Posted by Pam Adams on August 31, 2007 at 19:25:42 from 134.71.192.172 user PamAdams.
In Reply to: Re: The 'Miss Turner' slur (was The 'Miss Nancy' enigma posted by Peter H on August 29, 2007 at 18:30:49:
Well, this female Tarboarder was on vacation, and is just now catching up.
Classic evil aunts, whether maiden or not, can be seen in the works of many 19th and early 20th century writers. Saki, Kipling, Orwell, even or perhaps especially PG Wodehouse all use the stereotype freely. (Without evil aunts, would there have been a PG Wodehouse?) I blame it on the side effects of running an empire- if the parents are in India, the children have to go home to someone for their education, someone who perhaps doesn't really want the job of raising children.
The GA certainly rings true to the 'maiden aunt' stereotype in SD, where we only really see her through the eyes of the Swallows and Amazons. Think of the Swallows' horror at the sight of Nancy and Peggy being forced to dress up and ride, sitting in a polite and ladylike fashion in the carriage.
By PM, Ransome seems to have mellowed- Dorothea quite rightly notes that the GA seems to be doing things not from a sense of evil, but from trying to do the right thing. Without Dorothea, and her more imaginative viewpoint, would we know these things? Dorothea even picks up on the GA's fear that her position won't be respected- that people will see her perhaps as she sees herself. Timothy follows up Dorothea's observations with the point that the GA is in many ways just like Nancy.
Ransome shows us that the GA is clearly wrong in many ways, and as someone pointed out elsewhere on the thread, isn't as enlightened a parent as Mrs. Walker or Mrs. Blackett, but in PM she becomes a real person, not just a convenient cardboard target for the Swallows, Amazons, and D's to maneuver around.
Someone earlier mentioned the phenomenon that everyone, including other adults such as the doctor and the postman, lived in fear of the GA. I felt that these people were children during the GA's first reign (ie when she raised Mrs Blackett and Cap'n Flint) and have never overcome their fear of her.
Pam