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Joey's Intelligence
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Author:  RubyGates [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Joey's Intelligence

In one book, when the Maynards are in Canada, Pam Slater is shown a photo of the triplets and she says they look intelligent; one of the other teachers remarks that they'd have to be or they wouldn't be Joey's children. Now I have read and re-read all the Chalet School books for years and I've never picked up the idea that Joey is especially intelligent. She certainly isn't stupid by any means but I've always got the idea that she's of average intelligence yet the triplets seem to be little prodigies. I'd always assumed they got their brains from Jack. Am I completely wrong in this? Are there signs in the early books that I've missed that Jo is very intelligent?
I'm willing to be proved wrong and it may just be the way I interpreted things but, for example, Joey is really bad at Maths and other subjects and good in only some. I do know that you don't have to be good at every subject to be brainy but....I dunno....just something about Joey struck me that she was just normal when it came to brains.

Author:  midge [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I've never thought of Joey as intelligent comparing school/time period she's in. It doesn't add up.

Author:  julieanne1811 [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

You know ... this is very interesting. I suppose it's partly to do with how one defines 'intelligence' in the first place. I can refer to acaemic prowess, or it might be used more broadly.

I have a book - 'Measuring Intelligence', first published in 1937. It's rather terrifying. It starts from the defination of intelligence as academic ability alone and talks about using tests to assess the future possibilities of 'mental growth' - which is also used only within an academic framework. The whole history of IQ tests is quite revealing in many ways - I know that years ago the US forces routinely set their applicants IQ tests.

Notoriously, one question had line drawings of several young women form different ethnic backgrounds. The question was: which of these is beautiful. !!!!!!!!!! And, of course, the 'correct' answer was the white girl. The tests were based not on ability to work out answers, depending instead on previous education. So if you were lucky and had been to school you could probably answer the questions because you 'knew' the answers, while those who had less education might never have heard of, say, European capital cities, and so wouldn't be able to answer or work out the answer.

So I suspect that the 'intelligence' referred to must have encompassed thigs like 'emotional intelligence' or 'social intelligence'. Which would put Elinor w-a-y ahead of her time!!!

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think that by then EBD had decided that Joey was Practically Perfect In Every Way and that therefore she had to be intelligent :roll: . Len gets to be beautiful, intelligent and good (and unfortunately very boring!!), whereas young Joey's much more in keeping with the idea that a heroine should be OK-looking and reasonably bright but not too much so. Usually with a friend who actually is beautiful, good or clever - Joey gets one of each!

I certainly don't get the impression that young Joey was particularly intelligent: she was good at some subjects but not others, she didn't end up in a form with older girls as a lot of CS girls did, and there was never any suggestion of her going on to higher education. I know that a lot of women at that time were never able to fulfil their academic potential, but I don't get the impression that Joey was one of them, just that she wasn't particularly any more academic than the average person.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 3:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I'm sure there was a long thread on this ages back, but I can't see it in the archive! I think Joey's cleverness - like her being a champion butter-in during her schooldays - is a purely retrospective invention from the period where EBD had lost any sense of perspective on her favourite character. Joey as a schoolgirl is neither particularly academically brilliant in general - she is terrible at several subjects, and only bothers to work at the few she likes and finds easy, like languages and English - nor particularly 'emotionally intelligent' overall - she isn't particularly sensitive to other people's feelings in general at this stage, and doesn't even pick up on Madge's pregnancy hints (or her changed shape), or grasp thigns like Simone's unhappiness, or her own influence on other girls.

EBD never describes Joey as 'clever' during her schooldays at all - it's only in the later part of the series that cleverness comes to be seen as important to the all-rounder CS girl - and in fact, cleverness is never really on the CS agenda in the Tyrol days. I mean, we're told Mary Burnett and Simone are clever, but there's no evidence of it during their schooldays.

Looking neutrally at the topic, I'd have said Joey's children were probably considerably cleverer than her, on balance - we see them excel academically and get into prestigious universities, whereas Joey herself never needed to meet any external standards. Of course, EBD would never admit that Joey's children outdid her in anything, so she never says that! But I don't believe you can inherit intelligence - the triplets achieve more academically at least in part because much more is expected of them, at home and at school! They would never have been allowed to get away with only working at their favourite subjects, or being so disruptive in a disliked class they got thrown out!

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Things had changed by then and, as you say, much more was expected of the girls in later years: the triplets needed to find jobs, at least until they found husbands, whereas Joey didn't. It's one of the few ways in which the CS does adapt realistically to the changes in society, even though EBD never actually says that it's changed ... although it's rather less realistic that the school's still cancelling lessons because of the weather and banning people from swotting too hard and yet everyone walks into top universities anyway :lol: .

I'm trying to think who is described as being clever in the Tyrol books. Mary is described as "a born student" but never actually described as "clever", and Juliet and Simone seem to be hard-working rather than intelligent. There's only really Stacie. & Enid Sothern, who is described as being so clever that she's in a form with girls older than her, the first person who is (IIRC). Enid's also the person who says that it's wrong for girls who don't need to work to take jobs which could otherwise go to people who need the money (which I accept was a common view at the time) and I'm never sure whether or not EBD chose someone with great academic potential to say that or whether she'd just forgotten her earlier remark about Enid's intelligence and picked her at random.

Are all Joey's children clever :lol: ? David and Josette are, but Sybil isn't and Ailie isn't particularly. And Rix and Bride are, but Maeve isn't so much and Peggy never seems very interested in work. I know that Con's supposed not to be as clever as Len or Margot, but she still ends up in a form with girls years older than her and goes on to Oxford.

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Perhaps she was referring to Joey getting books published? If EBD decided to see that as a sign of being clever, she could make herself out to be at the same time...

Or just perhaps the whole idealisation of Joey was actually EBD being very sarcastic and tongue in cheek and she knew that she was making this perfect and wonderful heroine and was doing this merely to show the heroine fallacy committed by some authors. Thus, she makes this comment in a deeply sarcastic manner, as if to suggest that any idealised heroine must, of course, have clever daughters no matter how unrealistic this is, and in doing so is simply drawing attention to other author's weaknesses. ...No?

