First – I went with Rudder yesterday to the boathouse here. (He’d gone Monday, too, but I optedout of that one.) I definitely won’t be doing the Holiday Challenge this year, but I was able to erg 5km without it hurting my foot much, and even do some light weghts while waiting for him to finish. Literally, it was my first time on the erg in over a month – I did no workouts for all of November other than lots of walking. Moving will do that to you.
Second – My foot was pretty good today, hardly bothering me at all until about 15 minutes ago. All of a sudden, OW! I have no idea why. I wish I did so I could avoid it. Maybe it was the painkiller wearing off, but it seemed to sudden for that. Anyway, I hope not, as I just took the very last one.
Third and hopefully more interesting – I’ve been indulging in a bit of an Arthur Ransome orgy. I’d never even heard of him until fairly recently. Apparently whoever was supposed to let me in on all the children’s classics back when I was young fell down on the job, and I’d never come across them in a store or library. I got his first book, Swallows and Amazons, from Amazon a year or so ago, and liked it enough to get excited when I found more of his books in a store here. Since then I’ve been picking up and reading more of them; I’m on about my fourth. Yesterday I got to thinking about Susan Walker of the Swallows, and how she compares to the problematic Susan Pevensey, once styled Queen Susan of Narnia.
The two Susans are in very much the same position, both the second child and oldest daughter of four children who mostly go on their adventures with no parents around (though the Swallows’ parents are at least usually there to be asked for permission before their riskier undertakings, except when those are accidental). It seems clear that some of the similarities between the two are cultural, in the expectations of older sisters. (Dora Bastable also spends a lot of time trying to take care of her brothers and sisters, and it turns out that she was asked to do so as her mother’s dying wish. Unfortunately for the other Bastables, Dora was much more of a prig than either of the two Susans.)
The difference is that Susan Pevensey is a bit of a drag on the adventures, whereas in general Susan Walker enables them. Susan P is always wanting to pull back, not trust what turn out to be the good people, not risk anything. She’s the foil for Lucy, who’s innocent adventurousness is always rewarded. It’s Lucy who brings her family to Narnia, Lucy who sees Aslan more than anyone, Lucy who is universally beloved. She’s the only one of the four who makes friends on her own, not as part of a unit of four. Which is all very nice for Lucy, who is sweet and deserving, but it seems unfair to punish Susan for living up to the role that’s expected of her. (Maybe there’s some foreshadowing here.)
Susan Walker is much more insistent on proper meals and bedtimes for herself and siblings, but here it’s presented as a positive thing. More than once they’re allowed to go on adventures specifically because their parents know Susan won’t let them do anything stupid. In Winter Holidays, Susan is quite ready and eager to sleep on the houseboat with John, and is finally pulled back by her sense of duty to the house where her young sister and brother Titty and Roger are sleeping. But it’s the right thing to do; her brother John agrees and after all no one ever does get to sleep on the houseboat. (Because “You couldn’t expect Eskimos to agree to a thing like that.”) It’s exactly Susan’s housewifely skills that are used to run the Primus stoves and create the furry clothing that allow the Arctic expedition to flourish. In We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, Susan and John disagree for once and John’s bravery is rewarded – but it’s made clear that Susan’s timidity here stemmed from seasickness more than anything else.
This Susan is the sine qua non for the Swallows’ and Amazons’ adventures. She may be a bit boring, but she’s bedrock. Further, she’s not the only option. If her reliability is the crucial factor in getting the expeditions allowed, it’s Nancy’s entirely undomestic leadership that sparks them. Nothing much would happen without Captain Nancy, and none of Nancy’s wild ideas would get executed without the sturdy backing of Peggy. Peggy and Titty themselves are entirely capable when they need to be. Further, it’s clear that Mrs Beckett and Mrs Walker had exactly the same sort of adventures in their own younger days, and that they’ve deliberately raised their children to be resourceful and capable, and to follow orders only when they don’t conflict with safety or common sense. Susan’s been trained not to let her brothers and sister go out without proper food, sleep, and clothing, not to keep them from going out at all.
Bravo for Ransome, for getting that girls are people and not just girl-types, who vary in all the ways people vary rather than just in how well they adhere to an ideal. And poor Susan Pevensey. It’s a bit harsh to be pushed into a role and then punished for it.
I felt like the stereotype in the S&A books was not that girls had to cook and clean but that second-born children did. Could you imagine Captain Nancy Blackett making her little brother’s tea, if Peggy had been Peter instead? SMT, not likely!
I loved those mothers so much! All those families seemed to run on such a nautical hierarchy, too, so that even though girls did girl things they did them sort of like lower-level sailors, you know?
Mris, In that case it strikes me as more logical than stereotypical. The mates do the cooking, mate is the next highest position after captain, so the second-born gets that slot. (So yes to Jessie’s point.) It would be interesting to see if the hypthetical Peter would have overcome the sex stereotyping to make Captain Nancy’s tea, though.
I really enjoyed this post, and agree.