"Men of England! look at your poor girls"

They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare husbands. The gentlemen turn them into ridicule; they don't want them; they hold them very cheap. They say--I have heard them say it with sneering laughs many a time-- the matrimonial market is overstocked. Fathers say so likewise, and are angry with their daughters when they observe their manoeuvres--they order them to stay at home. What do they expect them to do at home? If you ask they would answer, sew and cook. They expect them to do this, and this only, contentedly, regularly, uncomplainingly, all their lives long, as if they had no germs of faculties for anything else

-Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

It's easy to forget how lucky we are to have oportunities and freedoms equal to those of men. Thank God for women like Charlotte Brontë who refused to believe themselves inferior.

J.E. # 9: Conquering Heroine

Thank God for Bertha Mason!

Had Betha not been locked in the attic Jane would have married Rochester a poor, obscure orphan and would forever be the dependant little woman he and the world wished her to be. The discovery of his sins force Jane to leave Thornfield and all its hidden horrors. In leaving she finds family, fortune, and the confidence which comes from recieving the pure love she knew herself deserving of.

Had Bertha not set fire to her husband's home killing herself and greatly disfiguring her spouse, we would not have the absolutely irresistable ending we are left with in which Jane returns to her fallen knight to rescue him from the pain his sins have brought on him. He becomes dependent on our little Jane as she would have been on him if Brontë had not the forethought to hide a lunatic in the attic.

J.E. #8: Elf or Imp

Throughout the novel, Jane is described as something otherworldly allowing her to escape the binds her world places on women.

Perhaps in that world she was something mystical, something incomprehensible, something that to Rochester could only be described in a world not his own--a world where women were different. Rochester certainly had not encountered a woman like Jane before in his experiences with countless mistresses. He had not met with someone who had learned to value and respect herself for something special which came from within, something that surpassed vanity and radiated quietly with an otherworldly glow.

Jane is an elf because she is not like the women of her time. Even as a child she sees herself as "a strang little figure... like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented" because even she cannot understand what she is, though she knows she does not belong in this world--a world where women can be regarded as property.

Jane's ability to be a creature of another world, or of another life, in a world where she is so clearly contrasting to the ideals around her aid Brontë in her illustration that Jane is an important individual defined not merely by marriage. In this way she defies the general guidelines of the marriage plot.

J.E. #7: Inherent Worth

it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!

(Jane to Mr. Rochester-Ch. 23)

Jane's actions reflect her belief in her own value--an inherent value that is not supported by most of her aquantiances or by the society surrounding her which could find value only in women of wealth, status, and beauty.

Beginning with her rebellion against John Reed, we see that Jane cannot believe herself inferior to her afluent relatives. The reader is struck by this child's strength as her convictions are opposed by everyone around her who tell her that as a poor and weak orphan she has no right to be loved or respected.

After Bertha Mason is revealed, Jane exhibits incredible courage and moral strength in leaving Rochester--perhaps her only hope for stability. Regardless of being without friend or finance, Jane leaves Thornfield and willingly enters into poverty rather than to "stay and become nothing" to the man she loves when she inherently knows she is worthy of more. What evidence has she that she is worthy of love and respect from a man like Rochester with wealth, power, and status? Regardless of her shortcomings, Jane asserts that she has "as much soul ... and full as much heart"--it is by these standards she judges herself and finds herself worthy of respect.

This knowledge of her own self worth dispite the consistent emotional abuse she undergoes throughout the life Brontë illustruates reflects the value the author intends women of intellect to see in themselves despite the constant mental and physical abuse they will doubtless encounter in her world. Brontë endeavors to show that women of morality not only have worth but will be rewarded for realizing and defending this value.

J.E. #6: Creating Freedom

As an adult, Jane also makes her own escape from a world in which women are nothing but accessories to men to a world where they are powerful and valuable.

She creates this world in her drawings. Her images feature women being empowered. One woman rising into the sky is "crowned by a star" while another with only the "glassiness of despair" in her eyes bares a crescent with the "likeness of a kingly crown." Further, Jane draws supernatural images of women with "wild" eyes and of drowned corpses in green water--images not fit to come from ladies' minds.

