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Themes: Romance and Love
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4054
Author:  jennifer [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:21 am ]
Post subject:  Themes: Romance and Love
What do you think of the portrayal of love and romance in the Chalet series? Were the lack of detail/sudden engagements/stilted dialogue the result of EBD's own lack of experience in such matters, or was it the result of the limitations of writing for children? What about the scenes we do get of courting and engagements?
Author:  Lolly [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:13 am ]
Post subject: 
I find them all totally unrealistic. It seems pretty obvious that there was very little romance in EBD's own life and IMHO she'd have been better off avoiding it in her books. Joey's engagement to Jack always makes me wince....and as for Len and Reg.....yuk!
Author:  LizzieC [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:17 am ]
Post subject: 
I think my favourite courting scenes are ones that have actually been cut from the Armarda books, so I had no idea they existed until recently. They are the ones that show the romance between Gillian Linton and Clement Young in Three Go.

The scene where he first sees Gillian struck me as quite realistic - some people are attracted from the first. At the very least, it seemed more normal to me than the "teacher meets doctor after accident, with no sign, suddenly they are engaged" that EBD usually wrote.

Gillian is also shown as going on at least two "dates" with him that we see (to see Black Beauty as escort for the girls and to show him around the town on her free afternoon before he leaves), and Gillian's first reaction:

Quote:
she felt strangely shy of this tall, lean man; but she liked him, for all that


It's possibly the closest thing we get to a real courtship written by EBD, and it's actually the one that grates least with me, which is probably why I like it so much.
Author:  Mia [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:16 pm ]
Post subject: 
I would have to disagree slightly; I very much like the fairly consistent portrayal of marriage as being between two friends, such as Jack/Joey or Dick/Mollie.

Also EBD suggests frequently that the focus of a wedding shouldn't be about the day itself but rather the actual marriage (ie Simone/Andre) which I also find charming.

Obviously EBD was constrained by the genre but we can't say for sure she hadn't experienced any romance herself can we? How would we know?

I think Neil and Grizel's proposal is quite sweet actually. It would have been completely out of place if he'd suddenly gone down on one knee and produced lovehearts and roses and a big diamond! In my limited experience of one engagement, it was quite down to earth :D
Author:  MaryR [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:37 pm ]
Post subject: 
Mia wrote:
I very much like the fairly
I think Neil and Grizel's proposal is quite sweet actually. It would have been completely out of place if he'd suddenly gone down on one knee and produced lovehearts and roses and a big diamond! In my limited experience of one engagement, it was quite down to earth :D

I think it must be the scientist in him, Mia. :lol: My husband had clearly been taking lessons from Neil, as prosaic is the only word that springs to mind for our *sweet moment*.

What's even worse is that he has absolutely no recollection of this supposed highlight of our lives! Okay, it was 35 years ago, but still.... :roll: Wonder if Neil had any memory of his! :D
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:41 pm ]
Post subject: 
There's something in Reunion about Len (then aged 16, I think) being romantic like most girls her age were (or words to that effect), but presumably EBD was aiming at a younger audience. The books are essentially school stories, and romances aren't part of the main storylines in the way they are in e.g. Anne of Avonlea, Good Wives or even some of the Sadlers Wells books so it would've seemed odd if she'd gone all Mills-and-Boon-ish.

I think most of the romances come across quite well given all that - we get Madge blushing when Joey says that she wishes Jem was around when they're worried that there'll be a flood; the Grizel-Neil romance is quite well done; the Joey-Jack SLOC moment is quite good in its way, etc. Most of the romances aren't that sudden - it's fairly obvious for a while before their engagements that Madge and Jem, Joey and Jack, Marie and Eugen and some of the other couples are going to get together, and although there are a few too many cases of people marrying doctors they've been rescued by :lol: none of them seem unrealistic. There's quite a nice scene when Jack says he thinks Eugen Courvoisier is only pretending to be interested in the school because he fancies Biddy! And although we don't see Gottfried and Gisela, Bernhilda and Kurt, Peggy and Giles etc together before they get engaged, we know that they'd have known each other for some time.

The only romance I think is really badly handled is Len and Reg's - the comments about how Reg likes all the triplets but Len is "his favourite" and how he's determined to "get what he wants" are just awful!

And I think the most interesting romance is Juliet and Donal's. Most CS courtships are very straightforward girl-meets-boy-and-they-get-married stories (excluding cases where one partner dies, obviously). Juliet and Donal are the only couple I can think of whom we see having problems, apart from Tom Evans and Anna and we only hear about that from Joey's viewpoint; and Juliet is about the only character we ever see broken-hearted over a romance that's (temporarily, at least) gone wrong.
Author:  Tor [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:56 pm ]
Post subject: 
I posted this in the thread about Reg and Len, but think it is probably better here...

Quote:
out of interest, does anyone know when the Anne books became considered as solely young girl's stories? I ask because I *think* I read or saw somewhere early dust covers which seemed to aim Anne of GG at older audiences, and that it was popular with adults as well in it's early days...

the pertinence of this to this discussion is that LM Montgomery has no such qualms about showing developing romances! And it seems more than obvious that EBD *cough* borrowed/took tips from LMM, and that The Chalet Girls were expected to know all about the books as they acted out the slate scene in a saturday entertainment (didn't they?).

