Deputy Head]. In fact, the range of female personalities is so limited that neither women nor girls play on the side of evil’. This is an important observation: we have got beyond wanting only positive role models for female characters; rather, the range of construals should, most would argue, be as great and as complex as those of men and boys (the problem of ‘range of representations’ was identified by many Content analyses; see Chapters 3 and 6). Schoefer’s observation does not hold for the later books, however, with the scurrilous journalist Rita Skeeter, Dolores Umbridge from the Ministry of Magic, and the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange21. Andrew Blake (2002) notes that such ‘evil’ female characters are nevertheless not equal in power to the evil males. And Pugh and Wallace (2006), who take us beyond the Magic to the Muggle world, argue that Women’s roles are subjugated to masculinity in the Potter books in that the gender roles in the three main social institutions – government (the Ministry of Magic), school (Hogwarts) and family (the Dursleys and the Weasleys) – are blatantly traditional (p. 269). It is noteworthy that while Harry Potter is concerned with social inclusiveness in terms of being moneyed (or not), having a ‘wizard background’ (or not), is arguably anti-fascist in its critique of Voldemort’s and the Malfoys’ concern with ‘pure wizard blood’ (see also Gupta, 2009; Nel, 2001), and gives a nod towards the value of ethnic diversity (at least of Hogwarts’ pupils)22, the represented gender relations are considerably less progressive. Gender (as I continue to show below) is simply not treated with the same literary imagination which characterizes much of the rest of the series. (Relatedly, Pugh and Wallace (2006) point to the absence of any sexuality other than heterosexuality at Hogwarts.) This is true not only of

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the narrative and narration, but also in the characters’ dialogue: Eccleshare perceptively notes that, compared with the differences of race and wealth: ‘Gender differences – or similarities – are not so openly discussed’ (2002: 83).

Gendered Discourses Below I identify some ‘gendered discourses’ (see also Chapters 4 and 8) in Harry Potter. As we saw in Chapter 4, discourse identification is a particular issue for fiction. First, because fiction is dialogic, many different conceptual points of view are typically presented (including actual arguments put by the characters), hence linguistic traces of many different discourses. Secondly, both dialogue and narration may include irony, sarcasm and humour, which means that even provisional identification of particular discourses requires very sensitive inference on the part of the analyst. Further, it is harder (I propose) to identify discourses in spoken interaction than in written text – not only because it is produced by more than one person, but also because of on-going conversational features such as negotiation, face-saving, and the normative use of adjacency pairs, for example (see e.g. Myers, 2009; Culpeper, 2009). Arguably, then, identifying discourses in construed and fictional spoken interaction is even more complex. This means that particular caution is needed in making claims about gendered discourses in fiction. There is, it has to be said, a great deal of traditional gender construal in Harry Potter. Leaving aside the almost parodically ‘happy ending’ of the series at the end of Book 7, the highly conventional preparations, arrangements and social practices associated with the Yule Ball (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – Book 4), that is, the differentially-gendered angst of inviting, being declined, not being invited at all, and what to do at the ball; and Fleur and Bill’s wedding (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Book 7), we can point to other highly traditional representations. One of these is the characterization of Mrs Weasley. Mother of seven children (including Ron), she acts as a mother figure to Harry, and even Hermione. She cooks delicious meals, knits sweaters, and generally bustles around like a mother hen (see also Kornfeld and Prothro, 2003). This is in gender-stereotypical contrast to her husband who goes to work every day at the Ministry of Magic, where he looks after Muggle Artefacts. Andrew Blake describes the Weasleys as a caricature of the 1950s family – the lunch-preparing mother at home, several children at work or school, and the father a middle-rank, underpaid, hard-working civil servant. (2002: 65)

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Rowling may well have a clear literary strategy here. Most obviously, Mrs Weasley stands in for Harry as the provider of the mother-love he lost (his Aunt Petunia is, non-coincidentally, given traditional ‘stepmother’ characteristics found in fairy tales; her own son Dudley is spoiled rotten). This is however only part of the explanation: in this role, Mrs Weasley doesn’t need to have all these traditional characteristics. But, just as illustrators of anthropomorphic animal stories tend to dress their characters gender-stereotypically (aprons, bowler hats), to help the reader identify which is male and which female (see Chapter 3), Rowling may be relying on these stereotypes to resolve – or textually help recreate – the potential tension between a ‘mother who can do magic’ and a ‘mother who is like a real mother’. This sort of created/creative tension informs the series more widely: Harry is a wizard but he is also a boy at a boarding school where there are rules, lessons and sports competitions between Houses. He can do magic but he is also going through adolescence and is increasingly interested in girls. Being a wizard does not mean his homework does itself nor that he can attract any girl he wants. This sustained tension between the fantastic and the ordinary is what makes the books interesting. Mrs Weasley may be an accomplished witch – for example, she efficiently defeats Bellatrix Lestrange when she attacks her daughter Ginny (Book 7, p. 589) – but she also (indeed, as in this example of her witching powers) demonstrates the concerns and practices of Muggle mothers: arguably, to increase the tension, particularly stereotypical mother ones. So, even though Mrs Weasley is not just a wife and mother, we are nevertheless back with the ‘Woman as main carer’ discourse identified elsewhere (e.g. Sunderland, 2006b, 2000). This may to an extent be a matter of genre. John Stephens observes that the tendency for ‘rounded’ characters to be alien to fantastic narrative discourse still exists, and ‘flat’ characters are stereotypes. Growth and complexity in character is still probably the domain of realistic fiction. (1992: 280) This tendency, if true, may apply more to Mrs Weasley than Hermione, Harry and Ron (and to single books rather than series). In the Harry Potter series, the three have seven years to grow and develop, during which time the reader rarely loses sight of any of them. Suman Gupta refers to the three worlds of Harry Potter: the magical world, the Dursleys’ world, and our world, and the manner in which they ‘are juxtaposed against each other and give point to each other’ (2009: 85). Gupta’s point is that the magic world acts as a commentary on our own, and Rowling may be intentionally

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making gentle (though largely uncontroversial) points about the value of and need for social inclusion. But at the same time, I would argue that the magic world in Harry Potter is inscribed as if it needs to be understood through our own world, but, sadly as far as gender relations are concerned, through (safe and familiar) dominant and conservative rather than progressive discourses: what we might call traditional discourses of gender relations23. What I have described above can be seen not just as a ‘Traditional discourse of gender’ but also as a traditional ‘Gender differences’ discourse: the articulation of the idea that women and men tend to be different, and do different things (see e.g. Sunderland, 2004). In the case of Mr and Mrs Weasley, Rowling’s authorial choices result in their textual construal as members of two socially different groups. Other examples can be found in the dialogue, usually in the direct speech. At a party Hermione retorts to Harry (who is commenting on the topic), ‘Quidditch! Is that all boys care about? Cormac hasn’t asked me one single question about myself, no, I’ve just been treated to A Hundred Great Saves Made by Cormac McLaggen . . . .’ (Book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) p. 298). By ‘making gender relevant’ (she comments on it as a boys’ issue, not just something to do with Cormac and Harry), she is articulating traces of a ‘Gender differences’ discourse. Ron and Harry do this too. In the same book, when Ron and Hermione begin to feel attracted to each other, and Hermione tries to make Ron jealous, Harry ‘was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge’ (p. 294) (‘Narrator’s representation of a thought act’; Leech and Short, 2007). Later, when Harry and Ron are considering the odd behaviour of a female ally, Tonks: ‘I had a thought,’ said Harry tentatively. He felt strange about voicing it; this was much more Hermione’s territory than his. ‘You don’t think she can have been . . . you know . . . . in love with Sirius?’ (p. 438) Although there is no direct ‘making gender relevant’ here, that is, no reference to women, men, boys or girls, I would suggest that ‘Hermione’s territory’ indexes Hermione’s being more emotionally aware than Harry, and Hermione as a member of the social category ‘girl/woman’, with whom emotional awareness (and related talk) is socially associated. ‘Gender differences’ are thus being indirectly indexed here. Notably, Harry’s question is followed up by Ron’s ‘She’s gone a bit funny. Lost her nerve. Women,’ he said wisely to Harry. ‘They’re easily upset.’

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Ron and Harry, indirectly and directly, are thus also ‘making gender relevant’: they have identified gender as something to do with their analysis of the situation. In the above quote, wisely, as well as a description of the quality of Ron’s observation or his tone of voice, can also be read ironically, given that the reader knows Ron’s reputation for lack of emotional awareness (and because while he says this he is ‘shovelling mashed potato into his mouth’). In this way, Rowling’s narrator distances herself from the ‘wisdom’ in question. Traces of the discourse are nevertheless being articulated. There are earlier explicit hints of the relevance of gender (and hence importance of perceived difference) in Book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000). When Harry and Ron go off to play Quidditch despite Hermione having told Ron that Harry is ‘worried, and he’s tired’ (p. 135), she then ‘left the room, muttering something which sounded very much like ‘Boys’.’ Before the Yule Ball, we have: ‘Why do they have to move in packs?’ Harry asked Ron, as a dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering and staring at Harry. ‘How’re you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?’ ‘Lasso one?’ Ron suggested. (Book 4, p. 339)24 when they stands for girls and one for a girl; that is, the social category looms large, individuals small. There are, too, early situations when the salience of gender is implicit. In one instance, Hermione refers to the face of Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Quidditch seeker, on a poster, as looking ‘really grumpy’ (p. 77): ‘ “Really grumpy”?’ Ron raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Who cares what he looks like? He’s unbelievable. He’s really young, too. Only just eighteen or something. He’s a genius, you wait until tonight, you’ll see.’ Again, gender is not explicitly indexed here. However, one reading is that Hermione’s and Ron’s perspectives on Viktor are differently gendered ones, expressed here in a way that lays the foundations for later heterosexual attraction. I am not claiming that this ‘Gender differences’ discourse is ‘dominant’ in Harry Potter nor that it permeates the series. (Nevertheless, gender is ‘made relevant’ directly and indirectly in Book 4, when Harry and his classmates are about 14, that is, these traces come into being with the characters’ adolescence against Hogwarts’ heteronormative backdrop

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(see Pugh and Wallace, 2006).) As with any work of fiction, traces of a given discourse evident in some voices will not be so in others, and any discourse articulated is as likely to be peripheral as dominant. Neither am I talking here about the difference between Hermione, and Harry and Ron, as a girl and boys25. But my concern here is when words and behaviours constitute representations of girls/women as a social group, that is, when they ‘resonate’ with similar recognisably gendered discourses.