Author:  emma t [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 5:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

This is a intriguing thought! No, it is never actually stated that Joey is intelligent through the seriel, even when she is at school; she is thrown out of art class for instance, but then given extra maths which she loaths. But yet, at the end of her school years, she teaches there for a while, which shows she is intelligent; for she is brilliant at languages and history; yet she never goes to university. Maybe because her health has always been an issue she would never have been able to cope with the work loads which universities expect.
You can be intelliegent on different levels. Her books for example, not everyone can write a novel, she definitly shines there!

Author:  julieanne1811 [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
nor particularly 'emotionally intelligent' overall - she isn't particularly sensitive to other people's feelings in general at this stage, and doesn't even pick up on Madge's pregnancy hints (or her changed shape), or grasp thigns like Simone's unhappiness, or her own influence on other girls.


I'd agree that Joey doesn't show emotional or social intelligence either ... that leaves the question - what on earth did Elinor mean by according her this attribute?

Author:  Nightwing [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 8:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think it's almost impossible to say whether Joey is particularly intelligent or not. She doesn't try at the things she isn't interested in, and she's not academically inclined - but do either of those things make her unintelligent? She's also shown to be interested in English and amazingly good at languages, and and to have enough knowledge in History to teach girls almost her own age a year after she's left school. No, she isn't three years ahead of her age group, but no one was when the school was in Tirol, and for the first few years there were only "Juniors" "Middles" and "Seniors" anyway.

Er, this is just a long way of saying "it's pretty impossible to compare the standards of the later books with those in the early books".

Author:  julieanne1811 [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 8:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:
& Enid Sothern, who is described as being so clever that she's in a form with girls older than her, the first person who is (IIRC).


This made me chuckle thinking of all the girls who have those infamous 'double removes', or who are placed in a Form with girls older than they - in that case lots and lots of them are 'clever'.

Author:  whitequeen [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I've occasionally got the impression that calling someone "clever" wasn't always that much of a compliment in a school story though. Joey was obviously smart enough to remember history and to pick up languages quickly. "Clever" girls (not just in the CS, but in other school stories too, and probably more so in certain others) can often be shown as loners, not into school activities, or not having great social skills, and that definitely doesn't apply to Joey.

Seems like the Trips have intelligence coming down from both parents, though - Jack's a doctor and that takes a lot of brain power!

Author:  Abi [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think Joey must have been pretty intelligent - it's obvious from her gifts for languages, history and writing that she could if she wanted to. She's often referred to as having a 'flypaper memory', which admittedly doesn't automatically mean she's intelligent but it certainly helps! But she seems to be continually eager to learn more (at least of the subjects she's interested in).

Admittedly her maths were abysmal, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was at least partly a sort of gentle rebellion rather than a complete lack of ability. I suspect that she didn't particularly care about doing well academically and therefore didn't bother to put the effort in - if she had, she'd probably have got brilliant results. Perhaps rather like Margot, only it's made a lot more of in Margot's case.

Author:  cestina [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(

Author:  Abi [ Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

cestina wrote:
Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(


Good thing it's not, then... :lol: It's just that that's really the only thing, except art, that Joey's shown as being really bad at - I suppose I was just trying to say that doesn't mean she isn't intelligent! (I loathed maths at school and was most disgusted when I ended up getting A* for it at GCSE :roll: ).

Author:  Finn [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

A pedant writes:

In Jo of Joey is the 'shining light of the French literature class' and later on her exam papers in English, French, German, history and literature are all 'excellent'. She's also shown as being a voracious reader and having picked up all sorts of unusual things from books (eg. in Head Girl when she makes that remark to Miss Maynard about Laura and Petrarca which startles Miss Maynard so much). So my impression of her from the earliest books is that she is a good student and pretty able, with a spark of brilliance about her (in all things, music, lessons, tennis!) at times, but never consistent. I can only speak for the early Tyrol books, though (and I can quote you chapter and verse if you wish, which is rather depressing), and she seems to decline in brilliance as the series goes on.

Out of the Quartette I had her down as the bright one, though, with Frieda as second brightest and then Simone - but afterwards Simone suddenly becomes the clever one and Joey stops being so bright (there's a bit in Exploits where Madge is wondering what to do with her which seems to me to contrast with her previous achievements)...but now you tell me she is later rebranded as intelligent again? (Inconsistencies? In EBD?!)

In all seriousness, I always thought she was intelligent. Don't her black eyes usually sparkle with intelligence, even in the early books?

Author:  Caroline [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I'm with you, Bonnie - I've always thought of Jo as bright, with an enquiring mind and a vast apetite for knowledge and interest in learning about the world, about literature, about history... And she's a uniformly portrayed as a gifted writer - I think that implies plenty of intelligence, too.

I would agree with others, though, that she isn't especially academic and is not A Born Student (which always sounds v. dull - and whatever Jo is, she isn't dull!). And, when she was at school, I don't think that mattered particularly. IMO, we can't judge her intelligence on the basis of double removes or university entrance or external exams - those things just don't apply in the Tyrol books, when only a handful of girls are university-bound (Juliet, Simone, Mary, Stacie...) and even when proper forms were created, they only contained about eight girls.

Author:  cestina [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 9:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I'm with Caroline here - intelligence and being academic are two very different things. One definition of intelligence I just found is: "Intelligence is an umbrella term describing a property of the mind comprehending related abilities, such as the capacities for abstract thought, reasoning, planning and problem solving, the use of language, and to learn" and that is very much how I would see it.

Academic success can actually come just by slogging away, without a person having a great deal of innate intelligence. I have always thought of Joey as extremely bright and nothing in any of the books leads me to think differently of her, though her emotional IQ may not be that good at all times.

However, given that those around her, including Hilda, seem to think highly of her ability to deal with tricky problems maybe I'm wrong about that.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 1:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

But I think when EBD says 'clever', she means it in quite a traditional, 'high-achieving academically' sense, so that when Miss Slater or whoever remarks that the triplets look 'clever', that's presumably what she means, that they look as if they are likely to do well at school. The kind of thing someone (Heather Clayton?) says to a new girl about how she doesn't look like a 'dud', she looks like she could be a 'nib'! (How you look like a dud or a nib is another matter, of course!) And of course, we can't judge Joey's intelligence by those criteria, not entirely because they didn't exist when she was at school (because a minority of girls were academic high-achievers, so it was there if she wanted it), but because she doesn't seem to have been bothered. I suppose the one thing that makes me think younger Joey was not all that bright (insofar as we can judge) is that she never seems to want to really engage with her own post-school future, far less realise that it's only her own lack of ambition or application that's condemning her to a life helping out at Die Rosen, which she clearly finds boring to look ahead to. There was no shortage of money or support, and she could have gone to university, trained as a singer etc or any one of a number of things while she got started as a writer.

