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Books: Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School

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#1: Books: Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:22 pm
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In this book we are introduced to Eustacia, the orphaned only daughter of eccentric academics. When her parents die, she is sent first to her relatives and then to the Chalet school. Eustacia has a difficult time adapting to the school, not being used to school girls or exercise, and accustomed to having lots of time by herself. She clashes with Joey, who dislikes her in return, tattles on the other girls, and keeps sneaking off to read. A mishap on a half-term trip leads to a broken foot for Miss Wilson, a stranding in the mountain, and anxiety for the Robin, all of which are blamed on Eustacia. Later, Eustacia runs away, is badly injured, and has a subsequent change of personality and name.

So - is Eustacia a spoiled brat who deserves what she gets, or is she merely misunderstood? What do you think of the interactions between Joey and Eustacia, and of the school's handling of her problems? Is Eustacia responsible for the Robin's problems? Do you think Eustacia would have adapted to the school if she had hadn't had her accident? Is Eustacia's change of heart a believable one?

#2: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:24 pm
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I don't think she's a spoilt brat, though I do think that her behaviour is a result of her upbringing. It was different from most other children of that period, and she had no experience of interacting with other children herself. That's why she didn't know that she was doing wrong by reporting what she saw as wrong doing.
Also I thing that she saw any criticism of her ways as criticism of her parents, and she felt a great deal of loyalty to them, especially has they were no longer there to stand up for themselves. She also clung to what she knew as a defence agaisnt all the enomous changes that were taking place in her life. That it made those changes so much harder to deal with wasn't relevant.

#3: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 7:17 pm
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I feel that the Chalet School made a lot of mistakes with Eustacia. As Pat says, she didn't know the 'correct' way to behave and although the School tried to give her some lee-way at the start this swiftly changed and she was simply expected to conform. The relationship with Joey was the fault of both of them yet Eustacia was blamed for it - even though Joey was the older, a full prefect and, supposedly, had a gift for understanding others. As for the incident on the glacier - it was an accident, Eustacia didn't intend to hurt anyone and it occurred after an entire weekend when Joey and Eustacia had been bickering constantly. Yet Eustacia finds herself blamed for the accident, for the fact that the group have to stay in the hut overnight (even though this would have happened anyway - there was a blizzard) and, most reprehensively, for the fretting that Robin had suffered because 'her Joey' wasn't back. This is a ten year old child, left in the care of a fifteen/sixteen year old, who has had to give up part of her own half term to baby sit a girl who shouldn't have been there in the first place!

Anyone that reads my drabble Senior Mistress - hasn't yet been archived so in St Therese - will see my take on Eustacia's first term.

#4: Author: Tan, Location: London via Newcastle Australia

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:20 am
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This was one of the books I first read as an adult so I felt a lot of sympathy for Eustacia. We were led to dislike her from the beginning - where she is described as a disagreeable prig in the first couple of lines.

I really felt that the school let down Eustacia here - somebody of her background (little contact with other children, recently orphaned and an unusual upbringing) was bound to have problems. The school was made aware of this by her aunt yet there was little consideration given.

I also felt that her handling by both the prefects and staff could have been a lot different. Miss Stewart also blames her for the accident on the glacier, yet it was an accident. And as has been pointed out, due to the blizzard they would have been stranded there overnight.

As for the Robin, while I appreciate that she and Joey had a very close relationship, was it fair to send her on a trip with girls who were nearly 10 years her senior?

Perhaps if there had been more attempts to understand Eustacia she may have had an easier settling in period.

I think that Lesley's drabble provides a very interesting insight into her behaviour and motivation.

#5: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:58 am
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I can see both sides.

Eustacia is thrust into a totally alien world. She had no experience with school girls and absolutely nothing in common with them. Her interests are in classics, whereas most of the girls prefer history and english, or more likely games or music. She has no socialisation, has lost her mother and father, who are the only people she really knows, was kicked out of her aunt and uncle's place, and is now being held in a place where she is miserable and friendless, and being blamed for her own torment.

In the glacier incident, Bill's foot was sort of her problem, although it was more of an accident. As someone pointed out, she and Joey had been feuding all day, and she was in a bad mood. Staying overnight and Robin's problems weren't her fault, and if anything were the responsiblity of whoever thought sending Robin on a half term with a bunch of much older girls. If she is so frail that a night of worry could potentially kill her (via TB), then she shouldn't be let off the Sonnalpe, period.

