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adding victorian women writers project text files
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‎vwwp_text/VAB1828.txt‎

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‎vwwp_text/VAB1828_intro.txt‎

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‎vwwp_text/VAB6984.txt‎

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‎vwwp_text/VAB6984_intro.txt‎

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----CITATION----
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Borgo, Mary Elizabeth. Introduction to Jackanapes and The Brownies. .
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Digital Library Program, Indiana University (2011).
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http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/vwwp/VAB6984_intro
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----FULL TEXT----
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Introduction to Jackanapes and The Brownies By Mary Borgo and E.
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Noell
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When a reader opens the Riverside Literature Edition of Ewing's Jackanapes and The
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Brownies, he or she first finds an advertisement for a
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publisher's catalogue that includes an impressive list of authors.
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Shakespeare, Longfellow, Tennyson, and Byron accompany the two little
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children's stories included in this volume, their venerable presence an
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indication of Juliana Horatia Ewing's historical importance. Though she
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wrote in the 1800s, her influence has extended into the following centuries:
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Jackanapes,
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first published in 1879 in Aunt Judy's
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Magazine, was used in Imperial Britain and the United
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States to encourage young men to fight for their countries, and The
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Brownies, appearing in Yonge's Monthly Packet in 1865, provided
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the name for the Brownie division of the Girl Guides.
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Aside from the real-world impact of Ewing�s work, many factors make these texts
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worth reading. "Jackanapes" and "The Brownies" are
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marked by several traits characteristic of her writing, traits crucial to an
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understanding of the children's literature of the Victorian period. Themes
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of nationalism, morals, nature, and the supernatural are conveyed in a style
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that is at once delicate and direct, familiar as a fairytale.
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One of Ewing�s central themes in Jackanapes is the relationship between nationalistic
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militarism and Christian self-sacrifice. Jackanapes, the title character, dies
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because he pauses in the middle of a retreat to rescue his childhood friend Tony
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from the battlefield. Ewing originally wrote this story as a response to a
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historical event, as Margharita Laski writes: The
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Prince Imperial had lost his life in the fighting in Africa earlier in 1879,
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and there was at the time much criticism of the British officer with him
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who, it was believed, could have saved him. Thus the story of Jackanapes,
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who did give his life for his friend, struck aptly at people�s emotions.
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(Laski
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50) Thanks to this
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historical context, Jackanapes's death in the midst of a doomed engagement
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resounds with the cultural weight of Alfred
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Tennyson's The Charge of the Light
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Brigade, that enduring popular Victorian paean to
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useless, misguided, but noble sacrifice. Jackanapes's death accumulates
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great cultural weight not only because he stands for the warrior who valiantly
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dies for a hopeless cause, but also because of strong religious overtones since
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his death results from his refusal to leave Tony behind when he might have
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escaped danger alone. By this act he lives the Christian command to lay down
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one's life for one's friend. Furthermore, his last request, made to a
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hard-bitten Major, is to hear a prayer from the Parade Service. In an ironic
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scene Jackanapes puts his commanding officer to shame, demonstrating faith in
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the face of death, while the officer can barely remember a line of prayer to
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mutter. Even so, his faith is essentially militaristic, for his request is
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rooted in the army's religious routine. Thus, in Ewing's story
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Christian faith accompanies and tempers military courage, even becoming
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equivalent to it.
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In the valorous Jackanapes, then, Imperial aggression meets Christian values: he
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is as classic a figure of this conflation as Rudyard
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Kipling's "Tommy" in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses or Tom Brown in
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Thomas Hughes's Tom
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Brown's Schooldays. But "Jackanapes" and "The Brownies" are
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also excellent examples of Ewing's gift for positive moralizing. Instead of
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writing cautionary tales about bad children who get into trouble, Ewing warmly
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paints the benefits and pleasures of virtue. A case in point is the delightful
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scene in which the young Jackanapes goes to the fair: his generosity with his
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carnival money to Tony and his great aunt Miss Jessamine is rewarded by his
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grandfather with the purchase of the Gypsy's horse Lollo, a pony that had
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fired Jackanapes's courage and imagination. The relationship of good deed
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to reward cannot be missed. Similarly, the little heroes of The
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Brownies, Tommy and Johnnie, begin as lazy and unthankful
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but end up savoring their father�s praise when they learn to do their housework
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cheerfully. For the children in Ewing's stories, good deeds bring the
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elation of good conscience and the acclaim of adults. As a result, her
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moralizing is tender, addressing the child psyche adroitly in order to elicit
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willing obedience.
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In The Brownies, Ewing's moral is embedded within a
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traditional framework: the fairytale. Thanks partly to the Brothers Grimm, the
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Victorians remained fascinated by fairytales through the end of the nineteenth
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century. In 1812 and 1814, the Brothers
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Grimm published their Children's and
