Posted by Ed Kiser on May 30, 2001 at 06:49:18 from 64.111.166.193:
Suspicion Of Guilt
It is a frequently persued theme in these stories to have
someone, quite innocent, become the suspect of some evil deed.
It started in SA, when the houseboat man saw the Swallows
sailing by right after the fireworks went off on his roof. He
immediately blamed them for the damage. He went to their camp
and left them a note saying they had better not mess with with
his houseboat again. He was so angry with his suspicions that
when John rowed to the houseboat with a serious message from the
charcoal burners that he would not even listen; he called John a
liar - which really hurt. In the final solution, the problem was
solved simply by the expediency of the Amazons telling their
uncle that it was they that had set off that fireworks. Their
feelings about each other at that point seemed to do a complete
reverse, to the extent that the Swallows and Captain Flint became
the best of friends, even though it did take a mock "war" in
which the houseboat was invaded by the Swallows and Amazons.
The feeling of suspicion of evil-doing in PD was well founded.
They suspected the bad guys of being after their map and
findings, and in truth, they were. So this was not a false
suspicion, as we have seen in the other stories. I was never
satisfied with this story, as the conclusion was a "Aw, gowan,
who are you kidding..." with the waterspout removing the
problem. This problem was not resolved by any smart action on
the part of the good guys, or any tricky fooling the enemy, they
just got lucky. Oh, well, Ransome did not write this one, the
kids did, so I guess that's ok.
The false suspicion concept was much less significant in SD,
but there, it was Titty that suspected herself of causing
significant damage to the G.A. since she had been guilty of
burning the wax image of the G.A. as a type of VooDoo Doll.
Titty was much relieved to finally hear that the G.A. had not
suffered any unusual discomfort, even in spite of Titty's action
with the wax doll.
In WH, there was this ill feeling against the D's, who in spite
of the blizzard, took off on their own to the NP, thus making a
lot of others spend a difficult time in the bad weather to set
out and to try to go look for them in what they thought was to be
a rescue attempt. When everybody finally got together at the NP,
although delighted to see everyone safe and healthy, there was
that expressed displeasure that the D's had even set out at all.
Here it was disclosed they were just following orders: the flag
at Beckfoot meant head for the Pole, so it was not their fault at
all, just a confusion and ambiguity over a messaging process.
Nancy, who had been the primary one to be fussy about their
setting out to the NP, found that it was her message, the raising
of the flag, that had caused the problem.
Also in WH was a much shorted lived suspicion, as expressed by
the words, "Well, I'll be jiggered!" Captain Flint did not know
who the D's were, but was certainly (and rightfully so) not only
surprised but a bit indignant over the discovery that these
perfectly unknown strangers had moved into his houseboat. Of
course, explanations were in order, and rapidly resolved the
problem, so this suspicion was quickly over with.
Suspicion was all through the PP adventure, with observing a
suspicious character slipping off into the woods, and then
showing up on High Topps as a rival prospector whose evil plan
was to jump their claim. This "enemy" required expenditure of
man power to scout the Atkinson's to keep track of the location
of Squashy Hat, for fear he might uncover their discovery. In
spite of this animosity against Squashy Hat, at the end they had
to let humanitarian considerations override their rivalry, and
led him to their mine to avoid the flames - but he still remained
a suspicious character. To me it has been one of the most
delightful highlights - a complete reversal of feelings - when
Captain Flint, as he showed up at the fire line, saw Squashy Hat
and shouted, "TIMOTHY!" Now that was a twist suitable to be in a
Hitchcock movie.
In PM, the false suspicion was that the G.A. felt that her
nieces were somehow secretly meeting with the Swallows, who on a
previous visit (SD) had frequently made them late for meals.
This suspicion led her to make a safari of discovery of her own,
which failed to produce the evidence she was looking for, as the
Swallows were not in the area at all. Perhaps in her own mind,
her suspicions were never really resolved. Her leaving on this
research trip without telling anyone, had everyone suspecting
that some tragic event had occurred to her, a suspicion that was
resolved when the D's sailed up with her on board - a lovely,
tense moment of drama...
Also in PM, Timothy became the target of suspicion of burglary,
because he had been seen, in his very shy manner, slipping away
from Beckfoot, much as he had been seen early in the PP story.