On the other hand, Eustacia does sin grievously against the schoolgirl code of ethics. She tells tales, steals, sneaks off, threatens retribution on the prefects, slaps Kitty, insults the other girls, shows callousness towards the ill. As far as the other girls are concerned, she is without honour. I can accept that it would be very hard to get other girls to accept her behaviour.

Joey - well, this is the main reason I don't see Joey as being particularly understanding as a girl. She's full of compassion and tenderheartedness for people she cares for, but she doesn't get along with girls who don't take to her. As Bill reflects

Quote:

it would do Jo no harm to realise that other people might
have different views from herself. So far, she had had things a good
deal her own way, and had been a leader among the girls. It might
easily have spoiled her, but her sister had been a wise young person
where she was concerned, and the prefects had seen to it that she was
duly squashed from time to time. She has escaped spoiling, therefore,
but 'Bill' considered that it was quite good for her to meet with
someone who didn't instantly fall under her insouciant charm, as most
of the others had done

#6: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:37 pm
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I wonder how much the mistakes Jo in particular made with regard to the young Stacie influenced / helped her in the future? Her handling of / ability to understand the POV of so many young misfits (Prunella springs to mind, and Ted) is such a contrast to her antipathy with Stacie... it's like she was able to apply her knowledge of Stacie to Prunella and work out that, while Stacie was genuine, Prunella was faking it...

Just a thought.

#7: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:47 pm
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Actually Caroline I think that a very valid point - not just for Joey, but for the School as well - it seems no accident that, very soon after that, the policy of 'sheepdogging' seems to be in place.

#8: Author: Miriam, Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:17 pm
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As far as staying on the mountain goes, while they would have had to stay overnight during the blizzard, if Miss Wilsons foot had not been injured they would all have been able to set off with the guide (Herr Seiber?) the next morning when the blizzard was over. As it was, they had to wait the extra hours while he went back to the village, and returned with other men to help carry Miss Wilson. There is a lot of room for arguement about who to blame (if anyone) for the accident, but no question that it did delay their return by the best part of the day. It is a pity that the giude didn't send a message to the Gasthaus while he was rounding up his rescue crew.

#9: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:25 pm
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The delay wasn't an entire day - they set off from the hut at around 2.30pm. If they had not had to wait for help for Miss Wilson they could have set off mid-morning - as this is when the storm cleared. Herr Siebur had left early morning while it was still snowing heavily as he knew the area - but it would have been far too dangerous to take the girls out until the weather had cleared. They got back to the hotel in time for everyone to have a bath before Adendessen - so around six pm.

The delay was probably only four hours or so - not much more - and certainly not enough to justify vilifying Eustacia.

(Lesley did far too much research about this when writing her drabble! Embarassed

)

#10: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:29 pm
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I knew that the difference wasn't much from writing about Eustacia myself. It was just too long ago to be sure tho0ugh.

#11: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:59 pm
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Some of Eustacia's faults were her own. Her parents may have treated her like an adult, in which case they would have treated her with respect and courtsey. Eustacia herself was very rude and arrogant. I think EBD was trying to ram home one of her pet theories, that parents have to teach their children everything or they will grow up to be monsters. However, I do think the CS was very clumsy in its dealings with a difficult and recently bereaved girl. The night in the hut was exciting enough but all the blame business was nonsense. Robin should not have been on the trip at all and poor Anne Seymour sems to get some blame too, even though she stepped in so that Jo could see the glacier ( Madge said Jo had to see it). Also isn't it usual for them to spend nights in alpine huts?

#12: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:10 am
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Mel wrote:

Some of Eustacia's faults were her own. Her parents may have treated her like an adult, in which case they would have treated her with respect and courtsey. Eustacia herself was very rude and arrogant.

Obsessive academics can actually come across as pretty rude and arrogant if they aren't well socialised, even to other adults - I can quote examples. Rolling Eyes

I would guess that she had been raised to believe that scholarship was paramount, but not exposed to social interactions with other people, even adults, much. She doesn't seem used to being forced to do something she doesn't believe in - like the excess covers on her bed. She has been taught to believe that she is superiour to other girls because of her upbringing and academic ability. She has not been taught to compromise or adapt for other people.

When she goes to school, the things she has been taught are important are dismissed as irrelevant. Her previous life has been very solitary, and she's thrust into an environment where she feels she has to sneak away to read. I know I go squirrelly after a week of highly regimented activity with no time to sneak away with a book. Instead of being admired for her literary prowess, she's castigated for reading from the staff shelves and banned from the library, her only refuge.