So.... If it was ok for LMM to write this way for young girls, then I don't think the 'intended audience' argument has as much weight as the EBD was just a bit rubbish at romance. Or maybe the Anne books, beyond the first, were not considered suitable reading for the young girls of the 60's???? I am thinking in particular of Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars. And even more particularly of all the letters that tapered off with the promise of Anne having just the right tip of pen. That always made me sigh when I was a young girl (and still does )


In summary, I think EBD is in favour of the idea of love and romance, but isn't all that good at writing it, rather than deliberately censoring it for her readers. I like her portrayals of most of the marriages, really. I get the feeling that she was the kind of person who would be great chatting about her friends marriages/relationships over a coffee, but wouldn't be all that good at actually having such a relationship herself.
Author:  Tor [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
*double post*
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:17 pm ]
Post subject: 
I've sounded off about this before on the recent Reg and Len thread, so I'll only say that I think romance has only a purely formal quality in the CS books. EBD doesn't manifest any particular interest in it. Bagging a doctor is a kind of post-education diploma for her favourite characters, and provides a supply of new characters. She's particularly unkeen on proposals or engagements, and quite often skips them and/or immediately removes the male in question to a distant place until the wedding, after which we skip to at least four children.

Even on the one occasion I can think of offhand where she depicts a romance gone wrong - Juliet and Donal 'the Drip' O'Hara - Juliet doesn't talk about how heartbroken she is about Donal, but expresses it entirely in terms of how upset she was about the end of her friendship with his sister. EBD is big on indirection in romance. I always find it funny that she uses the same kind of indirect expressions in the Tyrol books to indicate both love/marriage and the Robin's potentially having TB. The others in the Quartette talk coyly about wanting 'it' or 'that' when referring to marriage, and Frieda (or is Marie) exclaims at one point 'Not that for the Robin!'
Author:  jennifer [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:26 am ]
Post subject: 
I do find the actual descriptions of romance to be rather stilted, and the courtships rather abrupt.

As a comparison, I would use EJO's portrayal of romance, for a similar time period and society in which they were written. The male characters are similarly one dimensional, and mainly there to father babies, but we see more of the process of romance in many of the cases - the girls have doubts about whether this person is right or whether they want to marry, there are misunderstandings and confusions, and on occasion they have unwanted suitors.

In the CS books the romances either occur off screen (we hear about it at the engagement), or they progress along the lines of pretty mistress meets eligible doctor and three chapters later they announce their engagement. I can't think of any examples, except for Madge's proposal by mail, where a girl has a suitor they don't marry (Joey's doctor is only mentioned many books later, in retrospect, and her solution to an unwanted suitor is to go halfway around the world for six months). The only romance we see with any hiccups is Juliet's, and she seems more interested in Kay than in Donal in many respects.

In Gillian's case, for example, they meet well after half term and are engaged by Christmas. So they go from complete strangers to engaged in about a month and a half. It's said they see a lot of each other, but Gillian works full time at a boarding school, so they'd see each other at most about once a week or so.

Part of it could be the society of the time, and the idea that nice girls want to marry and have babies, but nice girls don't talk about or think about men. Mary-Lou, at age 17, turns red and stammers at the though of a 15 year old 'talking about boys', but it's common for girls to be engaged within a year or two of leaving school.
Author:  Joyce [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Well, the one time that EBD attempts to portray an unsuitable teenage romance (Joan and Vic Coles) it was such a disaster that it has led to endless speculation about Vic's sex ever since!

Len and Reg's big moment is horrible though. I really wish that Len, when Reg said "I take it we're engaged," had said in reply "I don't recall you asking."

Cheers,
Joyce
Author:  jennifer [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Joyce wrote:
Well, the one time that EBD attempts to portray an unsuitable teenage romance (Joan and Vic Coles) it was such a disaster that it has led to endless speculation about Vic's sex ever since!

Len and Reg's big moment is horrible though. I really wish that Len, when Reg said "I take it we're engaged," had said in reply "I don't recall you asking."

Cheers,
Joyce


Oh, there is Elma Conroy - that is actually a reasonable portrayal of an overly sophisticated girl who is technically old enough to marry, but has poor judgement and is going against her parents wishes.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Just as a slight aside, Miss Wilson (I think it was her) asks Elma if she's engaged to Stuart Raynor ... she seems to assume that because they've exchanged a few letters they must be engaged.
Author:  Lesley [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:25 am ]
Post subject: 
I don't think she assumes that - it was more a case of checking it hadn't happened - obviously that would have been a far more serious matter had Elma actually promised Raynor.
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:30 am ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
Just as a slight aside, Miss Wilson (I think it was her) asks Elma if she's engaged to Stuart Raynor ... she seems to assume that because they've exchanged a few letters they must be engaged.


I don't know whether Emily Post covers the niceties of correspondence and the in/appropriateness of a schoolgirl exchanging letters with a man to whom she is not engaged in her etiquette guide! I was having the same conversation (minus the CS, obviously) with some students of mine recently, who were somewhat baffled by the fact that (in an 18thc novel) the fact that the heroine accidentally ends up in a short exchange of letters with who she thinks is the hero (though the man who is actually writing to her, and declaring his love, is the bad guy) is terribly improper and reputation-ruining.

A man and woman writing to one another (in the late 18thc and arguably into the 20thc) meant they carving out private space where they were alone together, meant they were in a relationship (hence by definition engaged). If they weren't engaged, it was a form of secret assignation, (and letters of course could be used to bring the relationship to the stage of secret meetings), and a way of eluding the chaperone and opening yourself to risk.

Though one feels slightly sorry for Elma Conroy who sort of gets caught in EBD's push towards greater sophistication in her representation of St Mildred's.

Do people imagine that Joan Baker and Vic Coles had progressed beyond the going for a walk and buying fish and chips together stage? Was this a matter of JB being felt up under railway bridges by a Teddy Boy? I'd never particularly thought about it ...
Author:  liberty [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:44 am ]
Post subject: 
I think her portrayal early on is quite accurate as you can see how it could happen off screen. I wish she'd shown more of it though. Later on she seems to struggle more, especially as society was relaxing then in the way members of the opposite sex interacted
Author:  JayB [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:40 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
As a comparison, I would use EJO's portrayal of romance, for a similar time period and society in which they were written.