Personally, I think 'cleverness' is hard to define. I have a doctorate and I read voraciously, but I wouldn't call myself 'clever' in the slightest. I can be spectacularly dim about some things people in general seem to grasp very easily, and I would say that in certain respects (and I don't mean things like Higher maths, I mean quite ordinary things!), I am much stupider than average, but it's disguise dby the fact that I have a very good memory. Like Joey I pick up languages easily, but I don't see this as evidence of any kind of intelligence, it's just that my brain seems to be wired that way - so I can't take credit for it. I also don't think that being a novelist implies someone is 'clever' - the ability to spin a good story seems to me to come from something else, which is very admirable, but not what I would see as 'cleverness'. Joey was clearly always an excellent storyteller from her early says - girls would ask her to tell them local legends etc - but that seems to me a skill, rather than evidence of intelligence, if that makes sense...?

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 1:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
! (How you look like a dud or a nib is another matter, of course!)


Presumably in the same way that you can look high-bred, cheaply pretty or as if you come from a North German seaside resort :lol: .

Just because I'm very bored at work :roll: , I looked up the OED definition of "intelligence" and it's "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills". I'm not sure that Joey's got that: she's able to learn new languages, for example, but she can't seem to see very much beyond the CS world, and sometimes - e.g. when she's going on about how she's got more sons than Simone, how Stephen weighed more at birth than Lois Graves, how Samaris's parents should have had a big family like hers - she can't really seem to see much beyond herself. I'd think that an "intelligent" person would have to be more open-minded than she is.

Author:  Cel [ Fri Aug 06, 2010 2:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I would definitely see the young Joey as intelligent - agreed, that can be hard to define, and is more a sense of someone than an objective standard. But she's bright, observant, generally quick on the uptake (Madge's pregnancies notwithstanding!) and shows a real talent for certain areas such as languages and literature. I don't see the issue of her not engaging with her post-school life as one of intelligence, but rather a collection of things - the social conventions of the time, the fact that she wasn't an academic high-flier, and of course money - did Madge (or Jem) ever actually offer her the option of a university education? It may not have been something she felt she could ask for, as it wouldn't have been at all the norm for a girl of her class at the time.

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Aug 11, 2010 8:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

cestina wrote:
Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(
Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(

We seem to be stuck with this notion of mathematical intelligence. I find that many teachers see Higher Maths, for example as the major criterion for academic ability. There seems to be a belief that if you can't hack maths, or find that it doesn't float your boat, you can't be regarded as intelligent. I also read somewhere that allacknowledged geniuses, whether or not their particular field is, say, art, are still brilliant at maths.
Incidently, I do believe that intelligence is, in part, genetic.

Author:  RoseCloke [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

MJKB wrote:
There seems to be a belief that if you can't hack maths, or find that it doesn't float your boat, you can't be regarded as intelligent.


I do find that attitude quite upsetting. It's only since I've been to university that I've had it shoved in my face, so to speak, by science students as 'proof' that arts students can't do 'real' work.* However, when you turn the tables and try to explain political theory, some give up quite quickly :roll: I think it's such a shame that people just can't agree that you can have different levels of intelligence in different areas and one is not necessarily better or more useful than another. I wouldn't want to live in a world without science but equally think we'd be all the poorer for a lack of culture or even abstract political thought.

In many respects the CS exemplifies the equal approach idea. Girls tend to freely admit when they are bad at subjects and, instead of being condemned for not being good enough, they are encouraged to take up what they enjoy and excel at. It could be a reflection of their financial status and the school recognising that many of them can afford to do this but it also shows refreshing egalitarianism - needlework and Tom's carpentry attract as much praise as academic excellence (and doesn't someone get free reign to mess with the school car, or am I confusing that with another series?).

*Not trying to set off that debate again, just acknowledging that such attitudes exist. Arts students tend to give as good as they get and not all students, of either discipline, think that way. I know someone who's doing a PhD in History alongside an OU degree in Biology :shock:

Author:  cal562301 [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

MJKB wrote:
cestina wrote:
Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(
Great Scott if having to be good at maths is a measure of intelligence then my IQ must be very low indeed.... :( :(

We seem to be stuck with this notion of mathematical intelligence. I find that many teachers see Higher Maths, for example as the major criterion for academic ability. There seems to be a belief that if you can't hack maths, or find that it doesn't float your boat, you can't be regarded as intelligent. I also read somewhere that allacknowledged geniuses, whether or not their particular field is, say, art, are still brilliant at maths.
Incidently, I do believe that intelligence is, in part, genetic.


This interesting, because I have a high IQ, but am hopeless at Maths. (I scraped through O level).

About 25 years ago, my mum and I both sat the entrance test for Mensa (the High IQ society). The paper we sat was largely to do with verbal reasoning with just a few questions involving symbols. I qualified at the first go. My mum failed, but shortly after, she received a letter inviting her to sit a second test, so she was probably borderline.

I don't remember the details all these years later, but I do remember that the second test seemed to be geared more towards those with a mathematical/scientific type brain than the first one. And she passed.

So, it would seem that Mensa, at the very least, recognises different types of intelligence.

Ii suppose the fact that we both qualified also adds weight to the hereditary argument concerning intelligence, although I obviously didn't inherit mum's mathematical ability!

I was a member of Mensa for several years, but I let my membership lapse, largely because it seemed that all anyone ever did was to sit around in pubs setting the world to rights - which is what everyone else does. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't unite all that brain power to try and do something more constructive.

Apologies to anyone else who might be/have been a member of Mensa, if your experience was different. I'm just telling it how it was for me.

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

cal562301 wrote:
This interesting, because I have a high IQ, but am hopeless at Maths. (I scraped through O level).

I'm always relieved to hear that! I get really, really annoyed with one of our maths teachers who insists that maths is the real test of intelligence and who is dismissive of kids who don't make the grade mathematically. As a guidance counsellor I see verbal reasoning as probably the best predictor for success in school as most subjects are language based. Interestingly, a number of students who show litttle or no interest in school, perhaps because of their background, but who show evidence of what I see as 'quickness of mind', score highly in abstract reasoning. They are often kids who, if interested in a particular subject, can grasp the fundamentals more quickly than their more studious peers.

