Enid Blyton, Brexit and modern Britain

[pete9012S]

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Five Get Into A Fix: Enid Blyton, Brexit and modern Britain


Enid Blyton signing autographs in a London bookshop

Analysis: influenced by the turmoil of the 1940s and 1950s, Enid Blyton's work also reflects the political climate of today's Britain.

Enid Blyton was a British children’s author who wrote over 600 books between 1921 and 1965. Some of her most famous series are The Famous Five, Malory Towers, Noddy and The Secret Seven.

A film adaptation of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree (1939-1946) series is being made by StudioCanal, written by Simon Farnaby, the co-writer of Paddington 2. This series, along with The Wishing Chair (1937-1950), are Blyton’s two most popular fantasy series and both were written around the time of the second World War. In these stories, we follow the exploits of brave British children as they discover and explore fantasy worlds filled with wonderfully named characters such as the Saucepan Man.



Blyton’s books have sold millions of copies – estimated somewhere around the 500 million mark – and she is one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time. Despite her immense popularity, relatively little scholarly research has been done on the author’s work. Due perhaps to the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series, popular children’s fantasy fiction is a category now considered worthy of academic attention.

But Blyton’s fantasy work remains under-explored and under-researched. There are numerous reasons why her work has been ignored by critics, the most predominant being the general discrediting of Blyton’s fiction as non-literary, or sub-literary and therefore unworthy of serious critical analysis.

The general, popular opinion of Blyton is that she was a childlike, psychologically immature woman who created fantasy worlds into which she could escape. As a result, her fantasy books are dismissed as escapist by children’s literature scholars. While other Blyton series, such as The Famous Five and The Adventurous Four have been studied in relation to their historical context, the fantasy texts are thought of as entirely disconnected from the historical, social and political context in which they were written.


Enid Blyton working in her garden in Beaconsfield. Photo: George Konig/Getty Images
I offer a counterargument which maintains that the fantasy books were heavily influenced by the political ideologies and the turmoil of mid-20th century wartime Britain. The texts are a reflection of, rather than a distraction from, Britain’s engagement in the second World War.

Contrary to scholarly opinion, Blyton did not restrict her nationalistic and patriotic values to her realist texts. Lurking underneath the surface of the fantastical adventures of The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair series are pervasive and strong nationalistic ideologies. A veneration of courage and the military spirit, an acceptance and a glorification of violence and a fear/hatred of the outsider are all evident within Blyton’s fantasy texts.

These nationalistic tropes are also seen in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, who sought to revive and use folklore and fairy tales to help construct a sense of national identity for German people in the 18th century. Similarly, in Ireland, W.B. Yeats revived folklore and fairy tales of the Irish peasantry to stimulate a sense of Irish national identity in the 19th century. Blyton used these nationalistic elements to create patriotic stories in which courageous young British heroes eradicate the figure of the outsider and foil the attempts of the enemy to invade and conquer their home, thereby providing a sense of agency and power to child readers.

Blyton’s fantasy work continues to reflect the political climate of contemporary Britain

In The Adventurous Four, a realist, non-fantasy text, Blyton’s allusions to the war are far more explicit than in the fantasy series. References to Nazi Germany are scattered throughout the story: the child protagonists see "the sign of the cross…the sign of the enemy, the foe of half the world". Blyton’s jingoism is unequivocally expressed in The Adventurous Four. The protagonist’s father speaks of the injustice in having to "fight so much evil and wickedness", and of the necessity of remaining "strong and courageous" when fighting against "such a powerful and evil enemy as ours".

Blyton’s fantasy texts both reflect and respond to the threat of invasion felt by Britons during the second World War. The Faraway Tree is placed repeatedly under threat by foreign invasion. For instance, in The Enchanted Wood – the first book of The Magic Faraway Tree series - an army of invading red goblins hoping to conquer the Faraway Tree are captured, tied-up, and held prisoner by the child protagonists. The children celebrate the successful defeat and banishing of their enemy with a feast.

