The CBB :: View topic - Themes: Beauty and Appearance

in Oberland, girls who don't work to make themselves attractive are seen as behaving badly, it being rude to make people look at pale lips and a shiny nose. However, almost all other descriptions of makeup use are seen as bad.

The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned, apart from the odd reference to letting out dresses, and I think there's one reference to spots throughout - no one seems to develop puppy fat briefly, or have braces on her teeth, or become more beautiful or plainer as her adult appearance emerges.

The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned

Sunglass wrote:

The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned

Mary-Lou and co wear their uniforms from St Briavel's, when they'd've been around 13, for the staff party in New Mistress when they're around 17

I never noticed the positive references to wearing makeup in the Swiss books? Was this cut from the paper backs? I only ever noticed the more negative makeup refs in the books overall (Betty W-D, Joan, Zephyr).

Though of course it must have been used by some, as it seems to be around the school for use in a few story lines, unless it was in the theatrical stores (trying to remember where Joey borrowed the rouge from to cover up her pale face in the early books. I think she was trying to disguise a tooth ache).

As all of us wore the same netball skirts which were brought in the first year (aged 11) until 6th form (17/18) - they expanded a touch round the waist and just got shorter that never seemed that much of a shock to me - if they were brought with 'plenty of growing room' at 13 (seems likely) they'd still be fitting (just) 4 years later - let out at the seams admitedly and a lot of extra leg

Tall and slim was Jo, with black eyes that could dance with mischief
or soften to pools of darkness in a pale, delicately-featured face
under a broad fringe of black hair, with earphones of the same at
either side.

she was exceedingly attractive, tall and slim, with a shapely head
covered by a fuzz of brown curls that were full of golden gleams. Her
very blue eyes were dancing behind their long fringe of black,
up-curled lashes. She had a perfect complexion, and her smiling mouth
was beautifully cut and her best feature.

Janie Lucy was not beautiful. She was not even pretty. And yet, as
they sat exchanging politenesses about the weather and the new School,
Joey found herself noting more and more good points. Mrs Lucy's hair
and eyes were brown - but there were glints of gold in the hair, and
the eyes were full of heart sunshine. Her nose was a snub, and nothing
more could be said about that. Her mouth was enormous, but it was cut
with generous lines - the mouth of a giver. And her warm, clear skin
was as fine and delicate as Joey's own - and Joey's skin had always
been one of her best points.

but it's fairly unrealistic as one of the first things a nervous new girl would notice about her new Headmistress, isn't it? (Must check hair condition of New Head...)

Quote:

but it's fairly unrealistic as one of the first things a nervous new girl would notice about her new Headmistress, isn't it? (Must check hair condition of New Head...)

I'm fairly sure that if a new headmistress had turned up to get me out of bed her hair would be the last thing I'd be thinking about!

I have to say that I agree with you CBW, I think I would have been too busy trying to work out exactly what I had done wrong in the last 24hrs

Re the discussion on handsome men, isn't Roger Richardson's physical appearance commented on in Joey & Co?

MJKB wrote:

Re the discussion on handsome men, isn't Roger Richardson's physical appearance commented on in Joey & Co?

Isn't that the bit where he gets out of the lake and there's some line about "six feet of manhood"? The mind boggles :shock:

Btw, this may or may not belong here - but what has always intrigued me is the description of Joey's 'earphones' of hair. I always thought she'd look like Princess Leia. Is that how it actually looks?

ETA I like the username, astrodominie!

Author:	jennifer [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:43 am ]
Post subject:	Themes: Beauty and Appearance
There are a lot of descriptions of physical appearances, ranging from devastating beauty to unfortunately plain girls (as well as the merely puckish). What is the general attitude towards beauty in the book – good, bad, or indifferent? Is physical appearance an indicator of interior worth or the opposite? What about attitudes towards fashion, primping and grooming, and the link between beauty and vanity?

