Quote: |
As for you, Joyce, you seem to be somewhat above yourself, and the only thing I can suggest is that you should try to realise that you are only a Middle -- and a very new Middle at that. It's rather too early for you to have assimilated our ideals, I suppose, though your sister doesn't seem to have had such trouble. Just get it into your head that all such things as passing notes are despised here, and the people who do them are considered despicable. And remember that you are really a very insignificant person, as well. |
Quote: |
At the last lesson, Jo, who had wakened that morning in a bad temper, had lost her patience, never very great, and had done her level best to annoy him. She had dropped her rubber, broken the points of her pencils, dug the lead so deeply into the paper that there was no hope of rubbing out wrong lines - which were plentiful! - and had made such an appalling mess of the freehand design he had given her, that he had lost his head, and picking up pencils, rubber, and paper, had flung them at her. At the same time he had vowed that she was too utterly stupid to continue; whereupon Jo, very much on her dignity, had risen and left the room. What was more, she had refused to return.
|
jennifer wrote: |
What struck me while reading the earlier books was how different the later view of Joey was from how she actually acted. I'm also a bit puzzled by how venerated she was as a student. I could see her being popular, and one of the movers and shakers of the school, but I could also easily see her grating on other people. |
Quote: |
is deliberately obnoxious in class until she's permanently thrown out and then refuses to return. (Exploits) |
Tan wrote: |
It is interesting to read all of these instances of Joey butting in as a school girl, yet the first real 'butting in' that I can remember is when she intervenes with Polly Herriott (for good reasons as well).
|
JayB wrote: |
Yes, the Polly Heriot affair is an example of Jo acting as a responsible adult. Her intervention with Margot, Daisy and Primula was also appropriate - whatever Jem said. He really was at his most obnoxious in that affair. |
jennifer wrote: |
I got the feeling that Jem's real problem with the whole issue was having his family's dirty laundry aired to all and sundry - he sounds like he'd rather have the whole issue kept quiet until he had decided what to do about it and who to tell details to, while Joey drags it out into the open and tells everyone about it. For two seventeen year old girls in a familiar town to help a lost, tired mother with two small children and no knowledge of the local language doesn't strike me as all that daft. |
Quote: |
I actually find Joey-junior to be very entertaining, if not a paragon of virtue. Early adult Joey is bearable - she's still pretty young, and Robin and Daisy aren't that much younger than she is, so she's more like an older sister to them and many of the others, and she does mature when she has kids, and when Jack is missing.
By late England days and into Switzerland she actually seems to regress, becoming less controlled and mature than she was in her mid twenties, more insistent on her perpetual schoolgirl status and much more obsessed with the school. |
jennifer wrote: |
That said, she seems a bit unstable for a Head Girl, and not necessarily a particularly good example for the younger girls, or someone with particularly good judgement. When she does butt in, it's usually due to impulsiveness rather than deep empathy. |
Tan wrote: |
I found her an interesting character as a younger girl for the reasons mentioned. It is interesting that she did not want to become Head Girl and Madge states that there is no one else suitable. I feel that Marie may have made a very good Head Girl - she is thoughtful and tactful.
|
Jennie wrote: |
I admit the trek to Switzerland was testing and arduous, but the younger girls seemed to cope better than Jo did, and she appeared to ignore the fact that Nell Wilson was in severe pain. Then, the journey back to England from Guernsey - again the collapse, leaving other people to cope with her responsibilities. The same when Jack was 'missing'. She left the girls to cope whilst she went to pieces. Yet, we are, in effect, asked to admire this in her, as showing her great sensitivity, when so many women had to cope with far worse during the war years, and so did young children. |
Jennie wrote: |
The problem was that I didn't feel anything but annoyance with her. She was not a good example to the younger girls when they trekked out of Austria, and her collapse was unwarranted. I notice that the Robin's health wasn't fussed over, even though she suffered the same privations as the others. |
Alison H wrote: |
I wish Robin got more credit later on for being the one who rushed out of the café to try to help Herr Goldmann. |
jennifer wrote: |
Interestingly, at the begining of Exile it's Robin who picks up most readily on the tensions and the worries. She's putting two and two together when Joey is still being flippant and looking at it as an adventure. When they're on the flight, it's Joey who get hysterical and overly emotional and needs cossetting. Emotionally and mentally Robin is much more mature than Joey ever becomes. |
Mel wrote: |
The worst examle of Jo's weakness to me is the journey from Guernsey when she has three babies to care for. We are always led to believe that she is the perfect mother. She always has to be looked after either physically or emotionally. EBD likes to think of her in the top three of her strong women with Mary-Lou and Len - but when is she ever strong? |
Jennie wrote: |
I think that what I dislike the most is that she always has to be the centre of attention, and it's overdone and unnecessary.
|
jennifer wrote: | ||
I would suspect that she was used to being the centre of attention as a child. Madge was her primary caregiver and was devoted to her and her physical frailty meant that she was cosseted and hovered over at the least sign of illness. When the school started she was the sister of the head and had an inside track on what was happening and with her personality was naturally one of the central figures at the school. However, when the school was in session and Madge moved up to the Sonnalpe and she was becoming stronger, she didn't get the same sort of focused attention from her sister as she had before - unless she was ill or overstressed, when everyone fussed over her like they used to. So then there is a feedback effect - when Joey collapses or is over tired and gets ill or is acting her most outrageous, people pay attention to her and she's the most important person in the room. If she's just sitting there quietly and minding her own business, or getting on with things without any dramatics, the attention shifts to others. |
Quote: |
....when Joey collapses or is over tired and gets ill or is acting her most outrageous, people pay attention to her and she's the most important person in the room. If she's just sitting there quietly and minding her own business, or getting on with things without any dramatics, the attention shifts to others. |
Quote: |
You know, that all suggests a rather cynical, knowing, demanding self-centredness about Joey that I just don't see at all. But each to their own, I guess. |
Quote: |
I think perhaps... EBD thought that by making Joey so emotional and highly strung and prone to collapse that she was creating a character that everyone would admire. To be sensitive is very high on Elinor's list of esteemed qualities. |
JayB wrote: |
It's only Joey who's allowed this kind of emotionalism. Everyone else is just supposed to get on with things. 'No-one at the Chalet School was ever encouraged to feel sorry for herself' - even when feeling sorry for oneself would be the most appropriate reaction to whatever had happened. |
output generated using printer-friendly topic mod. All times are GMT + 1 Hour