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Posted by Adam Quinan on February 24, 2008 at 09:51:43 from 99.226.247.88 user Adam.

In Reply to: Re: This isn't about 'dinner' posted by Peter H on February 23, 2008 at 18:04:48:

Interesting example of thread slip, so I retitled to try and bring the discussion back to AR's politics and whether it affected the books.

Ransome's family background and early Bohemian was definitely more on the left of politics, I suspect his experiences in Russia must have also enhanced those views generally. However, I think that it is mostly displayed in his books as a sympathy with the working classes whether they be Lakeland farmers, boatbuilders' sons. His main protagonists are firmly in the middle or even upper middle classes (depending on the vexed question of the Beckfoot estate). He does make the Walkers and Blacketts respectful of others and apart from Nancy, we don't see them exploiting the power that their social class might have given them in the 1930s.

So was Ransome reflecting a more general behaviour pattern or was he expounding subtle political views to the unsuspecting reader? I think that while 1930s children like the Walkers and Blacketts were usually brought up to be publicly polite to everyone no matter what their social standing, but in private they might often have mocked those of a different class or education level. There is no evidence of this in the books. Is this omission a lack of realism because the author made the children "too good to be true" or a children's author not wanting to make enemies among some of his readers or Ransome's political respect for the workers and their labour?


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