feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-11-19 07:52 am
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-11-19 07:52 am
OVERVIEW: fighting in Girls Own
I note this because it’s happened in the last two girls own stories that I’ve read, and doesn’t happen that often. Among the stories in Blackie’s Girls Annual (see this entry) is 'Pin-pricks' by Josephine Elder, where one girl punches the other in the nose. There’s also brawling in Lorrie’s First Term by Norah Mylrea. In ‘Pin-pricks’ Janet, also known as Robin, is so obsessed by being dropped from the hockey first eleven to the second by the captain Evelyn, for a bulkier girl who Robin believes is a poorer player than her, that she...punches Evelyn! What’s even more surprising is that Robin is seventeen and concurrently taking scholarship exams to go to Cambridge and go to study to be a doctor. You’d think she’d have more self-control.
Maybe you’d also expect the daughter of a vicar to refrain from starting physical fights, but Lorrie has the excuse of being younger and established as the naughtiest of her siblings. She's at Devenham through the charity of a neighbour, who is snobbish Prunella’s aunt. Lorrie is a bit of a live wire, but has told the jolliest Middles (who welcome her, but dub Prunella the Prune, to add fuel to Prunella's feelings) about her status. Prunella’s weapons of choice are her cutting words and sneaking. Lorrie loses her temper and fights back (and gets caught and reprimanded by the head girl. This facet of her behaviour isn’t condoned by the author).
‘Pin-pricks’ is slightly different. It’s a really weird story – the moral is that one should have the courage to bear pinpricks if one is planning to be a doctor, so you can understand what your patients are going through. The punching is really played down – Evelyn is flummoxed and only Robin’s best friend knows about it, and due to her rival’s influenza, Robin gets her place back on the hockey field. But...a seventeen year old punching people? Doesn’t seem quite the thing, does it? It was disappointing coming from Elder.
How rare do you feel fighting is in Girls Own? Are there authors that are more likely to write about it than others? What stance do they take (eg is is a 'wild' girl who hasn't had a mother/has been brought up with several brothers?)? Is there a change in attitudes over the years (did I miss the Fight Club Term at Trebizon?)
Maybe you’d also expect the daughter of a vicar to refrain from starting physical fights, but Lorrie has the excuse of being younger and established as the naughtiest of her siblings. She's at Devenham through the charity of a neighbour, who is snobbish Prunella’s aunt. Lorrie is a bit of a live wire, but has told the jolliest Middles (who welcome her, but dub Prunella the Prune, to add fuel to Prunella's feelings) about her status. Prunella’s weapons of choice are her cutting words and sneaking. Lorrie loses her temper and fights back (and gets caught and reprimanded by the head girl. This facet of her behaviour isn’t condoned by the author).
‘Pin-pricks’ is slightly different. It’s a really weird story – the moral is that one should have the courage to bear pinpricks if one is planning to be a doctor, so you can understand what your patients are going through. The punching is really played down – Evelyn is flummoxed and only Robin’s best friend knows about it, and due to her rival’s influenza, Robin gets her place back on the hockey field. But...a seventeen year old punching people? Doesn’t seem quite the thing, does it? It was disappointing coming from Elder.
How rare do you feel fighting is in Girls Own? Are there authors that are more likely to write about it than others? What stance do they take (eg is is a 'wild' girl who hasn't had a mother/has been brought up with several brothers?)? Is there a change in attitudes over the years (did I miss the Fight Club Term at Trebizon?)