Author:  Nightwing [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 10:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

MJKB wrote:
Incidently, I do believe that intelligence is, in part, genetic.


Really out of my depths here, but isn't this pretty hard to study? I mean, afaik there's some thought that kids who have a lot of stimulus as small children grow up to achieve higher academically than their peers who don't. But the likelihood of small children having the right kind of stimulus increases if their own parents were academic achievers, and are therefore interested in encouraging their children the same way.

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I do think it is in part genetic, but I certainly agree that it can and is influenced by environmental factors. What I find sad are the kids who are naturally bright but whose parents actively discourage them from achieving. In some cases this is because they don't want their kids to overtake them socially and economically. I've had quite a few students who fit this profile. They score highly on objective tests, are placed in appropriate groups, and then, through lack of interest on the part of the parents, never reach their potential.
On the nature/nurture debate, I come somewhere in the middle. I believe children are born with greater and lesser potential intellectually but this can be influenced positively or negectively by their upbringing.

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 12, 2010 10:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I would think it's very hard to tell, unless you start doing studies of identical twins who grew up apart under totally different circumstances, and studies into this sort of thing easily get misused anyway. As Nightwing said, it's likely that "intelligent" parents will provide greater stimuli to their children than less intelligent parents will.

Doesn't Vi say something somewhere about Julie inheriting her love of reading from Julian and then start wondering if Mary-Lou's inherited a knowledge French grammar from someone? It's quite a sweet remark coming from a junior, but it sounds utterly ridiculous when Joey says that Reg must've somehow inherited an interest in medicine from a grandfather he never knew - knowing that his grandfather was a doctor might've led him to be interested in the subject, but Joey makes it sound as if he somehow inherited some kind of "doctorness" :roll: . Len and Con are interested in the same subjects as Joey, and Margot follows Jack into medicine, but the rest of the family seem to have totally different interests. The Bettany and Russell children all have different interests and varying levels of academic ability - although, of course, the super-eligible eldest sons and heirs become doctors :wink: .

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 4:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think Joey is intelligent as a child but think like most skills, if you don't use, it tends to drop away a bit. Joey doesn't face new challenges, but deals very much with children and in a parenting role. I've heard a lot of parents say, their brains feel like mush after talking with children all day. She does socialise a lot more with kids than the average adult and the problems she has to solve are the usual kid ones; we don't see her dealing with anything really traumatic or difficult or that requires a lot of deep thought. Her books are geared for kids, which doesn't mean she's unintelligent, but we don't see her do anything that is mentally challenging, to show us her intelligence as an adult.

Quote:
I do think it is in part genetic, but I certainly agree that it can and is influenced by environmental factors. What I find sad are the kids who are naturally bright but whose parents actively discourage them from achieving. In some cases this is because they don't want their kids to overtake them socially and economically. I've had quite a few students who fit this profile. They score highly on objective tests, are placed in appropriate groups, and then, through lack of interest on the part of the parents, never reach their potential.


I get furious about that, but tend to find it worse (from what people say on the board) in Ireland or the UK. My parents who hadn't done well in school had actively encouraged us to do well.

I also think there is something to emotional intelligence, where people do well when they are emtional stable or happy than when they are going through upheavals or problems

Author:  RoseCloke [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 1:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Fiona Mc wrote:
I think Joey is intelligent as a child but think like most skills, if you don't use, it tends to drop away a bit. Joey doesn't face new challenges, but deals very much with children and in a parenting role. I've heard a lot of parents say, their brains feel like mush after talking with children all day. She does socialise a lot more with kids than the average adult and the problems she has to solve are the usual kid ones; we don't see her dealing with anything really traumatic or difficult or that requires a lot of deep thought. Her books are geared for kids, which doesn't mean she's unintelligent, but we don't see her do anything that is mentally challenging, to show us her intelligence as an adult.


I hadn't thought of it that way before :) I suppose even the problems she deals with, over the course of twenty years, are more or less the same so it's not even that she has a real variety of childish problems to deal with!

Fiona Mc wrote:
I get furious about that, but tend to find it worse (from what people say on the board) in Ireland or the UK. My parents who hadn't done well in school had actively encouraged us to do well.


That might be a cultural thing to do with the class system, in Britain at least, for my grandmother wasn't allowed to go to grammar school in the 1920s, despite winning a scholarship, because my great-grandmother didn't want her 'getting above' her station :shock: I'm researching Australian class politics for my dissertation and, during the 1840s and 1850s, society was much more fluid thanks to the goldrush - I've read several letters from English gentry complaining that one can't tell the class of the person by their clothing any more as fortunes go up and down! :lol: I suppose that would feed into the education system, much like in America where you have the culture of self-sufficiency and the onus is on the individual to make good, whereas in Britain a good education was generally the preserve of the middle and upper classes and even now can be totally dependent on income (parents buying into the postcodes of good schools) so you still have pockets where parents have never seen the value in education - it's failed them and they don't understand it so they reject it :roll: The stories I've heard my parents tell from their experiences as school governors would make your hair stand on end :lol: Even my cousin has persuaded her bright son to leave school at sixteen because she 'doesn't see the value' in university :shock:

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 2:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think that in the past parents were - and sometimes still are - concerned that if children move away from the section of society in which they've grown up, whether it's in terms of employment/class/education, which in many ways are bound together, or religion, or ethnicity, then they might end up feeling that they were caught between two worlds and didn't belong anywhere, and also that they'd move away from their families and that the parents'd "lose" them.

With education, in Victorian times "self-help" - evening classes, using public libraries and Athenauem-type places, generally educating yourself - was looked on very favourably, certainly in industrial areas of northern England, but somehow that seemed to change once the Victorian idea of "progress" started to fade away.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:
I think that in the past parents were - and sometimes still are - concerned that if children move away from the section of society in which they've grown up, whether it's in terms of employment/class/education, which in many ways are bound together, or religion, or ethnicity, then they might end up feeling that they were caught between two worlds and didn't belong anywhere, and also that they'd move away from their families and that the parents'd "lose" them.


It's very true, in my experience, and it makes me very sad. It's hard to realise you've inadvertently left your original background behind, and it can't or won't let you back in because it perceives you as changed. And you do, at a very real level, risk permanently losing your family and original friends and remaining something of a curiosity to new friends, who, with the best will in the world, won't 'get' you in the same way. It's a very real risk, and I entirely understand parental caution and people who simply decide that social/educational advancement isn't for them, because the losses are too big. If I'd fully understood the risks in my teens, I'm not sure what I would have decided. I have moments of completely envying people who stayed where they were.

