The CBB :: View topic - School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction

GO books generally show boarding schools as really great places where the only people who don't have a good time are characters we're meant to dislike, such as Gwendoline Mary and Thekla.

That's why the Drina thing was such a shocker - I mean, she was the heroine but she hated boarding school :shock:

I would expect at least one character to be pleasant to Rusty.

I'm not convinced a self-confident nonconformist like Rusty would have got on very well at the CS, either, which also requires conformity to the idea of the 'real CS girl'...? ... I wonder how Joey/Hilda would have tackled her?

I think Malory Towers starts off with a similar system, doesn't it?

The younger one likes his school too, but the food is not much good and he has become very thin!

I remember my cousin had to stay in a boarding school for 3 weeks and we had gone to drop her there. The dormitories with bunk beds and the house system.

I ...never found out if Rebecca finished school. Does any one know?

I wonder if boarding school are really as depicted in fiction. Can the CBBers who have studied in boarding school give thier opinion?

The ultimate non-GO boarding school book is Charlotte Sometimes, which is brilliant. The school (schools I suppose) look quite bleak, but it's not a 'everybody's evil and hates me' scenario like in Back Home.

It's been a while since I read Charlotte Sometimes, but I didn't think her modern school looked bleak - her unhappiness there was of her own choosing. Her historical school, on the other hand, did seem pretty awful, although a lot of that seemed to stem from the tyranny of Matron... (hmmm... tyrannical matrons... what a novel concept! :lol:

)

I'm trying to think of a CS character who was a deliberate rule-breaker like Rusty was (I feel sorry for Rusty, but, as Nightwing says, she seemed determined not to fit in).

I think Malory Towers starts off with a similar system, doesn't it? Although by the last few books it seems to have been forgotten (or maybe it was just of no real interest to me when I read the books!)

I could never firgure the numbers out either - in the first book there were ten girls in North Tower first form dormitory, so there must have been about forty girls in the whole form!

And there are new girls too, as the series goes on, but no-one seems to leave. I get the impresion that if the other houses grew at the same rate, there must have been about sixty girls in the form by the last book!

That whole numbers thing came between me and my sleep. The worst EBDism simply don't compare with it. Having started out with the separate towers, which is one of the best features of the book, why on earth did she not work out the maths correctly, it couldn't have been that hard!

. this would also work with In the Fifth's pantomime plotline, where the committee is almost entirely comprised of North Tower girls after a democratic vote.

Fortunately the 1989 Children's Act stopped that sort of thing and there are requirements these days for the amount of personal space each pupil must have and bunk beds are generally outlawed. I imagine a lot of the "old" boarding schools had to do a lot of reorganisation to fit in with the new requirements.

It's interesting how the story-lines in comics evolved, presumably to be more 'accessible' to 70s girls. In my era of Schoolfriend and Girls' Crystal the stories were vintage GO with honourable girls at boarding school such as The Silent Three who dressed in robes and masks to Right Wrongs.

I'm sure Jennings can't be GO

but I loved those as a child, and they still make me smile (oh, be honest, laugh, then). And no-one has yet mentioned Heryot from the Elfrida Vipont books - although I suppose those are GO, really. Truly excellent reads.
I'm sure Jennings can't be GO

Does anyone remember the 1970s girls' comics, like Jinty, Sandie, Tammy and the like?

I was also puzzled as a child by the ages of the girls in St Clare's. If girls entered the first form at 14, I reasoned that there would be 16 year-olds in the second form, and couldn't understand how the fifth form, at 17, would refer to the first and seconds as 'babies'. I haven't read the Pamela Cox fill-ins - how has she handled this?

The Common Entrance Examinations are set by the Independent Schools Examination Board, for entry at age 11+ (normally for girls and boys in year six), or at age 13+ (normally for girls and boys in year eight) to UK independent schools.... In England and Wales a preparatory school, or prep school in current usage, is an independent school designed to prepare a pupil for fee-paying, secondary independent school. The age range is normally eight to 11 or 13, although it may include younger pupils as well.... A public school (in the independent sense) usually teaches children from the ages of 11 or 13 (the latter being the traditional age at which boys moved from prep school to public school, although many now move at 11) to 18.