These works of art suggest a reflection of Brontë's own desire for artistic freedom. The beautiful, powerful words which flow from her mind are not allowed to enter the world unedited. To be read by the world, they must be diluted and cut away at to fit into the mold of acceptable women's literature. Just as Jane's drawings are her escape to a more fair world, Jane is Brontë's escape as through her hand she is able to paint the pictures of truth--the pictures she could not otherwise reveal.

J.E. #5: Our Sacred Refuge and Source of Passion

As a child, Jane searches for an escape in books such as Gulliver's Travels. She draws parallels between John and a pharaoh or slave driver--parallels which women should not be able to draw as they are expected to simply accept their inferiority (Cervetti). These books and the knowledge they bring--wheather factual or imaginary--serve as Jane's refuge in a world which appears void of justice and love.

Throughout the novel, literature serves as a sort of sanctuary not only for Jane but also for the women she is close to. According to Cervetti, "reading in this novel brings women together collectively in relations of entrustment" as can be seen in her relationships with Helen Burns, Miss Temple, and her cousins. Even her relationship with Bessie is rooted in traditions of oral storytelling. These intellectual societies among women are no doubt reflections of what Brontë shared with her literary sisters.

In contrast, the novel opens with a scene in which John Reed, rather than finding the value within his books, uses them as weapons as he hurls them at his young cousin. It is through novels and stories that women are able to find an escape from men like John Reed who cannot see the value in the texts in front of them. These novels and the intellect they inspire serve to light a fire within the women in this work making them more than the submissive dolls they are expected to be.

J.E. #4: Stern Features and a Heavy Brow

Brontë rebels against the marriage plot's standards for its hero in the Byronic Rochester.

Rather than Frances Burney's Lord Orville whose "person is all elegance" or Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy with "his fine, tall person, handsome features, [and] noble mien," Brontë creates a man marked by a "dark face with stern features and a heavy brow."In composing this unattractive immoral hero, Brontë creates a man more real than the two mentioned above.

It is this reality of character which helps her bring the concepts of the marriage plot out for trial. If a man could be perfect and never make mistakes, a woman should not be opposed to becoming his dependent. If, on the other hand, a man is not perfect, if he makes mistakes and acts selfishly, what right has he to lead a woman blindly through life?

The hero Rochester is first presented on a "tall steed" with a "lion-like" dog bounding before him; his gallant entrance is foiled, however, as the horse stumbles leaving him in the care of a poor governess. Jane states that had Rochester been "a handsome, heroic looking young gentleman" she would not have had the courage to insist upon helping him against his will. This scene "sets up a relationship of dependence with which the novel ends"--a dependence which would be viewed as unacceptable by the heroes of traditional marriage plot novels (Cervetti).

Through the imperfect, unattractive Rochester, Brontë not only rebels against expectations of the marriage plot but further relates to her readers that men are not what they are in literature (a point similar to the one she makes in The Professor about women) and therefore should not be elected supreme leaders over their wives.

J.E. #3: Poor, Obscure, Plain, and Little

Brontë willingly makes her heroine a woman who does not fit into the society surrounding her. In this way, she makes a statement against the values society places on women.

Jane acknowledges that she is "poor, obscure, plain, and little." Though society sees Jane's plain face and small, weak body as unfortunate disabilities, these features act to liberate her from the binds of male desire. Beauty leads to objectification, so Jane's unattractive appearance allows her to remain a person rather than a beautiful picture (Talairach-Vielmas).

Brontë further praises Jane's humble shell by depicting the perfect beauty of women like Bertha Mason and Blanch Ingram as the house for evil spirits--spirits which gradually begin to corrupt the outer self until they create monsters so horrific they are not fit for the world to see but instead must be locked away, hidden from civilization.

Fashionable women were expected to dress in restrictive devices such as "the crinoline with a circumference sometimes exceeding five yards [which] literally transformed women into caged birds" and further was a fire hazard (Cervetti). Being fashionable and beautiful were simply camouflaged methods of subjugation. In refusing the numerous fine silks which Rochester attempts to force on her, therefore, Jane is rejecting the inferior status of her sex.

