Little Lord Fauntleroy

I feel as though the author's gender has a major influence in how the story is presented for the reader to perceive and comprehend. Whether it be the characters or the underline meaning of the story the authors gender is very influential in creating the type of environment the author wants. In Little Lord Fauntleroy we see for the first time in are readings dealing with boys that he is well mannered, handsome, well dressed, and overall very mature for his age, which is completely different from other boy characters like Tom Sawyer and Ragged Dick. "he was so handsome and strong and rosy that he attracted every one's attention." (Burnett pg. 445) This shows the comparable difference in Cedric to Tom and Dick, I feel that this can be attributed to the author being a female. With the author being female I feel she made Cedric fit the role of what women want boys to be like. While we see with male authors like Twain and Alger made the boys in their stories more rugged and mischievous that followed the stereotypical male child during that time period.

As far as how the text changes when the reader finds out that an author is male or female I feel that gender factors into how the story is is developed in boys literature. With a male author you are going to see a more male ego driven story that depicts the boy as tough and cool not showing any type of compassion or feelings. While a female author writing about boys in literature will show a softer side that we don't identify with males whether it be through how they dress, their manners, their looks and other characteristics we don't see male authors doing with their male characters in this time period. We see in Little Lord Fauntleroy that Cedric personality is far different than the other male characters from previous stories and I fell it was described perfectly in class when someone called him the male version of Ellen Montgomery. But this can be attributed to the author being female because of the non traditional male characteristics that were given to Cedric. Overall though I feel that while gender of an author does have some significance in how the story is portrayed. Each author whether it be male or female has their own distinct style that makes their writing their own no matter their sex.

Tom Sawyer

In my posting this week I would like to address the difference in city vs. country, and weather or not Tom could make it in a city.We have read in Ragged Dick that the city is a exciting and a wonderful place, but one must work hard in order to survive in the streets. As we saw with how hard Dick worked just to have a decent amount of money to support himself. Tom on the other hand is far from ever being a diligent worker, " having to work-the very thought of it burnt him like fire." (Twain. P. 411) We see Tom does not have the ambition to be a dedicated worker. Tom also broke the perception that children who are raised in the country are behaved better. As we see with the amounts of trouble he causes his aunt and when he cheats and lies to get the bible. Which I believe would translate into Tom gambling,smoking, and mimicking the same wild side as Dick. But their is one thing that I feel that Tom posses that will allow him to thrive in the streets and that is his savvyness and ability to manipulate people.

The passage I would like to focus on is right after Tom gets most of the boys in town to whitewash the fence, "He had discovered a great law of human action, that in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain." (Twain. P.414-415) I feel that Tom doing this is using his knowledge/manipulative ability to his advantage in order to get what he wants. This to me would translate into what I like to call "street smarts" and would allow Tom to find a way of surviving in the city. I also feel that this passage reflects just the type of person Tom is and that is always doing what is best for him. Which to me is an important quality to have in order to be independent and thrive in a city.

Ragged Dick

The roles of young girls and young boys in 19Th century American literature were vastly different and seemed to have different connotations when trying to teach young readers, weather it be boy or girl on what roles and behaviors society felt were acceptable. I feel that we have touched on the role society wanted young girls to follow with the domestication process, and how children literature intended for girls to become well mannered domesticated women. While literature intended for boys was to show boys that working no matter the occupation and level of income was seen as being acceptable and a way to contributing to society. When Frank is telling Dick that he should try and be somebody "if you'll try to be somebody, and grow up into a respectable member of society, you may not become rich but you can obtain a good position and be respected." (394) This shows how society viewed the working man as a valued member of society no matter his occupation and income, which is what society wanted young boys to understand. I also feel this mentality contributed to how much boys cared about their education unlike the girls who had to be educated. We see the way Dick talks with all the slang terms and his meager ability to read, "I ain't much on readin it makes my head ache."(387) which shows how little education was valued by young boys.

Another difference in children's literature portraying to boys and girls was the role of parents. With the girls we saw either the mother or a stranger play a significant role in helping girls in literature. Boys on the other hand had no parental supervision or guidance in their life, "he had a father living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr.Nolan was a confirmed drunkard." (349) This shows how little roles parents had in boys life and how they still were able to persevere without them, which showed boys they can succeed by them self and how they must maintain that role of being tough. I also feel a big difference between boys and girls in literature was the way they behaved. Girls were expected to be well mannered and well behaved, and always being "good". Boys behavior was seen as being a bit more rebellious and cool, with the only guideline being not to steal. We see this with Dick's idea of fun being able to drink,smoke,gamble, and play tricks on people. But even though these things are bad for children to be doing we still consider Dick to be a hero.