I used to love Bunty, Mandy and (I think) Debbie in the early 80s.

Quote:

No boarding school element, but I loved Valda. Was that in Mandy?

Just for something totally different, how about the boarding school which Becky and Amelia leave at the beginning of Vanity Fair, where there were only 20-odd pupils, they were supposed to learn art, music, dancing and embroidery as well as whatever academic work they did, and a lot of emphasis was put on being able to speak French? Is it anything like the early Chalet School was, over 100 years later - maybe more like the early CS than a modern school, another 80 years on, would be?

Three modern boarding school books I loved are by John Marsden called So Much to Tell You, Take my Word for it and The Great Gatenby. All 3 are written by an ex-boarding school teacher. The Great Gatenby is more of a send up or a very light-hearted look at boarding schools.

JayB thanks for the recommendation! I've found it and downloaded it, just read the first three stories and am hooked

'You will end up as a Girl Guide Leader in a suburb like Corstorphine,' she said warningly to Eunice, who was in fact secretly attracted to this idea and who lived in Corstorphine.

'Phrases like 'the team spirit' are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties', she had said. 'Ideas like 'the team spirit', ' she said, 'ought not to be enjoined on the female sex... Florence Nightingale knew nothing of the team spirit, her mission was to save life regardless of the team to which it belonged....

But what really blew my mind about the novel when I first read it in my teens, were all those shattering flash-forwards about the schoolgirls' futures - like we're told in chapter two that one of the main characters is going to die horribly in a fire in Camberwell aged 24! I was shocked! It would be like introducing Elisaveta in Princessand saying almost immeidately something like 'Unfortunately, her time at the Chalet School was to be the happiest of Elisaveta's life - after the invasion of Belsornia in WWII meant the royals had to flee, her husband was killed in action and she had to scrub floors to support her children.' :shock:

Anne Digby has similar prescience in her Trebizon books - "Rebecca could not know it but the unhappiest days of her life were about to follow" - and it always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

Author:	Lottie [ Wed Jun 03, 2009 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:	School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Although we’re all familiar with the boarding schools depicted by authors such as EBD, EJO and DFB, there are schools in other stories, too. Thomas Hughes wrote about Rugby School in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and Charlotte Bronte based Jane Eyre’s experiences at Lowood school on her own schooldays at the Clergy Daughters’ School (now Casterton) in Lancashire. Both schools are still flourishing, so there obviously haven’t been too many negative influences from the books. Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did at School and Charles Tritten’s Heidi Grows Up both have boarding schools, but they are earlier, and so slightly different from the classic school stories from the first half of the twentieth century. Agatha Christie used a much more familiar style of boarding school in Cat Among the Pigeons, although it’s definitely not a school story. What do you think about these, and other, boarding schools in fiction?

Author:	JS [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I like the boarding school scenes in the Drina books - both at Chalk Green and in Switzerland. Having read Blyton and EBD boarding school depictions before reading Drina, I had expectations about what it would be like and I suppose I thought Drina would like it. I think she would have hated the CS too! I think that, as a boarding school, there are things I'd like about going to Hogwarts - the squashy beds, big fireplaces and the idea of the private-ish common room in particular. For me, you could lose the house system and probably the magic! It's funny, and I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but in some adult fiction talking about someone, usually a troubled character, as having been 'sent' to boarding school at an early age can be a method of making you feel sorry for the character. Not sure why this should work on me (and it does) given that, as a child, I'd have loved to go to the CS or MT. I also love Cat Among the Pigeons - another school it would have been nice to attend, ideally without so many murders... I can see Julia Upton settling in very nicely to the CS and possibly being a friend of Jo Scott's.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:24 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I'd love to've gone to the school in What Katy Did At School (so long as I got my own washing facilities, of course, although I did feel very sorry for the headmistress when Mr Carr disrupted the school's arrangements like that!). I suppose the likes of Lilly Page would've looked down on me , but never mind. Jane Eyre/Charlotte Bronte's experiences are very interesting. I know that the people at the school insisted at the time that it was nothing like it was depicted in the book, but, realistically speaking, it's likely that pupils at a charitable foundation for orphans from poor families may have had a much less pleasant time than pupils at a fee-paying school for people from wealthy families, and that's even without taking into account the religious extremist element. GO books generally show boarding schools as really great places where the only people who don't have a good time are characters we're meant to dislike, such as Gwendoline Mary and Thekla. It's interesting to see different viewpoints in books like Jane Eyre and Tom Brown's Schooldays.