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 7:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

(Sorry for wandering a bit OT!) It's something we don't really see in the books - Madge and Joey's aunts are soon forgotten, and all the friends which two such popular people must've had in Taverton are never even mentioned! - but which must've happened, off screen. When we first meet Grizel, for example, she's never been abroad before, she's probably never met anyone who isn't British before and she lives in a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else and everyone else's business. It must have been very weird going back there after living in the cosmopolitan world of the Austrian CS.

& in the Swiss years it must have been the other way round: EBD would never show it, but I can imagine Mary-Lou and Con going back to the Gornetz Platz during university holidays and thinking how small and narrow it all seems, and how, whilst they might have many happy memories of their schooldays, they can't imagine living there permanently again.

Maybe someone like adult Joey, who lives in their own little world, doesn't seem very interested in anything else and seems happily convinced that their way of life and of doing everything is best, has it a lot easier ...

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 8:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:
Maybe someone like adult Joey, who lives in their own little world, doesn't seem very interested in anything else and seems happily convinced that their way of life and of doing everything is best, has it a lot easier ...


That's an interesting point to think about as regards Joey's intelligence. As a schoolgirl she was hugely interested in other cultures and languages, and clearly highly motivated to learn foreign ways, legends etc. It's maybe her most endearing early characteristic - you have the sense of this rather lonely, sickly little girl (pre-CS), who was fascinated by anything that wasn't Taverton and spent a lot of time with a book, but was always outward-looking.

But she does seem to lose that early curiosity and obvious willingness to learn later on. It's not just that EBD seemingly decides to reposition her as more English, and living in a fairly self-enclosed world of home, school and the Embury house in Montreux, though that's part of it. Despite the fact that she's as new to Switzerland as anybody, in the Gornetz Platz books, EBD presents her as having nothing further to learn, thereby making her a much more static character, and risking making her seem like an insufferable know-all! I mean, we're told she speaks the local dialect, but there are never any references to her picking it up (from Rosli?) the way we do get references to how she worked on accumulating other languages in her schooldays, and she seems to have lost all the enthusiasm for engaging with local ways that she had in the Tiernsee.

Although of course part of the problem is that there aren't apparently any local ways to engage with! But it does point to a character who seems to have lost her early intellectual curiosity, which is a pity, and makes her seem a bit provincial...?

Author:  jonty [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I've always read the young Joey as extremely bright, with her exceptional facility for languages and history, and that famous fly-paper memory. Plus her literary talents are recognised at a very young age by her peers when she becomes editor of the Chaletian, indicating a respect for her intellect, albeit in a specialist field. I'd never thought much about why that doesn't translate into a more conventional 'cleverness' and high achievement - but now it occurs to me to wonder why in the pre-Jem cash-strapped (relatively of course) days, Madge wasn't more concerned about Joey being conventionally well educated so that she could earn a decent living. By the 1920s there were lots of careers opening up to women, and Joey went to one of the big High Schools which would have prided themselves on turning out well-educated girls. That being so, it does surprise me that Madge doesn't make more of Joey's 'natural' brilliance and put a bit more emphasis on her converting it into academic achievement. Maybe it's that, until the mid-teens, Joey's health was too precarious for Madge to want to apply that kind of pressure, and she would additionally have missed a lot of school. And then, by the time Joey hits her mid-teens, Jem's on the scene and financial worries are a thing of the past, and a career path where she will not need all-round attainment has presented itself.

Author:  julieanne1811 [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 11:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

jonty wrote:
By the 1920s there were lots of careers opening up to women, and Joey went to one of the big High Schools which would have prided themselves on turning out well-educated girls. That being so, it does surprise me that Madge doesn't make more of Joey's 'natural' brilliance and put a bit more emphasis on her converting it into academic achievement.


Interesting ... I wonder if Elinor herself was a bit undecided about which direction to take the school in (sorry - split infinitive and I can't think how to do it without)?

From Gay:

Quote:
... the Chalet School was rather different than the average High School. Amny things had to be taken into consideration which did not affect a High School. So many of the girls came from families of indifferent or even bad medical history. Again, while many would take up one profession or another, there were others who would be expected to go home when schooldays were ended ... girls were kept to the full timetable until they had reached the School Leaving Certificate standard, Lady Russell rightly considering that ... a good general education was a vital necessity as a foundation for future work.


Then ...

Quote:
... the Chalet School had gained a name in the scholastic world in the past two or three years in England ...


So ... I wonder if Joey's perceived fragility won over on her intelligence, and she was (?sub-consciously) led down the path leading to home-life rather than taking up an academic road?

Author:  MJKB [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 2:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

jonty wrote:
by the time Joey hits her mid-teens, Jem's on the scene and financial worries are a thing of the past, and a career path where she will not need all-round attainment has presented itself.

That makes alot of sense. Joey definitely shows exceeding promise academically in the early days, and there is no reason why she could not have gone on to university.

Author:  Pado [ Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Looking intelligent in a photo is largely a matter of keeping one's mouth closed and eyes opened as the shutter clicks. Since it's well known that calling someone in the CS world good looking is taboo, no doubt Slater was trying to be politely positive about these children she'd never met.

Author:  Loryat [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I suppose Joey, who certainly isn't the 'born student' that some CS girls are shown to be, might not have wanted to go to university. I'd say she is definitely both clever and intelligent, if not particularly academic.

Nowadays we have a sort of tradition where everyone who does well in school should go to university, even if it's not what they themselves really want to do. In that respect I think Joey lived in a freer time, because there's no pressure on her to go to university wheras nowadays there probably would have been.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Loryat wrote:
I suppose Joey, who certainly isn't the 'born student' that some CS girls are shown to be, might not have wanted to go to university. I'd say she is definitely both clever and intelligent, if not particularly academic.

Nowadays we have a sort of tradition where everyone who does well in school should go to university, even if it's not what they themselves really want to do. In that respect I think Joey lived in a freer time, because there's no pressure on her to go to university wheras nowadays there probably would have been.