Hermione Granger and the ‘Mutual Incomprehension of Women and Men’ Discourse In a further incident in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry and Ron have been not speaking to each other for a while but are rather uncomfortably about to make up: Hermione burst into tears. ‘There’s nothing to cry about!’ Harry told her, bewildered. ‘You two are so stupid!’ she shouted, stamping her foot on the ground, tears splashing down her front. Then, before either of them could stop her, she had given both of them a hug, and dashed away, now positively howling. ‘Barking,’ said Ron, shaking his head. ‘Harry, c’mon, they’ll be putting up your [Quidditch] scores . . . .’ (2000, p. 314) Gender may be relevant here for the reader (who may share or at least recognize a view of girls as more emotionally attuned, on which the representation of Hermione seems to be drawing), but it would appear in this instance to be not at all for Ron or Harry, even as an ‘explanation’ for Hermione’s behaviour (or even for Hermione). Ron’s important word here is ‘Barking’. Neither he nor Harry has any comprehension of the meaning of Hermione’s language and behaviour. What I am illustrating here is traces of a discourse I have referred to elsewhere (e.g. 2004) as ‘Mutual incomprehension of women and men’: the idea being that women and men really are from planet Earth’s equivalents of Mars and Venus (see Gray, 1992; Tannen, 1990; Maltz and Borker, 1982; but also Cameron, 2008), and that, if women and men are different to the point of mutual incomprehension, understanding each other is basically impossible and therefore a pointless goal. Traces of this discourse can be seen in particular in popular ‘lifestyle’ magazines attempting to

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‘demystify’ each sex for the benefit of the other26 (for example, the November 2009 issue of the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan included a feature called ‘Men take our lie-detector test’). This, I suggest, is indexed in Ron’s ‘Barking’ above. This ‘Mutual incomprehension’ discourse is evident at several other (later) points in the series, notably when (hetero-) sexual attraction really kicks in. When ‘difference’ becomes attractive, perhaps non-comprehension is supposed to be part of the fun27. As an obvious example, when Hermione tries to make Ron jealous, Harry thinks ‘Girls were very strange sometimes’ ((Book 6, p. 293). But for the reader used to dramatic irony, the most obvious (although implicit) case is in Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003). Cho Chang, Harry’s first object of desire, tells Harry: ‘Erm . . . there’s another Hogsmeade trip next month, did you see the notice?’ ‘What? Oh no, I haven’t checked the noticeboard since I got back.’ ‘Yes, it’s on Valentine’s Day.’ ‘Right,’ said Harry, wondering why she was telling him this. ‘Well, I suppose you want to – ?’ ‘Only if you do,’ she said eagerly. Harry stared. He had been about to say ‘I suppose you want to know when the next DA meeting is?’ but her response did not seem to fit. ‘I – er –‘ he said. ‘Oh, it’s OK if you don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I – I’ll see you around.’ She walked away. Harry stood staring after her, his brain working frantically. Then something clunked into place (pp. 466–7). Harry and Cho do arrange to join the Hogsmeade Valentine’s Day visit, together, and all goes well until they go for coffee in Madam Puddifoot’s teashop. They are surrounded by kissing couples and conversation is awkward: Harry . . . cast around wildly for something else to say. ‘Er . . . listen, d’you want to come with me to the Three Broomsticks at lunchtime? I’m meeting Hermione Granger there.’ Cho raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re meeting Hermione Granger? Today?’ ‘Yeah. Well, she asked me to so I thought I would. D’you want to come with me? She said it wouldn’t matter if you did.’

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‘Oh . . . well . . . that was nice of her.’ But Cho did not sound as though she thought it was nice at all. On the contrary, her tone was cold and all of a sudden she looked rather forbidding. A few more minutes passed in total silence . . . . Cho . . . was now watching Roger Davies kissing his girlfriend with a mildly interested expression. ‘He asked me out, you know,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though.’ Harry . . . could not think why she was telling him this. If she wished she were sitting at the next table being heartily kissed by Roger Davies, why had she agreed to come out with him? He said nothing . . . . ‘I came in here with Cedric last year,’ said Cho. (p. 495) Things then go from bad to worse. Harry says he doesn’t want to talk about Cedric (whom he had watched die) and Cho starts to cry: ‘Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger!’ she said shrilly . . . ‘But you won’t talk to me! . . . I don’t know why you asked me out in the first place if you’re going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me . . . . How many are you meeting after Hermione?’ ‘It’s not like that!’ said Harry, and he was so relieved at finally understanding what she was annoyed about that he laughed, which he realised a split second too late was also a mistake. (p. 496) Cho leaves in a hurry, as does Harry, but fails to find her: ‘Women!’ he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his pockets. (p. 497) Harry’s ‘Women!’ shows his irritation and mystification, but is redundant, I suggest, for the (knowing) reader, who can see in the above an enactment of the ‘Mutual incomprehension of women and men’ discourse. Harry later talks about this painful episode with Hermione and Ron, and Hermione takes it upon herself to explain: ‘Look – you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous . . . . It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her.’

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‘Is that what she was doing?’ said Harry . . . . Well, wouldn’t it have been easier if she’d just asked me whether I liked her better than you?’ ‘Girls don’t often ask questions like that,’ said Hermione. ‘Well, they should!’ said Harry, forcefully. ‘I’m not saying what she did was sensible,’ said Hermione. ‘I’m just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time.’ ‘You should write a book,’ Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, ‘translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.’ ‘Yeah,’ said Harry fervently. (p. 505) This time, the social category girl is explicit. Hermione acts as the ‘expert’ who can not only identify why girls do what they do, but can ‘translate’ it for boys. This is in some ways predictable: Hermione is clever, insightful, articulate, largely indifferent to traditional trappings and restrictions of femininity (such as desiring not to appear clever), and interested in far more than acquiring a boyfriend. Despite being one herself, she is distancing herself from the social category girl. It is however probably not a coincidence that Hermione is also represented (at this point in the series) very much as a ‘mate’ of Ron and Harry, rather than as a potential girlfriend of either. But, clearly, Hermione’s explanation, for Ron and Harry, takes some getting their heads around. Another example occurs in Book 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Ron gives Harry a book for his 17 birthday: ‘This isn’t your average book,’ said Ron. ‘It’s pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I’d had this last year, I’d have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I would’ve known how to get going with . . . You’d be surprised, it’s not all about wandwork, either.’ (p. 97) Here, traces of the ‘Mutual comprehension’ discourse are very evident: not only is managing relationships with girls difficult (since girls are mysterious), it takes a ‘How to’ book to enlighten the (boy) reader! The significance of these particular traces of this discourse (for the Harry Potter series) is again muted by the fact that it is being articulated by the emotionally-limited Ron. Nevertheless, discourse works cumulatively, and these several examples work together to construct a view of post-pubescent males and females being very different from each other, to the point of mutual incomprehension. While humorously intended and executed, this arguably indexes a particularly pernicious form of sexism. ‘Gender

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differences’ are entirely in accordance with the ‘heteronormative heroism’ that Pugh and Wallace (2006) see Harry Potter as characterizing, given the ‘difference’ that heteronormativity entails between women and men (as well as straight and gay men).

Conclusion Harry Potter is for many a glorious read, and should remain so. At the same time, while in many ways it can be commended for its representation of gender, it has to be said that some construals are distinctly more progressive than others, while some are downright traditional. Above I have shown the particular workings of one form of a broad ‘Gender differences’ discourse: an uncritical inclusion of traces of what I call a ‘Mutual incomprehension of women and men’ discourse. Harry Potter is not alone in this patchiness – and, again, the analyst needs to be vigilant for highs, lows and a lot of nuancing. Hermione may be an exception among her female peers at Hogwarts. Nevertheless, given that she is a student in a mixed-school, her construed strengths are, I propose, particularly welcome. Many of the academic criticisms of her appear to come from a lack of proper recognition that she, like Ron, is a side-kick; this is her role in the narrative. As a side-kick, she will always be different from, and many ways subordinate to, Harry, as will Ron. In the later books, if Hermione’s role diminishes, it does so no less than does Ron’s. But the question of why this phenomenal series was not about (and called) Hermione Potter or perhaps Harriet Potter remains.

Chapter 10

Conclusion

‘Children’s fiction’ is a huge topic. In this book I have looked at a very small selection, in relation to gender. I hope I have shown that marginalization of and discrimination against women and girls, and less-than-optimal gender relations more broadly, can be construed in a myriad of often complex ways. It is interesting that different, independent research studies (e.g. Jackson and Gee, 2005; Shibamoto-Smith, 2004; Talbot, 1998) have also identified a similar phenomenon in fiction, that is, maximization of gender difference (notably even when, as in the case of Jackson and Gee, no heterosexual romance is at stake). In terms of future research, this phenomenon would be well worth following up, in both children’s and adults’ fiction. At the same time, the ‘affordances’ of fiction (see Chapter 8) are such that ‘progressive’ construals can also be achieved, in a range of creative and artistic ways, regardless of the narrative, and indeed of the historical period in which the book is set. This potential should not be under-estimated. Yet ‘progressive’ construal in one respect is no guarantee that other respects will follow suit (as Chapter 6, on modern reading schemes, shows). This book has focused on the texts themselves. It is however not possible to overstate the potential for different, including unpredictable, readings by ‘real readers’, who may wilfully or otherwise even read ‘against the grain’. This is to follow Sandra Gilbert and Susan’s Gubar’s (1986) notion, exemplified by seeing the looking glass in ‘Snow White’, into which Snow White’s stepmother the Queen looks, as the voice of patriarchy which demands that the king’s consort must be ‘the fairest of all’ (and, by extension, that appearance is more important for women than anything else, and more important for women than for men). Accordingly, in this reading the King . . . need no longer appear in the story because, having assimilated the meaning of her own sexuality . . . the woman has internalised

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the King’s rules: his voice resides now in her own mirror, her own mind. (Gilbert and Gubar, 1986: 202) This is regardless of the intentions of the author for a given work of fiction, and indeed interpretations by professional analysts. If it can be achieved, such a reading brings with it a certain emancipation: one is controlling meaning, through knowledge and awareness, rather than being ‘subject positioned’ by that work of fiction in a regressive (or other) way. In looking almost entirely at the texts themselves, from the point of view of content, language and visuals, I have made and re-made the point that while content analysis is essential, it will always leave something to be desired. Linguistic analyses always have the potential to pick up on subtleties of language which pass unnoticed by the reader (or content analyst), subtleties which are not ‘icing on the content cake’ but rather constitutive of meaning, especially if certain lexical or syntactic patterns are recontextualized and accumulate. Drawing on the contributions to linguistics of Michael Halliday and Theo van Leeuwen, I have in particular applied the ideational notion of transitivity to characterisation (the representation, or construal, of social actors) and to ‘point of view’. I hope that I have shown that whether linguistic analyses confirm or disconfirm initial impressions or findings of content analyses, they succeed in showing nuances and complexities which suggest the need for caution as regards bold claims that a work of fiction represents women, men, boys, girls or gender relations in this way or that. Beyond brief references, the book’s scope does not extend to considerations of distribution, production and consumption (see Fairclough, 1993), important as these are. Issues of production extend to practices of writers, editors, illustrators and publishing companies. An interesting issue for gender study is collaboration between writer and illustrator; that it often occurs in a substantial way is suggested by the frequent practice of attributing creation of a children’s book to both writer and illustrator (The Paperbag Princess, for example, by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko, has both their names on the front cover, although Munsch is the author and Martchenko the illustrator)1. An understanding of such collaborations would doubtless provide fascinating insights into decisions about and rationales for particular relationships between texts and (often gendered) visuals (see Chapter 3). Distribution includes practices of and in commercial and other ‘outlets’ for printed fiction, both global and local. But might distribution have any specific relevance to gender and children’s fiction? Writing in the early days of the ‘Western’ Women’s Movement, Carol Adams and Rae Laurikietis

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observed that ‘Often children’s libraries are arranged in separate sections for boys and girls’ (1980: 46). It would have been interesting to have seen what was put where, and why, and any debate around this – and, indeed, how many children ‘crossed’ to the shelves assigned to the opposite sex. Happily this practice is no longer in evidence in most contexts (although I recall, recently, an airport bookshop with a similar arrangement for books for adults).