Author:	liberty [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:51 am ]
Post subject:
I don't think beauty is a sign of interior worth. In most books the heroine is beautiful but she goes out of her way to tell us that Jo isn't, probably because she felt quite plain herself. Also, wasn't Bride, who had a whole book devoted to her, described as quite plain. I noticed, however, that she made all of Joey's children pretty. Her main attitude seems to be that beauty is a gift, like any other, but it should be pretty much ignored. Sybil and Wanda being the best example of this. Wanda is always mentioned as the prettiest girl in the school but, as she makes no mention of it, this is fine. However, Sybil, who knows she is pretty, is seen as vain. She also later is very reluctant to draw attention to it.

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:59 am ]
Post subject:
EBD certainly seems very interested in physical appearance: we're constantly being told that so-and-so is very pretty, and people like Wanda, Marie and Vi are hardly ever mentioned without reference to their looks. Some of the descriptions seem totally irrelevant, e.g. when Mary-Lou's Gang are on the coach in one of the Swiss books and we get a load of waffle about how pretty each of them is, and there's even one bit where one of the mistresses says she's sure that very few schools can boast such a good-looking staff as the CS can! And I feel very sorry for Bride and Betsy whom it's always being stressed are the only plain ones of their families - did EBD have to go on about it so much?! Interestingly, apart from Len none of the "heroines" are beautiful - Mary-Lou is quite attractive but it's always stressed that she's not a patch on Vi or Verity, and Joey is relatively plain compared with Marie, Frieda and Grizel. There's no obvious link between looks and character, but EBD doesn't half go on about looks a lot! "Primping" seems to be frowned on despite the obsession with beauty - Felicity King (I think) is frowned on for realising that she's pretty and letting it distract her from her work, and a lot of people speak out against the use of make-up. Maybe the idea was, as Len said when she was little, that if you were pretty it was because God made you like that, and presumably if he didn't then it was hard luck - maybe that's easy to say when you are pretty, but not so for the rest of us!! Although Joey did say that Ted should pluck her eyebrows when she left school, so maybe it was OK to be more concerned about looks when you were older?

Author:	jennifer [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:33 am ]
Post subject:
I find EBDs portrayal of beauty to be fascinating, but I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from it. She seems to be very hung up on people's appearance, particularly the pretty girls, but if a girl is at all aware of her beauty, then she comes down really heavily on her (Sybil, Felicity, Diana). ... I did a scan through the biographies, looking at appearances and there are some general categories of girls - Extremely beautiful and very nice - Extremely beautiful and very vain/spoiled - Pretty, which generally means she's a nice girl. - IF she is pretty but not a nice girl, she is either vain, 'cheaply pretty' or has an annoying voice. - normal looking, with any combination of personality - not pretty but a nice girl. She is then invariably described as pleasant faced, bright faced, clever faced, attractive, 'charmingly irregular face', puckish, honest face, good humoured face - in other words, the lack of attractiveness is offset by some other good quality in her appearance, so she is attractive looking. - If a girl is described as plain but with no 'pleasant faced' qualifier, she in invariable an unpleasant character. - fat (aka 'plump', 'chubby', 'big' or 'sturdy') --- Another weird thing - in Oberland, girls who don't work to make themselves attractive are seen as behaving badly, it being rude to make people look at pale lips and a shiny nose. However, almost all other descriptions of makeup use are seen as bad.

Author:	Liz K [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:49 am ]
Post subject:
What used to annoy me in the Tyrol books was when EBD always seemed to refer to Anney Seymour as "pretty Anne Seymour".

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Themes: Beauty and Appearance http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4126

Author:	JayB [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:07 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: in Oberland, girls who don't work to make themselves attractive are seen as behaving badly, it being rude to make people look at pale lips and a shiny nose. However, almost all other descriptions of makeup use are seen as bad. I think it's appropriate use of makeup that EBD is concerned about. The girls in Oberland are older than Betty W-D and her crowd were when they used makeup in - was it Goes To It? And Betty and Co did it specifically to be annoying anyway. A little discreet use of powder and lipstick by a girl of 17-18 is acceptable. Makeup plastered on a girl of 14 isn't. (And bearing in mind that back in the 40s and 50s makeup products were very different from what they are today. I can remember the thick, greasy lipsticks my mother had in the late 50s-early '60s that we used for 'dressing up'. They would have looked awful on a young girl.) EBD attaches a lot of importance to good grooming, as well - frequent baths, well brushed hair, neat appearance with clean collar and cuffs and all buttons sewn on, clothes put on properly and not thrown on anyhow. Mistresses are always attractively dressed in wool dresses or pretty jumpers.

