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#1: Crying Author: leahbelle, Location: Coventry

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:44 pm

Has anyone else noticed the attitude EBD takes to girls crying in the CS? I've always seen crying as a healthy way to express your emotions, but in the CS it seems to be a heinous sin! Simone was always being called a sponge and having to run away to the woods to cry in peace. Rosalie Way had to lie about the cause of her red eyes because she knew that no-one would give her any sympathy if they knew that she had been crying.

Why is EBD so dead against crying? The CS girls are allowed to express themselves in all sorts of other ways - quarrels, mischief etc - but crying seems to be a no-no. Any idea why? Sad

#2: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:55 pm

I think it depends on the reason for the tears - for example, Jo cries when she knows the Robin might be seriously ill, and that is acceptable.

Crying for what were seen as trivial reasons was not encouraged.

Crying in repentence for sins when told off by the Headmistress is usually allowed.

Liz

#3: Author: Róisín, Location: Dublin

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:06 pm

Hmm. This is a very well spotted point.

I think EBD was down on crying because it wasn't glamourous (sp?!) enough for the elegant, beautiful, upperclass women she wanted to display. Naturally, crying leads to red eyes, stained cheeks, generally an untidy and unattactive appearance.

She much preferred to go down the dramatic and superelegant route of stark white faces, large pool-like eyes full of emotion, lips compressed in anger, single sharp screams etc, rather than a bawling messy bout of indulgence.

Selfcontrol was prioritised (I just cannot spell today!) and so was appearance, so crying was therefore sidelined.

#4: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:11 pm

I believe in those days, and when I was younger in the sixties/seventies, crying was seen as a sign of weakness and lack of self control. Many people still make every effort not to cry in front of other people (myself and children included).
We see it now as a release of stress and 'better out than in', but - unless you want to grow up as a splineless jellyfish - self control was seen as more important.

#5: Author: Chair, Location: Kent, England

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:13 pm

I wish the girls had been given more opportunities to cry. It might have helped them to calm down more.

#6: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:37 pm

EBD wanted to show strong women who could get through their problems without collapsing in heaps (hence not wanting the CS girls to be spineless jellyfish) and one of the ways of doing this was not having them disolving in tears all the time.

Crying for homesickness as in the cases of Simone and Rosalie would be seen as self pity which is why it was frowned upon. Jo crying for Robin was seen as a stress relief even though stress wasn't recognised in those days.

#7: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:07 pm

Róisín wrote:

She much preferred to go down the dramatic and superelegant route of stark white faces, large pool-like eyes full of emotion, lips compressed in anger, single sharp screams etc, rather than a bawling messy bout of indulgence.

LOL, lovely paragraph!

Self control 'stiff upper lip' was seen as a British attribute to be admired - not just when upset but also when elated - hence the dislike of excited laughing in case it led to hysterics.

Phrases like "don't show yourself up", "pull yourself together" and "don't make an exhibition of yourself" were used frequently. Remember Kipling's 'If'? Schoolchildren all learned it.

We're superimposing the current view that emotions should be expressed on a culture which would not have agreed. EBD was accurately reflecting the times and whether we agree or not, that is how it was.

It used to be thought that people from Mediterranean countries were more 'excitable' than those from the North. Perhaps climate change and warmer weather has affected our temperament. Wink

#8: Author: Róisín, Location: Dublin

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:16 pm

Thank you Patmac!

Quote:

We're superimposing the current view that emotions should be expressed on a culture which would not have agreed. EBD was accurately reflecting the times and whether we agree or not, that is how it was.

Just out of interest, do any of the parents on the board still agree with this? I don't yet have children, but I imagine that I would try to encourage them to "express their stress" only up to a point. Self-control doesn't seem to be a popular virtue anymore and I think it should be.

#9: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:13 pm

Róisín wrote:

Thank you Patmac!

Quote:

I wasn't suggesting that one way is better than the other. I do firmly believe that we need to express our emotions but that we also need to 'keep going' for other people's sake.

A fairly new way of doing this is by a community such as this. Anyone can rant and wail and get both support and advice from people who are not intimately involved in the situation. We can express ourselves in a very frank way and know that other members will build a hug mountain, offer prayers or positive thoughts, advice from experience or discretely keep quiet if it touches a raw nerve or they cannot empathise.

This allows the grieving/distressed/worried person an outlet for expression of emotion whithout distressing other people who are involved or would disapprove of the situation. They can also tap into the experience of people from various walks of life and ages who have either been in the same situation or know someone who has.

People in the past (I'm talking only a few years, here) did not have this outlet and relied on local family, friends and neighbours for support - inevitably they were also affected by the situation to some degree or another or might disapprove of the situation someone found themselves in and so compound the problem.

I *think* there is a place for letting go and also a place for keeping 'a stiff upper lip'. There is nothing wrong in expressing emotion in an appropriate place and I would not like to see a return to the days when it was totally unacceptable. On the other hand, the truism 'life must go on' is a fact of life.

*Pat, rambling on rather. Sorry Embarassed

#10: Author: joelle, Location: lancashire, england

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:19 pm

i think the "stiff upper lip" is still there. crying is still seen as babyish and weak which i think unfair. crying, for me anyway, is where everything has got too much and it just helps to get it all out. but then again, i am the worst for communication! people dont realise im upset till ive hit the end and im on the edge of a cliff.
i dont see homesickness as self pity though, its very natural. simone always struck me as someone very close to her family, it must have been difficult for her to go somewhere where she only knew some vague relative and everyone else was foreign to her.