Consumption Consumption of fictional (and other) texts is an extremely fruitful field – and, many would argue (and I would not disagree), far more socially and educationally important than the study of texts alone. ‘Consumption’ extends to something referred to frequently in this book: different readings of the same text (including visuals). The rise of diverse theories of reader reception/response (e.g. Mills et al., 1989; Culpeper, 2001) and post-structuralist thinking (e.g. Davies 1997, 1993) point to the fluctuating and contingent nature of meaning (of a word, utterance, complete work of fiction . . .). Which meanings are ‘accessed’, or, better, ‘co-constructed’ (by the text and reader, through what that reader brings to the text), may be due to readers’ different ‘stores’ of background knowledge which must shape how we build mental representations and understand the fictional world. Cognitive psychology has much to offer here (see e.g. Trabasso and Magliano, 1996; van den Broek, 1994). And, just as there are many potential readings of a given text, an individual reader may be able to simultaneously entertain two readings of the same text. Consumption extends not only to the psychology of reading and text processing but also to literacy practices (see e.g. Barton and Hamilton, 1998): in this case, of the ‘consumers’ themselves, the readers of children’s fiction (boys and girls); but also ‘non-ideal’ readers (teachers, parents and students of children’s fiction). What do people do with the texts they encounter? Alexis Wing (1997), for example, describes how she used Anne Fine’s Bill’s New Frock (a story about a boy who wakes up to find he is a girl, and is treated as such) with 11- and 12-year-olds in the primary classroom2. Given that Bill’s New Frock is very much about gender, the literacy practices surrounding it constitute an excellent epistemological site. Including exploration of ‘what does the teacher say?’ and ‘what did the children say?’, this has been referred to as ‘talk around the text’ (see Sunderland et al., 2000; also Smith, 1995; Dombey, 1992).

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‘Consumption’ and ‘Effect’ What about the ‘constructive’ potential of texts (see e.g. Cullingford, 1998; Moss, 2007; Millard, 1997, also Chapter 1)? Is there indeed such a thing? Can a work of fiction make a difference, beyond constituting words on a page that were not there prior to its publication? Below I consider the relationship between fictional texts and, first, gender identity, and, secondly, proficiency in literacy. (i) Gender identity Writers in the 1970s on children’s fiction, including those writing on early reading schemes, made important descriptive observations about what was going on in the text (e.g. Pace Nilsen, 1977; Lobban, 1974; also Chapters 3 and 6). However (unsurprisingly, given that this was not research for its own sake, and was often inspired by feminism), these researchers were also concerned about ‘effects’ of gender stereotyping. To what extent visual, linguistic and ‘content’ representations actually impact on the reader’s consciousness (or perhaps behaviour) is now recognised as far from straightforward. Early, well-intentioned, observations today read simplistically and deterministically. Adams and Laurikietis (1980), for example, referring to Glenys Lobban’s (1974) content analysis (see Chapter 6), claimed: ‘Children who read these books will invariably get the message that boys are better than girls at everything apart from housework and childcare; that the place of women is in the home and that of boys outside it’ (p. 43). Invariably? This view was challenged by the rise of the subsequent theories of reader reception/response and ‘consumption’. Today, we are far less likely to read claims about children’s books determining girls’ and boys’ ideas or identities or behaviours. If a text has no single meaning, it is hard to predict its effect on (or even the ‘uptake of’) future readers, or even actual, current ones. Further, gender itself is now seen much more as something in a perennial state of flux (see Chapter 2, also Baxter, 2003), and, relatedly, gender development as ongoing (throughout a person’s lifetime), and as something constructed not by texts but by readers’ readings of those texts, and indeed those readings cannot be looked at alone. Valerie Walkerdine, a fore-runner in the application of post-structuralist ideas to education, characterises the original assumption about ‘effect’ as: once the range of traditional roles in children’s books is extended, girls (and boys) will immediately want to do things that, traditionally, they did not want to do before. This however, she notes, assumes a passive learner,

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and, more importantly, ignores both ‘the central importance of [much wider] cultural practices in producing forms of thought and positions for women’ (and by extension girls and boys); and ‘the inscription in those positions of desire – that is, how we come to want what we want’ (Walkerdine, 1990: 89). This rightly ‘complexifies’ any straightforward notion of ‘effect’. Rather, Walkerdine continues, we should ‘engage with the production of ourselves as subjects in and through our insertion into such cultural practices, of which children’s literature forms a part’ (my emphasis). The discourse of children’s books (like that of all other written and spoken texts) will thus join other forms of discourse in ways which are likely together to be constitutive of their readers in some way, especially if the discourses encountered are socially dominant ones. The constructive potential of fiction may be heightened in a series, whether that series is Harry Potter (Chapter 9) or a reading scheme, because of the reiteration and accumulation of traces of particular discourses. But we cannot separate children’s literature from the films they watch, the music they listen to, and the toys they (are given to) play with – or indeed conversations with and between their parents and siblings – all of which will shape what they ‘bring to’ what they read (see also Jackson, 2007). (ii) Boys’ and girls’ reading: consumption and Harry Potter As a rather different sort of ‘effect’, has Harry Potter made a difference to children’s, especially boys’ reading, in attainment, attitudes or literacy practices? This question is important. Currently, in the United Kingdom (and beyond), girls as a group outperform boys as a group in almost all (primary and secondary) school subjects on almost all measures at all levels3, leading to a general concern with masculinity and educational achievement4 (see also Zyngier, 2009; Jha and Kelleher, 2006). A 2004 UK Ofsted report noted that at primary level, boys’ attitudes to reading were on the whole less positive than those of girls5. Indeed, reading has been central to this concern with young masculinity, as underachievement overall may be related to reading in particular. Several years ago a regional campaign in my area was entitled: ‘Lancashire lads read with their dads’. Studies over the years have in fact found that girls tend to be more positive than boys about reading in general. In an observational study of infant and junior classes in the United Kingdom, Pip Osmont (1987) noted in a report for the (then) Inner London Education Authority that The girls read together in groups using ‘take-part’ books, and became so involved that they did not want to stop when the reading time had

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finished . . . Many of the boys moved around during the ‘reading-time’, and quite a few looked at their books whilst standing. (quoted in Swann, 1992: 125; see also Swann on gender-differential reported attitudes) More recently, the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature’s (NCRCL) study of ‘Young People’s Reading in 2005’, carried out by Sally Maynard, Sophie Mackay, Fiona Smyth and Kimberley Reynolds (see Chapter 1)6, found that girls from 5–16 were less likely than boys to describe themselves as ‘reluctant readers’ (i.e. less likely to agree with the statement ‘You only read when you have to’), and at Key Stage 1 (5–7) boys were far more likely than girls to report ‘hardly ever’ or ‘never’ reading: only 3.8% of responding [KS1] girls claimed that they ‘hardly ever or never’ did so. Of the boys, 12.0% were in the same position. There is a statistically significant difference between the two gender groups . . . the girls were more likely to choose ‘often or very often’ than the boys. I have looked at the question of gendered tendencies in preferences for fiction in Chapter 1. To this I will add that it is girls’ preferences which relate most closely to the English language/literature curriculum (and associated assessment). Elaine Millard notes that ‘By neglecting fiction many boys . . . appear to put themselves at a greater disadvantage in a subject where the reading and writing of narratives . . . is essential for success’ (1997: 61) – this in reference to UK boys’ performance in GCSE English (an examination taken at around age 16). How serious is all this? It is always important not to underestimate the importance of gender similarities (and indeed ‘intra-group’ differences), and equally important not to treat tendencies as absolutes. As Zyngier reminds us, ‘The real question is . . . which girls and which boys [are more disadvantaged]?’ (2009: 117). Further, in measured performance and attitudes, gendered tendencies are not always statistically significant7. There is also an irony with this concern with boys’ literacy: what has been described as ‘an abiding tension between schools’ official criteria for excellence in literacy, and the dispensability of these practices for all but a few rewarding occupations in the world outside’ (White, 1990: 148). This may be even more relevant with the subsequent IT revolution. And, of course, the gender gap in pay has not disappeared either. So, to return to our question, has Harry Potter made a difference to children’s literacy, in the form of attitudes, practices and attainment, and

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does this vary by gender? Sadly, there is a lack of empirical data. On the other hand, there is no shortage of anecdotal data and articles of faith. Nicholas Tucker claims: ‘it is known that the majority of young readers are female’ (1999: 233), but provides no support for this. Neither does Julia Eccleshare, with, rather differently: ‘Harry Potter appears to be as popular with girls as with boys’ (2002: 87) which she ‘explains’ with: While boys readers may identify with Harry’s heroism, girls readers, like the girls at Hogwarts, respond to him both as a motherless boy in need of love and as a romantic hero with special powers. (2002: 87) Such articles of faith (including assumptions that boys respond to this or that in Harry Potter) are not enough, and neither is ‘circumstantial evidence’ (such as the fact that in 2006 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was the most borrowed book from UK children’s libraries8), or even observations from teacher-librarians, such as Nicola Ruth (2001), working in Johannesburg, who refers to the ‘return trade’; that is, that ‘[The Harry Potter books] appear to be rich enough to support many rereadings by the young and less young alike’, and who adds that, for her, one of ‘the most exciting aspects of the Harry Potter phenomenon’ is that it has ‘enticed boys from non-fiction to fiction’. Neither are ‘informal surveys’, such as that carried out by Susan Wood and Kim Quackenbush (2001), which involved asking 50 people from 7–62 they knew about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (Perhaps predictably, only three people had not heard of it, over half (ranging in age from 7 to 62) claimed to have read it, and ‘Everyone who read the book liked it. They reported enthusiastically, using superlatives such as “Thoroughly enjoyed it!” ’ (p. 99).) Neither are journalistic reports, such as: When the fourth book. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling, 2000), was finally released after an unanticipated delay, children lined up in thousands at bookstores all over the US waiting to get their copies at the stroke of midnight on the release date. A New York Times survey in April 2001, estimated that almost 60% of US children ages 6–17 had read at least one Harry Potter book (Race, 2001) . . . . Comber and Nixon (2001) collected reviews from students in South Africa and India, which included comments like, ‘It is the best book I ever read, and I look forward to reading the rest of them,’ ‘I really enjoy Harry Potter. His popularity in South Africa is unbelievable. Most of my classmates have read all four [books]’. (Knapp, 2003)