However, Blyton’s fantasy work not only responds to the political issues of mid-20th century Britain. but continues to reflect the political climate of contemporary Britain. Fears of mass immigration and the vulnerability of borders are prominent themes throughout the fantasy series. These issues, fears and concerns remain relevant to the political climate of modern Britain.



Blyton’s texts have been edited and updated for modern readers, but the nationalistic elements of the texts, and the anxieties exhibited within the texts regarding mass immigration and the permeability of borders have evaded censorship and continue to influence new generations of young readers.

The author’s name is used in parody editions of the Famous Five series, including Five on Brexit Island, and Five Escape Brexit Island. Blyton’s work represents a particular vision of nostalgic Englishness, and my research examines the manner in which contemporary publishers use the name of Enid Blyton to continue to construct an anachronistic sense of national identity for modern readers.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ


Siobhán Morrissey is a PhD student at the School Of Humanities at NUI Galway

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[Courtenay]

That's a fascinating article, Pete, especially this:

Contrary to scholarly opinion, Blyton did not restrict her nationalistic and patriotic values to her realist texts. Lurking underneath the surface of the fantastical adventures of The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair series are pervasive and strong nationalistic ideologies. A veneration of courage and the military spirit, an acceptance and a glorification of violence and a fear/hatred of the outsider are all evident within Blyton’s fantasy texts.

I would have liked to see the writer of the article expand on that rather bold statement and back it up with clear examples, which she doesn't really. In what way do the Faraway Tree and Wishing-Chair books promote "a glorification of violence and a fear/hatred of the outsider"?? I haven't re-read them since childhood, but I don't recall anything at all in them that would lead me to conclude that. I wonder if Siobhán Morrissey's PhD is on this subject and that's why she wrote this article? Maybe hers is a name we should look out for in future. (Or Tony, maybe you could invite her to write an article for us in the EBS Journal? )

[timv]

A most interesting 'take' on Enid's fantasy works; thanks for digging this out. At least it presents Enid's fantasy works as worthy of a detailed investigation of their 'sub-text' and cultural assumptions/ historical background; I have come across this sort of interpretation of the 'real themes and cultural messages' of fantasy for older readers before, mostly on C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. All credit to the author for taking Enid's fantasy seriously.

The themes explored in this PhD may well be detectable in the books, if you look closely enough - but are surely subconscious and just reflect the norms of the author's cultural background. What an author constructs reflects what they have read. 'Glorifying violence' , 'fear of the outsider' and so on are surely part of the way that cultural background has affected how writers constructed stories since the earliest times - eg the monster-slaying, wild 'uncivilised' peoples, and constant warfare glamorised in Ancient Greek myths or in Anglo-Saxon (English) legend Beowulf slaying lake-monsters and a dragon. Not to mention the norms of the Grimm Brothers fairy-tales and Victorian children's fantasy that were the main influences on Enid and her contemporaries.

I don't think we can read into this that it was in any sense 'deliberate' fostering of certain values.

[Rob Houghton]

The 'glorifying of violence' jumped out at me. I found it an ironic statement, considering that in between the times they were written and the present day, attitudes have obviously gone full circle and a little bit more!

When they were written, Enid's books were acceptable. Then suddenly they became racist and critics decided they presented no challenge, no threat, were rather tame, repetitive - a world of sunny holiday adventures and 'jolly japes' - basically inconsequential fluff. Now, all of a sudden, we have decided Blyton 'glorified violence'.

Hmmm...I think this says more about our 'snowflake' perceptions of 'violence' than about Enid's writing. The things some critics perceive as 'violent' these days - caning, spankings, fights, tying people up, locking them in caves, and perhaps the occasional admittedly more violent scenes such as Pongo being attacked in 'Five Go Off In A Caravan, were just necessary parts of the story. It can hardly be said that Blyton 'glorified violence' - in fact Enid was often keen to point out that she considered her stories contained nothing too frightening and that parents could rest assured that their children would be 'safe' from violence and frightening content while reading them.