I think EJO's books were written for and about an older age group than EBD's. Most of her central characters are adults or near adults leading independent lives, rather than schoolgirls. A different approach is required. (And even in EJO, discussion of potential boyfriends between girls in their late teens who had known each other a long time is considered vulgar. Jen completely cut a former schoolfriend because of some fairly inoffensive remarks about Ken Marchwood.)

Quote:
Mary-Lou, at age 17, turns red and stammers at the though of a 15 year old 'talking about boys',


I wonder if this is a euphemism for 'Joan talks about sex'. ML might well be, indeed probably should be, embarrassed talking about it to Jack, but EBD couldn't really say so explicitly in a book which was going to be read by eight year olds.

As long as the focus of the books is the school and schoolgirls, the romances are going to happen offscreen. Admittedly I went to a dayschool, not a boarding school, but all we knew was that sometimes were were told that a female teacher was now Mrs X rather than Miss Y. And of the male teachers' lives we knew nothing.
Author:  Mia [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:09 pm ]
Post subject: 
I totally agree with the Donal is a drip comment, would you ever be bothered with someone who does what his sister wants? Good grief, my mind, he boggles. The dynamics of the whole Donal - Juliet - Kay relationship are really quite odd when you come to think of it, and not just through looking at it in a contemporary way.

Reg's knowing what he wants, in contrast, is actually quite attractive!

Quote:
Do people imagine that Joan Baker and Vic Coles had progressed beyond the going for a walk and buying fish and chips together stage? Was this a matter of JB being felt up under railway bridges by a Teddy Boy? I'd never particularly thought about it ...


Definitely some kissing. Remember Vic was a hot one! lol
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:17 pm ]
Post subject: 
I would think definitely some kissing :wink: .

I think the Donal story was there mainly so that Joey could get them back together - she hadn't done anything "heroic" for a couple of books prior to that and I suppose it made a change from rescuing people from lakes/mountains/kidnappers - but I wish Juliet'd told him where to go, or at least made him really beg before taking him back!

Kay's snobbery is understandable by the standards of the time and her background, although it's still awful that she treated someone who'd been a close friend so badly, but Donal dumping Juliet because of what Kay wanted was really off. And the way he asked Joey, a schoolgirl, what he should do about it just made him look even more of a wuss.
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:35 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
Kay's snobbery is understandable by the standards of the time and her background, although it's still awful that she treated someone who'd been a close friend so badly, but Donal dumping Juliet because of what Kay wanted was really off. And the way he asked Joey, a schoolgirl, what he should do about it just made him look even more of a wuss.


Actually Kay's snobbery is interesting, partly because it points up EBD's slightly confused notions of the Irish class system of the first half of the 20thc. She seems to get mixed up between the Anglo-Irish - landed gentry, generally educated in England, and generally looking to England in terms of social norms, presented at Court etc - and the 'native' Irish middle and peasant classes. This comes up with both Norah Fitzgerald and Deira O'Hagan, both of whom combine aspects of Anglo-Irishness (Deira is a debutante and has had a nurse, Norah's father is a Major with a large stable of horses - and both have familes who can afford to send a daughter to a foreign boarding school) with non-Anglo-Irish vocabulary and syntax, and non-Anglo-Irish names. EBD appears to think the 'wild Irish scamp' notion covers all terrain.

From what I remember about the O'Haras, they cannot be landed Anglo-Irish, as Donal is training to be a barrister, and gets called to the Bar in Dublin and Kay the sister is teacher training when Juliet meets her, yet Donal's snobbery ('the old name we were all proud of') doesn't sit well at all with a more middle-class background, which would have its own snobbery, no doubt, but not focus on pride in a name - particularly one which is very common! (In fact, Juliet's Englishness might have been more of a tumbling block than her parents.) In other words, if Kay was Anglo-Irish, she wouldn't have been teacher training, and if she was middle-class, her snobbery would be of a different kind.

I mean, I don't think there's any solution to this - I think EBD was just confused, but it adds to your sense, which I completely agree with, that this whole romance gone wrong was introduced solely for the purpose of making Joey heroic at something other than rescuing people bodily.

And I still think Donal deserved a kick in the pants.
Author:  Kate [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:54 pm ]
Post subject: 
That has always interested me too, Sunglass.

There is also a comment in And Jo somewhere about how Kay had never been abroad before she went to Austria. Which, considering she's Irish and went to university in London after the formation of the Free State, was a bit of a dodgy one. During the writing of And Jo, Ireland was technically a Dominion - but so was India which is quite definitely "abroad".

If Kay thought like that, it would definitely suggest she was Anglo-Irish. But with a name like O'Hara!
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:12 pm ]
Post subject: 
Kate wrote:
There is also a comment in And Jo somewhere about how Kay had never been abroad before she went to Austria. Which, considering she's Irish and went to university in London after the formation of the Free State, was a bit of a dodgy one. During the writing of And Jo, Ireland was technically a Dominion - but so was India which is quite definitely "abroad".

If Kay thought like that, it would definitely suggest she was Anglo-Irish. But with a name like O'Hara!


Yup - with a name like O'Hara AND the necessity to work for a living, or at least train to work for a living. I don't think you can get beyond EBD's blurry take on Irish society. I've often amused myself by extrapolating from Deira O'Hagan's old nurse, from whom she borrows the expression 'the curse of Cromwell on them all!' a scene in which someone points out that said nurse's employers are most likely to be the descendants of Cromwell's troops, so she might want to watch it...

And doesn't Deira also say something about being Irish 'and there's niver a wan of us fears a tyrant!' - which makes even less sense if she's Anglo-Irish, which, to be presented at Court, she must be. We're told she's from Cork, aren't we? She'd have sounded more like Elizabeth Bowen than Biddy O'Ryan!

