EDU21ACL – Australian Children’s Literature Adventure Stories Lecture 2 Historical and Critical elements in Adventure Stories © La Trobe University, David Beagley 2006

Origins and development To early 19th century - children’s stories are primarily didactic (i.e. teaching tools for moral and social virtues) Early-mid 19th century - Adult adventure stories are popular with children: Swiss Family Robinson (1814), Ivanhoe (1820), Last of the Mohicans (1826) - styles are established Leads to publication of many stories in serial form in magazines Mid-late 19th century - genre (and market) embraced: The Silver Skates (1865), Tom Sawyer (1876), Black Beauty (1877), Treasure Island (1883), Heidi (1884), Huckleberry Finn (1884), King Solomon’s Mines (1885), Kidnapped (1886), The Jungle Books (1894-5) Authors become famous, with appreciative audience: Twain, Ballantyne, Marryat, RL Stevenson, Kipling, Rider Haggard

Origins and development Key aspects established: Gender: boy heroes going out into wider world, girls have domestic adventures Social values impressed: oImperialism - civilized European dealing with the primitive exotic oPersonal worth - honesty, loyalty, pluck in face of danger (for boys) caring, nurturing, home building (for girls) oReward is earned by the successful application of those values to achieve the adventure’s resolution In essence - Growing up

Origins and development Key aspects continue and develop into 20th century Popular stories and characters evolve into series: Stratemeyer syndicate (USA) - Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys School stories (UK) - Billy Bunter, Malory Towers, Hogwarts Characters/settings/series - Biggles, Famous Five, Secret Seven, Simon Black, Billabong Note little change in gender roles, personal values, Eurocentric politics But, later 20 th century – social realism and issues become increasingly important plot elements

Gender roles – 19 th century Boys get Kidnapped, girls get Green Gables Boys go out into the world to encounter their adventures Girls stay home and have the adventures come to them Thus, as the nature of the adventure is largely determined by the setting, it is therefore determined by the gender role Boys active and exploratory, girls passive and domestic Little House(s), Railway Children, 7 Little Australians, Heidi, Little Women, Pippi Longstocking

Gender roles – 19 th century A mixture of the extraordinary and the probable if the events in a story are too mundane, they fail to excite, but a sequence of completely extraordinary events fails to be credible (Butts) The adventure must be within the reach of the reader - it should be possible to believe it could happen to you As girls were presumed to be domestic, sailing away to a rip roarin’ adventure would be too great a departure from the probable – a girl doing a Huck Finn would be almost unthinkable Femaleness exists as an extension of maleness – male “protector” is always nearby

Gender roles Children’s books were (and are still?!) seen as a mechanism to teach appropriate social values The values required by the hero to achieve the resolution are those deemed socially ideal This makes the adventure story the prime focus of the “appropriateness” argument

Gender roles – 20 th century Gender roles change (Female suffrage, WWI and workforce, roaring 20s etc.) Therefore literary representations of gender change: Girls’ school stories – jolly hockey sticks! Mixed, but equal, gender groups – F5, S7 Girls questioning the boundaries set for them – Biggles/Worrals, George of F5 Solo female heroes and leaders – Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene, Ellie But constraints still there – Cherry Ames, Hazel Green (vs Bartlett), Hermione Grainger …

Politics and world views – 19 th century Early adventures as Mechanisms of Empire Exotic settings far away from “civilization” Includes Australian bush “Different” cultural & ethnic groups (primitives) encountered and opposed Hero/protagonists as agents of Empire (civilization), using their superior skills to subdue the “primitive” The exotic other – people and places

Politics and world views – 20 th century Imperial dichotomy replaced by other political oppositions: Other imperial powers (foreign agents) The Cold War Non-Europeans still distrusted Internal social class becomes a defining element, often linked to crime: working class/middle class, urban/rural Marxist social view

Politics and world views – 21st century Key political elements still direct representation Globalization – other cultures and societies now more familiar and given integrity Not necessarily a European going into the exotic Parvana – Afghanistan The Heaven shop - Africa Chinese Cinderella But the focus is on social negatives – war, famine, AIDS – in those non-European societies Social dislocation – urban problems such as homelessness, crime, unemployment or personal disasters such as pregnancy, drugs, abuse Have fantasy worlds become the new exotic?

Social Issues and Realism Late 20 th century saw sudden expansion of “acceptable” topics in children’s literature Judy Blume Forever (1976), Robin Klein Came back to show you I could fly (1985), Sonya Hartnett Sleeping Dogs (1995) Is children’s literature the place for warts’n’all reality? Protection (shield them from the nasties, they will get enough later) vs Vaccination (finding out from the safety of a book prepares them to face reality)

Social Issues and Realism Children’s Literature vs Young Adult/Teen literature – where and what are the boundaries? What is Adventure? Does it require: Action ? Violence and conflict ? Danger and threat ? Overt or implied ? Should it question or answer?