Jane's lack of exterior beauty allows the reader to fall, along with Rochester, in love with her stunning mind and radiant spirit.

J.E. #2: Marriage Plot or Bildungsroman?

In traditional marriage plot novels such as Evelina and even in Austen's works, the story begins with a girl of marriageable age and focuses around her interactions with the hero. Brontë writes the story of a girl who grows and matures throughout the novel and becomes a woman who is stronger mentally and spiritually than when we met her in chapter one.

Though she is writing a marriage plot novel, Brontë takes the liberty of depicting Jane as a person beginning the novel with a child who has significant events, other than her marriage, in her life. The reader is made aware, as Jane herself knows, that she is much more than a young woman on the marriage market.

Even after her romantic interactions with the "hero," Jane leaves for several chapters showing Brontë's independence from the expected plot her society has given her. The very structure of this novel is so rich in rebellion that it is an ideal jumping off point.

J.E. #1: Eyre of Rebellion

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is a novel of love, a novel of marriage, but most importantly, it is a novel of female rebellion. Jane Eyre relates not only the rebellion of its heroine but also the parallel rebellion of its author. While we see Jane forced to live the life of a nineteenth century woman to employ herself with "women's" tasks, Brontë is forced to work beneath the strictures of the marriage plot novel--the only type of novel it is acceptable for her to write. Both women find a means of rebelling as they push against their boundaries without "technically" breaking the rules.

My next posts will be focusing on the empowering rebellion of these two inspiring women as it is preserved for the world within this incredible novel.

For a Glimps of Soul

"I sought her eye, desireous to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in her conversation. It was merry, rather small. By turns I saw vivacity, vanity, coquerty, look out through its irid, but I watched in vain for a glimps of soul. ... In sunshine, prosperity, the flowers are very well; but how many wet days are there in life--November seasons of disaster, when a man's hearth and home would be cold indeed without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect!"

-Charlotte Bronte, The Professor

American Landscape

According to David Morse, America's untouched, natural beauty served as a catalyst for the growth of Romantic thought in our nation. The seemingly endless landscape inspired a feeling of the "unlimited potential of the American character."

The pioneering painter Thomas Cole believed that the American artist had an advantage over one of Europe because he did not have to paint what so many men had already captured but instead had a "pure, immediate and spontaneous encounter with nature" which gave him a greater sense of his own power. With this inspiration, Cole painted natural Americ "in the grand Romantic manner." Before leaving America in 1829 to study painting in Europe, Cole made a trip to Niagra Falls in order to be "infused with the genius loci" and the "independence and originality" which it inspired even in the face of the masters of tradition in Europe.

Immanuel Kant, the author of Critique of Pure Reason and a predecessor of Romantic thought, believed that staring at the grandeur of the natural world would not make a man feel overpowered and insignificant but would instead be a "revelatory moment of his inner potentiality for greatness."

As Americans we have been incredibly blessed and influenced by our land. In protecting the wildness of our nation, we protect what makes us American.
In wildness is the preservation of our world. -Thoreau

He is risen!

In church this morning, I was struck by how much more powerful promises of rebirth and the story of Jesus's resurection are now that I have a child. Understanding the forgiveness of sins and the new life we have been promised is incredibly significant when these gifts are offered not only for oneself but also to the most precious thing in one's life. What a comfort to know that we really can store up treasures on Earth and that the work we do bringing up our children in God's love will be rewarded when we meet them in Heaven.

Anne Frank

How wonderful that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

--Anne Frank

Little Women

In our novels and films, we allow the perfect, moral character to die. We cry because it is unfortunate to see life taken from one who is so innocent. The reality, however, is far too tragic to portray. The flat characters are healthy and robust while the daring and passionate are taken from us. When death bypasses Beth and suddenly seizes Jo, we cannot cry the sweet tears of injustice, but instead weep bitterly for the light has left the world. Thank God our novels are not so cruel, those left behind know that giving the dying a face or a personality rather than pure virtue would make the parting unbearable. I miss your flaws and your spirit. I love you, my Jo.