The G.A. was sure he was the culprit, especially when she found
the wooden box with the balance scales at Jim's houseboat. So
Timothy's shyness again got him into suspicions circumstances.
The problem in WDMTGTS was not so much suspicion, but a feeling
that the action the Swallows took might be misunderstood, and
that they may be found to be a fault for making that decision -
the idea being to get sail up so they could manage steerage way
and get out to sea away from shoal water. They were afraid they
would be suspected of doing something wrong, and were quite eager
to explain to whomever WHY they did what they did. They were
also quite right to feel that there would be those that would
wonder what ever happened to them when they turned up missing.
Until the others knew what really happened, the imagination could
come up with many unlikeable suspicions as to their fate. They
knew they had to get SOMEWHERE so they could send a message to
satisfy those suspicions of fears.
(A side note here, if I may... This story, WDMTGTS, is the one
that really should have been made into a movie, with all the
drama and suspense, because it was not a child's made up
imaginary adventure, but a real struggle for survival itself.
What a great place for Special Effects to show that little ship
in the grip of a great Storm...)
Suspicion also kept our heroes in difficulty in ML, as the
Chinese somehow thought that these were agents of the British
Navy, come to do in their little profitable enterprise. Their
escape merely got them away from the problem, it did not do
anything to disprove that suspicion. There was the overall
concept of suspicion that happens whenever peoples of different
cultures meet, with each eyeing the other with some reservations.
"They" are different; "they" talk funny - we must be on the
lookout for "them" - who knows what "they" will do...
In the CC adventure, the casting off of the Margoletta at first
caused false suspicions to be made, first against Dick, then
against the Death and Glories by the Hullabaloos. Eventually
they learned of Tom's culpability in the matter, thanks to George
Owdon. Then their hunt for Tom was really a search for the real
culprit, not just a falsely suspected one.
The concept of a False Suspicion was really the main theme back
of the BS story, where the Death and Glories were made to be
suspects of not only casting off boats, but also of stealing
shackles at Potter. I did find it somewhat puzzling in the BS
story, that the Death and Glories, who had done such a
praise-worthy job of salvaging of the Margoletta at the end of
the previous story (CC), and had received awards from the boat
builder there in Horning, that those same boat builders were so
quick to turn on these boys with their suspicions. This whole
story is about this suspicion, how it was made stronger to an
almost explosive conclusion, with the table turned on the bad
guys at the last possible moment. In a way, there were so many
situations in which the D&G's were having to protest their
innocence that it almost became bothersome with so much
repetition of this situation.
The thing that bothered me about that story was that, once a
bad reputation got out into the community, I just hope that the
proper answer was also spread out, so the innocence of the false
accused could once more be assumed. At the end of that book, it
says that Tedder would spread the word about Horning as to the
truth of the matter, but the book never said much about their
reputation in the outlying towns, where they at one time had far
distant membership in the Coot Club, each of which had resigned
(parental pressure) at the heights of the suspicion. It just
goes to show that the story of a bad reputation gets spread fast;
but the good news of their innocence - I wonder if it spread as
far or as fast. As a rather famous Englishman once wrote: "The
evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with
their bones." It doesn't take much to distroy a good reputation;
but to repair a bad reputation is almost never completely
accomplished.
This concern does bring out a feeling I have as a reader of
AR's stories, that he is writing about real people, and the
events are made to be real enough to be believable. As "real
people", these characters have a life after the book ends. It is
my concern for the reputation of those "real people" that so
demonstrates that I feel about these characters as if they are
indeed - quite real. When the story ends, I kept wanting to
know, "what happened then..." Those boys continued to live in
that community, with whatever reputation remained to them,
because they seemed to be "real people." So I had concerns for
their life after the story ended, because I felt they would live
on, even to the point that I find myself wondering what happened
to them, and to John, Roger, Dick, when the chaos of WWII hit
them some ten years (or less) later, when these "real" people
were of the proper age to be involved in that war. They are and
alway will be very real, so very real, and dearly loved - forever
young.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ed Kiser - in South Florida, on the banks of the Everglades,
the River of Grass, where there are "THANGS" that don't have a
leg to stand on, and a bunch of other "THANGS" that look like
pre-historic reptiles of unsavory disposition...