But to bring this back to the thread I'll just say that personally I'd take fish and chips on the street with Vic Coles and his dodgy reputation over Drippy Donal O'Hara and his Family Pride.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:48 pm ]
Post subject: 
Donal actually gets called to the Bar in London: we're told that "the pair must, of necessity, live in London". And Jo was published in 1930, so it's unlikely that EBD would've started writing it earlier than 1929 or at the earliest 1928 - i.e. definitely after the Irish Free State was established.

To get back to the subject of love and romance, maybe in a lot of cases "romances" are just a way of either tying someone to the School (Joey, Len), writing someone out of the series (Con Stewart, Gillian Linton) or providing a setting for something else (Josette's engagement being an excuse for Len to think about the issue of marrying young, Marie and Andreas's wedding being a way of describing lots of lovely Tyrolean customs) and sometimes are just totally irrelevant (e.g. when we're told that Julie, Bride, Primula and various other people whom we no longer "see" are engaged). So the actual romance isn't in itself a big issue, which partly explains why not much is said about it. If that makes any sense at all!
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:25 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
Donal actually gets called to the Bar in London: we're told that "the pair must, of necessity, live in London". And Jo was published in 1930, so it's unlikely that EBD would've started writing it earlier than 1929 or at the earliest 1928 - i.e. definitely after the Irish Free State was established...

To get back to the subject of love and romance, maybe in a lot of cases "romances" are just a way of either tying someone to the School (Joey, Len), writing someone out of the series (Con Stewart, Gillian Linton) or providing a setting for something else


Hmm. I clearly hallucinated Dublin. Well, I suppose we put it down to a hazy take on the Irish status quo. I suppose not surprising, with so many changes in status and the alteration of the role of the king in relation to the Free State etc taking place still during the late 20s. Although someone should drabble Donal as a gun-toting sidekick of Michael Collins, and have him be familiar with Holloway jail from the wrong side of the bars before he starts work in law...

I agree with your romance point, about marriage as a kind of connective or stock plot device. It's probably the one similarity between EBD and JK Rowling (other than they both wrote school stories) - both of them have huge casts to keep continually in play. While JKR will have a character not mentioned for several novels reappear on a chocolate frog card or something, EBD mentions a marriage or the birth of a child, or makes offspring appear at the CS. You sometimes feel she's like someone spinning a hell of a lot of plates.
Author:  Lesley [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:14 am ]
Post subject: 
Sunglass wrote:
Although someone should drabble Donal as a gun-toting sidekick of Michael Collins, and have him be familiar with Holloway jail from the wrong side of the bars before he starts work in law....



Yes - well if he went to Holloway, Juliet's marriage would definitely have been a sham! :wink:
Author:  Mia [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:38 am ]
Post subject: 
Lesley wrote:
Sunglass wrote:
Although someone should drabble Donal as a gun-toting sidekick of Michael Collins, and have him be familiar with Holloway jail from the wrong side of the bars before he starts work in law....



Yes - well if he went to Holloway, Juliet's marriage would definitely have been a sham! :wink:


You made me laugh aloud and I'm in the office! *glares before collapsing into giggles*
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:46 am ]
Post subject: 
Maybe there was some sort of Twelfth Night-esque mix-up with Donal and Kay and one of them was pretending to be the wrong gender ...?
Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:53 am ]
Post subject: 
And while we're (slightly) on the topic of potential jailbirds (I mean, other than Vic 'Dubious Reputation' Coles) among the love objects of the CS girls and mistresses, the tendency of all the main doctors to sedate their wives at the drop of a hat has always struck me as sinisterly suggestive of date rape methods of operation. I'm surprised Joey ever drank ANYTHING Jack presented her with. (Then again, her schooldays would have inured her to being dosed with hot milk every time she set a bare foot to the floor, brandy every time she fished up a corpse or saved someone from drowning, and various other sedatives and anonymous noxious substances at intervals - so I suppose she was used to someone bearing down on her with a cup of something that didn't smell entirely like coffee...)

But the Doctor Knows Best syndrome transplanted into the CS romances and marriages always unnerves me slightly. Whatever one might make of female Fantasies of the Authoritative Man (With or Without Syringe), it seems to me it would be alarming to be in part regarded as a set of medical symptoms by one's spouse, whose dictats come complete with what is the ultimate authority in the CS world - the medical.
Author:  Kate [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:27 am ]
Post subject: 
I think EBD may have meant the "doses" to be no more than aspirin. There are definite references to Matey giving aspirin to a mistress (I think Kathy) to help her calm down and sleep - and it worked. So I assumed that Jack's doses were something similar (apart from that one reference to a syringe!) - and while it's not right to give someone any drug without knowledge or consent I didn't think it was as bad as if he was actually giving her benzodiazepines or barbiturates. (As apparently Britney's ex-manager was doing! Maybe he read the Chalet School!)

Aspirin has never had more than a pain-killing effect on me, but maybe it was different in those days!!
Author:  Jennie [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
Well, they didn't have the wide range of drugs then that we have now.

I always thought that Jack was sedating Jo.
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
I suppose it goes back to the Victorian idea of upper/upper-middle class women being "nervous" and using smelling salts to revive them or sedatives to calm them down - in Gone With The Wind Dr Meade says he'll mix his wife a sedative because he's so shocked when she asks him about the local brothel which he'd ended up in by accident :lol: - but the CS doctors go overboard!

I always thought that they were using sedatives rather than painkillers - e.g. when Sybil went missing Jem wanted Madge to be totally out of it so that she wouldn't be worrying.
Author:  Kate [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:53 pm ]
Post subject: 
I think my thoughts on the matter rest on the assumption that EBD didn't know an awful lot about what aspirin does!! ;)
Author:  Tor [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:03 pm ]
Post subject: 
Maybe the San was an early proponent of valium...
Author:  Mona [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:22 pm ]
Post subject: 
San and school both! Hilary Graves in Reunion, after they've been rescued from the lift at the Trummelbach Falls:

Quote:
Accosting the lady, she offered her a couple of tablets with the remark that her niece seemed to be badly unstrung and perhaps a little tranquilizer would do her good.