Coincidence

My sister went into labor 6 weeks before her son was due. The doctors tried to give her medication to delay his birth but were only successful for about 24 hours. A month later, my sister died in a head on collision. Was it coincidence that her son, who should not have been born for two weeks more was at that moment safe with his adoptive parents?

On this little boy's six month birthday, I was in a head on collision which totaled my car but left me unharmed. Am I crazy to think this was more than just a coincidence? That the day a boy who should not have been born reached the six month mark completely healthy and safe I should come face to face with the circumstance that killed his mother?

I cannot believe these events to be unrelated or insignificant. I cannot believe the universe to have so random a design. I cannot believe there is no message in this madness. I am certain there is a plan for this child. There is a reason he is alive today. There is a reason I am alive today.

Wallace Stegner

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."
-Stegner, Wilderness Act

Thoreau Gets It

"The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"
-Thoreau, On Walden Pond

Evelina: Neverland Nightmare

Francis Burney’s Evelina is subtitled: The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. Upon entering the world of society in London, Evelina is doubtless a young lady and, as Rose Marie Cutting points out, shows "an independence of judgement that reflects… intelligence, common sense, and the good principles" of her education. These characteristics, however, do not appear to develop throughout the novel. Evelina seems to be a character for the most part without growth. She begins the novel with shameless dependence upon her guardian Mr. Villars as she asks him to “decide for” her and proclaims herself “unable” to act independently or to judge what conduct she ought to pursue. She leans upon him as a “guide and director” throughout and even after falling in love with Lord Orville near the novel’s close still unquestioningly shuns her lover at the request of her guardian. Even in the last few days before her wedding is to take place, she promises to halt everything if Reverend Villars has “but the smallest objection.” One cannot doubt the similar dependence she will have upon Lord Orville after signing her final letter to Mr. Villars. It is this circular movement, as Susan Fraiman describes it, which moves her from Villars to Orville, from one director to another, and from one child-like status to the next. As the novel’s events finally culminate and leave Evelina in essentially the same place she started, the reader is left questioning whether she has indeed made a transformation from virtuous girl to virtuous woman or if she is only a girl adopted by a new father.

Viewing the situation from a modern standpoint, we might argue that a young woman must be independent in order to graduate from child to adult. Judged by these standards, Evelina could not make the transformation. In the eighteenth century, however, women were expected (and in most cases forced) to be dependent upon men. A virtuous woman, therefore, would be one who complied with society’s demand and readily accepted her dependence. In the eyes of eighteenth century society, Evelina did become a virtuous woman.

Kenneth Graham points out that the “two central virtues expected of ladies” were modesty and delicacy but that each contained “a series of double hooks.” The innocence required for delicacy meant a woman must be ignorant, and modesty required silence. Both modesty and delicacy, therefore, lead to vulnerability. Evelina is repeatedly thrown into situations where she becomes vulnerable due to her ignorance of society. Her inability to identify prostitutes, for example, throws her into their company at Marybone Gardens where she is then met by Lord Orville. Her association with these women not only puts her in danger physically but also subjects her virtue to speculation as it causes Orville to question her ethics. It is in this way that the traits meant to increase her virtue often come dangerously close to sacrificing it.

Eighteenth century conduct books further support the ideology that a virtuous woman ought to be dependent upon and even under the control of men. John Gregory, for example, in A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters says that even if a woman has any learning, she ought to “keep it a profound secret especially from men who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of cultivated understanding." The concept that a woman should have to hide her intelligence simply to make men feel better about themselves shows clearly how much women were at the mercy of men’s opinions. Fraiman puts it bluntly stating that “a woman’s position essentially depends on whether men call her madonna or whore.” Throughout the novel, Evelina is constantly seeking male approval. With each letter to Reverend Villars, she strives to be morally upright in his eyes, continually asking his opinion and always submitting to his will. She also endeavors to gain acceptance from the father who abandoned her and her mother without showing resentment toward him for either crime. She speaks only of paternal warmth toward this man who defiled her mother’s name but could solidify her own. Finally she is constantly battling to be seen as socially correct in Lord Orville’s eyes despite the frequent blunders her ignorance causes. His view of her is clearly essential to her future social status as a simple proposal will change the way other men see her for the rest of her life. Evelina, like most other women of her time, is completely at the mercy of man’s opinion of her. Because she is a virtuous woman, however, she accepts this truth without question.

