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Malory Towers: Tomboy Revisited

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Malory Towers: Tomboy Revisited chapter 5 Malory Towers: Tomboy Revisited Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series was published between 1946 and 1951 and can still be counted among the most popular and best known school stories of British children’s fiction. Still, like her The Twin’s at St Clare’s series, it is often neglected by scholars when dealing with school stories. Enid Blyton is not only known as a writer of schoolgirl fiction, but covered various genres for children of all different ages and is one of the most successful authors of children’s books of the twentieth century – Hunt notes that she wrote more than 600 books in total, more than 400 titles being still in print in 1996.1 Even more astounding is that she managed to publish her books during World War ii, when restrictions on paper caused great problems for writers. Among her most popular books are the Famous Five series and her three school story series The Twins at St Clare’s, Malory Towers and The Naughtiest Girl, the latter already set at a co-educational school. And although she has often been accused of “racism, chauvinism, anti-feminism, caste-consciousness”,2 and bad style, her books are widely read and loved by children.3 New editions, however, are often bowdlerized to erase offensive passages.4 Considering her great output, it is not surprising that, when we look at Mal- ory Towers, we clearly see the formulaic nature of her school stories. Almost every typical feature of the school story genre is there. This starts already with the setting. In contrast to the Coll. in Stalky and Co. or Pendlemere Abbey in A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl, Malory Towers appears to have a tradition as a boarding school and is thus comparable to Rugby as depicted in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, since it is mentioned that Alicia’s mother attended Malory Towers, too.5 Apart from that, again we have an ancient castle-like building, even with 1 Peter Hunt, “Enid Blyton”, in British Children’s Writers 1914–1960, eds Donald R. Hettinga and Gary D. Schmidt, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 160, Detroit: Gale Research, 1996, 65. 2 Greenfield, Enid Blyton, 73. 3 Quigly, The Heirs of Tom Brown, 221. 4 See Hunt, “Enid Blyton”, 62. This applies also to the books of the Malory Towers series. Apart from the replacement of the word “queer” by the terms “strange”, “weird” or “odd”, attempts have been made to modernize the books: thus, the “turban” Mam’zelle Dupont wears in In the Fifth at Malory Towers becomes a “hat”, the running-board of Mr Rivers’ car has been omitted as cars no longer have running boards, etc. 5 See Enid Blyton, First Term at Malory Towers, London: Dragon/Granada, 1983, 17–18 (all sub- sequent quotations will be taken from this edition, unless indicated otherwise). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/978900434�7��_007 <UN> 110 chapter 5 a quadrangle, called “the Court”.6 Thus the school can be seen as drawing tradi- tion from both, the building and the institution. Once more we have houses, the North, the East, the West and the South Tower, and the girls generally con- sider their house as the best house in the best school: “Malory Towers. Best school in the world.”7 Moreover, once again we have one main protagonist, Darrell Rivers, with the obligatory average intellectual abilities, physically fit, on the whole good- natured, but with a flaw of character: a rather hot temper that she must learn to control during her years at school. Although her intellectual abilities are mediocre she often does well in class, although she has to work hard for suc- cess, in contrast to Alicia, who easily remembers everything and does not have to learn.8 She loves sports and is good at swimming, tennis and lacrosse, the main physical education subjects at Malory Towers. She even scores the win- ning goal in a lacrosse match when she is in the third form9 – the match be- ing described over three pages, again a reminder of the Tom Brown tradition – and eventually becomes “the head of the fifth form games”.10 Generally good- natured and well-liked, she soon finds friends and is very popular with the other girls. Nevertheless, she has to overcome her temper during her school years. In the new editions it appears as a minor flaw, since Darrell only “shakes” Gwendoline “roughly”.11 In the original version her temper is much more of a problem, as she is positively violent: There came the sound of four stinging slaps. And Gwendoline squealed with pain. Darrell’s hand was strong and hard, and she had slapped with all her might, anywhere she could reach as Gwendoline hastily tried to drag herself out of the water. The slaps sounded like pistol shots. Darrell has actually slapped Gwen so hard that one can distinguish Darrell’s five fingers in “the brilliant red streaks down her thighs”.12 Yet, already in the 6 See ibid., 16. 7 Enid Blyton, Second Form at Malory Towers, London: Dragon/Granada, 1971, 10 (all subse- quent quotations will be taken from this edition, unless indicated otherwise). 8 See Blyton, First Term at Malory Towers, 87–88 and Enid Blyton, Last Term at Malory Towers, London: Dragon/Grafton, 1986, 55. 9 See Enid Blyton, Third Year at Malory Towers, London: Dragon/Granada, 1982, 155 (all subsequent quotations will be taken from this edition, unless indicated otherwise). 10 Enid Blyton, In the Fifth at Malory Towers, London: Dragon/Granada, 1983, 32 (all subse- quent quotations will be taken from this edition, unless indicated otherwise). 11 Enid Blyton, First Term at Malory Towers, London: Egmont, 2006, 55. 12 Blyton, First Term at Malory Towers, 50–51. <UN>.
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