Author:	Travellers Joy [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:09 am ]
Post subject:
The other thing that strikes me is how often the girls themselves seem to refer to someone else's beauty - often in an admiring, non-judgemental way. In my own schooldays we didn't look at the other girls and say, 'Oh, doesn't she look lovely!' We took it for granted. If comment was made, it was usually because the person in question was constantly drawing attention to it herself and it annoyed everyone else so comments would tend to be catty rather than admiring. Or if one was on the plain side oneself, the comment might be along the lines of 'I wish I could look like that!', accompanied by a despairing sigh. My daughter and her friends were the same; the only exception was when they were dressed up for their formal dinner - and comments varied between positive and admiring of friends, envious of enemies who turned out well for the night, or plain disparaging of those who dressed inappropriately (to their minds) or trashily - and there was, apparently, an awful lot of that!

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:21 am ]
Post subject:
The kind of good looks EBD likes are very much constructed in terms of a deliberately non-sexual smartness, whatever the age of the female person in question. Female good looks are described in much the same terms whether she's talking about a Junior Middle or one of the mistresses - words like 'trig', 'trim' and 'fresh', and (her favourite, whether it's a frock, a girl or some cubicle curtains, 'dainty'), 'girlish' and 'smart'. (Maybe Bill's poudre effect and Miss Annersley's eyes that 'had never yet needed glasses' are the two sole exceptions, in that they indicate some kind of maturity.) She seems to be taking on the 'plain old maid schoolmarm' stereotype by making the CS staff so collectively good-looking - you see a bit of that stereotype in people like the Saints' Miss Brown and Miss Bubb. There's very little attention to anything other than face and hair. The best bodies are 'slight' or 'slim', or, in girls, 'leggy' - plumpness of any kind is seen as ridiculous - Hilda Jukes, Frau Berlin, Winnie Embury, Madge being teased by Joey about bringing down the ceiling. The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned, apart from the odd reference to letting out dresses, and I think there's one reference to spots throughout - no one seems to develop puppy fat briefly, or have braces on her teeth, or become more beautiful or plainer as her adult appearance emerges. The good girl does not think at all about her own 'God-given' looks, and many favourite characters have their lack of vanity underlined by their impatience with the hair-growing rite of passage, which is never presented as their own idea, but their mother's or guardian's. Tidiness, on the other hand, needs to be continually checked for in bureau mirrors. One of the few things we get to see girls making a decision on is a change of hair style - Kenwigses to a single tail - is portrayed in terms of wanting to look older, not prettier. Although is Len's ponytail suspect in part because this is her motivation? A trendy style, rather than an embrace of maturity? The make-up point (mostly seen as a bad thing, but switches to being a duty in the later books and St Mildred's) is interesting - a bit like EBD's skipped courtships, we move straight from make-up being definitely too-old, associated with Joan Baker's precocious sexuality, perm and elaborate clothes, to being a fact of life and an adult female duty, though only when it's virtually invisible, unlike the heavily made-up wartime girls on the train in one of the war books. It seems to be more about a dust of powder signfying gentility than a desire to look pretty.