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The same goes for anecdotal reports. Jack Zipes, for example, asked some US 5th and 6th graders who had read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (the American title of the UK’s Philosopher’s Stone), and reports: only half the students raised their hands, and they were mostly girls. The students knew the novel mainly because their teacher was reading it to them . . . . Only one of the girls and one of the boys had read all three [i.e. those available at the time]; a few others had read two. Some of the students called the books boring. For the most part, they liked what was being read to them, but they liked other books equally well. (2002: 185) Zipes speculates that Harry Potter’s success may be related to the fact that it appeals to adults (many of whom are also parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts) as well as to children. In terms of who buys Harry Potter books, Zipes claims that while children are not adverse to reading the Harry Potter adventures . . . , they are adverse to spending money on them. They certainly do not buy them. Adults have clearly been buying the majority of the Harry Potter books. (p. 185; see also Tucker, 1999) In its defence, certainly in the UK Harry Potter is voted for by children – for example, for the 1999 Smarties Gold Award9 – and Julia Eccleshare (2002) also cites the 1998 Children’s Book Award, Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year Award, Birmingham Cable Children’s Book Award and then Sheffield Children’s Book Award, all chosen by children. But this still does not tell us anything specific about the workings of the proposed relationship between Harry Potter and (gendered) literacy practices, attitudes and attainment. Certainly in these anecdotes and articles of faith there is little to suggest that boys’ reading has been more affected than that of girls. The Scholastic publisher’s own (2008) ‘Kids and Family Reading Report’ however found that boys were as likely as girls to here read Harry Potter (indeed, all seven books). And in their 2006 report, more boys than girls claimed to have read Harry Potter, 61% agreeing that they had not previously read for fun (the figure was 41% for girls). Zipes (2002) suggests that the influence of the Harry Potter series on children’s reading may have been exaggerated (particularly in relation to boys). He adds ‘there are no reliable and thorough demographic studies concerning the purchase of the Harry Potter books and their reception among adults and children’ (2002: 186, my italics). Regrettably, this situation

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has changed little, and seems lamentable, eight years on, now that the book series has come to an end, the film series is (as I write), about to, and more children will in fact have been exposed to even more Harry Potter books than when Zipes was writing. There have been, however, at least two relevant academic empirical studies since Zipes made this claim. Harry Potter inevitably featured in the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature’s (NCRCL) study of ‘Young People’s Reading in 2005’, carried out by Sally Maynard and colleagues (see above and also Chapter 1). While this did not shed light on the ‘boys’ reading and Harry Potter’ question specifically, Harry Potter was reported as the favourite character of both boys and girls at all Key Stage levels (for KS2–4 children, Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker was close behind). Series were particularly popular (these embracing not only Harry Potter but also the Lemony Snicket books). The top three authors for children in KS2–4 were J. K. Rowling, Roald Dahl, and, interestingly, Jacqueline Wilson (interesting because her books tend to feature girls) (see also Maynard et al., 2008). The only empirical study I have been able to find which focussed on the specific question of boys’ reading and Harry Potter is by Margaret Willis, who in 2001 interviewed 11- and 12-year-old boys at a North Yorkshire (UK) comprehensive school. Willis writes The boys in my study generally had a poor image of themselves as readers largely as a result of parents and teachers dismissing their electronic game and computer-based reading as being of little or no value. What Harry Potter gave them was engaging texts that sustained their interest and, most importantly, convinced them that reading could be fun. The global appeal of Potter made reading ‘cool’. (2007: 24) Other positive aspects of the series, particularly for boys, which Willis cites, are that Harry ‘retains many of the qualities of the traditional fantasy hero’ (p. 24), that he ‘takes his readers to a secret magical place, to become members of a very special club, where codes, rules and secret languages provide access to another world’ (p. 24) (like fantasy computer games), and that there is a sense of security in the familiar style and characters for the boy reader as he moves from one book to the next. Willis claims that The reading habits and interests of [these boys] were clearly influenced by their discovery of the Potter novels and . . . this marked a new-found enthusiasm for books and reading in general. (p. 24)

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It is reassuring to hear this sort of claim finally coming out of a study dedicated to addressing this question in a proper empirical manner, especially one in which the data comes from a comprehensive (non-selective, state) school. It would however be interesting to complement this study with a more fully ethnographic one, in which boys’ reading practices (as opposed to reports of those practices and related attitudes) were observed. But if, as Willis claims, boys’ reading has been positively influenced by the Harry Potter series, what now? Can this ‘boost’ be sustained? Willis suggests that ‘it is proving difficult for these new enthusiastic readers to move onto other novels they can enjoy as much’ (p. 25). This raises questions about attitudes, reading strategies, literacy practices and masculinities. But it also raises questions about the text itself and what makes it more attractive to boys than much other fiction. Willis has pointed to several relevant features here. But there may also be particular linguistic features, not least J. K. Rowling’s sustained, rather straightforward style (which is not always highly rated), limited focalization (despite Hermione’s prominence in the narrative, it is Harry who remains the focalizer), and intertextual links which may (at whatever level of consciousness) reassure rather than challenge the boy (or girl) with a poor self-image of himself (or herself) as a reader. There would seem to be a further research project here whose time has more than come.

Possible Other Future Work One of the threads running through this book has been the idea that gender can be explored in children’s fiction in a wide range of ways, that is, through different theoretical and methodological approaches (in particular, Stylistics, Critical discourse analysis, and Corpus linguistics), and research questions. These do not only depend on genre (e.g. fantasy vis à vis realistic fiction), but with each book. Of course, generic approaches such as counting the number of female and male characters and their activities or looking at how semiotic verbs in reporting clauses vary with gender (i.e. answering ‘stock’ research questions), can be applied to almost all children’s fiction. However, such analyses will often not take us very far. In particular, they will not allow for evaluations of those representations (by the narrator, or, more likely, by other characters). They will also not allow for examination of different discourses evident in the book (articulated in the language of the characters and narrator), some of which will correspond to dominant discourses in a given society, others of which

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will be marginal and resistant ones. Further, followed to absurd conclusions, they would result in the condemnation of a book such as Holes, because of the male-dominated nature of its ‘population’, when in fact it arguably makes valuable and progressive points about gender. Methodologically, it is therefore important to be alert to possible new themes, which come out of familiarity with a book or particular books: for example, Sue Wharton’s identification of the ‘buffoon’ pattern in a reading scheme (Chapter 6), and Ruth Berman’s identification of the prevalent ‘writing girl’ in children’s fiction (Chapter 3). Inductive approaches have an increasing value in this area of study, given not only all the topical and stylistic ‘affordances’ of fiction, but also the fact that increased opportunities for women outside fiction (where these exist, which is not everywhere) are being paralleled by different manifestations of ‘subtle sexism’ (Mills, 2008; Lazar, 2005). Particularly interesting may be the study of consumption of visuals, in relation to the written text (perhaps especially where these do not correspond, for example John Burningham’s Come Away From the Water Shirley). But the visuals in any children’s books, whether we are talking about picture books ‘proper’, or books which are simply ‘illustrated’ (Hunt, 1991), cannot be ignored, because they will never (can never) have a one-to-one relationship with the written text, and so will always contribute and add to the set of meaning potentials offered by the text as a whole. Sue Jackson for example asked young children in New Zealand about illustrations of women and men fixing vehicles. The children ‘assign[ed] women agency and equality on some occasions while locating them in a gender hierarchy below men at other times’ (2007: 62; see also Jackson and Gee, 2005), providing a reminder of the diversity and flux of response. Given that gender can be theorized as far more than just male/female difference (both outside and inside fiction) (see Chapter 2), a research focus might be the characterization of men, or of women, across a book (or series). An exploration of gender in fiction is just as able to look at the diversity of characterization of members of one sex, as to compare and contrast the representation of ‘the two sexes’. With a work of fiction, it is also possible to look at developing characterization, as Knowles and Malmkjaer did with Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden (see Chapter 3). The potential is even greater in a series. For example, do the construals of Harry’s, Hermione’s and Ron’s ‘social actions’ in terms of transitivity (e.g. verb types, the (non-) transitive nature of those verbs), change, over the seven books in the Harry Potter series? A similar question could be asked about the characterization of Lyra Belacqua’s

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over Phillip Pullmann’s His Dark Materials trilogy, relating it to Lyra’s developing sense of herself as a heterosexual girl. In Chapter 7, on two-Mum and two-Dad books written for young children, Mark McGlashan and I pointed to the surprising lack of research in this area, and our own (largely descriptive) chapter we know raises as many questions as it addresses. Future work here could include such books for older children, and how these address the questions of adoption and conception, in relation to the rather specific circumstances of the children in these books (even adoption was rarely addressed in our dataset). Questions about consumption include how the books are used in different educational settings (if at all), and how they are responded to and indeed understood by children, in both school and family settings. Questions about production of these books concern the intentions and decision-making processes of writers, illustrators and publishers; questions of distribution, about their relative rarity and unavailability, and obstacles to wider availability. Qualitative interviews have a key role to play here. The author of any book about fiction will be frustrated at not having been able to include discussion of certain particular works. In my case, it is the UK writer (and Children’s Laureate in 2005–2007), Jacqueline Wilson, whose popularity I referred to above in connection with the 2005 report of the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature. Jacqueline Wilson is prolific: she continues to produce at least one new work of fiction per year, alternating between books aimed at younger and at older children (young teenagers). Her work has been televized (Tracy Beaker is an ongoing series) and staged. Unlike the Harry Potter series, where most children have uncomplicated family lives (even Harry goes back to the Dursleys in the holidays), in Jacqueline Wilson’s stories, living with two natural parents is very much the exception rather than the rule. Wilson’s topics include bereavement, bullying, anorexia, social workers and even gay sexuality (see Chapter 7) – though not, as Tucker and Gamble (2001) note, sexual abuse. Her hallmark is writing honestly, humorously and sympathetically about children – perhaps growing up in a children’s home, perhaps with a step-parent – or with natural parents whose care is somehow lacking (here Wilson cannot be accused of judging mothers more harshly than fathers). As such, her books carry an ‘exotic’ status for children who grow up within more conventional domestic arrangements. Wilson is (in my opinion) no less a good writer than Rowling, but her fame has not really extended beyond the United Kingdom.

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Often the stories are told in the first person, ‘autobiographically’, by a young female character, thus achieving a very particular focalization. Indeed, most of Wilson’s protagonists are girls. As Tucker and Gamble observe Those boys who make an appearance tend to be shy, bookish and picked on by others. Girl characters, however, are normally physically tough, verbally abrasive and no-one’s fool. (2001: 70) Jacqueline Wilson’s books pose certain challenges for the gender and language researcher interested in analysing them as texts. There seems little point comparing the language of or about the many female characters with that of the relatively few males. But a very interesting study could be done (as suggested above) of the diversity of femininities (and indeed of the smaller range of masculinities) represented in the large and growing ‘Jacqueline Wilson corpus’, including of the range of these girls’ (and boys’) language use, and of the language used by the narrator to characterize them. As shown in Chapters 8 and 9, the study of books for pre-adolescents and young adolescents requires different research questions than studies of books for younger children. Not only do such books tend to be longer, and illustrations fewer, the narratives are more likely to make use of ‘affordances’ of fiction of humour and irony, especially in the actual represented words and thoughts of the characters, and these more complex linguistic aspects of characterization via speech and thought representation need to be seen in the context of the correspondingly more complex and subtle narratives of each book as a whole. As regards consumption, Jacqueline Wilson may not have done much for boys’ reading but she certainly has made an impression on girls, if the three-hour queues of girls who regularly wait for her autograph at the annual Edinburgh Book Festival are anything to go by. Note that this does not mean that Wilson has increased these girls’ reading, or changed their attitudes to reading per se ; she may simply have channelled these girls away from work by other authors. Again, many empirical studies are waiting to be done.