Author:	JS [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:15 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Quote: GO books generally show boarding schools as really great places where the only people who don't have a good time are characters we're meant to dislike, such as Gwendoline Mary and Thekla. That's why the Drina thing was such a shocker - I mean, she was the heroine but she hated boarding school

Author:	Lottie [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:19 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
JS wrote: That's why the Drina thing was such a shocker - I mean, she was the heroine but she hated boarding school I agree that Drina hated the restrictions which were imposed by her Swiss boarding school, but I always got the impression that she actually liked Chalk Green once she'd settled down and made some friends there.

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School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6147

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 1:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
The one that comes to my mind if Michelle Magorian's Back Home, written in 1985 but set just after the end of WWII. The heroine is an English girl returning from having been evacuated to the US and who is traumatised on returning to a war-battered country she hardly remembers and parents she hardly knows. She's sent to be a weekly boarder at Benwood House. You get her completely uncomphrehending view of traditional English boarding school customs - the uniforms, house system, prefects, slang rules, order marks etc. Rusty becomes a general outcast because of her freer American ways and lack of deference to school ways, and the girls bully Rusty by drenching her bed and putting stones in her food, while the mistresses confiscate her photos of her US family and despise her accent and her US education. It's interesting to compare Rusty's hostile response to the school, which she finds unfriendly, restrictive and physically miserable, with even the most rebellious of CS new girls, who almost all bow to the goodness of the CS system. Benwood House isn't a Stereotypical Villainous School over all, though it's not idealised like the CS. Magorian hints at the other girls' and mistresses' resentment of someone who hasn't herself lived through the hardships of war, and who defensively clings to her 'American' identity, is critical of Britain and the school, and is visibly taller, in much better health and better dressed (in conspicuously US clothes) than the other girls of her age. It makes me realise how much EBD idealises her perfect school, which never seems to suffer severely from wartime restrictions in food and fuel, or to have serious tensions between pupils of different nationalities. And the CS Matron and staff are practically psychic, whereas the Benwood House matron remains unaware of Rusty's sleepwalking and only responds to her increasing thinness by dosing her with laxative, and the numerous talks with the Head and her form mistress just end in her being told to conform. I suppose the difference is that in Back Home, we take the sympathetic main character's side against the system, and we're outraged when she's expelled, for being 'deceitful, wild and boy-mad', when all she's done is not conform, and meet a fellow US evacuee from a nearby boys' school. She ends up happily at one of the progressive schools EBD would probably have hated - no uniform, co-ed, study what you like, hardly any rules!

Author:	Mel [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I read that one too, Sunglass, and though it is a good read, especially about post-war Britain, I find her take on boarding school too extreme. With EBD you have - this is my school that I made up which is wonderful in every respect, even the food and uniform. Wouldn't you like to go there? With Magorian it is more - this is a real boarding school full of snobby girls and unfeeling staff. Wouldn't you hate to go there? I would expect at least one character to be pleasant to Rusty. Even her parents are terrible - though her mother improves.

