Posted by Peter Hyland on May 13, 2012 at 04:12:34 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Swallowdale - some thoughts posted by Mike Dennis on May 12, 2012 at 14:26:31:
It is always interesting to read an analysis of a well-known book by another AR devotee, so many thanks, Mike, for your own insights. I hope Mike won’t mind if I comment – he has posted his views to be shot at. I am not ‘shooting’, but I would like to approach the Great Aunt from a different direction. I write as a (self-appointed) expert on this fearsome lady.
As Mike points out, the G.A. is certainly an ogress in ‘Swallowdale’. It is very hard to find any redeeming features at all. From the literary point of view, though, she is a magnificent ‘villain’. She is all too believable and she exercises her powers through psychological influence, rather than physical. She had a hold on both Jim Turner and Molly Blackett because she had stood in loco parentis to them when they were young. She has a vital part in ‘Swallowdale’ because she energises the plot – without her it would all have been a little bit flat. The Amazons would have got into no bother at all when they stayed out all day – it would just have been a nice day and that’s that. Ditto ‘Picts & Martyrs’ – without the G.A. the Ds would have stayed at Beckfoot, having meals in the dining room and taking advantage of the plumbing – no adventure there.
I suggest that to say that Nancy “hated” her Great Aunt is not quite accurate. She certainly strongly resented the G.A.’s behaviour in ‘Swallowdale’, but we see a change in attitude in ‘Picts & Martyrs’ when Nancy was genuinely concerned when the G.A. had disappeared. Dorothea sees a side of the G.A. that they had not been aware of – “the Great-Aunt was herself afraid of something”. Then Timothy notices that the “Great Aunt is remarkably like her Great Niece”.
So the G.A. is human after all, and you could say that she was a woman in a man’s world, trying to live up to the standards she herself had been taught as a young girl. There are many women who could identify with that.
As I never tire of pointing out, we owe a great debt to the G.A. She was based on Emma Holt, the spinster shipping heiress who owned Lanehead and let it to the Collingwoods rent-free. If the Collingwoods had not lived at Coniston, AR might not have met them, and might not eventually have met the Altounyans and might not thereby have been inspired to write ‘Swallows & Amazons’ and the sequels. So the ‘Great Aunt’ is responsible for the 12 books which we daily commemorate on Tarboard. Here’s to Maria Turner !!