Notes

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Austen is of course ‘voicing’ the assumption behind the behaviour of people such as Mrs Bennett, who (given women’s lack of inheritance rights) needs to find husbands for her five daughters. There are now several MA programmes in children’s literature, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate modules (and have been in the United States for some time). But, for challenges, see Rudd (2007), Zipes (2002). I use the term ‘tend to be’ because there are huge ‘gender overlaps’, and because ‘gender similarities’, as well as differences among women, and among men, are arguably far more salient than any ‘gender differences’. Bra-burning is a myth too; see for example, http://www.snopes.com/history/american/ burnbra.asp (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Of course, these are translations. Further, Belotti is reporting a rather informal investigation. However, this remains an important early study, notable for its focus (however unsystematic) on the language of the text, and, in particular, that of the characters. Tomboy is not in itself a strongly negative term, but does suggest a deviant (‘pariah’) femininity (see e.g. Schippers, 2007). There is no equivalent male term for a boy who actively wants to behave and be treated like a girl. The nearest, sissy, is a term of abuse. Nightingale observed critically that: ‘The tomboy seems to be a kind of safety valve for girls who are unsure of their role’ (1982: 38). The editors add, wistfully, ‘We have a long way to go yet before a local education authority can be prosecuted for its use of sexist materials, such as is now happening in the USA’ (p. 4). Some 19th century books may have been targeted at boys, for example, adventure stories, boys’ school stories (Coral Island, Tom Brown’s Schooldays), and at girls (Little Women, What Katy Did, and their sequels) (Knowles and Malmkjaer, 1996; see also Reynolds, 1990). http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/researchcentres/ncrcl/research/ncrclpublications/index. html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See also Knowles and Malmkjaer (1996: 37–9) for the comparable results of a larger survey). See also for example, http://www.englund.lu.se/corpus/corpus/espc.html#textsel (accessed 23 Jan. 2010).

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Ms had in fact been proposed in 1951, for business letters, but it was reborn in the 1970s, in part as the title of Gloria Steinem’s magazine. I am using construction rather than construal when the language in question is talk, given that talk is something actually happening in the world, rather than ‘construing’ or ‘representing’ it, as in written text (see Chapter 1, also Fairclough, 2009). Broad semantic equivalents of agency might be self-determination, autonomy, ‘being one’s own person’, or, in religious discourse, free will.

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For the student, gender was not relevant (his comment can be seen as a ‘gender-blind’ one). Of course, gender is not the only relevant factor here, but ethnicity too, given that being European is not only ‘different’ but that ‘whiteness’ is in many Arab contexts associated with attractiveness. Interdiscursivity can be seen as a type of intertextuality (Fairclough, 1993), that is, identical words or ideas manifesting themselves across different texts, genres or discourses.

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This work is reported on in Chapter 6, on Reading Schemes. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/ caldecottmedal.cfm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/ newberymedal.cfm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Weitzman et al.’s paper had originally been presented in 1972; Czaplinski’s consisted of extracts from a 1972 thesis; Lobban’s article had originally appeared in 1974. Dixon reminds us of the greater number of ‘offensive’ words for women than for men (p. 31). Yet the connection between these words and gender representation in children’s fictional texts themselves remained improperly theorized. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/childrensnotable/notablechibooks/ index.cfm. Grace Green (2007) makes the important observation that parts of works of fantasy may be ‘realistic’ (notably, Harry Potter’s life with his relations the Dursleys; see also Chapter 9). The hypothesis was “The proportion of females seen alone in illustrations will be equal to or greater than the corresponding proportion of males” (2001: 93). Animal stories may similarly have ‘an explicit feminist message’ or ‘no explicit feminist message but . . . non-sexist content’ (1989: 142–3). As the scare quotes suggest, Adler is critical of this representation. The male family members are shown cooking together, and, relatedly, ‘enjoy’ it. Adler contrasts this with ‘the lonely, tedious chore that cooking represents for many women’ (1993: 117).

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Although Otto Jespersen tried to do just this: see the chapter ‘The Woman’ in his (1922) Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. Stylistics extends beyond fiction, for example, to the language of advertising and newspapers. There is not just one ‘CDA’, but rather several ‘schools’ or approaches, which together can be seen as constituting a programme (Wodak and Meyer, 2009). The Discourse-Historical approach explores empowerment (in a liberatory sense) as well as domination. Critical discourse analysis sometimes extends to spoken language, for example interviews. Stylistics goes ‘beyond’ the text when looking at readers’ responses, but is not otherwise concerned with spoken language (other than to compare naturally-occurring talk with its representation in written texts). In some languages the subject can be expressed as part of the verb. A third element of Halliday’s system, which I do not deal with here, is Theme/Rheme. For representations of more recent, differently-gendered problem solving, see Chapters 6 and 9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Scholastic, 1997: p. 21), that is, the American version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Actual example, HPSS, p. 89. The mere occurrence of a term of abuse, however offensive, in itself means nothing (indeed, that same term can be cited critically by a character).

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Rimmon-Kenan (1983: 75) suggests that a test of focalization on the part of a certain character is whether the relevant extract can be ‘re-written’ in the first person: ‘I realised that there was no possibility . . . ‘. Jane Eyre is here both narrator and protagonist. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 1997: 133. See also Simpson (1993) on point of view and modality. Other critical work on fiction with a gender focus includes Ruth Wodak’s (2009) studies of the German TV drama series Im Kanzleramt and the American TV series The West Wing, and Konstantia Kosetzi’s (2008) analysis of the Greek TV series Schedon Pote (comparable to Sex and the City). To these we can add Susan Watkins’ (2004) post-structuralist work on the novels of Alison Lurie (see Chapter 1). For an exception, see Allan Baillie and Jane Tanner’s Drac and the Gremlin (1989). See also Chapter 7 for more on the association of hug with female characters. See also On Balance: Guidelines for the Representation of Women and Men in English Language Teaching Materials (Jill Florent, Kathryn Fuller, Jenny Pugsley, Catherine Walter and Annemarie Young) (1994). Although the focus of On Balance was Content analysis (with the usual concerns), and the avoidance of sexist terms, important linguistic distinctions were made between authentic recordings and scripted dialogues.

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There exist many English versions, including on the web. Courtesy of Mark Peters (The Cartoonist Group), see http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/ bysubject/subjectbyartist.php?id=54&sid=1817 (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://dominiopublico.es/libros/Charles_Perrault/mother_goose/index.php?pg=01 (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Play by Elizabethan playwright Thomas Middleton, but also represents the idea that women do not really like each other. But see also Rowe (1986: 211), who cites ‘concurrent’ novels such as Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, which ‘portray disillusionments, if not forthright defiances of romantic conventions’. For example: ‘ . . . for a moment her heart felt quite gay, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth or in the sea. But she soon thought again of the world above her, for she could not forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she had not an immortal soul like his . . . ‘ (trans. H.P. Paull, http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_merma.html; accessed 23 Jan. 2010). This despite the stereotypical step-mother, reminding us about mixed gender representation in a given story. Included in Alison Lurie’s Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales. Alessandra Levorato (2003) documents a range of versions of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, including those which irreverently ‘breach the tradition’ (see Chapter 4). See also Disney’s Jungle Book (where the young woman seen by Mowgli for the first time deliberately drops the water she is carrying, and the ‘wise’ Baghira appears unsurprised), and 101 Dalmations, in which father dog Pongo anthropomorphically paces up and down upside the room while mother dog Perdita is giving birth. See also http://www.contemania.com/contes_perrault/Conte_Perrault_Cendrillon.htm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Following the approach in Semino and Short (2004), non-finite reported clauses (i.e. the Cinderella proposal, and the second Rapunzel proposal) as well as finite reported clauses were counted as Indirect Speech (IS) rather than ‘Narrator’s Report of a Speech Act’ (NRSA). As above. This is in contrast to the MLTBS version, in which the bride-to-be (and proposer) is the youngest princess. The original Grimm’s version is different, as we saw on p. 139: ‘ich bin nicht mehr jung, so gebt mir die älteste’ [‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest’].

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To these we can add a rather differently worded proposal, presumably adjusted for the ages of the protagonists (always something of a problem), in The Princess and the Frog (Ladybird): ‘Do you think you could love me and be my friend now?’ [the prince] asked. The response is: ‘The Princess was so happy that she could hardly speak. From that moment, the Prince and Princess became the very best of friends. In fact, a few years later, they had a wonderful wedding . . . .’ For the original French version, see http://www.contemania.com/contes_perrault/ Conte_Perrault_La_belle_au_bois_dormant.htm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010); see also Les Contes de Perrault (Elibron Classics, 2005). There is, however, an extra ending in Perrault’s original: the couple go on to have two children, and the prince’s mother, who is an ogress, almost eats them and the princess (fortunately, the prince arrives just in time to save them). And comparable to certain African languages (Kimenyi, 1992) in which a woman cannot, grammatically, marry a man. Jane Eyre’s famous declaration: ‘Reader, I married him.’ stands in interesting contrast. As dramatized in Carol Ann Duffy’s/Tim Supple’s Grimm Tales. See ‘Fairy tales: Retold, continued, & spoofed’ (Santa Cruz Public Libraries) http:// www.library.illinois.edu/blog/esslchildlit/archives/2007/01/fairy_tale_adap.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See also Carol Ann Duffy’s (1999) The World’s Wife, poetry focalizing ‘Mrs Aesop’, ‘Mrs. Darwin’ and so forth. See also Angela Carter’s fairytales for adults; also the collection in Zipes (1986).

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There is no clear main author (or author) of this text. Much feminist work of the time had a ‘collective’ ethos. The Preface is however ‘signed off’ by Joan Bartl, Rogie Stone Bender, Pryde Brown, Cynthia Eaton, Carol Portnoi Jacobs and Ann Stefan. ‘Dick and Jane’ were the main characters in school readers used in the United States between the 1930s and 1970s (by William Gray, publisher Scott Foresman). They were also revised as ‘Catholic textbooks’ (see Luke, 1991, who discusses linguistic changes). An omission which would later be amply filled (though not in reading schemes) in the United Kingdom by children’s author Jacqueline Wilson in the 1990s. The Janet and John series has recently been further updated by the publisher Star Kids, in terms of activities and appearance; see http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/dec/31/ books.booksnews1 (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Other examples of boy-girl twins in children’s and teenage fiction are the two sets of ‘Bobbsey twins’ (Bert and Nan, Flossie and Freddie) in Laura Lee Hope’s Bobbsey Twins series, Meg’s twins in Louisa M. Alcott’s Good Wives (nicknamed Daisy and Demi), Topsy and Tim (from the Topsy and Tim series by Jean Adamson and Gareth Adamson), and, more recently, Alex and Jane from Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. Here we can see echoes of Hermione’s role in the Harry Potter series (see Chapter 9). Thanks to Wesam Ibrahim for the comparison. And, according to the accompanying Read At Home Handbook, ‘in many countries worldwide’ (p. 8). Floppy is male. Not including ‘Anneena’s mum’/‘Anneena’s dad’. Although Gran forgets the time, and leaves the bike on the beach when the tide is coming in, there is no suggestion that she is incompetent as a motorcyclist. This is an arbitrary decision, but these frequently have to be made. There are also cases of yelled and told, but neither belong to a main character. See Chapter 5, p. 102, also FN 12. However, while visuals often occupy more space than words in children’s readers, this does not make readers ‘picture books’ in the sense in which Hunt (1991) uses the term (see Chapter 3).