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:35 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Mel wrote: I would expect at least one character to be pleasant to Rusty. I think the thing I thought was appallingly realistic about that was the recognition among the more vulnerable/less popular girls, like the scholarship girl who's looked down on as a charity case, was that being seen to be on good terms with Rusty is potentially damaging to them because it pulls them even further down the pecking order, so they don't dare befriend her - very un-CS. I don't myself see Back Home as a terribly anti-boarding school novel - I think that lots of what Rusty finds unbearable about it is down to a postwar US/UK culture clash. She's not used to unheated rooms, rationed food and drabness, and she's also become socialised into an environment where self-expression and individuality are encouraged much more, so for both the girls and the mistresses she's too loud, naive, over-talkative about her own concerns and how much better America is, insufficiently deferential etc etc. I'm not convinced a self-confident nonconformist like Rusty would have got on very well at the CS, either, which also requires conformity to the idea of the 'real CS girl'...? She'd have complained loudly at any of those incidents where a mistress behaved unfairly because of 'toothache', been baffled at deference to prefects and curtsying, got a million fines for slang, and would probably have broken bounds all the time. I wonder how Joey/Hilda would have tackled her?

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I haven't read the book but she sounds like an extrovert Samantha Van Der Byl (?). Sammantha doesn't appear over enamoured of the school, she misses her American breakfast and doesn't comment positively on the food in general and she, and rightly so in my opinion, resents Miss Ferris's censure of her English. She's not so not into enormous dogs bowling her over and licking her face, and if memory serves me right, she 's not that keen on games. In Two Sams you get the impression that Samaris is the nicer and more representative CS girl, and signs on she is the one who is mentioned in subesequent books.

Author:	Tara [ Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:51 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Jane Gardam's Bilgewater and Rosemary Wells' The Fog Comes On Little Pig Feet (both 1976) are interesting as set in traditional , though not at all idealised, boarding schools at a time when they were very out of fashion. Haven't time to discuss in detail (going on holiday tomorrow and have to repack as I can't close my case ), but I'm sure lots of other people know them.

Author:	Nightwing [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:16 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Sunglass wrote: I'm not convinced a self-confident nonconformist like Rusty would have got on very well at the CS, either, which also requires conformity to the idea of the 'real CS girl'...? ... I wonder how Joey/Hilda would have tackled her? You know, if anyone wants to write a drabble about Rusty at the CS... One thing that interests me in, say Harry Potter is the house system, which not only physically but also psychologically divides the student body. I've seen a couple of real schools which do this, usually because the schools are so large that it's necessary to divide everyone into much smaller groups. In Harry Potter the coming together of a divided group of students to fight evil is an important theme, but in real life I wonder how much competition it causes within the school? I think Malory Towers starts off with a similar system, doesn't it? Although by the last few books it seems to have been forgotten (or maybe it was just of no real interest to me when I read the books!)

Author:	Sunglass [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:20 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Nightwing wrote: I think Malory Towers starts off with a similar system, doesn't it? I think Malory Towers being divided into towers is more of a kind of boarding house phenomenon, if I'm remembering rightly...? The girls just eat and sleep in their own towers, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of 'House Cup'-type competition between them. Of course, EBD doesn't really do inter-House competitive spirit either - my sense is that she wouldn't approve of anything that caused divisions within the general school spirit. Incidentally, I know the 'separateness' of the CS houses comes and goes, but do we know whether the triplets are in the same house? I think in some v. trad GO stories I've read, sisters were put together. I've thought of two other boarding schools in adult contemporary fiction - two progressive co-ed rural English schools saturated with sex, sadism and snobbery ( ) - in Barbara Trapido's Juggling and Amanda Craig's A Private Place. Two very good novels, but quite grim dog-eat-dog schools, and GO fans (especially Hilda fans!) may be freaked out to find Amanda Craig depicting a Headmaster at the start of term assembly who is actually afraid of his own semi-feral pupils! I'm assuming someone somewhere has done a 'CS goes co-ed' drabble...? I was thinking of the Richardson boys showing up, much male complaining about the crimson revers and dainty touches of white on the male CS uniform, and Roger coaching a CS women's rugby team, in which 'big' Joan Baker shines as a brilliant centre forward, and captures RR's heart and the undying admiration of the rest of the school...

