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Aug. 24th, 2007 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astralisAll full up on thinky thoughts, about new girls and school stories and schoolgirl honour, and the "redemption" of the bad girls and those who never got "redeemed", the ones the Chalet School staff refer to as their failures, people like Thekla von Stift and Betty Wynne-Davies and all the other girls from all the other schools who were either expelled or quietly asked to leave. And not just those girls but girls like Grizel Cochrance, Joan Baker and Gwendoline Mary Lacey who just never fit the model of the Chalet School girl or the Malory Towers girl but were never bad enough for expulsion; rather just not quite "right".
And how there is a lot more scope for individuality in schools like Kingscote and Trebizon where the school is almost a vehicle for one's individual goals, like Lawrie Marlow's acting or Rebecca Mason's tennis, rather than the Chalet School where one must put being a Chaletian above one's talents or goals: Stacie Benson's studies and Nina Rutherford's music, for example, are presented as less important than being a True Chalet School Girl - as opposed to Margia Stevens, who didn't have to learn to be a True Chalet School Girl.
Of course, learning to be a True Chalet School Girl generally tends to involve accident or injury to oneself or another girl due to one's carelessness/recklessness/arrogance/other major failing. Nancy Caird's turning point at St Bride's comes when another girl almost drowns because of her. Gwendoline Mary doesn't see the error of her ways until her father becomes ill, but that, at least, wasn't Gwen's fault.
Also thinking about "playing the game", and Nancy Caird at Maudsley being accused of not playing the game by working hard and thus causing the staff to expect greater things of the rest of the Lower Fifth and her ultimate acceptance as a member of the form coming only when her reasons for doing so are revealed and deemed acceptable by popular opinion. The book ends with Nancy being called upon at the last moment for a significant cricket match; with her help Maudsley Grammar draws against Larkiston House: so Nancy literally and figuratively plays the game and finds a place at Maudsley that she didn't have at St Bride's. And Jen Robins giving up dancing for a term to play cricket - or something? - because the school and her beloved Jack need her and being considered terribly honourable and selfless by Joan and Joy and everyone else.
Okay. That was rambly and pointless and possibly made no sense at all. But hey, I did thinking! *iz smart*
And how there is a lot more scope for individuality in schools like Kingscote and Trebizon where the school is almost a vehicle for one's individual goals, like Lawrie Marlow's acting or Rebecca Mason's tennis, rather than the Chalet School where one must put being a Chaletian above one's talents or goals: Stacie Benson's studies and Nina Rutherford's music, for example, are presented as less important than being a True Chalet School Girl - as opposed to Margia Stevens, who didn't have to learn to be a True Chalet School Girl.
Of course, learning to be a True Chalet School Girl generally tends to involve accident or injury to oneself or another girl due to one's carelessness/recklessness/arrogance/other major failing. Nancy Caird's turning point at St Bride's comes when another girl almost drowns because of her. Gwendoline Mary doesn't see the error of her ways until her father becomes ill, but that, at least, wasn't Gwen's fault.
Also thinking about "playing the game", and Nancy Caird at Maudsley being accused of not playing the game by working hard and thus causing the staff to expect greater things of the rest of the Lower Fifth and her ultimate acceptance as a member of the form coming only when her reasons for doing so are revealed and deemed acceptable by popular opinion. The book ends with Nancy being called upon at the last moment for a significant cricket match; with her help Maudsley Grammar draws against Larkiston House: so Nancy literally and figuratively plays the game and finds a place at Maudsley that she didn't have at St Bride's. And Jen Robins giving up dancing for a term to play cricket - or something? - because the school and her beloved Jack need her and being considered terribly honourable and selfless by Joan and Joy and everyone else.
Okay. That was rambly and pointless and possibly made no sense at all. But hey, I did thinking! *iz smart*