It gives the impression that Hilary, who is always presented as very jolly and not at all 'highly-strung', carries tranquilizers as a matter of course, which always struck me as slightly odd.
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:28 pm ]
Post subject: 
:shock: :shock: :shock:

Maybe they kept them for use on all those highly-strung girls they had?

In fact, maybe this explains why so many girls underwent personality changes at the school - it wasn't the school's wonderful influence, it was just that they were too drugged up to rebel.

I keep paracetamol in my handbag, I must admit ... but carrying tranquillisers about and offering them to a complete stranger really does seem very odd.
Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:18 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
:shock: :shock: :shock:

Maybe they kept them for use on all those highly-strung girls they had?

In fact, maybe this explains why so many girls underwent personality changes at the school - it wasn't the school's wonderful influence, it was just that they were too drugged up to rebel.


Dammit, I've just understood why the CS always had coloured glassware... Clearly a matter of camouflaging all the dissolved pills.

No wonder Joan Baker calmed down, forgot Vic Coles, and let her perm grow out.
Author:  Kate [ Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Mona wrote:
San and school both! Hilary Graves in Reunion, after they've been rescued from the lift at the Trummelbach Falls:

Quote:
Accosting the lady, she offered her a couple of tablets with the remark that her niece seemed to be badly unstrung and perhaps a little tranquilizer would do her good.


It gives the impression that Hilary, who is always presented as very jolly and not at all 'highly-strung', carries tranquilizers as a matter of course, which always struck me as slightly odd.

That is exactly why I think EBD's version of tranquillizers and ours isn't the same. Who carries tranquillizers? But nearly everyone carries paracetamol or aspirin. I really think she thought that they had a tranquillizing effect.
Author:  Róisín [ Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:00 pm ]
Post subject: 
Sunglass wrote:
Dammit, I've just understood why the CS always had coloured glassware... Clearly a matter of camouflaging all the dissolved pills.


ROFL!!! :rofl:
Author:  JackieP [ Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:36 pm ]
Post subject: 
Kate wrote:
That is exactly why I think EBD's version of tranquillizers and ours isn't the same. Who carries tranquillizers? But nearly everyone carries paracetamol or aspirin. I really think she thought that they had a tranquillizing effect.


That said - mix paracetamol or aspirin with a stiff drink and they probably do have a tranquillising effect... :roll:

JackieP
Author:  Lesley [ Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:00 pm ]
Post subject: 
Yes but due to the alcohol, not the medication. I get the impression that the 'dose' used by Matey, Jack and others was something with a tranquilising effect, rather than just an analgesic one.


ERA After some research I wonder if Veronal was used? It was available from 1904, was dissolvable in water/milk and was marketed as good for 'insomnia induced by nervous excitability'.
Author:  Elbee [ Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:10 pm ]
Post subject: 
Kate wrote:
That is exactly why I think EBD's version of tranquillizers and ours isn't the same. Who carries tranquillizers? But nearly everyone carries paracetamol or aspirin. I really think she thought that they had a tranquillizing effect.

I agree with Kate, it would be quite normal to carry aspirin or paracetamol. As a child in the 60s I had to have quite a lot of work done on my teeth, and my dentist always told my Mum to give me some aspirin before she brought me to the dentist, to help keep me calm. That was using it in the tranquilising/calming the nerves sense.
Author:  Katherine [ Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:26 pm ]
Post subject: 
I found thison pubmed. ". . . Our subjects reported improved quality of sleep with aspirin."

There is also talk about it having an antidiuretic effect which they use to account for the fact that those given aspirin slept for longer.

Perhaps constant doses of aspirin were the reason they never needed the loo.
:wink:
Author:  KatS [ Thu May 15, 2008 9:06 pm ]
Post subject: 
Sorry to resurrect old topic, but this just occurred to me...

There's much more extra-marital romance :shock: in American/Canadian GO lit - does anyone know if this reflected the reality of life or if it was just literary convention? I mean, would the CS girls really have gotten engaged that quickly? I'm trying to imagine Peggy Bettany dating... And what about Sybil? Isn't there some kind of reference to her being a "regular honeypot"?
Author:  Alison H [ Fri May 16, 2008 6:52 am ]
Post subject: 
When Josette writes to Len to tell her that Bride has got engaged - just after Peggy'd got engaged - she says that Jem'd said something to Madge about how Sybil'd be next because she was a "regular honeypot". Quite an embarrassing thing for a dad to say, but it's quite sweet to think of Jem being proud of Sybil, especially after the fuss everyone'd made about her being vain when she was younger!

Other than when fiancés are killed in the war, and Grizel's "relationship" with the man Deira eventually married which seems to've been all on Grizel's side anyway, no-one seems to have a relationship that doesn't work out. Juliet and Donal's relationship goes wrong, but then they make up. Although in Lorna at Wynyards we're told that Lorna's elder sister was dumped by a boyfriend who went off with someone else.

As far as pre-engagement dating goes, a lot of them marry men they already know well - Reg Entwistle was a family friend, Dick Bettany worked with Mollie's dad, Giles Winterton was Peggy's neighbour - but the couples must have "gone out" together, especially the people in the later books. I can imagine that people like the von Eschenaus might have thought it was unsuitable for their daughters to spend too much time alone with young men, even potential husbands, but surely not most families, especially later on. I'm sure that people like Daisy and Laurie must have gone out on dates. And Madge and Jem must have seen each other more often than we see in the books.