Author:	mohini [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:03 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
As a child I used to dream of going to Mallory Towers. Somehow I did not get the same feeling for St.Clares or CS. We usually did not have boarding schools in our country for general population.The schools that were there were for children of the English residents who liven in India in pre-independence period and children of rich and famous. So to read about the schools was thrilling.Specially about the midnight parties and houses and dormitories. I like the Boarding system of Enid Blyton more because her characters were not always good. I cannot imagine that in any schoo,l all mistresses will be just and not have favorites and have weak points be always right. And most of the stories which I have read stresses on the good points of boarding school not the dark secrets. This conveys a wrong meaning in reader's like me. I remember my cousin had to stay in a boarding school for 3 weeks and we had gone to drop her there. The dormitories with bunk beds and the house system. But the food was so bad and the girls were not good that she left the school in 3 weeks I wonder if boarding school are really as depicted in fiction. Can the CBBers who have studied in boarding school give thier opinion?

Author:	Margaret [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:33 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Mhohini wrote: I wonder if boarding school are really as depicted in fiction. Can the CBBers who have studied in boarding school give thier opinion?[/quote] Although I didn't go to boarding school, Mohini, my son and two daughters did. The son's school sounded more like Tom Brown's School Days than anything else, but when offered the chance to leave after GSCSs he wouldn't, despite having grumbled incessantly about the place. The food sounded great, though again he kept on and on about how awful it was. The two daughters went to Casterton (mentioned above), and although it wasn't as wonderful as the Chalet School,with everyone friends with everyone else, they always say how great it was, and how they enjoyed themselves, they also looked forward to going back at the beginning of term, so it can't wholly be rose tinted specs! They too grumbled about the food, but also came home with lots of ideas for meals which they had enjoyed. I think that grumbling about food is the tradition, though also food varies from school to school.

Author:	keren [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:25 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I read the CS and dreamt of going to boarding school. I indeed did go to boarding school in Israel and it was just like the chalet school, to the extetnt of having a school ethos etc. My sons attend boadring school too. The oldest is just leaving and very sorry to do so, he had a wonderful time, CS like too. The younger one likes his school too, but the food is not much good and he has become very thin!

Author:	Alison H [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
keren wrote: The younger one likes his school too, but the food is not much good and he has become very thin! Do they take adults?!!

Author:	JayB [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
My day grammar school had houses and house competitions when I was there in the late '60s. It was only founded in 1955, but it was run on quite traditional, even old-fashioned, lines. I think in boarding school fiction, houses and house activities are a useful device for providing conflict and tension in a relatively closed society where it might otherwise be difficult to do so. House rivalry plays a significant part in the plots of at least two of DFB's Springdale books, and in Clare Mallory's Juliet Overseas. And also in Harry Potter, of course. I suppose the lack of house activities at the CS may be partly due to EBD's general lack of interest in games, and also because with hobbies, the Sale, the Play, excursions, winter sports etc. it would be difficult to fit in anything else.

Author:	hac61 [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:30 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
mohini wrote: I remember my cousin had to stay in a boarding school for 3 weeks and we had gone to drop her there. The dormitories with bunk beds and the house system. I remember seeing a programme about Roedean, years and years ago, and being absolutely horrified by the number of bunk beds they crammed into rooms. Fortunately the 1989 Children's Act stopped that sort of thing and there are requirements these days for the amount of personal space each pupil must have and bunk beds are generally outlawed. I imagine a lot of the "old" boarding schools had to do a lot of reorganisation to fit in with the new requirements. hac