I take your point, but there's a different kind of 'pressure' - or maybe that's too strong a word and 'expectation' is better? - exerted on Joey because of her time and class, and it's that unless she is, in fact, a 'born student', or has a religious vocation, that she faces a very limited, domestic life 'helping out with the babies' at home. I find that a more significantly deadening prospect than today's university-related expectations - and certainly it fills Joey herself with dread in her final schooldays. I sometimes feel it's less that she's actually got Peter Pan syndrome about not wanting to grow up, it's just that all she can see in her future is a very circumscribed life as a single woman living with her sister, brother-in-law and a growing herd of children.

I know there's her writing, but it also sometimes seems to me that if she hadn't got stuck for a significant period at the school when Die Rosen is in quarantine, she might never have written her first novel. It's very easy to allow writing time to be nibbled away by chores and domestic routines, as I know to my cost!

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think Joey might have had other options had she thought about them a bit more. The Mensches, for example, might well have had forty fits had Frieda announced that she wanted to do anything other than go home or stay with her siblings, but I can't see that Madge would've objected if Joey'd wanted to go to the music school in Florence where Grizel went. & by then they seem to've had the money to pay for it. Or she could have tried to get into university, either back in Britain or elsewhere. It would only've been for a few years, but it would've been something.

If she'd been in Taverton, then presumably she could've got involved with charity work, and gone to tennis clubs or bridge clubs or whatever, rather than just hang around at Die Rosen: I don't know whether or not there was a similar set-up in Austria, but there must've been something for women of that "class" to do, and Frieda could've got her involved in it. Joey just seems very passive: everyone else has plans, even if they just involve husband-hunting, but she hasn't, which is a shame because she's so involved with everything at school.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:
I think Joey might have had other options had she thought about them a bit more. ... Joey just seems very passive: everyone else has plans, even if they just involve husband-hunting, but she hasn't, which is a shame because she's so involved with everything at school.


Yes, it's this that makes me wonder why someone of her intelligence and liveliness didn't take hold of her post-school life a bit more - I think it's that that makes me think schoolgirl Joey can be a bit dim. I mean, I don't know whether EBD planned at one point to finish the series after Joey's schooldays, but, given her status as EBD's favourite character, and as someone who has a lot of energy and charisma, and is talented, and with money no object and relatively enlightened relatives, I do wonder why EBD didn't sketch her in a more interesting future, especially if she was planning to end the series (or Joey's involvement in it)? Given that she then wouldn't have had to write books about Joey studying music in Italy, or racketing around the Left Bank writing in cafes and sharing a flat with Simone or something...?

Or, even if EBD was planning her for Jack all along, why she didn't at least show Joey making plans for her own future because she doesn't know her destiny until a few years after school! It does make her seem passive and conventional in a way that doesn't fit with her character in other terms...

Author:  Nightwing [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

It very much reads to me like EBD wanted to keep Jo around but just didn't know what to do with her. It's never clear to me, for example, whether it's Joey who decides she's not going to go to Belsornia or whether that decision is made for her by Madge and Jem. She says she's going to stay at home and help with the babies, but by the end of her school days it's obvious that she's not going to be helping out that much. Is that what she was told by her sister? It would be weirdly selfish of Madge if it was. If it's her own excuse of not going, why wouldn't Madge say to her, don't be silly, I can cope? And Jo is such a blunt and honest person, if she was just too scared of going off to a foreign country, of being cut off from her family and her friends, I feel like she'd at least admit it to herself, even if she couldn't admit it to anyone else.

And Jo so clearly isn't looking forward to her school days ending, either, because she has nothing to look forward to. But EBD herself doesn't seem to consider university as an option for most girls unless - like Simone and Juliet - they have to work, or think they have to work, or like Mary (a born scholar) and Grizel have a gift. While Joey has an amazing singing voice, she doesn't seem to be 'gifted' musically - we're told she struggles through her music lessons.

Author:  RoseCloke [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I am another who finds the curtailment of her time in Belsornia a little bit strange. Even as a girl I couldn't understand why Madge, who had servants, needed her sister. Belsornia, although constrained by court rules, would have been a cultural and wonderful experience (given at the time that WW2 was not predicted). Joey would have been able to use her languages to a much more varied extent, would have a companion of her own age and met (if our royals are anything to go by) visitors from lots of different countries, possibly with the opportunity to go travelling with Elisaveta. Even her writing needn't have suffered as Elisaveta seemed to be the sort of friend who would help and try and understand you as much as possible - she is definitely one of my favourite characters :) I can see her allowing Joey time off to write and think if necessary.

So, yes, the Belsornia decision never made much sense to me. Staying with Madge definitely seemed like the worse option for a bright girl - particularly considering how much she bemoans everyone else leaving it is strange that she never tried to join them.

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

It's not clear, is it? Jo initially says that she won't go if Robin's ill, but then Robin's OK but Jo says she can't go now that Madge's had Sybil. I usually read it that Jo's decided - quite understandably - that she doesn't fancy all the constraints of living at court, especially a foreign court where she wouldn't be familiar with the protocol - and that Madge "needing" her is just an excuse :D . I can't imagine Madge insisted that she needed Joey around, when she had Marie and Rosa there, and friends nearby, and (well, at this point, if not later on when she does exactly that to Josette and Sybil) she's not the sort of person who'd insist that Joey give up her own plans because she's "needed at home" unless it were absolutely necessary.

Belsornia would've been much more fun than hanging about at the Sonnalpe, though! Although she does get to go to India, even if it's apparently to escape from an unwanted suitor rather than just to experience the joys of travel :lol: .

Author:  Caroline [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

It strikes me that at some point EBD decided that she wanted to carry on with the CS series rather than ending it when Jo left school, and so she wanted Jo to stay around. She starts dropping hints about Jack's feelings for Jo as early as - Camp, perhaps?

So, in EBD's mind Jo's future is already settled - she will write books, she will marry Jack - and the last thing EBD wants to do is send Jo off somewhere away from the Tiernsee, the school and Jack.

Also, loving the school so much that she doesn't want to grow up and leave it is all part of the character of Joey the eternal school girl, isn't it.

Finally, I actually quite like the idea that Jo doesn't know what she wants to do with her life and is scared of growing up and The Future. To my mind that's a bit more like real life than all these 16 year olds who have their whole future mapped out perfectly.... I know I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do when I was 16 - in many ways, going to university was a delaying tactic more than a career plan, putting off the real world for a further 3 years... :D

Author:  Tor [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Quote:
. I usually read it that Jo's decided - quite understandably - that she doesn't fancy all the constraints of living at court


Hah! I had lunch with (alongside some other wonderous octogenarians) an amazing lady who had been one of Princess Margaret's ladies-in-waiting back in the day. Judging by some of her tales (one of which involved being propositioned by a glamour-puss hollywood starlet on Chelsea Bridge on the way home from a party), the constraints of court didn't seem all-pervasive!