Throughout Evelina, we see what little change is made from virtuous girl to virtuous woman. A woman is still required to be ignorant, she is still vulnerable, and she remains at the mercy of men. Marriage, which she sees as a mark of womanhood, will really only lead to a child-like dependency. This circular movement which women of Evelina's time period and social status had to make forced them to have forever the status of children—trapped forever in a Neverland they did not choose and could not escape from, a Neverland Nightmare.

The Story of Ferdinand

Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand was published in 1936 and has never gone out of print since. Just two years later, Disney released the film Ferdinand the Bull which won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject and has likewise been popular over its seventy year life. The children’s book layers simple text with deep imagery to create a complex work which is open to a range of potential meanings and is valuable to children and adults universally. The unlikely hero is a bull who appears to be free of concerns but is in reality responsible for effectively bearing the burden of the profound lessons Leaf and illustrator Lawson place upon him.

The story introduces a young bull who, unlike his peers, prefers to sit “just quietly and smell the flowers” rather than to fight. He is forced into the bullfighting arena in Madrid, however, when he has the unfortunate luck of sitting on a bumblebee in front of a group of men who mistake his pain for ferocity. When the fight begins, he sits down and smells the flowers in the ladies’ hair. Despite the Matador’s attacks, Ferdinand refuses to fight and be fierce and is eventually taken home where “he is very happy” (Leaf, 67).

“Artists for whom the Great War was a part of childhood or adolescence and who produced picture books in the late twenties and thirties were inevitably working with themes of security, internationalism, and the predicament of being a child in the midst of adult danger" (Galbraith, 337). Munro Leaf was born in 1905 and watched the War to End All Wars through a child's eyes. Viewing the horrors of the senseless death brought about by trench warfare must have had a powerful influence upon his notions of war and violence. He was said to have written The Story of Ferdinand in forty minutes—evidence of its being a work from the heart. Likewise, illustrator Robert Lawson was in his early twenties when the war began and so saw an even greater amount of the violence as it was occurring—a fact reflected in the dark and ominous elements he adds to the story. Some critics censure Ferdinand for living in a fantasy world of naiveté rather than growing up and understanding the troubles of the society surrounding him (Steig, pg 118). However, the author and illustrator each had to find ways to cope at a very young age with the reality that men do terrible things to each other and to do so during a time when adults demanded that children put aside their needs and desires to accommodate their own (Galbraith, 340). Children know nothing of war or of death and have no way of coping with them. It is not surprising, therefore, that two men who grew up surrounded by conflict they could do nothing about would write a story about peace which may seem impractical or naïve to those who have not experienced the hell that war brings. It is feasible that The Story of Ferdinand is a depiction of Leaf and Lawson’s hope that it could be possible to live in peace simply by standing against violence. In addition, the reader must be mindful of the fact that “social norms as well as protective concern for what a child can bear” insist that picture books must be “optimistic, light-hearted, and just” making it impossible to relate the truths of childhood trauma in an open form (Galbraith, p338). It is, therefore, necessary to present the concepts of war in terms of metaphors which can be more easily born by children but which still hold the important messages that will be imparted upon both children and their parents. It is in this way that the burden of relating these lessons falls upon young Ferdinand.

Bullfighting dates back to ancient Rome but gained most of its current traditions on the Iberian Peninsula. It is seen as an art form comparable to a symphony or ballet and as an integral part of Spanish tradition and pride (McCormick, 110). When the bull enters the ring, the Banderilleros and Matador (which literally means “killer”) taunt him to show his ferocity. Next the Picadors ride in on horseback and stab the bull with spears between the shoulders to weaken his neck muscles so that the Matador can make the final thrust with his sword into the bull’s heart or aorta. If the crowd believes the Matador performed well, he is awarded with the bull’s ear or tail (which may be removed while the bull is still conscious). Very rarely, if the crowd believes the bull has fought bravely, they may appeal for him to be sent back to the ranch and used for breeding. For the great majority, however, death is the ultimate finale to their fighting debuted (Anderson). The breeds of bull used in bull fights are bred for the fight and do not produce good meat (McCormick, 112). They are, therefore, born to die or at best to father children who will be killed in the arena.