Author:	Kathy_S [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I think my two favorite boarding school books as a kid were The Secret Language (Ursula Nordstrom) and Best Friends at School (Mary Bard). In Nordstrom, they actually introduce bunk beds to give the students more space! Of course they only had two girls per room. Most of what I now see as standard features in English boarding school books were absent, and I confess I'd have thought some of the practices as ancient history from, say, the time of Jane Eyre. Possibly the book that came closest was a young adult novel, And Both Were Young (Madeleine L'Engle), which portrays a Swiss boarding school not quite as bleak as in L'Engle's autobiographical works, since, in the end, the heroine does adapt somewhat. I'd characterize the school portrayed in Back Home as a nightmare! Rusty would still have suffered at the postwar CS, but I doubt she'd have been subjected to such unremitting nastiness from girls and mistresses, and there'd at least have been Guides and Hobbies, plus adequate bedding and a competent matron. I also doubt that pictures of her American family and asking workmen about tuckpointing would have been considered such heinous offenses, since the CS only objected to boys as objects of too-early-romance, not as people. One thing I've wondered w/ regard to Rusty's language is what an English girl would use instead of a Rusty's reflexive OK. I can't think of a true synonym!

Author:	trig [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
I taught at a state run boarding school in Norfolk for a while (a couple of years ago) and absolutely loved it. Although it was (and still is) a state school (lots of forces kids there), and so parents only had to pay board, it tried as hard as possible to be like a public school with houses and lots (LOTS) of sport. I found the ethos, in a modern, co-educational boarding school still a lot like I imagined the CS to be. If you are out-going, like sport, and are keen to do lots of extra curricular things, you loved it, otherwise you were looked upon as a kind of oddity. I stopped because the amount of free time staff who had boarding duties got off was very minimal and my SLOC and kids never saw me. There would have been no chance of meeting a doctor, let alone dating him! THe nearest possibility would be the violin teacher... I graduated from MT and ST Clare's to Trebizon books, popular in 80s and 90s, and these seemed quite realistic at the time. There was a lot more meeting boys and having crushes on sexy tennis coaches than in traditional GO literature, but once you think about the plot lines, allowing for the modern setting, they were very similar, work and sport worries, friendship worries, teachers not being good etc. I lost track of them when I went to Uni, and never found out if Rebecca finished school. Does any one know?

Author:	Lottie [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
trig wrote: I ...never found out if Rebecca finished school. Does any one know? I think the last one, so far, finishes with Rebecca's GCSE results, which are good enough to take her into the sixth form. I'm sure I've heard rumours that Anne Digby is thinking of writing some more, so we might find out, eventually, what Rebecca does after she leave school.

Author:	Loryat [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
The ultimate non-GO boarding school book is Charlotte Sometimes, which is brilliant. The school (schools I suppose) look quite bleak, but it's not a 'everybody's evil and hates me' scenario like in Back Home. Actually I don't think MM is a very good writer and she seems to revel in cruelty and unkindness. Another book which is an adult book, No Talking After Lights presents boarding school in a similar sort of light. Basically the girls in these books view their schools the same way I viewed my school (which was a state school); I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, and when I left I felt a bit sad! The house system in Harry Potter, when you first read it, is quite enchanting, the idea of a magic hat which chooses your house for you and all the passwords and everything, but when you read it again it's quite sinister: children of eleven being psychologically and morally analysed and then marked out forever as being a certain sort of person. I think JKR realised this herself, later on.

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
mohini wrote: I wonder if boarding school are really as depicted in fiction. Can the CBBers who have studied in boarding school give thier opinion? I went as a ten year old to a convent boarding school in the sixties. The setting of the school was absolutely stunning, a castle like building overlooking the sea. It was extremely strict, there was definitely a sense of 'them and us' which had the positive effect of creating a real sense of comaderie among the girls. I can't remember any 'bitchiness' of nasty, bullying behaviour. Some of the nuns were fantastic (sadly a minority), others were barking! The food was awful, really awful. Accomodation was pretty good though if, unlike me, you were a senior. They had their own bedroom. I enjoyed the experience and feel it was very good for me. Often wish I'd finished my education there.