ETA: correct royalty!

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 11:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I think that in another character I could understand it, but Joey's cosmopolitanism means that I just don't see her not wanting to travel. Unless she's worried that it will change her friendship with Elisaveta if she became a servant to her? But then why didn't she just announce that she was going to travel the world for a little bit? EBD could easily have invented one of the aunts having a son now old enough to chaperone her.

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 12:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

The problem is that EBD doesn't want to let Joey go, so she either has to marry her off to a doctor ASAP, find her a job in the area, or just dump her at Die Rosen as Madge's companion. Juliet, Grizel and Rosalie all get jobs on the Sonnalpe, but only after being absent for a while whilst they do their training and EBD seems reluctant to let poor Joey go even for that long. I'd quite like to've seen her team up with Grizel and the two of them have some fun hanging around being young, free and single, like Joy and Jen do in the Abbey books, but I suppose you can only do that if you conveniently inherit a stately home and a fortune from a rich grandfather :D .

It's a great shame that EBD's version of Two Chalet Girls in India never made it to publication, because that should've been our chance to see Joey getting away from the world of the CS and doing new things and meeting new people, during the brief period when she wasn't really subject to anyone or tied to anyone.

Author:  Cel [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Aren't we looking at the situation with 21st-century-tinted glasses, though? At the time New House was written, wouldn't it have been the exception rather than the rule for any middle-class girl (who didn't need to go out to work for financial reasons) to do anything but stay at home after leaving school? I think it would have been highly unusual for the time-period for Jo to just go off travelling the world, and even going to university at the time would have been seen as something only for the very academic, and not at all expected of someone like Jo. Belsornia was probably her best chance of seeing something of the world, but I'd say EBD just didn't want to let her go for so long...

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cel wrote:
Aren't we looking at the situation with 21st-century-tinted glasses, though? At the time New House was written, wouldn't it have been the exception rather than the rule for any middle-class girl (who didn't need to go out to work for financial reasons) to do anything but stay at home after leaving school? I think it would have been highly unusual for the time-period for Jo to just go off travelling the world, and even going to university at the time would have been seen as something only for the very academic, and not at all expected of someone like Jo. Belsornia was probably her best chance of seeing something of the world, but I'd say EBD just didn't want to let her go for so long...


That's exactly what I'm saying - someone up the thread deplored the modern tendency to assume everyone should go to university if they get the grades at school, but I would see the assumption of Joey's day that a middle-class girl simply stay at home, unless she's in the (relatively unusual) situation of being a 'born student', having a religious vocation or needing to earn a living as just a different kind of period-specific pressure.

So yes, Joey's life immediately after she left school would have been entirely usual for her time - but given that she's an unusual, lively, talented character, with an unconventional background, and who is very sure she doesn't want to marry, and her guardians are unusually enlightened for their time, it nevertheless strikes me as odd that EBD doesn't write her at least making plans for her own future that include something other than the Usual Middle-Class Daughter at Home Thing. Even Jo March goes off to live in New York to see life and get experiences for her writing, in a much more restrictive age! Even if EBD has planned all along to have her stick around and marry Jack, to me it doesn't fit with Joey's lively character that she simply accepts her future is on the Sonnalpe...?

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Also, most of those who are just going to be at home are going home to look for husbands, even if they might not say so in so many words. Frieda actually comes out and says she hopes that soon "I shall wed". Peggy, who's pretty much the last major character to leave school without any plans to go on to further education, goes home and marries one of the neighbours shortly afterwards: although she never actually says that she's going home to look for a husband, I should imagine that was what she was thinking of. Obviously there would have been some CS girls who went home hoping to become wives and mothers but never did, but there aren't a lot who go home saying that they never want to marry.

Jo does seem to be changing her mind towards the end of her schooldays - there's that nudge nudge wink wink conversation with Marie in which she (Jo) says that she doesn't know any potential husbands and Marie says "Don't you?" - but I still wouldn't class her alongside people like Gisela and Frieda who only expect to be "daughters at home" for a year or two until Mr Right comes along.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:

Peggy, who's pretty much the last major character to leave school without any plans to go on to further education, goes home and marries one of the neighbours shortly afterwards: although she never actually says that she's going home to look for a husband, I should imagine that was what she was thinking of.


The Joan Baker-ishness of your mind shocks me, Alison H! :shock: Peggy quite explicitly says she's going home to help Mummy with the poultry! :D

Alison H wrote:

I still wouldn't class her alongside people like Gisela and Frieda who only expect to be "daughters at home" for a year or two until Mr Right comes along.


Yes, there's a 'logic' to their going home that there isn't to Joey's, which has no end in sight and no particular point other than slightly uncommitted plans to write and continue with her singing. Also, Gisela and Frieda, though admirable characters, are I think intended as extremely conventional Continental girls, whose ambitions have never extended beyond making a happy home for a good husband etc etc - whereas Joey is a different kettle of fish, so it's odd to me that EBD depicts her as doing exactly the same thing, only without the marital goal.

Author:  Cel [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
So yes, Joey's life immediately after she left school would have been entirely usual for her time - but given that she's an unusual, lively, talented character, with an unconventional background, and who is very sure she doesn't want to marry, and her guardians are unusually enlightened for their time, it nevertheless strikes me as odd that EBD doesn't write her at least making plans for her own future that include something other than the Usual Middle-Class Daughter at Home Thing. Even Jo March goes off to live in New York to see life and get experiences for her writing, in a much more restrictive age! Even if EBD has planned all along to have her stick around and marry Jack, to me it doesn't fit with Joey's lively character that she simply accepts her future is on the Sonnalpe...?


But I think the fact that she recognises how narrow her life is going to be, and repeatedly expresses her frustration about it, is a mark of her difference from other girls of her age. And I don't know that she had as many options as some have said - I don't think for a moment she would have been allowed go off and travel, she seems very firm that she doesn't want to teach (or, presumably, be a governess) and there wouldn't have been a whole lot of other options for work that would have been thought suitable for her. Things changed a lot after the war, of course, and there was a lot more freedom for women, but at the time Jo left school she may not have felt she had any real choices. I know that Madge, in going off to the Tirol and starting a school, did something particularly independent for the time, but that was borne out of dire financial necessity, which Joey didn't face.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cel wrote:
at the time Jo left school she may not have felt she had any real choices. I know that Madge, in going off to the Tirol and starting a school, did something particularly independent for the time, but that was borne out of dire financial necessity, which Joey didn't face.