Author:	JS [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:
Quote: The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned, apart from the odd reference to letting out dresses, and I think there's one reference to spots throughout - no one seems to develop puppy fat briefly, or have braces on her teeth, or become more beautiful or plainer as her adult appearance emerges. Jane Austen is a bit like that too - I think it's Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey whose 'figure grows in consequence'. I think we all know what that means! EBD generally seems to change her view on beauty/prettiness with the weather, but I don't really blame her for that - I wouldn't like to be challenged on the complete consistency of my views on things, especially over umpteen books. A couple of points come to mind (as well as the inconsistency about Bride and Sybil which has been mentioned elsewhere). I recall Peggy (I think)being described as 'it's not just fairytale prettiness either, not with that chin' which seems to suggest that EBD thinks that character is important. Also, there's a definite feeling in the books, which I think is quite positive in a role model sense, that even if we can't all be beauties, we can be clean and neat and well-mended (our clothes, I mean!). Peggy again inspired Polly Winterton to change into a decent frock and brush her hair, although of course it wasn't as silky as the well-brushed Peggy. Again I don't think EBD necessarily lived up to that in real life. I'm re-reading Behind the Chalet School and she's described as holding her underwear together with string. Imagine Matey's horror! Quite imaginative, though.

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:
Sunglass wrote: The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned Mary-Lou and co wear their uniforms from St Briavel's, when they'd've been around 13, for the staff party in New Mistress when they're around 17 .

Author:	Tor [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:21 pm ]
Post subject:
I never noticed the positive references to wearing makeup in the Swiss books? Was this cut from the paper backs? I only ever noticed the more negative makeup refs in the books overall (Betty W-D, Joan, Zephyr). Though of course it must have been used by some, as it seems to be around the school for use in a few story lines, unless it was in the theatrical stores (trying to remember where Joey borrowed the rouge from to cover up her pale face in the early books. I think she was trying to disguise a tooth ache).

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:02 pm ]
Post subject:
Alison H wrote: Sunglass wrote: The changes in the adolescent body are never mentioned Mary-Lou and co wear their uniforms from St Briavel's, when they'd've been around 13, for the staff party in New Mistress when they're around 17 . The mind boggles.

Author:	claire [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:28 pm ]
Post subject:
As all of us wore the same netball skirts which were brought in the first year (aged 11) until 6th form (17/18) - they expanded a touch round the waist and just got shorter that never seemed that much of a shock to me - if they were brought with 'plenty of growing room' at 13 (seems likely) they'd still be fitting (just) 4 years later - let out at the seams admitedly and a lot of extra leg

Author:	Róisín [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:26 pm ]
Post subject:
Tor wrote: I never noticed the positive references to wearing makeup in the Swiss books? Was this cut from the paper backs? I only ever noticed the more negative makeup refs in the books overall (Betty W-D, Joan, Zephyr). Though of course it must have been used by some, as it seems to be around the school for use in a few story lines, unless it was in the theatrical stores (trying to remember where Joey borrowed the rouge from to cover up her pale face in the early books. I think she was trying to disguise a tooth ache). In the later books, make-up is definitely a positive. I can't remember which book it is, but Joey gives a party in Freudesheim and afterwards the girls go to the bathrooms to fix their hair and clothes and to reapply their powder. Also, there is the makeover in Oberland. I have a vague memory of Beth Chester applying powder too, I think in Barbara, but she's left school at this point.

Author:	jennifer [ Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:19 am ]
Post subject:
And we can see the result of giving all virtues to a heroine in Len Maynard. She's ravishingly beautiful, slender, graceful, has good dress sense, is athletic, artistic, musical, academically brilliant, hardworking and responsible, extremely mature for her age, obedient, modest, helpful, a natural leader, highly empathetic, popular with everyone, good with small children, talented at domestic tasks and part of the founding family of the school. The only fault that EBD can produce for her is being overly conscientious. As a result, you have a character who is very bland and dull compared with other leaders of the school, particularly Mary-Lou and Joey. People may dislike those characters, or find them overdrawn or annoying, but they are at least interest.

Author:	MJKB [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
Yes, EBD doesn't extol the blonde, blue-eyed look (except for the von Eschenaus) - Thats true. Actually, quite a few blonde blue-eyed types tend to be type cast as vain or silly in GO literature. Gwendoline Mary in MT is the prime example of this. I think EBD was quite fond of red hair or variations of it. One of my favourite EBD books is Lorna at Wynards and its sequel. Lorna, the eponymous heroine is fair haired and blue-eyed, but she is presented to us at the beginning as self assured and bumptious. (Nice word that!). Her reformation is brought about by her aunt and her cousin, both of whom are chestnut haired.