It'd actually be rather interesting to see how your average bloke reacted to some of the CS ideas!
Author:  jennifer [ Sat May 17, 2008 9:29 am ]
Post subject: 
There is an element of meet, instantly fall in love, marry, isn't there. :D

I think what is missing in the general description of courting is the idea of either of the participants having doubts about the romance. I was struck when reading EJO that, although they meet and marry quite quickly, the girls have doubts - about moving away from home, giving up a job or role they love, not being ready for romance, family problems, not being the right man. Aside from Joey's unwanted suitor I can't think of a case in CS land where a man expresses interest in a woman and she doesn't want him.

Offhand, I can think of examples in EJO, LM Montgomery, Coolidge, Alcott and the like where either a woman is chasing a man who doesn't want her, or a man is pursuing a woman who later rejects him, not to mention some dumping at the altar, or at the proposal.
Author:  patmac [ Sat May 17, 2008 4:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
I've just read this thread with interest and giggles :wink:

It's of particular interest to me at present as I'm struggling with getting Reg some 'sex education' as he is 17 and has no male relatives to help out - if they would have done of course.

I plucked up the courage to find out when talking to a friend recently - he's almost exactly the age Reg would have been and went to Public School and Oxford so was ideal for the discussion. A few glasses of wine later we were in stitches at the changes in ideas since his youth. What he knew about the female anatomy by the time he went to university was restricted to a dog-eared copy of Playboy one of his friends smuggled into school ,very daring as it came out in 1950 so was very new.

His actual 'sex education' came from talk with other boys and being put straight about an early infatuation by an older boy - I've nicked some of his story for VB :P - but he doesn't want a credit (I wonder why?)

When he came to 'date' a girl, he had to pick her up from home and deliver her back at the time specified by her parents AND disclose where they were going. Early dates were expected to be with a group of friends and no going off alone. Only if the relationship was seen to be 'serious' was there any relaxation in the 'courting' rules.

I think we can take it that most, if not all, CS eligible bachelors would had similar backgrounds so for most of the CS era, that is how they would have seen 'courting' - you just did not 'date' a girl on her own unless you were serious about her and the way you got to know her was via friends and family.

I do think EBD found it difficult to write about male/female relationships and, like most people here, the 'dosing' seems excessive and more than slightly wrong to me but I wonder if she had some knowledge of a marriage which seemed happy where that happened? After all, she must have got the idea from somewhere?
Author:  KB [ Sat May 17, 2008 11:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
jennifer wrote:
I think what is missing in the general description of courting is the idea of either of the participants having doubts about the romance. I was struck when reading EJO that, although they meet and marry quite quickly, the girls have doubts - about moving away from home, giving up a job or role they love, not being ready for romance, family problems, not being the right man. Aside from Joey's unwanted suitor I can't think of a case in CS land where a man expresses interest in a woman and she doesn't want him.


Not in CS land, but there is the story with Hugh and Allegra in Janie of La Rochelle. For those who haven't read it/have forgotten, a quick precis:

Allegra is in love with Hugh, but believes that because he looks at other girls, he isn't in love with her. 'Poor, jealous Allegra' breaks off the engagement, but is counselled by Janie, who is then confronted by Hugh himself. There is a typical behind closed doors scene before it's all straightened out and I always think it's a rather lovely - and very true - situation.
Author:  JayB [ Sun May 18, 2008 9:27 am ]
Post subject: 
I think what it comes down to is that EBD was writing in a genre in which romance and courtship don't have a natural place. When people pick up a CS book, they expect and want to read about prefects' meetings, prep, naughty Middles, staffroom conversations, new girls with problems, etc. Time spent on OGs' and mistresses' romances is time taken away from the school itself.

Some of the girls might have had doubts about their relationships; Sybil and Josette probably thought long and hard about marrying and settling down so far from family and friends. But the only way EBD could have described it within the framework of a typical CS story would have been to have Joey reading out a letter from Madge in the staffroom - and even then, Madge probably wouldn't have known all the details, or necessarily reported them to Joey. And that would have taken up a chapter which could have been devoted to school affairs.

After Joey left school, EBD seems to have been unsure for a while whether to keep the focus on the school or on the adult Joey. But from the second half of Exile she seems to have decided that the school would take centre stage - and that really precludes detailed descriptions of courtship and romance.
Author:  jennifer [ Mon May 19, 2008 3:11 am ]
Post subject: 
My mom was talking to an older lady she knows - she's in her 80s. She married quite young, straight out of her parents house, in an era when information about sex was restricted, and she had absolutely *no* idea what was going to happen on the wedding night. At one point she was up on the dresser in the corner of the bedroom while her new husband tried to coax her back down. :shock:
Author:  JS [ Mon May 19, 2008 10:44 am ]
Post subject: 
Sunglass wrote
Quote:
Bagging a doctor is a kind of post-education diploma for her favourite characters, and provides a supply of new characters.


Fantastic and succint summing up there, Sunglass!

I don't have a problem with Gillian Linton's romance and quick engagement. I know quite a lot of people who have done the same, so it seems quite realistic to me.

But on the question of love affairs that didn't work out, wasn't Lorna's (Wynards) sister broken-hearted after being let down? Or am I thinking of something else?

On EBD's romantic heroes/husbands - I don't recall ever 'fancying' any of them, whereas I felt really quite drawn to Sebastian in the early Sadlers Wells books! Actually, Phil Graves sounded okay, if I had to pick one of them.
Author:  Mona [ Mon May 19, 2008 10:55 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
On EBD's romantic heroes/husbands - I don't recall ever 'fancying' any of them, whereas I felt really quite drawn to Sebastian in the early Sadlers Wells books! Actually, Phil Graves sounded okay, if I had to pick one of them.

I picture Eugen Courvoisier as very French and dashing.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon May 19, 2008 10:56 am ]
Post subject: 
Lorna's sister Angel nearly died of a broken heart :roll: .