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http://www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk/the-books/family-and-other-troubles/ (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See http://ssw.unc.edu/jif/famtrend/docs/GayLesBook.pdf (accessed 23 Jan. 2010) and http://www.gayfamiliestoday.com/. See also Andy (2009) ‘Jenny Lives With Eric And Martin’. ‘80s Actual. Online: http:// 80sactual.blogspot.com/2008/09/jenny-lives-with-eric-and-martin-and.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://www.alyson.com/children-s-books.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See also Bibliography at the end of the book. Josh and Jaz have Three Mums, The Daddy Machine, The Frog Prince, The Ogre’s Boots, Mom and Mum are Getting Married. The total number is 25 not 29 as in four books no names are used. We define a ‘frame’ as any visually represented part of the narrative and involving characters from the narrative. Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin is something of an outlier, having 56 frames. We therefore also calculated totals for the two-Dad texts without Jenny . . . Table 7g shows that the Dads are then pictured together in 109 frames out of a possible 196 (56%), an increase of 4 per cent.

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http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/ newberyterms/newberyterms.cfm (accessed 10 June. 2010). This is not to say that all other forms of critical analysis focus on the negative; Ruth Wodak (2006) for example writes about the importance of ‘multiple readings’ in Critical discourse analysis (CDA) as well as identifying ‘hidden agendas’. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/juzwik_sherry.htm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). The data for the original study was a principled selection of extracts from eight recent award-winning children’s books published in the United States, both Newbery and Caldecott (the latter award is for picture books). The Caldecott criteria include excellence of execution in artistic technique and appropriateness of style of illustration (see pp. 173–4 for Newbery). The awards were ‘not for didactic intent or for popularity’. See Sunderland (2004). http://www.answers.com/topic/calamity-jane (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Interestingly, a similar incident is mentioned in another story: Wa Islamah, by Ali Ahmed Bakhteer. This story (based on historical fact) tackles the Mongolian invasion of Khwarazm (a royal family) in Asia by in the 1250s. The women of the royal family drowned themselves to evade being taken prisoner. See http://www.albalagh.net/kids/history/ain_jaloot.shtml (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). The intertextual relationship between the two stories is not clear, however. Of course, there are potentially far more ‘sets’ of discourses available for fiction, from other historical periods.

Chapter 9 1

David Langford’s (2006) chapter ‘Echoes from the outside’ cites similar details to Harry Potter from other school stories, as well as possible links with Kafka (‘the darker side of the Ministry of Magic’) and with the ‘daemons’ in Philip Pullmann’s Northern Lights (the Patronus).

Notes 2

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For one which does not, relevant to the latter part of this chapter, see http:// www.hermionegrangerswand.com/hermione-quotes-hpass.htm (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://www.otherlandtoys.co.uk/hermione-yule-ball-earrings-p-4196.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). ‘This is an authentic recreation of Hermione’s Time Turner as used in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. In the centre of this 24 karat gold-plated Time Turner is a fully working hourglass in miniature, with rotating inner rings’ http://www.harrods.com/ HarrodsStore/find/p/000000000001987237?btype=cs (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://shop.mugglenet.com/ (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23420839-bottom-ranked-school-shootsto-top-after-introducing-harry-potter-themed-curriculum.do (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://accio.zymurgy.org/ (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Although the ‘K’ does not refer to Joanne Rowling herself at all. National Press Club, 20 Oct. 1999. Book-TV C-SPAN2 6 Nov. 1999. The American title of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Scholastic); see also below. Mayes-Elma’s methodology is not made explicit. However, it is her general claims I am concerned with here. Eccleshare (2002) was writing before Book 7 (2007) in which Hermione’s role is more important than Ron’s for a large part of the book. Similarly, Deputy Head Professor McGonagall cannot properly be compared with Albus Dumbledore (given that Dumbledore is not only Head of Hogwarts, a difference in institutional role, but also more skilled and experienced in magic). Nel (2001: 37) also reminds us that she ‘learns to resist the impulse to display her intelligence at every possible opportunity’. The source of this last quotation has regrettably been mislaid. For example, in Book 1 she saves Harry and Ron from the ‘Devil’s Snare’; in Book 5, she distracts Dolores Umbridge from torturing Harry; in Book 7 she saves Harry from Voldemort’s snake, and Harry and Ron from the Death Eaters at Luna Lovegood’s house. See also http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/hermione.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See FN 10; Sorcerer’s replaces Philosopher’s in the US title of the first book. Some of the vocabulary is slightly different in the US and UK editions, but not in ways which would affect this analysis. These verbs are actual examples from the extract. It is often necessary to make ‘local’ decisions such as this as regards what is included and what excluded. Such decisions can appear arbitrary. The important thing is to document them (for the analyst’s own reference and sanity, and for the benefit of readers who may wish to replicate the study), and to stick to them consistently. Statistically non-significant, given the numbers involved. http://www.geocities.com/hogwarts_online_school/poems.html (accessed July 2009, no longer available). http:///www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/01/13/potter/index1.html (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). http://accio.zymurgy.org/05/CarlaHodge.shtml (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). Gupta (2003) however points to the unquestioned, unchallenged superiority of and dominance of the Magic over the Muggle, and indeed the social manipulation of the latter by the former. The familiarity of this sort of literary pleasure is encompassed in Barthes’ (1975) use of plaisir, as opposed to his use of jouissance: literature which is unsettling. (This use supplements the term’s connotations of bliss and orgasm (see e.g. Heilman, 2003).) I am grateful to Irmtraud Wolfbauer for pointing out this example. For example, Hermione frequently expresses concern about the boys’ homework and revision. This ‘difference’ between her and them may be to do with her as an individual. But perhaps not entirely, since it also resonates with the (modern) notion of the hardworking girl and the much less diligent (but brilliant) boy. Mutual understanding can thus allegedly be facilitated by ‘expert’ others – for example, writers in women’s, girls’ and men’s magazines. Especially when it is considered who in Harry Potter ends up with whom (Book 7).

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See for example, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paper-Bag-Princess-Little-Hippo/dp/0439973406 (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini. jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ557771&ERICExtSearch_ SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ557771 (accessed 23 Jan. 2010). See e.g. ‘Raising Boys’ Achievement’ (2005) http://search.publications.dcsf.gov.uk/kbr (accessed 14 June. 2010). This ‘gender effect’ however is smaller than those of ethnicity and class. http://www.ofsted. gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research (‘Educational inequality: mapping race, dass and gender’) (accessed 14 June. 2010). http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research (‘Reading-for-purposeand-pleasure’) (accessed 14 June. 2010). http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/researchcentres/ncrcl/research/ncrclpublications/ index.html (accessed 14 June. 2010). For example, an early Assessment of Performance Unit study of reading in the United Kingdom found that in 1980 and 1981 (but not 1979), the mean score of girls for reading was significantly higher than that of boys, but in 1982 the difference was significant only in Wales. http://www.epolitix.com/mpwebsites/mppressreleases/mppressreleasedetails/ newsarticle/harry-potters-magic-for-literacy/mpsite/john-penrose/?no_cache=1 (accessed 14 June. 2010). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/545319.stm (accessed 14 June. 2010).

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Index of fictional works cited (1) Various editions Adamson, Jean and Adamson, Gareth Alcott, Louisa M.

Amis, Martin Andersen, Hans Christian

Austen, Jane Baillie, Allan and Tanner, Jane Barrie, J.M. Baynton Blyton, Enid

Brent-Dyer, Elinor Bronte, Charlotte Browne, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Burnett, Frances Burningham, John Carroll, Lewis Carson Levine, Gail Carter, Angela Christie, Agatha Cole, Babette

Conan Doyle, Arthur Coolidge, Susan

Topsy and Tim series Little Women Good Wives Little Men Jo’s Boys London Fields The Emperor’s New Clothes The Little Match Girl The Little Mermaid The Princess on the Pea The Red Shoes The Snow Queen The Steadfast Tin Soldier The Ugly Duckling Pride and Prejudice Drac and the Gremlin Peter Pan Jane and the Dragon The Dragon’s Purpose Famous Five series The Secret Seven Go Ahead Secret Seven The Twins at St. Clare’s Chalet School series Jane Eyre Piggybook A Clockwork Orange A Secret Garden Come Away from the Water Shirley Granpa Alice Through the Looking Glass Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep Red Riding Hood Miss Marple books The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Prince Cinders The Clever Princess Princess Smartypants The Trouble with Mom The Trouble with Grandad The Speckled Band What Katy Did [also What Katy did at School, What Katy Did Next]

249

250 Cowley, Joy Dahl, Roald

Bibliography

Mouse Monster BFG Boy Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Danny, Champion of the World Fantastic Mr Fox James and the Giant Peach Going Solo Matilda Red Riding Hood Revolting Rhymes de Paola, Tomie The Knight and the Dragon Oliver Button is a Sissy Donald, Robyn No Guarantees Dugan, Michael and Hicks, Allen Dragons’ Breath Fielding, Helen Bridget Jones’ Diary Fine, Anne Bill’s New Frock Fitzhugh, Louise Harriet the Spy Flaubert, Gustav Madame Bovary Flournoy, Valerie The Patchwork Quilt Fowles, John The Collector Graeme, Kenneth The Wind in the Willows Gray, William Dick and Jane series Grimm, Jakob and Grimm Cinderella Wilhelm The Fisherman and His Wife The Frog Prince The Golden Goose Hansel and Gretel Rapunzel Red Riding Hood Rumpelstiltskin Snow White The Goose Girl Tom Thumb The Twelve Dancing Princesses Harris, Thomas Silence of the Lambs Herbert, James Lair Hill, Lorna Sadler’s Wells series Hodgson Burnett, Francis A Secret Garden Hughes, Thomas Tom Brown’s Schooldays Jong, Erica Fear of Flying Joyce, James Ulysses Kerr, Judith The Tiger who Came to Tea Lang, Andrew (1989) The Blue Fairy Book Lee Hope, Laura Bobbsey twins series Lessing, Doris Martha Quest Lewis, Kim Floss

Bibliography Lurie, Alison Kingsley, Charles Meyer, Stephenie Munsch, Robert and Martchenko, Michael Minters, Frances Murdoch, Iris Murphy, Jill Nabokov, Vladimir Nesbitt, E. O’Dell, Scott Offen, Hilda Park, Linda Sue Pascal, Francine Paterson, Katherine Perrault, Jacques –

Piercy, Marge Piers, Helen Pope Osborne, Mary Pullein-Thompson, Diana Pullein-Thompson, Josephine Pullmann, Phillip Ransome, Arthur Roques, Denise Rowling, J.K.