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
Can't imagine Joey in a gold bikini a la Princess Leia!

Author:	Lesley [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:03 pm ]
Post subject:
claire wrote: As all of us wore the same netball skirts which were brought in the first year (aged 11) until 6th form (17/18) - they expanded a touch round the waist and just got shorter that never seemed that much of a shock to me - if they were brought with 'plenty of growing room' at 13 (seems likely) they'd still be fitting (just) 4 years later - let out at the seams admitedly and a lot of extra leg I can just about see that for a skirt - but not for blouses/tops - girls do tend to develop there and they are hardly likely to have that much growing room.

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:08 pm ]
Post subject:
One of the 'earlier' places where there's a non-disapproving reference to make-up being used by a CS girl on a non-special occasion is when Bride discovers that Elfie Woodward has unexpectedly left school, cries on the train, and repairs the tearstains by washing her face and giving it a dust of powder. I know it counts as damage repair rather than cosmetic self-enhancement, but it means that a sixth-former who is never presented as in any way concerned with her appearance is carrying powder on her as a matter of course on her way to school.

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:28 pm ]
Post subject:
There's a great deal of emphasis put on what the female characters look like, but not what the male characters look like. I think we had a discussion about this once and tried to make a list of good-looking men in the books and found that there were very few . Wolfram von Eschenau is described in New/United as "a handsome youth", and Janie Lucy tells Joey that Julian is "a handsome man", but that's about it! We're told that Jack is "no film star for looks" and with most of the other men reference to their appearance is mainly just in terms of things like what colour hair they have or whether they are tall or not, or remarks about them having twinkling eyes or a pleasant smile. Apart from Mr Denny, but he's mainly described as looking weird! Maybe the girls were too busy worrying about whether the men were doctors or not to notice what they looked like ...

Author:	jennifer [ Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:05 am ]
Post subject:
Yes, skinny is definitely better. Fat/chubby/sturdy girls are almost never described as pretty - the only exception I can think of is the adult Nancy Wilmot. It is interesting that neither Joey, ML, or Janie is described as pretty. They aren't described as unpleasant looking, though. Joey has striking looks, with her pale colouring, black hair and eyes, height and startling hair style - words like "clear pallor" are used. Mary-Lou is normal looking as a child, although with a bright face full of character, but by the time she is about sixteen she is extremely pretty. Janie is also described as not pretty, but very attractive looking. Quote: Tall and slim was Jo, with black eyes that could dance with mischief or soften to pools of darkness in a pale, delicately-featured face under a broad fringe of black hair, with earphones of the same at either side. Quote: she was exceedingly attractive, tall and slim, with a shapely head covered by a fuzz of brown curls that were full of golden gleams. Her very blue eyes were dancing behind their long fringe of black, up-curled lashes. She had a perfect complexion, and her smiling mouth was beautifully cut and her best feature. Quote: Janie Lucy was not beautiful. She was not even pretty. And yet, as they sat exchanging politenesses about the weather and the new School, Joey found herself noting more and more good points. Mrs Lucy's hair and eyes were brown - but there were glints of gold in the hair, and the eyes were full of heart sunshine. Her nose was a snub, and nothing more could be said about that. Her mouth was enormous, but it was cut with generous lines - the mouth of a giver. And her warm, clear skin was as fine and delicate as Joey's own - and Joey's skin had always been one of her best points.

Author:	Róisín [ Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:05 pm ]
Post subject:
I think that EBD didn't expect girls to be beautiful. They were expected to be fresh, healthy and clean, but beauty itself belonged to the domain of womanhood. When a girl is beautiful, it is unusual and unexpected and therefore commented on. There is a sense of a girl growing into her looks - as with Mary-Lou maybe.