Author:	Nightwing [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Loryat wrote: The ultimate non-GO boarding school book is Charlotte Sometimes, which is brilliant. The school (schools I suppose) look quite bleak, but it's not a 'everybody's evil and hates me' scenario like in Back Home. It's been a while since I read Charlotte Sometimes, but I didn't think her modern school looked bleak - her unhappiness there was of her own choosing. Her historical school, on the other hand, did seem pretty awful, although a lot of that seemed to stem from the tyranny of Matron... (hmmm... tyrannical matrons... what a novel concept! ) I also think that in Back Home Rusty's problem was that she didn't only not fit in but that she didn't want to. Not that I'm saying everyone should change who they are to fit in, but she was pretty determined not to fit in. No matter how contemporary her new school was, I still doubt she would have been perfectly happy there, either.

Author:	Alison H [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Clare's schooldays (as opposed to Charlotte's schooldays) in Charlotte Sometimes were during the First World War, and I think some of the bleakness stemmed from food shortages and other wartime restrictions - but the place did sound pretty grim anyway! I'm trying to think of a CS character who was a deliberate rule-breaker like Rusty was (I feel sorry for Rusty, but, as Nightwing says, she seemed determined not to fit in). Various people committed serious breaches of rules as one-offs, e.g. Juliet & co with the film crew, or Grizel running off to climb the Tiernjoch, or committed more minor breaches of rules/etiquette , e.g. Jessica Wayne refusing to finish her meals or Joan Baker wearing make-up, but no-one really did things like repeatedly sneaking off to meet friends or relatives outside school - whereas in Malory Towers and St Clare's they did.

Author:	Loryat [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Nightwing wrote: It's been a while since I read Charlotte Sometimes, but I didn't think her modern school looked bleak - her unhappiness there was of her own choosing. Her historical school, on the other hand, did seem pretty awful, although a lot of that seemed to stem from the tyranny of Matron... (hmmm... tyrannical matrons... what a novel concept! ) I suppose you don't really see much of the modern school, but actually you're right, it's not really that bad especially once she makes friends with Elizabeth. I was mainly thinking of the inititation rite in the drmitory. The wartime school is not that bed either really. The bleakness mainly comes from the wartime setting and the family Charlotte and Emily live with. Did anyone know that The Cure have a song called 'Charlotte Sometimes' which actually quotes the book? Apparently they have to pay Penelope Farmer roylaties!

Author:	Kathy_S [ Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:20 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Alison H wrote: I'm trying to think of a CS character who was a deliberate rule-breaker like Rusty was (I feel sorry for Rusty, but, as Nightwing says, she seemed determined not to fit in). I don't think she becomes a "deliberate rule breaker" until she's pretty well broken down. She starts out trying hard to be friendly, but is snubbed and ridiculed at every turn. I seriously doubt that trying harder would have been much help, given the continuing persecution of the scholarship girl who's been trying desperately to fit in for four years. It would be bad enough dealing with acute homesickness and the larger scale inescapable culture shock of totally different sports and academic subjects and physical conditions, plus the emotional toll of being considered an outsider who "missed the war." Instead, she's constantly harangued or punished for what she's been taught since the age of seven are perfectly correct behaviors or even acts of common courtesy. I still enjoy the book, but mainly because it does end happily, thanks largly to Beatie and to Rusty's mother's awakening.

Author:	Mel [ Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:08 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Back Home isn't really a school story, so Magorian doesn't feel obliged to make it sound good - even for the other girls. If it was GO surely there would be a charismatic Head who would eventually sort out Rusty?Think of Madge, Hilda, Miss Grayling, Miss Theobald, Miss Yorke etc. The Heads at Trebizon, Tremaines and especially Hogwarts are all spectacular too!