Sachar, Louis Sendak, Maurice Dr Seuss books Sinclair Smith Spyri, Joanna Stanley, Diane Storr, Catherine Streatfeild, Noel Stevenson, Robert Louis Taylor Bradford, Barbara Thurber, James

251

Foreign Affairs The Water Babies The Twilight Saga (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn) The Paper Bag Princess Sleepless Beauty An Unofficial Rose Worst Witch series Lolita Five Children and It Island of the Blue Dolphins Rita the Rescuer A Single Shard Sweet Valley Twins: Against the Rules The King’s Equal Cinderella Puss-in-Boots Red Riding Hood The Sleeping Beauty Woman on the Edge of Time The Naughty Little Goat Kate and the Beanstalk Janet Must Ride Show Jumping Secret His Dark Materials [trilogy] Swallows and Amazons La mia famiglia/My Family Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone [US] Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone [UK] Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Holes Where the Wild Things Are The Boy Next Door Heidi Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf Ballet Shoes Coral Island A Woman of Substance Red Riding Hood

252

Bibliography

Tolstoy, Leo ‘Traditional’

Anna Karenina Jack and the Beanstalk The Princess on the Glass Hill The Sleeping Beauty Arthur and Clementine The Real Story of the Bobobos who Wore Spectacles Sugarpink Rose A Fortunate Catastrophe Huckleberry Finn The Princess and the Frog The Tough Princess

Turin, Adela

Twain, Mark Vesey, Amanda Waddell, Martin and Benson, Patrick White, E.B. Whitehead, Victoria Williams, Jay Wilson, Jacqueline Wood, Audrey Woolf, Virgina

Charlotte’s Web The Chimney Witches Petronella Kiss Tracy Beaker The Princess and the Dragon Mrs Dalloway

Other collections Arabian Nights (inc. Aladdin) Asbjørnsen, Peter Christen and Moe, Jørgen Grimm, Jacob and Willhelm Lang, Peter Lurie, Alison

Norske Folkeeventyr The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1983, Routledge) The Blue Fairy Book Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales

Author unclear The Little Doctor Red Women’s Detachment

(2) Two-Mum/Two-Dad books (specific editions discussed in Chapter 7) Argent, H. (2007) Josh and Jaz Have Three Mums. British Association for Adopting & Fostering: London. Bösche, S. (1983) Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin. London: Gay Men’s Press. Brannen, S. S. (2008) Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Brown, F. (1991) The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones. Boston, MA: Alyson Wonderland. Bryan, J. (2006) The Different Dragon. Ridley Park, PA: Two Lives Publishing. Carter, V. (2007) If I had a Hundred Mummies. : London: Onlywomen Press Limited.

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253

Considine, K. (2005) Emma and Meesha My Boy. China: Kaitlyn Taylor Considine. de Haan, L. & Nijland, S. (2000) King & King. Berkeley: Tricycle Press. de Haan, L. & Nijland, S. (2004) King & King & Family. Berkeley: Tricycle Press. Elwin, R. & Paulse, M. (1990) Asha’s Mums. Toronto: Women’s Press. Garden, N. (2004) Molly’s Family. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. Johnson-Calvo, S. (1993) A Beach Party with Alexis. Boston: Alyson Wonderland. Newman, L. (1991) Gloria goes to Gay Pride. Boston: Alyson Wonderland. Newman, L. (2000) Heather Has Two Mommies. Los Angeles: Alyson Wonderland. Newman, L. (2002) Felicia’s Favorite Story. Ridley Park, PA: Two Lives Publishing. Newman, L. (2009) Daddy, Papa, and Me. New York: Tricycle Press. Newman, L. (2009) Mommy, Mama, and Me. New York: Tricycle Press. Richardson, J. & Parnell, P. (2005) And Tango Makes Three. New York: Simon & Schuster. Setterington, K. (2005) Mom and Mum are getting Married!. Toronto: Second Story Press. Valentine, J. (1991) The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans and other stories. Los Angeles: Alyson Wonderland. Valentine, J. (1993) Two Moms, The Zark, and Me. Boston: Alyson Wonderland. Valentine, J. (2004) One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads. Los Angeles: Alyson Wonderland. Valentine, J. (2004) The Daddy Machine. Los Angeles: Alyson Wonderland. Watson, K. (2005) Spacegirl Pukes. London: Onlywomen Press Limited. Willhoite, M. (2000) Daddy’s Roommate. New York: Alyson Books.

(3) Two-Mum/Two-Dad books not discussed in Chapter 7 Abramchik, Lois (1996) Is Your Family like Mine? Open Heart, Open Mind. Alden, John (1994) A Boy’s Best Friend. New York: Alyson Books. Alrich, Andrew. R. (2003) How My Family Came to be: Daddy, Papa, and Me. Oakland, CA: New Family Press. Arnold, Jeanne (1997) Amy Asks a Question . . . : Grandma – What’s a Lesbian? Racine, WI: Mother Courage Press. Burks, Stephanie (2004) While You were Sleeping. Victoria, Canada: Little Man Publishing. Danish, Barbara (1995) The Dragon and The Doctor. New York: The Feminist Press at NUYC. González, Rigoberto (2005) Antonio’s Card. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Greenberg, Keith Elliot (1996) Zack’s Story. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications. Gregg, Jennifer. C. (2004) Flying Free. USA: Booksurge Publishing. Hoffman, Eric (2002) Best Best Colors: Los Majores Colores. St Paul, MN: Red Leaf Press. Kennedy, Joseph (2000) Lucy goes to The Country. Boston: Alyson Wonderland. Newman, Lesléa (1989) Belinda’s Bouquet. New York: Alyson Books. Newman, Lesléa (1993) Saturday is Pattyday. Chicago, IL: New Victoria Publishers. Okimoto, Jean Davis (2002) The White Swan Express. New York: Clarion Books.

Bibliography

254

Polacco, Patricia (2009) In Our Mothers’ House. New York: Philomel Books. Sollie, Andre (2003) Hello, Sailor. London: Macmillan. Valentine, Johnny (1992) The Day They put a Tax on Rainbows and other Stories. Boston: Alyson Wonderland. Wickens, Elaine (1994) Anna Day and the O-Ring. New York: Alyson Books. Willhoite, Michael (2000) Daddy’s Wedding. Boston: Alyson Wonderland.

(4) Other Works Cited Films Back to the Future Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Jungle Book Shrek 101 Dalmatians

Plays Ibsen, Henrik Russell, Willy

Hedda Gabler Blood Brothers

Poetry Duffy, Carol Ann

The World’s Wife

TV series Im Kanzleramt [Germany] Schedon Pote [Greece] The West Wing [USA] Dr Who [UK]

Index

achronological intertextuality 19, 181–9 action 5, 7–8, 20, 33, 45, 54, 63–8, 83, 87, 110, 118, 134–5, 141, 176, 181, 183, 185, 195–6, 199, 201 see also material action, semiotic action, social action address 2, 93, 123, 151, 160 adjacency pairs 107, 206 adjectives 68, 71, 86–7, 123 affordance 2, 19, 173–9, 182, 188–9, 215, 225, 227 age 8, 15, 36, 61, 82–3, 119, 125–6, 133, 180, 188, 190, 221, 226 agency 26–31, 34, 39, 46–7, 62–3, 75, 84, 107, 110, 114, 183–6, 192–4, 205, 225, 229 animal stories 17, 40, 43, 49–53, 56, 65, 117, 153–4, 170, 207, 229 anti-sexist children’s books/stories 52, 57, 143, 170 appearance 68, 96, 115, 139, 215 aprons 41, 54, 56, 207 author(s) 2, 7, 56, 61, 69, 71, 73, 196, 223 authorial choice 7, 14, 54, 58, 63, 65, 76, 119, 155, 178, 187, 196 authorial point of view 74–5, 157 award-winning books 41–2, 46, 49, 53, 173, 222 backgrounding strategy in two-Mom/two-Dad books 164, 168–71 of van Leeuwen’s ‘Social actors’ 66–7 beauty 9, 49, 91–4, 99, 109, 115 bedtime story 1, 25 binaries 6, 30, 49, 94–6

boys’ literacy practices 14–16, 23, 29, 30–4, 37, 62, 191–2, 219–24 buffoons 19, 124, 128, 131, 133, 141, 225 Caldecott Medal 41, 46, 49, 53, 86, 173, 179, 229 carnivalesque 174, 181 categories/categorization 36, 40–3, 47, 54, 57, 59, 66, 69, 95, 119, 124, 134, 136, 151–3, 170, 197–9 characterization 26, 32, 45, 54, 61–71, 75–80, 83–5, 96, 119, 123, 125, 131, 136, 141, 183, 196, 206, 225, 227 characters main 14–15, 35, 40, 43, 49–50, 78, 130–1, 193 subordinate 49, 53, 65, 122, 130–1, 180 Children’s Rights Workshop 12–13 classics 4, 46–7, 66, 96 clauses 64–6, 69–70, 84, 116, 119, 123, 127, 134–7, 151, 153, 200–4, 224 collocation 71, 86, 183, 196 coming-of-age story 188, 190 commands 67, 202 common gender 37 Community of Practice (CofP) 8, 22–5, 29 construal 6–9, 29, 33–4, 41–5, 50, 60, 64–8, 71, 76–7, 80, 84, 87, 92, 96–7, 107–8, 113, 116, 119, 124–8, 140, 143, 153, 157, 171, 174, 177, 179, 181, 185, 192–3, 199, 201, 204, 206, 208, 214–16, 225 construction 6–8, 25, 27, 29, 34, 46–7, 119, 122, 229 consumption 6, 14, 20, 48, 62, 178, 191–2, 216–19, 225–7

256

Index

Content analysis 11, 18, 26, 39–61, 91–3, 117, 130, 150–1, 180, 216 Corpus linguistics 18, 36, 64, 117, 122–3, 196, 201, 224 Critical discourse analysis (CDA) 18, 33–4, 64, 134, 224, 229, 232 desire 11, 81, 97, 102, 143, 150, 186, 188, 211, 219 dialogue 2, 48, 61–4, 68–71, 77–80, 83–6, 124, 131, 134–5, 151, 159, 176, 206, 208 direct definition 68 direct speech 5, 69–70, 80, 102, 104, 107, 109, 114, 135, 187, 203, 208, 211 direct thought 185–6 directives 134, 137–8, 197, 202–4 discourse 2, 9, 18, 23, 27, 29, 33–8, 57, 62, 74, 79, 82, 122, 127–8, 173, 176–7, 181, 219 identification 34–5, 206 discourses 2, 6, 8, 19, 22, 34–7, 57, 75, 79, 81, 98, 115, 177–83, 187–8, 207, 219 alternative 37, 79 competing 79 emancipatory 175, 179 feminist 22, 57, 91, 177–84, 187, 189 gender differences 208–9, 214 gendered 6, 79–81, 116, 177, 194, 196, 206–10 marginal 79, 224 mutual incomprehension of women and men 201–14 oppositional 79, 181 pre-feminist 186 progressive 175, 189, 208 traditional 177, 208 Disney 91, 97–8 educational settings 226 effect(s) 7–8, 33–6, 39, 61, 64, 70, 114, 125–8, 134, 173, 181, 188, 199, 218–19 empowerment 8, 28, 64, 193, 229 endings 40, 42, 47, 91, 93, 95, 115, 177, 206, 231 essentialism 31, 34

ethnicity 8, 26, 32–3, 36, 45, 118, 162, 183, 193, 205 exclusion (social/textual) 66, 120 fairy tales 4, 8, 19, 35, 49, 56, 68, 73, 79, 99–115, 171, 175, 188, 207 feminist 56, 73, 113–14, 175 fantasy 2–3, 43, 51–6, 60, 87, 99, 114, 117, 120, 149, 151–8, 162, 170–1, 175–6, 190, 223 femininity 6, 11, 26–9, 57, 61, 150, 182, 213 feminism 8, 21–2, 27, 39, 41–4, 47–8, 52, 56, 57, 63–4, 71, 79, 89, 91, 94, 107, 143, 177, 179, 195, 218 first wave 21–2, 27 second wave 21, 38, 113, 143, 182 third wave 21–2 feminist children’s books/stories 5, 52, 56–7, 73, 113–14, 143, 170, 175 flashbacks 174, 176, 179 focalization 35, 48, 60, 75–8, 81, 83, 91–6, 106, 109, 111, 113, 180, 183–8, 192, 202, 211, 224, 226 free direct speech 70, 102 free direct thought 185–6 free indirect speech 70, 102 free indirect thought 76, 183, 186 frequency counts 53–4, 84, 122, 178, 198 functions (linguistic) 104, 137–8 ideational 65, 178, 216 interpersonal 67, 69, 84 gay liberation 143 gay relationships 142 - 172 gender construal 29, 42–5, 49–50, 60, 64, 126, 193, 199, 206 differentiation 23, 28–9, 43, 50, 54, 57, 80, 131, 142, 177, 201, 206, 220 equality 13, 58, 173, 193, 225 grammatical 22, 52 identity 25–7, 46, 118, 218–19 polarization 16 relations 1, 6–9, 29, 60, 83, 119, 124, 175, 186–8, 190–214, 215–16

