Posted by Ed Kiser on November 15, 2003 at 06:39:10 from 152.163.252.196 user Kisered.
There seems to be many places when various characters are under
suspicion, unrightly so. Other places, someone states a truth,
but there is doubt from the others. They fail quite easily to
believe each other so many times. Maybe not suspecting a
deliberate lie, but still, perhaps doubting if the report is
really true. This conflict between the ones making a claim
and the others who do not believe the claim of course is
sometimes quite essential to the plot, but it is amazing how
even in trivial situations, they are quick to doubt the truth
of what someone is saying.
Consider these situations:
In SA, Captain Flint was convinced the Swallows were the ones
responsible for the fireworks damage to his roof. This
suspicion caused him to suspect they were the ones involved in
the robbery of his houseboat. Once he understood that it was
Nancy that had done the fireworks, and that the Swallows were
quite helpful in his getting back his stolen property, then his
attitude greatly shifted to friendliness instead of suspicion.
CF's suspicion also affected Mrs. Dixon who likewise followed his
lead and warned the campers to stop messing with the houseboat.
In SA, Titty was so sure she had heard the robbers hiding the
loot on Cormorant Island, but the others, especially Susan, did
not believe her, but thought she was just dreaming. Titty was
finally proven right.
In SD, Roger and Titty were on the lookout rock. Titty was busy
with her holiday tasks, learning irregular French verbs, while
Roger was sweeping around with the telescopy. He spotted
something, a red cap coming through the bracken, and said "Hello"
to indicate he sees something. Titty, involved in her study,
tells him to "Shut up. There's nothing out there." But it was
the Amazons on their way to attack the Swallowdale camp. The
reason for their being up there was to be on the lookout, but
when something was spotted, it was not believed. At least, Roger
persisted and finally got Titty to look for herself. [Reminds me
of the radar station in Hawaii the early morning of Dec 7, 1941,
when the operator saw a large flight of many aircraft, but when
he reported it, he was told, "Don't worry about it." So they
turned off the set and went down to look for breakfast. Makes
you wonder why they were up there in the first place. It was the
Japanese carrier based aircraft on their way to bomb Pearl
Harbout. If only...]
In SD, as Titty and Roger were trying to find their way back in
the fog, Titty did not believe the compass and thought that it
had been damaged when she tripped. Her senses had been confused
to where she believed them instead of her instrument.
In WH, after the rescue parties had finally gathered at the North
Pole, and although glad to find the D's there safe, they were still a
bit reserved about their "failure to follows orders" and their
premature trek to the Pole without proper coordination with the
rest of the group. Finally Nancy was able to explain that Dick
was actually obeying those orders to head to the Pole when
they see the flag at Beckfoot, a signal that Nancy had forgotten
about, a signal that was misunderstood when she used it later to
mean an entirely different message. So Dick's departure for the
Pole was eventually justified, after some skeptical reserved
glances of disapproval from the others before they understood why
he had made the trip when he did.
In PP, Mrs. Tyson blamed the Prospectors for starting the fire on
High Topps, specifically, Nancy. It was only after it was over
she came to realize that they were not the source of the problem,
but that their pigeon had been a major part of the solution.
In PP, they were very suspicious of "Squashy Hat" not knowing
that he was the "Timothy" they were expecting.
In PP, Nancy expressed her suspictions about "Squashy Hat" to
Slater Bob. He seemed a bit surprised, but cooperative with her.
"Well, I said nowt about gold to him, that's one thing,"
said Slater Bob. "And if he's that sort he'll get nowt out of
me, not if he asks his questions till crack o' doom."
Not sure just what sort a person Squashy Hat was suspected of
being, but whatever it was, Slater Bob accepted that he was not
of the "right sort."
In PP, Dick announced that he thought there was water up at the
camp "might have been", as he had been looking at some rushes.
"He doesn't really mean it," said Titty sadly.
"But he does," said Dorothea. "Don't you, Dick?"
A lack of faith from one, yet belief from another.
In PP, the next morning after Titty had made herself perform the
dowsing at Camp Might Have Been, they did not believe that she
had actually done it. Once again, it is Susan that expressed
her lack of faith in Titty, when she said...
"You know it may be just Titty," Susan was saying, "and
she won't like it if we go up with spades and it turns out to be
all Peter Duck."
In PP, they announced to Mrs. Tyson that they had found water,
and were going to move their camp first thing in the morning.
"We've got a spring of our own," said Nancy.
"You must have your joke, Miss Nancy," said Mrs. Tyson.
Mrs. Tyson was not the type to have much faith in the prospectors.
Even Mrs. Blackett did not believe they had found water.
"You haven't really found water, have you?" said Mrs. Blackett.
In PP, they went up to investigate the three white paint spots,
but suddenly realized Squashy Hat was nearby, so they quickly
got out of there, wondering why their scouts had not warned them.
"You're a fine lot of scouts," said Nancy bitterly. "Letting
us get caught like that. Why didn't you signal?"
"We did," said Peggy.
