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“It’s stupid being a girl!” The Tomboy character in Selected Children’s Series Fiction Cynthia Mei-Li Chew BA (Hons) This dissertation is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Murdoch University, 2008. ii Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. __________________________________________ Cynthia Mei-Li Chew iii Abstract The tomboy is a female character that has featured prominently in many popular works of children’s literature. Typically, the tomboy is a prepubescent or teenaged girl who is frustrated by the expectations and limitations placed upon her because she is female. She is reluctant to conform to feminine standards of appearance and behaviour. This thesis examines the representation and evolution of the tomboy character in two distinct categories of children’s series fiction, ‘books in a series’ and ‘series books’,1 focusing on narratological elements such as plot, characterisation and series structure, as well as their publishing context, exploring issues of authorial intent, editorial decisions and, in certain cases, the official revision of texts. ‘Books in a series’ are usually presented as bildungsroman – that is, stories, or in this case, series , of development. In these narratives, time progresses and the characters age; tomboyishness is depicted as a temporary phase which is grown out of when a girl matures, and learns to accept and perform femininity. In contrast, ‘series books’ are centred on adventure and/or mystery stories, rather than on the process of growing up – the characters’ ages are typically frozen, and tomboyishness is a distinguishing character attribute which remains for the course of the series. 1 Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls' Series . Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997, p.2. iv In studying children’s literature, it is important to acknowledge that the audience of children’s literature includes adults as well as children – it is after all, adults who determine and control the production, distribution and legitimisation of texts for children. Originally, children’s literature was written specifically for the religious, moral, behavioural and social instruction of children, rather than for their entertainment. Although appearing less overtly didactic in recent times, the production of children’s literature has continued to be driven by the adult concern for ideological appropriateness, and the desire to responsibly educate its young readers. This concern and desire are fuelled by the underlying and persistent belief that children are like sponges and will absorb whatever they are exposed to 2, including representations of gender difference and gender performance. The ways in which the tomboy character has evolved in the children’s series are a direct reflection of the shifts in society’s ideas about gender, the gendered education of children, and the adult conception of what is ideologically appropriate for the children’s text. The tomboy character in children’s literature has been an important cultural marker of both our evolving and constant values. It is clear that over time gender roles have changed significantly, allowing girls in series fiction to be sleuths, rescuers, warriors and adventurers, but through all of this change, the representation of the tomboy has always reflected adults’ conception of what is ideologically appropriate and normal and therefore desirable , in the representation of masculinity 2 Sternheimer, Karen. It's Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture's Influence on Children . Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003, p.181. v and femininity, gender and sexuality in children’s literature – a normality and system of gender based on a steadfast heterosexual hegemony. vi Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One 21 The Ambivalence of Jo March: Exploring the Contradictory Possibilities in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women , Little Men and Jo’s Boys Chapter Two 77 Restless in the house: The Learning of Gender Performance in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Series Chapter Three 133 The Clue of the Ghost-Written Tomboy (and her Cousin) Part I: George and Bess of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories Chapter Four 206 The Clue of the Ghost-Written Tomboy Part II: Trixie Belden Chapter Five 260 Tomboys George and Bill: Looking Beyond the Flawed Mythology of Enid Blyton Chapter Six 312 So Why Can’t Girls be Courageous? Tamora Pierce’s Lady Knights Conclusion 384 Appendix 401 Adventure and Mystery Series Group Dynamics Bibliography of Primary Sources 413 Bibliography of Secondary Sources 428 vii Acknowledgements I wish to convey my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Associate Professor Jenny De Reuck for her guidance, support and friendship; to my Honours supervisor Deborah Robertson for her continuing encouragement; to my partner Jacquelin for patiently enduring three more years of living with a student, for all the delicious brain food and for being understanding when I chose to put the Ph.D. first; to my family for their interest and support, especially Constance for her scholarly assistance, and Ange and Juji for generously sharing their books with me; and to my fellow-Ph.D. candidates Adam, Rachel and Marnie for being great mates. And a very special thanks to Billy Lee and Pixel for their constant companionship in the stuffy study, even on the hottest of summer days. 1 Introduction The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy’s. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father’s. ‘No,” she said. “I’m not Georgina.’ ‘Oh!’ said Anne, in surprise. ‘Then who are you?’ ‘I’m George,’ said the girl. ‘I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won’t be. I don’t like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You’re to call me George. Then I’ll speak to you. But I shan’t if you don’t.’ Five on a Treasure Island , Enid Blyton 1 This thesis examines the representation and evolution of the tomboy character in selected children’s series fiction from the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on literary elements such as plot, characterization and narrative/series structure, as well as the publishing background and cultural context of the texts. It is, in a sense, an inter-disciplinary thesis, combining cultural and literary analysis. I will argue that the ways in which the tomboy character has evolved in children’s literature are a direct reflection of the shifts (and also, to a certain extent, of what has remained constant ) in our ideas about gender and the adult conception of what is ideologically appropriate for the children’s text. 1Blyton, Enid. Five on a Treasure Island . Sevenoaks, Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981, pp.17-18. 2 The tomboy is a character that has featured prominently in many popular works of nineteenth and twentieth century children’s literature, including some of the longest-running girls’ mystery and adventure series. The tomboy was a prepubescent or teenaged girl frustrated by the expectations and restraints placed upon her because she was female. She preferred the physical activities of boys and was resentful when she was excluded from participating in them. 2 She was portrayed as hot-tempered, brave, blunt, and stubborn, and she often treated feminine girls with impatience and scorn. She was uncomfortable with and/or reluctant to conform to feminine standards of appearance and behaviour, and favoured shorts, trousers, jeans or even riding breeches over dresses and skirts. Especially in texts from the mid-twentieth century onwards, it became common for the tomboy to have short hair, in defiance of the femininity represented by long hair. The tomboy often had freckles and was “brown-skinned” from her love of being outdoors. In some cases, the tomboy rejected her own name in preference for a shorter or masculinised version: Josephine became Jo, Georgina or Georgia became George. 3 2 In The Oxford English Dictionary we see how the meaning of the word “tomboy” evolved, from its original meaning of “a rude, boisterous, or forward boy” in the mid-1500s; to “a bold or immodest woman” later that same century; to the definition we are probably most familiar with in the late- 1500s: “a girl who behaves like a spirited or boisterous boy; a wild romping girl…” In Womankind (1876), Charlotte Yonge wrote about “tomboyism” as “a wholesome delight in rushing about at full speed, playing at active games, climbing trees, rowing boats, making dirt-pies, and the like…”. From http://www.oed.com/ Accessed May 2004. Owain Jones makes an important point that “such views of female children existed whether of not the term tomboy was actually mobilised”, citing the example of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, first published in 1818, where the description as a child of Catherine Moreland, the story’s heroine clearly presents the profile of a young tomboy. “Tomboy tales: The rural, nature and gender of childhood”, Gender, Place and Culture vol.6, no. 2, 1999, p.125. 3 Later on, as part of her interesting evolution, in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, the tomboy George ‘became’ Georgia. See Chapter Three, “The Clue of the Ghost-Written Tomboy (and her Cousin) Part I” for details.

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