Index relevance 26–33, 82, 125, 208–10, 216 representation 6–10, 13, 43, 49, 54, 60, 65, 68, 71, 78, 81, 87, 117, 126–7, 133, 140, 172, 174, 189, 193, 196 social 22 stereotyping 10–11, 47–8, 52–3, 58, 71, 81, 83, 86–7, 116, 119, 122, 125, 141, 173, 193, 204–7, 218 generalizability 17, 84, 164, 179 genre 3, 13, 16, 35, 40, 47, 59, 64, 74, 78, 84, 87, 93, 96–7, 108, 117, 145, 153, 172–7, 207, 224 girls’ literacy practices 14–16, 29, 45, 47, 62, 192, 217–24, 227 grammatical gender 22, 52 Grimms, Jakob and Wilhelm 19, 90–9, 110–12, 115 guidelines (for authors and publishers) 9, 13, 36, 58–60, 87–8 hegemony 8, 29, 37, 141–2, 178, 201 heteronormativity 143, 195–6, 209, 214 heterosexuality 27–9, 35, 80–1, 142–6, 155, 164, 169, 171, 205, 209, 215, 225 historical fiction 9, 17, 19, 45, 83, 173–89, 215 homophobia 69, 75, 143–4, 148, 155 humour 2, 5, 60, 63, 176, 180, 206, 213, 227 identity 2, 8, 25–7, 33, 39, 46, 118, 122–3, 128, 142–5, 150–1, 162–3, 177, 184, 218–19 ideology 1, 33, 37, 48, 62, 65, 72–7, 82, 114, 149, 162, 171, 174–80, 187–8, 193 illustrations 3, 7, 12–13, 52–6, 118, 121, 126, 139–40, 225, 227 illustrators 7, 54, 56, 155, 207, 216, 226 indirect presentation 68 indirect speech 5, 69–70, 102–7, 111, 136 indirect thought 70, 76, 96, 183, 186 interdiscursivity 34, 79, 229 interpellation 73 intertextuality 19, 35, 78–9, 91, 96, 98, 114, 128, 173–90, 197, 224

257

intransitive verbs 31, 65, 87, 134 irony 2–3, 22, 59–63, 78, 93, 98, 145, 176, 183, 186, 206, 209, 211, 220, 227 jobs 45, 117 legislation 12, 172 lexis 7, 34, 68, 71, 90, 116, 134, 159, 179, 200–1, 216 linguistic analysis 18–19, 36–41, 61–88, 99–108, 117, 122–8, 133–9, 145, 150–62, 204, 216 literacy practices 1, 23, 62, 178, 217, 219, 222, 224 marriage 45, 72, 92–4, 169 arrangements 19, 93, 99–115 masculinity 6, 15, 26–7, 30, 32, 56, 61, 80, 124, 128, 141–2, 150, 206, 219, 224, 227 hegemonic 141–2 material action 123–4, 181, 185, 197, 200 metaphor 52, 62, 87, 153, 162, 167, 171 methodology (research) 16–20, 39, 79, 84, 116, 224–5 mood 65–9, 83–5, 102–5, 134, 136, 203 multi-modality 3, 176 names 40–41, 85, 111, 129–31, 134, 141, 151–2, 166, 186, 196, 204 narration 20, 48, 61, 69, 71, 76–7, 80, 85–6, 119, 124, 131, 134, 172, 180, 199, 206 narrative approach 149, 153–4, 157, 170–1 narrator 2, 5–6, 11, 26, 35, 63–70, 73–9, 83–4, 119, 122, 128, 151, 181, 185, 196, 198, 202, 209, 224, 227, 230 first person 76–7 omniscient 91, 96, 192 third person 91, 94, 96, 185, 192, 194, 201 unreliable 76 narrator’s representation of speech acts 70, 102–6, 136 narrator’s representation of voice 70

258

Index

Newbery Medal 19, 42, 173, 179 nomination 67, 85, 151–2 non-sexist children’s books/stories 13, 36–7, 53, 56–7, 143, 170 non-sexist language 46, 59 object (grammatical) 65, 87, 107, 123–4, 134–5, 151, 185, 199 object of desire 102–8, 211 occupations 40, 46, 54, 120, 220 orphans 78, 177, 184, 192 pantomines 91, 115 performance 26–8, 63, 124–5, 142 Perrault, Charles 19, 89–91, 95, 97, 99, 108–11 physical contact 150, 154–62 picture books 18, 41–6, 49, 53–6, 145–6, 155, 164, 225, 231 plot 40, 57, 78, 83, 173 point of view 5, 62–4, 70–8, 93–4, 172, 185, 216 authorial 75–76 psychological 76–7, 181 positive discourse analysis 175, 188 possessions 40, 114, 121 postfeminism 22 postmodernism 98, 178 poststructuralism 29, 33–4, 217–18 power 8, 24, 33–4, 64–9, 72–3, 80, 84, 93, 100, 110, 128, 188, 192–3, 199–206 pragmatics 22, 67 preferences (reading) 14–15, 220 princes 56, 94, 97–100, 106 princesses 56–7, 79, 91–4, 97–8, 114 prizewinning books 17–19, 173 Problem-Solution pattern 126–7 processes (grammatical) 65, 68, 123, 127, 134, 175, 198–200 production 33, 36, 56, 156, 169, 191, 216, 226 progressive gender representation/ construal/construction 44–5, 48, 50, 52, 59–60, 174, 189 pronouns 52, 56, 70 proposals 19, 100–15 declarative 102–4

imperative 102–3 interrogative 102–3, 107 protagonists 11, 15–16, 20, 40–3, 48, 50, 53, 63–6, 74, 77, 83–4, 94–9, 113, 119, 122–3, 130, 174, 180, 188, 192, 194, 227 qualitative research 10, 17, 19, 40, 61, 79, 140, 174, 178, 197, 226 quantitative research 10, 17, 19, 40, 61, 117, 122, 125, 130, 139–40, 150, 162, 180, 197 questions (in dialogue) 67, 107, 149, 163, 165, 167, 193, 208 reaction 66, 124, 185, 197–201 reader response (inc. reception) 2, 6, 13–14, 72, 217–18, 222 readers 2, 3, 4, 13–16, 34, 38–9, 47, 50, 61, 68, 72, 89, 96, 182, 217–18 adult 34, 38, 178, 191 implied 35 young 4, 14, 25, 36, 113, 116, 122, 125, 191, 217, 221, 223–4 reading boys’ see ‘boys’ literacy practices reading schemes 5, 10, 12, 19, 39, 41, 46, 49, 64, 69, 71, 85, 116–41, 215, 218–19, 225 readings 2, 9, 55, 91, 114, 175, 182, 215–18 progressive 188 psychoanalytic 91 subversive 57, 180 realistic fiction 2, 44, 51–2, 56, 69, 72, 79, 87, 89, 120, 153, 158, 162, 178, 190, 207 recontextualization 5, 33, 91, 183–8, 216 recycling 35, 97, 115–16, 135 repetition 32, 35, 80, 116, 125, 131, 135, 185 reported clause 70, 136, 230 reporting clause 6, 9, 70, 84, 116, 119, 134–7, 200, 202, 224 representation (textual) 1, 4–13, 17–18, 21, 36, 42–4, 49, 54, 58, 60

Index research questions 17–18, 29, 50, 130–1, 134, 145, 149–50, 153–4, 224, 227 resistance 26, 39, 184–5, 193, 205 role models 13–14, 44, 58, 151, 205 romance 3, 42, 64, 80–1, 115, 215 sacrifice 94, 99, 185 school stories 3–4, 14, 47, 78, 190, 202 semiotic action 69, 123–4, 197 semiotic analysis 52, 139 semiotic processes 200 sequence 123, 178 sex role 43, 46, 49, 87, 122 sexism 12–14, 22, 28–9, 32, 46, 49, 57–9, 62–3, 87, 120, 213, 225 sexist language 36–7, 43, 59–60, 75, 118 sexual harassment 22, 181–2 sexuality 8, 19, 21, 26, 36, 56, 80, 142, 150–3, 157–8, 162–5, 168–71, 205, 215, 226 siblings 82, 126, 219 side-kicks 194–5, 200, 214 social action 66, 68, 85–6, 120, 123–4, 134, 185, 196–201, 225 social actors 66–7, 82, 85–6, 120, 122–4, 134, 137, 151, 194, 216 social inclusion 2, 41, 58, 66, 193, 208 socialization 26, 42, 46, 73 speech acts 67, 70, 84–5, 102, 106, 110, 116, 124–5, 136, 200 speech representation 14, 63, 70, 102–5, 135–6, 187 statements 49, 67, 125 stepmothers 91, 94–5, 115, 207, 215, 230 stereotyping 7, 10–11, 42–8, 52–3, 56, 58, 60, 63, 71, 73, 81, 83, 86–7, 115–16, 119–25, 139, 141, 157, 168, 173, 179, 193, 204–7, 218 story 5, 40, 53, 61, 75, 83 strategies (narrative/textual) 19, 35, 113, 145, 149–50, 154, 162–72, 182, 207, 224 stylistics 18, 64, 76, 79, 224

259

subject position(ing) 25, 35, 72–3, 81, 174, 188 subjectivity 22, 35 subjects curricular 4, 16, 219–20 grammatical 65, 67, 77, 114, 123–4, 134, 137, 151, 203 social 6, 34, 219 subtle sexism 13, 22, 28, 63, 225 symbolism 35, 60 systemic-functional grammar 65, 69, 127 terms of abuse 32, 60 third wave feminism 21–2 thought representation 5, 11, 14, 69–71, 76–7, 90, 96, 177–88, 208, 227 threesomes 193–4 titles (book) 4, 41, 49, 151–3, 157 tokens (cf. types) 122, 130–1 tomboys 11, 32, 42, 47, 119 traces (linguistic) 19, 22, 34–5, 72, 75, 79, 115, 177–85, 189 transgression 15, 37, 42, 48, 107, 142, 150, 157, 182–3 transitive verbs 65, 87, 116, 123–4, 134–7, 199 transitivity 18, 62, 65–9, 84, 123, 134, 216, 225 ‘treating fiction as fiction’ 1–2 twins 10, 47, 51, 74, 83, 126, 135, 231 two-Dad families 19, 67, 142–72 two-Mum families 19, 67, 142–72 turns (conversational) 124–5 types (cf. tokens) 122, 130–1 visual analysis 18, 52–6, 139–41, 145, 154–8 visuals 3, 6, 17–19, 52–5, 76, 82, 132–3, 138–43, 154, 157, 161, 170, 216–18, 225 vocabulary see ‘lexis’ Women’s (Liberation) Movement 9, 11, 21, 38–9, 143, 182, 187 Western 38–9, 91, 113, 216