"Like windmills," said Roger, "for hours and hours, but it
wasn't any good because you never looked at us."
In PP, after Roger had walked into camp late, but with a scrap of
quartz with what looked like gold, everyone was quite excited,
wanting to get an early start to stake the claim. Dot offered a
page from her book she was writing, but Nancy still was not sure.
"Look here, Dot," said Nancy. "We'll get you another in
Rio..." and then she hesitated. After all, Roger was Roger.
In PP, once again Susan is ready to accuse and blame someone
before she hears what really happened. The young ones had just
gone through the Old Level and back over the top of Link Scar.
Susan had sent Titty to call them to come to supper, but they
obviously had been elsewhere, so she is ready to blame Titty.
"Look here, Titty," said Susan, who had been brought
back and was waiting for them with the others. "You ought
to have had more sense. Taking them away up the fell like
that when you knew it was dinner-time."
"But she didn't," said Dorothea.
"Yes, she did," said Susan.
In PM, when Nancy saw the Scarab on the way back to Beckfoot with
the Great Aunt, she and the others waiting for their arrival were
put out with the D's inability to follow orders. They had been
told that the one thing they must not do was to run into the GA,
and here they were bringing her home. Once the circumstances of
their running into the GA became known however, they understood
why the D's did what they did.
In PM, the GA was so sure that her nieces were secretly meeting
with the Swallows, even when they kept telling the GA that they
were not expected until next week. To try to prove her suspicion
is why she went on that trip where she wound up missing.
In PM, the GA insisted that there had been a burglary, and was
quite indignant when faced with the reluctance from the police to
believe her story - thanks to Nancy making faces being the GA's
back, to make the policeman think it was just one of her pranks.
She must have had quite a reputation for hijinks in that
community.
In PM, the GA claimed that Timothy was a "suspicious looking
character," and was quick to identify him as the burglar.
In CC, the Hullabaloos at first thought the D&G's had cast them
off, and there for a moment, they even accused Dick of doing it.
In BS, the concept of false accusation is the dominant theme
throughout the story. At the start, when the first boat was cast
adrift, Tom thought the D&G's had done it; they thought maybe Tom
had done it, so there was some false suspicions even among the
lead characters.
In WD, when they got back home, Roger told his mother that they
had gotten the doll and shoes in Holland, but she dismissed that
as a tall tale. Roger felt very disappointed that the great news
about their having been in Holland had fallen very flat, due to
his mother's disbelief in what he was telling her.
In SW, when they first saw the Amazons, the Swallows ran back to
camp to tell Susan that the Amazons were coming. Her response:
"They're only ragging." Susan is quick to not believe.
In SW, when the Amazons scouted the town and the rest did Flint
Island, the Amazons saw the Lapwing, and came back fast to warn
the others, which were somewhat slow to believe that the Eels
were in town already, so were not coming in from the sea as
expected.
In SW, Titty was working on inking in the maps, the others were
surveying and keeping an eye for the hostile Eels, leaving
Bridget on sentry duty. They came back, found the totem gone,
and asked Titty what she had done with it. She protested, saying
she had not touched it. They kept insisting she MUST have,
because it is gone. She had to insist several times that she had
not touched the totem before they accepted her claim.
In SW, that last day, the two pairs got up early to finish the
map, without letting John know where they were. John sent
Bridget to roust out the Amazons, but she reports:
"But they aren't there," said Bridget a moment later.
"Of course they are," said John.
He did not believe her, and had to be shown their empty sleeping
bags before he accepted her report.
In SW, on that last day, they felt that the Amazons, and Titty
with Roger, had skipped out of helping pack up the camp and
had gone racing instead. It turns out they had gone out early
in the morning and mapped the two islands to the north to
make the map complete. Susan and John were quick to suspect
their being away was being up to no good.
In PD, there in the fog, there was the use of false foghorn
signals to mislead the opposition. Perhaps even illegal?
It seems that Roger has a reputation for not being believable.
"After all, Roger is Roger."[PP] Yet, I cannot really find any
place where he has not told the truth. He may have been a bit
vague when describing where he found the gold, but he was
"milking" the suspense; he did not want them to go rush off to
the place before he had a chance to show them exactly where it
was.
Titty gets blamed sometimes for making up stories, so when she
claimed she knew in SA where the treasure was, no one believed
her. Yet, in later books, when Dorothea seemed to take over the
roll of being the one to make up stories, people did not seem to
have this problem of belief with her as they had done with Titty.
Interesting that Titty was suspected of not being able to tell
the difference between an actual event and some made up
abstraction that she just made up in her mind. Thank goodness
this lack of faith in her was quickly laid to rest, and is not
passed on to Dorothea who inherited the "author" role.
As for actual lying, the only one I came up with was in ML, where
CF claimed to be the mayor of San Francisco; but I suppose when
one's neck is at stake, one gets imaginative.
There is the assertion that the whole story of PD is just a made
up fabrication, but then, when you come down to it, isn't that
true of all twelve stories? This is fiction, you know...
Ed Kiser, South Florida