#11: Author: Róisín, Location: Dublin

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:48 pm

Heya Patmac, I know you weren't favouring one side over the other, it was just that sentence of yours that made me think of the problem in the first place. And I love all the points you made about the CBB support system.

It's difficult though. I mean, assuming an outward appearance does affect how you feel inside. I'm thinking here of Mary-Lou being told not to fret and deciding she won't, and then finding that her decision makes it easier for her on the inside too. Is it harder for someone who is susceptible to collapsing into tears/hysterics/self-pity etc to get over things/deal with things and move on?

#12: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:57 pm

Róisín wrote:

There's a lovely series by Elizabeth Goudge, set largely in the 20s and 30s which really lays that out quite clearly for me. The principle is working from the outside in. What we act becomes real. Having said that, we are all different and EBD does address that to some extent by having people like Verity Ann being shielded more from worries.

#13: Crying Author: leahbelle, Location: Coventry

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:35 pm

I wonder what EBD would have made of clinical depression and other such mental health problems? Imagine if a depressed girl or mistress arrived at the school; or, worse still, if one of the established characters found herself no longer able to cope - Jo or Madge, for instance. Would EBD consider depression mere self-pity and self-indulgence and advise "pulling oneself together"? Or would there have been some sympathy there? Its hard to relate today's attitudes to things like this to the attitudes that were prevalent when the CS was written.

#14: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:45 pm

Even now, clinical depression gets little sympathy in some quarters. There are awful accounts of mental institutions not that many years ago with people drugged and just left to sit for years and a lot of those must have just been people at the end of their tether.

#15: Re: Crying Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:50 pm

leahbelle wrote:

Would EBD consider depression mere self-pity and self-indulgence and advise "pulling oneself together"? Or would there have been some sympathy there? Its hard to relate today's attitudes to things like this to the attitudes that were prevalent when the CS was written.

That's one of the reasons the Odette drabble came about - whilst rereading the Swiss books it actually started to anger me that this girl is thoroughly unhappy throughout the time she is at the school and very little seems to be done about it. It's just dismissed as homesickness, everyone complains that she is a 'watering-pot sort of creature' and Con Maynard allows her into her circle of friends because she feels sorry for her. It occurred to me that if this was modern day RL, the staff would probably be investigating the cause of her unhappiness rather than leaving her to herself and hoping she'll get over it.

#16: Author: leahbelle, Location: Coventry

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:12 pm

I've felt that about Odette too, Ann, and I could never understand why EBD made homesickness out to be such a bad thing. Odette has lots going on in her life - being called and thought of a "watering spout" surely couldn't have been a very positive way of helping her!

#17: Author: Miriam, Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:49 pm

Quote:

I'm all in favour of anyone crying if they think it does them any good,but I've never seen why the tears should be inflicted on ones family or ones friends. Tears are one of natures saftey valves, but not intended for use in public

.

I came across this quote wehn I was reading Party Frock last night, and thought that it perfectly summed up EBD's attitude to crying; go ahead if you need the relief, but keepit to yourself, and come back when your emotions are better under control.

#18: Author: Tiphany,

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:50 pm

leahbelle wrote:

I'm sure it didn't help her - but I think the argument went that, if you realised your feelings and/or actions exposed you to the disapproval or ridicule of people you liked / admired, you would try to change them and thus start to feel better. I don't think it was intentional cruelty, just a thought that everyone should be able to master their feelings and only show "acceptable" emotion.

Going back to the point someone made about appearances - I notice that when Joan Baker wears makeup, this is an EEEEEVILLLLLLLLL thing to do and clearly means she's a hussy, whereas when someone at Welsen (in the first Welsen book, but I can't remember which character, sorry) doesn't wear makeup, she's accused of being lazy, ugly, selfish, and insensitive to other people's feelings. Is this just an age thing? It may well have been the attitude of the times in both cases, but it seems odd that EBD should be so black-and-white about it; she doesn't like people making their own choices, does she?

#19: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 9:53 pm

Well, they do suggest that the make-up looks thick enough that you could scrape it off with a knife, so I think it was more a matter of taste. And then she wasn't even a Senior. Still, EBD does let her go mostly unchanged, as, even by Wins the Trick, she is still described as having 'a hankering for showy clothes, make-up much heavier than the school would permit to even its seniors, and a certain craving for sophistication of the wrong kind'. So at least EBD doesn't convert her and make her a normal CS girl.

#20: Author: Gabrielle, Location: Near Paris, France

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:27 pm

leahbelle wrote:

I always felt a huge amount of sympathy for Odette. If you've never felt really, really, really homesick then you have no idea how awful it is. I remember on several occasions during my first term at boarding school fighting back tears, and failing. I was 14 and didn't want to cry in front of others but actually did on one occasion. Yes I got over it but I still remember how bad it was.
The point is, sometimes it's better to be allowed to have one good cry to get over it rather than bottleing it up inside.

#21: Author: Dreaming Marianne, Location: Devon

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2005 9:50 pm

[quote="patmac"][Remember Kipling's 'If'? Schoolchildren all learned it.

quote]

That's a funny coiincidence Patmac, I bought it printed on a card today to keep in my nursing dictionary! Very Happy

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