Knowing the fate of bulls in Spain, one begins to understand better the danger Ferdinand and his peers are in. The Story of Ferdinand thus becomes not only a statement promoting peace but also a plea against running blindly to death as the other bulls do. Leaf and Lawson could relate to this warning on a personal level as they doubtless saw young men believing they were going to be heroes sent to be killed in the absurd and horrific trench warfare. The bulls in this story, likewise, are bred to be slaughtered in the arena and run happily to it, eager to impress the reapers who come to transport them to their graves (Steig, pg 120).

Though Leaf never mentions death, it plays a strong role in the story through the reader’s knowledge of what it means to be a bull in Spain and through Robert Lawson’s illustrations. The first picture in which Ferdinand is an adult bull, he is standing in front of a tree which has lines on it marking his growth throughout his two years of life. There is little room for further growth, however, as the tree—like the life of a bull in Spain—has been cut drastically short with a jagged and painful break. Perched upon the broken tree is a large vulture waiting contentedly (Steig, 120). When death is so certain, even the vultures are willing to stand and wait for what appears to be a healthy bull. Interestingly, the Disney film (which follows most of the illustrations closely in terms of structure) replaces this imagery with a healthy growing tree devoid of vultures or any other omen to caution the bulls and the audience about what is coming. The next page depicts the bulls studying an advertisement for the bull fight in Madrid. In this drawing two vultures are sitting on the nearby rooftop waiting for death to take the naïve fighters (Steig, 120). Here again, Disney chooses to remove the ominous birds and posts the sign upon a growing healthy tree with no warning in sight. In the scene in which Ferdinand is being transported to the fight, the ill-omened vulture is again present this time perched upon the sign “To Madrid” while Ferdinand keeps his face turned toward home (Steig, 120). In this instance, the film follows the illustration rather scrupulously including the vulture and Ferdinand’s position of silent resistance. It is interesting that the film chooses to avoid any premonition until Ferdinand is on the way to Madrid. Perhaps this decision is the result of a choice to target the film toward a younger audience and therefore not to burden them with a great amount of death (a similarity seen in Disney’s adaptation of Bambi). The next page in which fans are parading through Madrid likewise features two vultures upon a rooftop. The vultures know death is extremely close when Ferdinand steps into the arena, so four line up on the edge of the stadium walls (Steig, 120). The film includes no vultures in Madrid though it is extremely similar to the pictures in most other ways.

Ferdinand is also a statement of the verity that man chooses his own destiny regardless of what obstacles fate places in front of him. The simple fact that he is a bull born in Spain is a sign of impending death. Furthermore, despite his choice to avoid the bullfight he sits on a bumblebee and runs around in pain “as if he were crazy” causing him to have to face the Matador anyway (Leaf, 36). It would seem that Ferdinand’s death is not only predestined but further inescapable as living a life antithetical to that of a fighter does nothing to keep him from the arena. Many people would give up at this point believing fate all-powerful, “but not Ferdinand” (Leaf, 6). Though fate would assign to him the broken off tree topped with a vulture, Ferdinand chooses to surround himself with flowers and the fertile cork tree. Lawson’s illustrations, in addition to addressing death’s strong role, applaud the hero for the stands he takes against violence and against conforming to others’ perceptions of what one should be. When the other bulls are trying to look fierce so the men in funny hats will pick them, Ferdinand walks away followed by a trail of butterflies. Again, as Ferdinand rides home from the city in the cart, he is surrounded by small songbirds (quite a contrast to the foreboding vulture who greeted him on his way in). Ferdinand has made a decision to surround himself with the beauties of life, and in support of his peaceful and individual choice—despite fate’s strong offense—Lawson further surrounds him with images of vitality. Destiny has plans for death, but Ferdinand chooses his own path of life.