Author:	Fiona Mc [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Three modern boarding school books I loved are by John Marsden called So Much to Tell You, Take my Word for it and The Great Gatenby. All 3 are written by an ex-boarding school teacher. The Great Gatenby is more of a send up or a very light-hearted look at boarding schools. So Much to Tell You is the diary of a girl who hasn't spoken in a year and was sent to boarding school from a psych hospital. It's pretty amazing as with it's sequel Take my Word for it. Tends to look at boarding schools pretty realistically, with a balance of good and bad and reflects what I remember school being like in general with the boarding bit added in. I also love Clare Mallory's boarding school books though don't understand the whole, house first, school second motto she seems to have. Do love her characters and wished she had of written more.

Author:	Tor [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:11 am ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
There are an awful lot of books mentioned here that I haven't read! Following on from the other suggestions/recommendations made in the related thread in Anything Else a few weeks back, this makes a lovely long list of post-thesis reading! However, from reading the plot summaries and dsicussion so far, I think it is really interesting (though probably not one of the worlds greatest literary insights ) to contrast the representation of boarding school in GO and non-GO books. Generally, I think, it seems that non-GO books tend towards negative representation and GO books positive. Now, how does a book become classified as GO? Would a negative boarding school representation, perhaps, preclude it from that category? Or at least push it to the edge of the classificatory area. I am never completely sure of the remit of GO - for instance, is The Little Princess a GO book? I'd say that didn't exactly give schools a glowing reference! I haven't re-read What Katy did at School since childhood, but I am sure I don't remember it as being a nice school! I mostly remember the fireplace of someone's home being planted with marigolds in summer, and the whole personal wash basin storyline. More modern books are certainly less likely to give an un-nuanced version of a classic 'school spirit'. But contemporary, and earlier, literature (like The Little Princess, or Jane Eyre, for instance) indicate that it isn't just modern sensibilities that account for this.

Author:	Margaret [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:13 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Some quite delightful boarding school stories, which are on the 'rosey' end of realistic are the trillogy by William Mayne on the Cathedral Choir school, Cathedral Wednesday, Choristers' Cake and A Swarm in May.

Author:	Selena [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Nightwing wrote: I think Malory Towers starts off with a similar system, doesn't it? Although by the last few books it seems to have been forgotten (or maybe it was just of no real interest to me when I read the books!) The problem with the house system in Malory Towers is that all the main characters, except Alicia's friend Betty, are in the same house. EB has no reason to write about any of the other houses. I could never firgure the numbers out either - in the first book there were ten girls in North Tower first form dormitory, so there must have been about forty girls in the whole form! And there are new girls too, as the series goes on, but no-one seems to leave. I get the impresion that if the other houses grew at the same rate, there must have been about sixty girls in the form by the last book!

Author:	MJKB [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
Selena wrote: I could never firgure the numbers out either - in the first book there were ten girls in North Tower first form dormitory, so there must have been about forty girls in the whole form! And there are new girls too, as the series goes on, but no-one seems to leave. I get the impresion that if the other houses grew at the same rate, there must have been about sixty girls in the form by the last book! That whole numbers thing came between me and my sleep. The worst EBDism simply don't compare with it. Having started out with the separate towers, which is one of the best features of the book, why on earth did she not work out the maths correctly, it couldn't have been that hard! Did no one ever edit her books? There's another incalcuable in St Clares. The twins start off as 14 year olds in the first form, and there are even some 15 year olds! Yet, the sixth form girls are only 18. Where did they lose the year?

Author:	Nightwing [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: School:Representations of boarding schools in non-GO fiction
MJKB wrote: That whole numbers thing came between me and my sleep. The worst EBDism simply don't compare with it. Having started out with the separate towers, which is one of the best features of the book, why on earth did she not work out the maths correctly, it couldn't have been that hard! I picked up a copy of In the Fifth at Malory Towers yesterday and read through the bits about the towers very carefully . The girls from all four towers have class together, so I can't imagine there's more than about thirty of them in total. Maybe North Tower just happens to be the biggest, and therefore has the most girls... this would also work with In the Fifth's pantomime plotline, where the committee is almost entirely comprised of North Tower girls after a democratic vote. ...I'm thinking about this too much, aren't I?