It's an interesting thought. It's never occurred to me that if Joey had particularly wanted to do something relatively genteel like go to study music abroad that Jem and Madge would have put their collective feet down - do you honestly think they would? I mean, they initially agree to an open-ended longterm absence in Belsornia, and she does spend a year in India, which would have involved a hugely long journey and being in a difficult climate for a delicate girl. They don't seem to have a problem in principle with Joey going away for long periods on approved projects...?

Author:  Cel [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 8:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
Cel wrote:
at the time Jo left school she may not have felt she had any real choices. I know that Madge, in going off to the Tirol and starting a school, did something particularly independent for the time, but that was borne out of dire financial necessity, which Joey didn't face.


It's an interesting thought. It's never occurred to me that if Joey had particularly wanted to do something relatively genteel like go to study music abroad that Jem and Madge would have put their collective feet down - do you honestly think they would? I mean, they initially agree to an open-ended longterm absence in Belsornia, and she does spend a year in India, which would have involved a hugely long journey and being in a difficult climate for a delicate girl. They don't seem to have a problem in principle with Joey going away for long periods on approved projects...?


No, it's not that I feel Madge or Jem would have stood in her way, exactly - more that the social mores of the time would not have led any of them to consider the idea a young woman going off to travel outside of a visit to family, as with the trip to India, or an extended holiday with a respectable maiden aunt. And ditto with jobs - as Joey didn't have to earn a living, the idea of going off to work as a secretary or something just wouldn't have come up. So she may not have seen options for herself, but I don't see this as a reflection on her intelligence at all.
Agreed, going off to study music could have been a suitable occupation, but I don't think it's ever suggested in the books as being something she particularly wanted to do.
Think I'm starting to repeat myself, so I'll stop now :oops:

Author:  Mel [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

It's stated from early on that Jo will write, so I find it odd that she is so lack-lustre about it. I would have imagined that she would want typing lessons, have a room designated as her study at Die Blumen and be quite excited about starting her new career. As someone has said, if it hadn't been for her enforced exile at the Chalet (which she didn't want to leave!) her first book might never had happened. But while she is teaching at school she is longing to get back to Robin. Yet she was used to not seeing Robin when she was at school previously!

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

It's pretty weird how that happens! As early as Jo of, we get a chapter entitled "Joey's future career is settled" in which Jo announces that she wants to become an author and we're told that Madge always looks back on Jo winning a prize in the competition Jem entered her for as being when she realised that Jo was going to be an author. Then it all goes on the back burner and there's a lot of talk about how Jo may or may not go to Belsornia and she's got no idea what she's going to do with her life and then all of a sudden the idea of her being an author re-emerges in Jo Returns, about 6 years later, almost as if it's something new :? .

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sat Aug 21, 2010 2:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

Alison H wrote:
It's pretty weird how that happens! As early as Jo of, we get a chapter entitled "Joey's future career is settled" in which Jo announces that she wants to become an author and we're told that Madge always looks back on Jo winning a prize in the competition Jem entered her for as being when she realised that Jo was going to be an author. Then it all goes on the back burner and there's a lot of talk about how Jo may or may not go to Belsornia and she's got no idea what she's going to do with her life and then all of a sudden the idea of her being an author re-emerges in Jo Returns, about 6 years later, almost as if it's something new :?


Yes, even if Con's perennial 'dreaminess' is a bit of a Teenage Poet Cliche, we do at least see her engaging continuously with what she supposedly loves and wants to spend her life doing, whereas with Joey, after that first flush of enthusiasm around the prize, it goes unmentioned, apart from the odd desultory reference in the same breath as 'going on with her singing lessons' once she's living at Die Rosen, which sounds dillettantish. And, as has been discussed on here before, EBD does scale down Joey's literary ambitions - during her schooldays, she tells us that there's something about Joey that 'tells of a great gift', but by the time she actually embarks on her career, it's scaled back to writing an ordinary school story, and she's regarded as 'talented' and a popular writer, rather than possessing a Nina-like 'gift', which is seen as incompatible with family life.

I've always imagined that when she mooted the lady-in-waiting idea that EBD had the novelist Fanny Burney in mind - she was under Keeper of the Robes, a lady-in-waiting role to Queen Charlotte, George Three's wife. Though Burney was miserable in the job, which was boring and exhausting, and left her very little time to write, and her health broke down under the strain - none of which would augur particularly well for Joey at the Belsornian Court!

Author:  Loryat [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joey's Intelligence

I don't know. I think Joey doesn't particularly want to go to university, and while she might have liked to become a singer, since her voice isn't strong enough (and she definitely doesn't want to teach) she won't be going to music college.

I think Joey ultimately plans on being a writer, and also recognises that since Madge has always cared for her, she owes it to Madge to help out in turn with their nieces and nephews. I think Joey would have been encouraged to go to university had she shown any interest, but to me it's just not her. I think Joey feels that she's going to miss the fun of school, and while she may feel that it's going to be fairly boring living with her sister, at the same time she doesn't have any strong wishes about anything else that she wants to do, except write, and I think that's her main problem.

I like how EBD wriggles out of Joey going to be Elisaveta's chief lady-in-waiting when she wants to keep her in the series though! (Jo had a lucky escape there, IMO. Court life would surely have been absolutely deadening).

ETA I think part of Joey's unwillingness to leave school is that it literally was her home for at least three years, and continued to be the place that she spent the majority of her time for two/three years after that. Grizel is very upset to be leaving her 'home'; Juliet is desperately homesick when she goes to London. No other girl identifies so closely with the school as a literal 'home'.

If Joey lived nowadays she's probably go to university and do a degree in media studies - not because she wanted to, but because she is expected to do something, she doesn't know what she wants to do, and everyone else is doing it.

Within the constraints of the time, and her own inclinations, there's very little available to Joey except the fact that she wants to write. Travel, which seems the obvious option, wouldn't be something that she could do herself. None of her friends would be allowed to travel and Madge couldn't.

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