Author:	Sunglass [ Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:32 pm ]
Post subject:
But Joey's strikingness is always stressed, to the extent that I feel her lack of 'beauty' as such is a bit of a red herring. I don't think we can really consider her as anything other than interesting and attractive to look at (if not conventionally pretty) after the very early Tyrol novels, where her lack of looks is a side-effect of her continual illnesses. In one of them we're told that her better health has caused her to lose her 'goblin-like' appearance, which always cracks me up slightly. I always get the sense that in stressing her distinctive colouring and height and expressive features that EBD intends us to find her far more interesting to look at than the more conventional prettiness of Frieda Mensch or Marie von Eschenau. And it has to be said that, for a supposedly plain woman married to a man who is 'no film star for looks', she has somehow produced ravishingly good-looking children in blonde, brunette and red-haired varieties! Or are we to understand that good looks skip a generation in the EBD universe and that Jo and Jack's parents were gorgeous? Also, I've always thought Mary-Lou, who having been described as someone who 'would pass with a shove' until her accident, but who is afterwards always described as extremely attractive-looking - is just being rewarded by EBD for being OOAOML. Why not give your favourite character a kind of make-over, where she gets all your favourite features? She was originally sturdy and straight-haired, and afterwards she's tall, slim, curly-haired and suddenly has a finely-cut mouth and notable lashes - though presumably she also had these before the accident. Unless this is another instance of San magic, and they gave her a head transplant when she was unconscious!

Author:	KB [ Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:33 pm ]
Post subject:
I think EBD had two main reasons for not having her heroines be pretty - first, it really wasn't fashionable at the time, nor typical in GO writing, for the heroine to be good-looking. They were generally good at sports, clever (at least in most subjects), had attractive personalities, were good-humoured, polite, rather mature for their ages and had a relatively unimportant character flaw that generally played a major part in the storyline (which, for some authors, could change from book to book). To have them also be traditionally pretty would have been a little too much for most readers (note that the heroine must always have one striking feature!!). Second, EBD would have identified closely with all of her heroines, and as she herself was not particularly traditionally pretty, it's understandable that beauty is a characteristic she could have omitted from the somewhat lengthy list of attributes she otherwise applies to her heroines as a matter of course.

Author:	Sunglass [ Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:07 pm ]
Post subject:
What I find actually funny from time to time is the way that EBD steps out of character to decribe, approvingly, someone's appropriately-spruce looks, in a way that the character from whose POV we are looking at events is highly unlikely to have noticed. The one that springs to my mind is near the beginning of Barbara, where it's Barbara's first morning at the school because she can't go to Joey because of the German measles, and the rest of the girls haven't arrived yet. Miss Annersley arrives in her cubicle before she even gets out of bed, and the first thing we're told B notices about Miss A is that she has a 'pleasant, clear-cut face' and 'wavy dark hair that shone with hard brushing'. I mean, it's classic EBD - approval of a smart, 'ladylike' appearance, whose spruceness is due less to conventional beauty than to putting in the time at haircare - but it's fairly unrealistic as one of the first things a nervous new girl would notice about her new Headmistress, isn't it? (Must check hair condition of New Head...) Even if in the EBD world (as with Peggy Bettany and Polly Winterton), it is immediately obvious to lookers-on whether your hair's sheen is from having just been brushed this second, or from a lifetime of painstaking brushing!

Author:	jennifer [ Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:29 pm ]
Post subject:
That's like a new girl pausing to reflect on the beauty of the head girl or one of their classmates - gazing at the physical perfection of a female classmate was not a common practice when I was in school.

Author:	CBW [ Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:25 pm ]
Post subject:
Quote: but it's fairly unrealistic as one of the first things a nervous new girl would notice about her new Headmistress, isn't it? (Must check hair condition of New Head...) I'm fairly sure that if a new headmistress had turned up to get me out of bed her hair would be the last thing I'd be thinking about!