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Household Tales, which fed the persisting popularity of
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Charles Perrault, whose classic Contes de ma M�re l'Oye, ou Histoires du temps pass� was
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published in 1697. Collections of fairytales circulated
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in all kinds of formats in the 1800s, from expensive illustrated volumes to
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penny chapbooks, and they contributed in part to a new generation of mid- to
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late-Victorian authors working in the genre, such as George MacDonald and Oscar
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Wilde. In these collections of fairytales, the narratives were often scripted as
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oral stories told by female narrators to a young audience. Ewing reclaims this
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female voice in The
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Brownies as she constructs a complex oral framework for
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her tale. A teller we sense to be female frames the story, in which a bachelor
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Doctor entertains his neighbor the Rector's children with a tale about
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Tommy and Johnnie. But within the Doctor's story, the boys'
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grandmother and an Old Owl, both female, tell their own fairytales. To
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complicate this structure further, the Rector's children at the end demand
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that the Doctor give them another ending to his fairytale, constructing for the
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reader the fantasy of a present, spoken, mutable narrative such as Ewing herself
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used to tell her siblings in their childhood nursery. Together these layers add
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to the oral quality of The
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Brownies.
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Other aspects that mark "Jackanapes" and "The Brownies" as
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stories characteristic of Ewing are their sense of place and their emphasis on
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nature. The very first paragraphs of Jackanapes conjure a world of village peace and security;
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the opening of The
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Brownies is comic yet tender in its portrayal of
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childhood woes. Essential to this atmosphere are the plants and animals clearly
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dear to this writer. The Gray Goose in Jackanapes and the Owl in The
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Brownies are as much characters as the human actors, but
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Ewing makes them so without sentimentalizing or overly humanizing them. The Old
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Owl marries real life to the supernatural as a semi-human figure who sets Tommy
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on a moral path, and Lollo, the fiery little red pony of Jackanapes, exemplifies the Victorian tendency to worship
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horses as the embodiment of a nature that happily serves mankind. Ewing's
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attention to plants and animals thus builds a rich background for her
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stories.
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A final trait of these narratives is the addition of figures outside the family
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circle who intervene in family events. The Doctor in The
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Brownies epitomizes this sort of character. His liminal
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status enables him to speak into the family situation unimpeded by family
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obligations, as he uses his story to encourage the children to be tidy without
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the domineering stance he might convey if he spoke with parental authority. He
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is a bridge between the child and the adult, a childless man who has not lost
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his sense of boyishness. Indeed, his adult maturity combined with friendly
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interest enhances the warmly moralistic quality of Ewing's tale.
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Through "Jackanapes" and "The Brownies,"
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then, we as readers experience the best characteristics of Victorian
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children's writing. A first encounter with Ewing's delightfully
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simple, friendly, and funny style is enough to explain why this author was so
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popular among the Victorians and remains influential today. In her understated
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way she has shaped our expectations of what a good children's story should
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be, and her tales only continue to enchant.
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Bibliography
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Avery, Gillian. Mrs Ewing.
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New York: H.Z. Walck,
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1964.
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Blom, Margaret. Juliana Horatia
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Ewing (3 August 1841-13 May 1885). Dictionary of Literary Biography: Victorian Novelists Before
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1885. Ed. Ira Bruce Nadel and
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William E. Fredeman. Detroit:
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Gale Research, 1983. 21:171-174
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Demers, Patricia. Juliana Horatia
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Ewing ( ). Dictionary of Literary
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Biography: British Children�s Writers, 1800-1880. Ed.
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Meena Khorana. Detroit:
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Gale Research
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1996. 163: 91-99.
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Ewing, Juliana Horatia. Canada Home:
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Juliana Horatia Ewing�s Fredericton Letters 1867-1869. Ed.
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Margaret Howard Blom and Thomas E.
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Blom. Vancouver: University
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of British Columbia Press, 1983.
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--. Jackanapes and The Brownies.
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Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and
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Company, 1902.
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Gatty Eden, Horatia K. F. Juliana
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Horatia Ewing and her books. Detroit:
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Gale Research Co., 1969. First
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published 1885 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
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Laski, Marghanita. Mrs Ewing, Mrs
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Molesworth, and Mrs Hodgson Burnett.
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London: A. Barker,
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1950.
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Maxwell, Christabel Ward. Mrs Gatty
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and Mrs Ewing. London,
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Constable, 1949.
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Plotz, J.
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A Victorian Comfort Book: Juliana Ewing's The Story of
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a Short Life ed. J. H. McGarran, Romanticism and Children's Literature in
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Nineteenth-Century England. Athens:
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University of Georgia Press,
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1991. 168�89.
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