EBD does actually stress that Jack is "no matinee idol" ... the only men whom I recall actually being described as good-looking are Kurt and Wolfram von Eschenau and - although I can never think of him as such :lol: - Reg. I don't think we really get to know the male characters well enough for them to seem attractive in the way that Gilbert Blythe, Sebastian Scott, Guy Charlton and various other GO men do.

The CS books are unusual in that they're school stories in which adults - teachers, old girls and parents - do feature quite prominently, and maybe that's why there's a kind of grey area over romance and other "adult" themes. The later Abbey books don't revolve around school and so it seems quite natural for relationships to be discussed, and in books like the Malory Towers books people of marriageable age only play a minor role so it's never really an issue.

I'm sure some of the girls must have had crushes on some of the doctors though :wink: .
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Wed May 21, 2008 6:28 pm ]
Post subject: 
jennifer wrote:
My mom was talking to an older lady she knows - she's in her 80s. She married quite young, straight out of her parents house, in an era when information about sex was restricted, and she had absolutely *no* idea what was going to happen on the wedding night. At one point she was up on the dresser in the corner of the bedroom while her new husband tried to coax her back down. :shock:


But I remember my mother, now in her 80s, saying rather crossly, "Well, what do you think we got up to in parked cars?! Your generation thinks it invented sex!"
Author:  JayB [ Fri May 23, 2008 5:17 pm ]
Post subject: 
On the subject of romances that didn't work out, Grizel was severely depressed after Deira nicked the bloke she fancied.

(She'd also had all the bother of winding up the business while Deira swanned off on her honeymoon, but for someone as competent as Grizel that shouldn't have been enough to account for the state she was in on the voyage from NZ.)
Author:  Fleury [ Fri May 23, 2008 8:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
On the subject of romances that didn't work out, Grizel was severely depressed after Deira nicked the bloke she fancied.


Which book does this happen in? I know it happens but haven't yet read it.
Author:  Kate [ Fri May 23, 2008 8:56 pm ]
Post subject: 
Reunion, we hear about it in.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon May 26, 2008 7:05 am ]
Post subject: 
We're told that Len is really pleased when she realises that Grizel and Neil are getting together, because she's "as romantic as most girls of her age are" or words to that effect ... and yet at the same time it's considered very bad form for girls of her age to talk about they themselves liking boys/men.

Just following on from Anjali's comment in JayB's wonderful A Grey-Walled Paradise about Joey and her friends discussing marriage but the triplets and theirs not discussing "things like that", and also the point made in Emma A's wonderful Letters about Len not discussing the Reg issue with her best friend (Ted).

In Joey's day there isn't considered to be anything wrong with some of the older girls saying that they want to get married soon after leaving school, and no-one is surprised when Marie and Eugen get engaged because they'd realised that they were interested in each other. Marie drops a strong hint that she's realised that someone (although she doesn't actually give Jack's name) likes Joey, and when Madge gets engaged Joey says that she's been hoping for ages that she (Madge) and Jem will get together.

But by the end of the series we've got people being told that "we don't talk about things like that" for gossiping about Len and Reg (if it had been "It's none of your business" then it would have been understandable, but it wasn't put like that), and Len not discussing the situation with Reg with anyone outside the family (except Hilda!).

Sorry for waffling :oops: .
Author:  abbeybufo [ Mon May 26, 2008 10:08 am ]
Post subject: 
I think attitudes did change - it shows in EJO's books as well - although it may be that there was an element of the authors growing older and more 'prudish' too :lol:

But to be serious, it was quite matter-of-fact in the 20s and 30s to assume that women would get married if they could, and apart from the shortage of men after WWI, there weren't that many options [apart from teaching :roll: ] for them.

After WWII there seemed to be a reaction - particularly in UK; maybe against the US 'romantic' films - to try and keep children 'children' for longer than had been the case - school leaving age rose, too, to 14, then 15, then 16 over the 25 years after the end of the war [had been 12 pre-war, as long as you passed the school leaving exam].

So EBD would have been picking up [or her publishers were insisting on] the current attitude when discussing [or not!] such matters in the books.

[sorry I seem to have gone on for longer than intended, too :oops: ]
Author:  JS [ Mon May 26, 2008 11:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Just another example - and quite a realistic one too, I think. In Three Go, Mary Lou and Clem both discuss whether Miss Linton likes Peter Young - and even wonder if she's keeping him hanging on until he gets a picture in the Academy. Yet Mary-Lou then blushes a few years later about Joan Baker (hmm, class differences, I wonder..)

Also, remember in a Tyrol book (possibly Camp?) Joey being told off by, I think, Grizel, for being vulgar by mentioning the possibility that Juliet is thinking too much about Donal to be efficient, or words to that effect.
Author:  JayB [ Mon May 26, 2008 11:37 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
JayB's wonderful A Grey-Walled Paradise

:oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

Quote:
In Three Go, Mary Lou and Clem both discuss whether Miss Linton likes Peter Young - and even wonder if she's keeping him hanging on until he gets a picture in the Academy. Yet Mary-Lou then blushes a few years later about Joan Baker


Possibly it's an age difference. ML at ten doesn't know there's anything to be embarrassed about. She's still thinking in fairytale terms where the hero has to defeat the giant or somesuch in order to win the princess. ML at seventeen is, or should be, more aware.

Plus, we don't know exactly how explicit Joan Baker's talk about boys was. And there is a difference between discussing these things with another girl and discussing them with a much older man whom you regard as something of a surrogate father.
Author:  Sunglass [ Mon May 26, 2008 5:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
JayB wrote:
Plus, we don't know exactly how explicit Joan Baker's talk about boys was.