She *is* arrogant and rude and unwilling to compromise or listen, but she's also being told that everything she has ever been taught is wrong, and consequently her parents are idiots.

[/i]

#13: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:45 pm
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I have always really enjoyed this book although I dislike Eustacia in it and also don't agree with the way she is treated.

The school should have been kinder to Eustacia - she was after all recently bereaved and had clearly been brought up in a totally mad way. More allowances should have been made for Eustacia's upbringing than were, and the way the whole school blame Eustacia for the accident is horrific, although also an excellent example of how mob mentality can make seemingly nice people act complete b*****.

However I can't blame the girls, even Joey, for their dislike of Eustacia. I can't blame the staff either. Eustacia's problem is that she's convinced she must always be right, and she absolutely refuses to conform in any way. While I don't approve of forced conformity and sheeplike behaviour, some of the things Eustacia does are really silly - not using her plumeau (sp) even though she's cold without it, trying to get out of wearing her shawl the right way, continuing to tell tales about other girls for minor misdeeds (what is she getting out of that?), and making horrible comments about how peasant girls with tuberculosis should just be allowed to die. Confronted by all of this, and besides Eustacia's superior attitude, it's not surprising that people did find her extraordinarily irritating and unlikable.

An interesting point is that girls like Evadne are quite friendly to Eustacia - sticking up for her with the fifths, for exampe - but they can't keep it up, and I don't blame them.

Another point is the question of Eustacia's grief. Personally I don't really see her as grieving. The phrase 'Eustacia mourned properly' says it all as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps she wasn't all that attached to her parents, who seem like they were rather off the spot a la Mr Cochrane and Professor Richardson, too involved in their scholarly activities to spend much time on their daughter (except when raising her according to their experimental parenting ideas).

#14: Author: rae86, Location: Cornwall

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:09 pm
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I think the book is very much a sign of the times in which it was written, and I don't really think it speaks very well of those times. I don't think anyone would cope so well after being orphaned, and after being rejected from her family, Eustacia is completely divorced from everything she knows, by being sent to a different country completely and sent for the best part of the year to boarding school.

While Eustacia was both arrogant and single-minded, when she makes, in her particular situation, fairly innocent mistakes, the rest of the girls and teachers appeared to just react with anger rather than looking further into the situation and giving Eustacia leeway. The whole school is, in its own way, single-minded and arrogant eg girls aren't allowed to take off a layer of clothes if they're hot.

I find it a little odd that a girl of fifteen would become a prefect, although I take the fact that Joey is vary charismatic, and is looked up to by other girls. Eustacia shouldn't have been blamed for the accident.

By the way your drabble was very good, Lesley! Very Happy

#15: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:17 pm
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Awww, thanks Rae! Embarassed

#16: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:55 pm
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I think part of the problem is that she clings to what she knows, believing that she's being loyal to her parents. When her upbringing is criticised it's her paretns who are being criticised, and she has lost them. She's totally out of her depth, both at the Trevanion's and at the school, so digs in as a sort of self-support.
I agree that she'd be impossible to get along with, but that is't really her fault, poor kid.

#17: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:42 am
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Pat wrote:

I think part of the problem is that she clings to what she knows, believing that she's being loyal to her parents. When her upbringing is criticised it's her paretns who are being criticised, and she has lost them. She's totally out of her depth, both at the Trevanion's and at the school, so digs in as a sort of self-support.
I agree that she'd be impossible to get along with, but that is't really her fault, poor kid.

That's a good way of putting it.

Regarding prefects - the prefects in the early Tyrol book are much younger on average than later in the series. I think they had fewer seniors in the earlier books, and girls left earlier, not staying til past eighteen. Juliet is a prefect at just barely fifteen, and some of the other girls at fourteen.

Joey actually becomes a prefect at the same age as Len, but the difference in them is extrordinary.

#18: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:45 pm
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Actually I am rereading this at the moment in hardback and it is interesting how many times EBD comments that Eustacia knows that her attitudes towards the other girls are wrong or silly, but she sticks to them. For instance,

Quote:

She knew, in her inmost heart, that she had not been in the right when she had abstracted that key and taken down that book from the forbidden shelves.