Author:	Fi [ Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:41 pm ]
Post subject:
CBW wrote: Quote: but it's fairly unrealistic as one of the first things a nervous new girl would notice about her new Headmistress, isn't it? (Must check hair condition of New Head...) I'm fairly sure that if a new headmistress had turned up to get me out of bed her hair would be the last thing I'd be thinking about! at bracketted comment by Sunglass I have to say that I agree with you CBW, I think I would have been too busy trying to work out exactly what I had done wrong in the last 24hrs

Author:	CBW [ Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:40 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: I have to say that I agree with you CBW, I think I would have been too busy trying to work out exactly what I had done wrong in the last 24hrs And thinking about some of my headmistresses this idea is starting to turn into the stuff of nightmares!

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:20 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
EBD was obviously a fan of Louisa May Alcott and Joey's character has alot in common with Jo of Little Women. Jo March, however, did not suddenly develop into a physically attractive adult. She always remained plain. I love that phrase that EBD uses for some of her favourite characters, "...not pretty in the conventional sense, but Madge Bettany/ Marly-LOu/Joey was good to look at..." Re the discussion on handsome men, isn't Roger Richardson's physical appearance commented on in Joey & Co? As for Joey and Jack having very pretty children, one often comes across that. Neighbours of ours are two rather plain looking people and they have four stunning looking girls. I guess it's the way the genetic cookie crumbles.

Author:	RroseSelavy [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
MJKB wrote: Re the discussion on handsome men, isn't Roger Richardson's physical appearance commented on in Joey & Co? Isn't that the bit where he gets out of the lake and there's some line about "six feet of manhood"? The mind boggles

Author:	Cat C [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
RroseSelavy wrote: MJKB wrote: Re the discussion on handsome men, isn't Roger Richardson's physical appearance commented on in Joey & Co? Isn't that the bit where he gets out of the lake and there's some line about "six feet of manhood"? The mind boggles Yes, and the book in question is currently under discussion. I think what I always found interesting about the ideal of beauty expressed is that EBD seemed to have a penchant for the Sybil type of colouring in particular - describing her as the pick of the basket for looks. It is interesting how lots of authors seem to go for a particular type of colouring - I mean each author will have his/her own favourite type of colouring and take it for granted that it would be universally admired.

Author:	Emma A [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:42 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
Yes, EBD doesn't extol the blonde, blue-eyed look (except for the von Eschenaus) - her typical beauty has chestnut hair (Sybil, Vi, Len) and blue-ish eyes (sapphire, violet, grey, etc) and a lovely complexion (must say I'd love a nice complexion, though am quite happy with the greying hair and green eyes I have!). Curls are usually advantageous. But Joey is never described as pretty (even if Madge is), but rather "attractive-looking", and several girls who aren't pretty get the accolade of a "clever-looking" face.

Author:	astrodominie [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
While talking about skin, I think the phrase that EBD used the most was 'apple-blossom colouring'. Gillian had it, Frieda had it, and god knows how many others in between. Btw, this may or may not belong here - but what has always intrigued me is the description of Joey's 'earphones' of hair. I always thought she'd look like Princess Leah. Is that how it actually looks?

Author:	Emma A [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
astrodominie wrote: Btw, this may or may not belong here - but what has always intrigued me is the description of Joey's 'earphones' of hair. I always thought she'd look like Princess Leia. Is that how it actually looks? I imagine they would, given that in one book (can't now remember which) Joey is described as being in costume and with long plaits down to her knees. Given that she's described as tall (probably about 5'8"), that's a lot of hair, so possibly even bigger earphones than Leia! ETA I like the username, astrodominie!

Author:	JB [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:20 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
Not only have I found a photo of how this could look, it's part of a slideshow showing you how to do it with your own hair. http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/mag/beauty/d1995/c51371.html They say their model has very long hair but it's nowhere near her waist, let alone her knees. Am surprised Joey could hold her head up with all that hair plaited around her ears.

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Themes: Beauty and Appearance
It looks lovely on the model. Joey's hair with a 21st century twist! I often think Joey's determination to hang on to her earphones when they were clearly out of fashion is indicative of her increasingly conservative outlook on life in general.