Well, based on evidence of Joan's behaviour, actual and implied, in the text, can we speculate on how explicit Joan's talk was? Presumably everyone formed some idea of the kind of thing that might have made Mary-Lou blush, even if, as JayB says, some of that embarrassment is a teenager mentioning such talk to an adopted uncle-figure? My own thought it that it's just a case of more of what we've already heard Joan actually say - that Saturday night dancing (the night they have paper games) wouldn't be much fun without boys, and elaborations on what she got up to with Vic Coles and the fish and chips. Maybe being conscious of her own attractiveness to men, and loudly resenting being in an all-female community of 'old maids' who couldn't get a man etc etc.
Author:  JayB [ Mon May 26, 2008 6:05 pm ]
Post subject: 
I should think the least Joan and Vic would have got up to was some snogging in shop doorways or under the railway arches. Vic's hands probably wandered to places they shouldn't. If Joan described it all in detail, and talked about how much further Vic wanted to go, I should think that would be enough to embarrass a good Chalet School girl.
Author:  tiffinata [ Mon May 26, 2008 10:20 pm ]
Post subject: 
Dosing- Was Laudanum still around in the 1930's?
If not, what other opiate might have replaced it?
Also didn't Freud support the idea that women were more likely to become hysterical and should be sedated? *struggling to remember where I read it*

As for romance- I guess most of the blokes would have asked the girls father before asking her to marry them!
Also if you went out as a group of friends you usually had your mate's brothers/sisters.
Could this be why so many people(in real life) appeared to marry the girl/boy next door? Or married someone they met at a dance?

Some men didn't start 'going out' with girls until the hormones hit.
What better way to get a girl into bed than suggest they get married? (personally know a few from three different generations)

But then again, that wouldn't have happened in EBD's day, now would it! :wink:
Author:  Anjali [ Tue May 27, 2008 10:04 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Possibly it's an age difference. ML at ten doesn't know there's anything to be embarrassed about. She's still thinking in fairytale terms where the hero has to defeat the giant or somesuch in order to win the princess. ML at seventeen is, or should be, more aware.


That's a good explanation....I agree that Mary-Lou at 17 might find some things harder to talk about than she did at 10! I find everyone's comments about how the war, american movies etc changed attitudes towards children being 'children' very interesting, as it's not an era and place I know a lot about...
Author:  charmkat [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
The biggest thing that is glaringly absent in terms of romance/love etc has to centre around EBDs main character - Joey. One moment she is escaping the Nazis, the next she is a married and pregnant (though of course the pregnancy is never mentioned). WHERE are the details about the wedding? We never know anything about Joey and Jack's nuptials at all. (We at least get some description of Madge's wedding).
The strange thing is as well that once Joey is married the character suddenly seems to lose her identity completely, she never seems to be the same person again to me. I have read all the Chalet series but for me the books are never the same once you reach the part in "Exile" where Joey is now a married woman. The Tyrol stories are, in essence, the 'real' Chalet books.
Author:  andydaly [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
Agree with you wholeheartedly that the Tyrol books were the "real" Chalet School books!

I think we never see anything of Joey's romance or marriage simply because EBD assumed her readers weren't interested! There's a passage in one of the books where someone is having a hard time, and is given a quiet place to sit down and one of the JMB books to read. It describes the character, who I think would be in her early teens, so presumably EBDs target audience, squirming a bit at the romantic scenes, and skipping over them on to the real story.

As an adult reader, yes, I want to know about things like pregnancy and marriage because I'm getting an interesting look into domestic life in the fifties, but as a younger reader, I'd probably have skipped over them.
Author:  macyrose [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
Considering Jo is the main character of the series I would think her wedding would be the one that readers would be interested in. After all we're given discriptions of Madge's wedding as well Bernhilda's and even Marie Pfeiffen's.
Author:  MJKB [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
macyrose wrote:
Considering Jo is the main character of the series I would think her wedding would be the one that readers would be interested in.


This came up before in another thread, and I believe there is a chapter in the hb that deals with Joey's wedding. Re ML's embarrassment, I think that's quite common where teenagers are concerned. I asked my 14 year old had she been asked up to dance at her first disco a couple of weeks ago and when she was through making sick noises she informed me that subjects like that were off limits. Believe me, I was always very open with her
Author:  macyrose [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
MJKB wrote:
Quote:
I believe there is a chapter in the hb that deals with Joey's wedding

The chapter is Hey For England where Jo and Jack talk about their upcoming wedding but we still don't see it. I remember the other thread and some thoughts were that it might not have been shown because of Jo and Jack having different religions or it might have slowed down the action. I still think it would have been nice to read at least a few paragraphs about the wedding. Or Jo could have reminisced about it in a few sentances to one of her friends (and only mention that they were married in church, not specifying which one).
Author:  Sunglass [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Themes: Romance and Love
It occurs to me that while there are numerous weddings described in the series, they're never from the point of view of the bride, but either from a general third-person point of view, or from the point of view of a spectator - Bernhilda's, Simone's, Daisy's, Grizel's etc. Presumably EBD, with her very sacramental and idealistic view of the marriage ceremony, would have felt it was inappropriate to enter into a bride's private thoughts during the wedding ...? I think this is part of the reason she chose not to write Joey's - Joey is so much her favourite character that it would have felt very odd to be shown her wedding from a point of view other than Joey's own, yet it would have been such a change of tone from breezy, joky, pre-flight Joey to the kind of 'Bernhilda pale with emotion swaying down the aisle in a veil' thing that EBD seems to do with weddings.

I also think that it's true that if, as seems likely, Joey would not have had anywhere near enough time to receive instruction and convert to Catholicism during her engagement, EBD realised that this would have meant a somewhat attenuated church ceremony (at that time - I believe now a 'mixed' marriage can have a full nuptial mass, though some dioceses recommend not), with various awkward-sounding dispensations etc. It does feel like rather a gap, though, but I can see why she didn't do it.
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