However EBD does not make it clear why Eustacia sticks to this. There is no hint that it is loyalty to her dead parents and, like Loryat, I feel that she would have done all that was 'right' without really feeling much about their deaths. In one sense Eustacia reminds me of Mary-Lou when the latter hears that her father has died, only in M-L's case it was due to physical distance. For Eustacia I think it was emotional distance. After all, think about how quickly and seemingly easily she replaces her mother as head of the household.

Quote:

She had wept decorously for the woman who had had so much to do with her training. Then she had settled down to play mistress in the big house; and her father, immersed in his classics, had let her go her own way, much to the annoyance of the maids.

That says a great deal to me. Eustacia seems to have two driving forces. While living with her parents, she does what is 'proper' and, when taken out of that familiar environment, she digs in her heels and refuses to admit that any of her pet beliefs could be wrong.

It would be interesting to see whether, if the accident had not occurred, if and how quickly she would have changed...

#19: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:16 pm
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KB wrote:

Actually I am rereading this at the moment in hardback and it is interesting how many times EBD comments that Eustacia knows that her attitudes towards the other girls are wrong or silly, but she sticks to them. For instance,

Quote:

She knew, in her inmost heart, that she had not been in the right when she had abstracted that key and taken down that book from the forbidden shelves.

However EBD does not make it clear why Eustacia sticks to this.

*ponders* Pride, maybe? She can't bear to apologise or admit that she's wrong?

#20: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:48 am
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Kate wrote:

KB wrote:

Quote:

She knew, in her inmost heart, that she had not been in the right when she had abstracted that key and taken down that book from the forbidden shelves.

However EBD does not make it clear why Eustacia sticks to this.

*ponders* Pride, maybe? She can't bear to apologise or admit that she's wrong?

Or possibly that she has a feeling she is in the wrong, but hasn't been able to figure out what the right way of behaving is - she doesn't have a different pattern of behaving to fall back on.

Actually, that's an interesting though. Learning different modes of behaviour for different environments and different people is an important part of growing up, and causes big problems if you don't master this. Adolescents are also notoriously bad at navigating this. For someone like Eustacia, who has only had to deal with one environment, it would be much more difficult.

#21: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:33 pm
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I've got a soft spot for this book because it was the first CS book I ever read! And I always want to cry when Grossmutter dies after Bernie and Kurt's wedding Crying or Very sad

.

I think that Eustacia got a very raw deal, both from EBD who introduced her as an "arrant little prig" or words to that effect and from her relations and then from the CS staff and girls who made no allowances for the fact that she wasn't used to the way they did things.

I found Miss Wilson's behaviour very odd indeed. She seemed to think that the only problem Eustacia had was that she thought Joey didn't like her, and I found her conversation with Joey in which she went on about how Joey had to realise what a huge influence she (Joey) had on people very unfair to a girl of 16 or so.

Is this the book in which a) Joey really starts to take over the series and b) Joey's relationship with Robin gets a bit obsessive, or is that just my way of looking at it?

#22: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:57 am
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Alison H wrote:

I found Miss Wilson's behaviour very odd indeed. She seemed to think that the only problem Eustacia had was that she thought Joey didn't like her, and I found her conversation with Joey in which she went on about how Joey had to realise what a huge influence she (Joey) had on people very unfair to a girl of 16 or so.

Is this the book in which a) Joey really starts to take over the series and b) Joey's relationship with Robin gets a bit obsessive, or is that just my way of looking at it?

Interesting. I think Joey's is a bit obsessive about the Robin, and tends to not quite realise that the Robin is a real person rather than some sort of adorable ideal baby. The Robin is ten here, and no longer a baby, but Joey still has this ideal baby-angel Robin in her head, probably helped by the Robin's sweet temperment and adoration of Joey. She the gets offended when anyone else treats the Robin with anything other than mindless adoration of her adorable image, instead reacting to her as a normal ten year old girl. She does this with Elaine, and then Eustacia and then Joyce.

I think it was good to point out that Joey had a big influence on other girls, due to her personality and to her position, and that she has a responsibiltiy to make it a good influence. I think in this book and the previous (and the next as well), Joey doesn't really come across as head girl material. She's got the charm and the forceful personality, and is a natural leader, but also lacks emotional self control and perspective - she tends to be all for or all against something or someone, without much moderation.