[timv]

The question of 'why do this expose now' is just as significant as any alleged 'evidence' of 'shock horror Enid was a militarist promoting isolationist and anti-immigrant 1930s-40s patriotism'. A reaction to the EU / Brexit debate with Enid dragged into it as an evidently 'old-fashioned' children's author whose social attitudes can seem hostile to 2010s younger generation values? 'Enid must fall' as opposed to 'Rhodes must fall'?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for posting the article, Pete, though I take issue with a lot of it. To quote Siobhán Morrissey:

Contrary to scholarly opinion, Blyton did not restrict her nationalistic and patriotic values to her realist texts. Lurking underneath the surface of the fantastical adventures of The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair series are pervasive and strong nationalistic ideologies. A veneration of courage and the military spirit, an acceptance and a glorification of violence and a fear/hatred of the outsider are all evident within Blyton’s fantasy texts.

...Blyton’s fantasy texts both reflect and respond to the threat of invasion felt by Britons during the second World War. The Faraway Tree is placed repeatedly under threat by foreign invasion. For instance, in The Enchanted Wood – the first book of The Magic Faraway Tree series - an army of invading red goblins hoping to conquer the Faraway Tree are captured, tied-up, and held prisoner by the child protagonists. The children celebrate the successful defeat and banishing of their enemy with a feast.

It can't be denied that Enid Blyton praises "British bravery" in some of her work, particularly the Adventurous Four books, and that she has characters in the St. Clare's series suggesting that French girl Claudine needs to acquire "the English sense of honour" and take it back to France with her! However, Enid also praises the bravery of Baronians like Paul, Ranni and Pilescu (Secret series) and Africans like Mafumu (The Secret Mountain). And what about the fact that the Famous Five, Find-Outers, Barney, Secret and Adventure children befriend plenty of people who could be viewed as being "outside" their circle - circus performers, fair folk, gypsies, ragamuffins, royalty, people from abroad and members of the working class?

As for Blyton's fantasy books, they don't show "fear/hatred of the outsider" at all! On the contrary, the children in the Faraway Tree series consort happily with brownies, elves, pixies, moon-faced men and talking animals. The only people/creatures they don't get on with are the ones who exhibit hostile behaviour - e.g. the red goblins, the trolls, the snowman, Dame Slap and the people from the Land of Tempers. Many of these "enemies" resort to using force and violence and they are criticised for doing so. Enid Blyton and her main protagonists certainly don't approve of them!

Regarding the supposed veneration of "the military spirit", it should be pointed out that pompous and officious soldiers are ridiculed and defeated by the main characters in several of the Faraway Tree stories and in other Blyton fantasy tales too.

To quote Siobhán Morrissey again:

...Blyton’s fantasy work not only responds to the political issues of mid-20th century Britain. but continues to reflect the political climate of contemporary Britain. Fears of mass immigration and the vulnerability of borders are prominent themes throughout the fantasy series. These issues, fears and concerns remain relevant to the political climate of modern Britain.

Blyton’s texts have been edited and updated for modern readers, but the nationalistic elements of the texts, and the anxieties exhibited within the texts regarding mass immigration and the permeability of borders have evaded censorship and continue to influence new generations of young readers.

Taken as a whole, Enid Blyton's stories actually promote harmony and inclusion in my opinion. In her books it's behaviour that counts - not country of origin, colour of skin or social background (the only real exception to that being The Put-Em-Rights, where one character comes to the conclusion that life would be easier if he stuck to mixing only with people of his own social class). As Julian remarks in Five Have a Wonderful Time (when the Five are camping alongside people from the fair and someone appears to be trying to bring about a rift between the two groups), "...perhaps it's just a case of us-folk and you-folk. There's a lot of that kind of feeling about these days, and it's so silly We're all the same under the skin. We've always got on well with anyone before."

The themes explored in this PhD may well be detectable in the books, if you look closely enough - but are surely subconscious and just reflect the norms of the author's cultural background. What an author constructs reflects what they have read. 'Glorifying violence' , 'fear of the outsider' and so on are surely part of the way that cultural background has affected how writers constructed stories since the earliest times - eg the monster-slaying, wild 'uncivilised' peoples, and constant warfare glamorised in Ancient Greek myths or in Anglo-Saxon (English) legend Beowulf slaying lake-monsters and a dragon. Not to mention the norms of the Grimm Brothers fairy-tales and Victorian children's fantasy that were the main influences on Enid and her contemporaries.