Ferdinand is an important hero not only for children but for adults as well as he is a model of individualism. From childhood, he is clearly different from the other bulls but does not mind. He prefers being alone and happy to being surrounded by those he does not understand. Despite what Spanish society tells him a bull should be, he refuses to be anything but himself. His mother worries about him and the bullfighters tell him he is not behaving as a bull should, but even in front of a crowd of innumerable faces as he is being taunted, he refuses to be fierce and fight as other bulls do. He refuses to be anything but himself. In the end, it is being himself that saves his life. Had he gone along with the ferocious role he was expected to perform, he would have died in the arena. This theme of individualism ties in with that of isolation not only physically but mentally. The ability to not only be oneself but to also think for oneself is a powerful defense against the deadly ignorance of mob mentality. As Munro Leaf stated, Ferdinand is “a happy ending story about being yourself.”

Ferdinand is, further, a symbol of enduring peace even when surrounded by conflict. He simply removes himself from dangerous situations without worrying about being considered strange or different. He is never interested in fighting as is expected to be his nature. He is content with a life of solitude as associating with his fighting peers would place him in the danger which their conflict invites. Like Bambi, Ferdinand’s survival relies on living a solitary life with nature his only companion. Unlike Bambi, however, the reader is left to believe that Ferdinand can live in a world free from danger or pain if he remains virtuous and peaceful. Ferdinand’s story has been criticized because though it promotes peace, it gives no realistic form of achieving it (Butler, p135). Perhaps, however, The Story of Ferdinand is in itself a means for achieving peace. Lasting peace will only exist if it is taught to and practiced by all. Teaching nonviolence to our children through books like Ferdinand is the first step to achieving a more peaceful world.

The Story of Ferdinand was published in January 1936—nine months prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. In this time period, the tensions which would pull the world into its second great war were mounting making it difficult for this powerful children’s book to be accepted in all parts of the world. It was banned in Spain where it was seen as pacifist literature by many of General Francisco Franco’s supporters. The book was burned in Nazi Germany (which supported General Franco’s movement) as being anti-Fascist propaganda. It was one of the few non-Communist books promoted in Soviet-occupied Poland. Even in the United States the book was criticized for being alternately pro-Fascist and pro-Communist (Nel, 277). The controversy this short children’s book sparked is evidence of its effectiveness in stating powerful views.

Despite the resistance in some areas of the world, The Story of Ferdinand has also had a great deal of success. It has been translated into sixty languages and has never gone out of print since its publication. The United States for the most part seems to have forgotten prior complaints regarding the book’s intent as Ferdinand is now addressed with much nostalgia and affection in comments on internet shopping websites and children’s literature blogs. The Walt Disney film adaptation of the book won a 1938 Academy Award and is shown every year on Christmas Eve in Sweden. It has come to be known as one of Disney’s greatest short films. (Nel, 275). The story's success is partly due to the "themes of growth, separation, and individuation with a subtlety that allows the books to remain open … with a range of potential meanings" (Steig, pg 118)

Ferdinand’s story remains culturally beneficial in the United States today because its themes are so transitional. The theme of peace as a first choice in any conflict is a lesson important to children and adults both on personal and global levels. Ferdinand wonderfully relates the lesson that peace can lead to happiness and that living a life of peace even in a world of danger and anger is beneficial to the individual. The importance of thinking for oneself rather than accepting the values and mindset of the mob is also especially important for youth today as they are growing up in an increasingly superficial society. If one does not take it upon himself to find meaning and depth, he is likely to live a fundamentally pointless life. This concept goes along with that of not walking blindly into danger which is much more likely to happen to those who refuse to think and reason for themselves. Leaf once said "Early on in my writing career I realized that if one found some truths worth telling they should be told to the young in terms that were understandable to them.” The Story of Ferdinand is a flawless illustration of that point as its simple, understandable text and detailed and potent drawings portray some of the most powerful messages our society could hear—messages which have remained important for seventy-four years and which Ferdinand has happily born though they hold immeasurable weight.

Alyssa Marin

My sister died September 10, 2010. She was eighteen years old. It is horrific the way life just goes on. The light is gone from the world, but it does not care. It continues to turn, time continues to pass without her here. How can I move forward without you?