#23: Author: Lisa A., Location: North Yorkshire

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:27 pm
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I think Eustacia is another character that EBD had fun writing and I like her slightly melodramatic qualities. I love her declaiming lines like: "I will not be treated with rudeness by a parcel of school-girls who mistake vulgarity for wit" - shades of Miss Annersley herself! I think her behaviour is a bit exaggerated but still believable given her circumstances. I suppose her conversion was inevitable but I think it went too far - I would have preferred a bit of spikiness about her in later books, even if she did soften considerably.

Blaming Eustacia for the accident is one of those typical CS things, like the Naomi/Herr Laubach / Margot/bookend incidents - they make me really cross.

#24: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:21 am
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This was my very first CS book and I always like Eustasia's name so I have a soft spot for the book and the character because of it. I always like Evvy here and thought she was extraordinary kind to someone who did not inspire kindness to more so than most. I also never particularly liked Miss Stewert as a result both of this book and Camp.
The only other comment that isn't repeating what everyone else said is this: I think Eustasia is very similiar to Cressida of Heather Leaves School. Both girls are described as prigs, both are also said not to be lacking in courage and both always think they're right. The interesting thing is Cressida never suffers a bad accident and miraculously changes or sees the error of her way. Her indominatable courage is shown to Heather and Janie Temple (later Lucy) when their house is being attacked and Heather and Cressida realise they are both at fault in their relationship and become friends. And both were published in 1929, EBD must have written them around the same time. I wonder why she did such different endings and whether she prefered one over the other. Does anyone else think Cressida and Eustasia are very similiar?

#25: Author: Pado, Location: Connecticut, USA

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:31 am
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Don't know Cressida, but Eustacia always reminded me of Eustace in one of the Narnia books.

#26: Author: Holly,

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:50 pm
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This is one of my favourites, partly because it was one of the first books I ever read but one thing that makes me angry is that the attitude seems to be that Eustacia is all but completely in the wrong. Bullying - and I don't think the policy of sending someone to Coventry can be described as anything else - is silently condoned by both the staff and the prefects.

I'm not saying that everyone should have bent over backwards and given Eustacia her own way in absolutely everything - with eighty girls in the school, that simply wouldn't be a practical option - but I think that they could have made more of an effort to help her adjust to life in a community, and that they came down on her far too hard for what, for the most part, weren't serious offences - comparing the prefects punishment for sneaking into the library to the penalties doled out for some of the Middles' pranks, I think Eustacia's was disproportionate to her offence, especially when you factor in that she is a new girl who has recently suffered a huge double tragedy.

If books can offer her some solace, why not let her enjoy them, within limits? She was very bright and well read by the sounds of things and unlikely to mistreat books so, provided there was nothing horribly inappropriate on the staff shelves, just explain to her that if she goes to one of the mistresses and asks, chances are she'll be allowed to borrow the book. Likewise, if she finds Joey and asks if she can borrow a book from the library, Joey's not going to say no for the sake of it.

Instead of coming down on her like a ton of bricks, the prefects would have done better to explain the rules calmly, remind her a second time if needs be and take more serious action only if she persists in breaking the rules.

I didn’t like the way Eustacia was blamed for the Robin’s illness. By the sounds of things, they would have been stranded for the night in any case and that would have done far more damage than the extra few hours in the morning that Miss Wilson’s injury may have cost them – frankly, given the number of expeditions that take a turn for the worse (Madge’s first birthday as headmistress, for example) if Robin was really so delicate that she would be upset enough to make her ill if the group was delayed, maybe she shouldn’t have been on the expedition in the first place. I can understand Joey’s reaction – she’s always been very protective of the Robin, perhaps excessively so – but everyone else was taking it too far.

I had to laugh at Mademoiselle’s asking why nobody had told her that Eustacia was so unhappy that she would run away; Eustacia was a child under her care, her responsibility. If she wasn’t aware of how unhappy she was, she should have been.

I can just imagine the kind of reputation the Chalet School would get nowadays if a fourteen year old girl (recently orphaned, no less) was sent there and was so unhappy that she ran away, crippling herself in the process. Obviously, Eustacia had her own problems, but the school could have dealt with them much better.

Ironically enough, one of the reasons that Eustacia was my favourite was because she wasn’t the typical jolly school girl. I think that she was probably one of the more developed, three-dimensional characters in the series. I was sorry that her personality transformation was so dramatic. She was literally a different girl as Stacie.

#27: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 9:53 pm
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Holly, you may be interested in reading my take on Eustacia's first term - entitled Senior Mistress it's still in St Therese.

#28: Author: Holly,

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 10:09 pm
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Thanks. Very Happy

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