I don't think we can read into this that it was in any sense 'deliberate' fostering of certain values.

Well said, Tim. I agree with you.

[Silky moon]

Please I can’t bear it anymore. I’m fed up with the whole thing.

[joanne_chan]

Honestly, I do wonder how you an make assertions without actually actually quoting examples to support your stance in the way she did. I can't talk for how you studied English Lit, but we always had to to do this when looking at characters and discussing an authors points of view.
In a week that sadly has been dominated by very troubling assaults involving young people I find it hard to believe anything depicted by Enid even begins to approach the fear some in our society may well feel presently do and just see this as all too typical mid twentieth century 'middle class' bashing from people who don't see why many others not just share them but actual feel the values Enid put over were decent.

[burlingtonbertram]

Putting this here as it seems appropriate; apologies if it is already on another thread.

I was just reading Adrian Hilton's (conservative and theological blogger) tweet today on Blyton.

He says that the Royal Mint wouldn't issue a commemorative coin for her, deeming her racist and sexist.

Assuming it was Adrian Hilton's own tweet it looks like he lives in Beaconsfield.

Sorry, no link. I'm technologically challenged; as is my phone.

[Courtenay]

Viv has just posted an article from the Daily Mail about that, in this thread: https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/for ... 15#p367276" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Looking at the above, is it possible to point out to a university that a PhD is full of drivel and so the award should be rescinded?

The above may go part of the way to explain this latest bit of drivel



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVBqhVUr1fE

Viv

[Anita Bensoussane]

Having watched the video clip, Viv, I agree with the Emeritus Professor John Milbank that fairy tales are not "inappropriate" for today's youngsters and that they should continue to be told and read, alongside modern children's stories.

It's well-known that fairy tales were originally told orally and could therefore easily be adapted according to audience, especially as the fullest versions contain much that is macabre and grotesque. They would traditionally have been told around the fire, entertaining the whole family/community across the generations as they relaxed or worked at sewing or preparing food, and they weren't aimed specifically at children. At a time when working hours were long and there was no mass entertainment, the stories provided an escape into a fantasy world and an opportunity to enjoy being thrilled and alarmed while at the same time knowing you were safe and secure with your family/community. Cautionary tales (as many of them are) also served the purpose of drumming lessons into children's heads - lessons about kindness, selflessness, courage, obedience, patience and thoughtfulness bringing their own rewards, and about the potentially severe consequences of anti-social behaviour. They emphasized the possible dangers associated with breaking boundaries, e.g. wandering off alone into the woods.

As John Milbank says, those who reject the telling of these stories demonstrate a disturbing alienation from their own culture. Personally, I feel that to dismiss these stories amounts to alienating oneself from collective human culture and history, because traditional tales of peasants and royalty, heroes, brave adventurers, wise seers, great enchanters, ogres, witches, clever tricksters, etc. are to be found across the world. Whether we're conscious of it or not, they embody elements of our past and have no doubt helped shape our societies more than we realise.

John Milbank is right that keeping children in touch with traditional tales extends their imagination and gives them access to "the products of centuries of distilled collective folk wisdom", and that stories of that kind are rich with "symbols and metaphors" that resonate with children before they can fully grasp abstract concepts. And yes, the "otherness" of these ancient tales can be valuable. For example, if they present assumptions about gender that differ from today's attitudes, that's to be welcomed as it means the tales expose children to differing perspectives, enabling them to absorb and compare and reflect - albeit on an unconscious level at first. While enjoying an imaginative story youngsters are also getting an early lesson in seeing things from various viewpoints, weighing up pros and cons, and realising that there is more than one way of looking at things or of getting things done. This will strengthen reasoning, empathy, etc.

Enid Blyton understood the importance of ancient tales and she re-told fairy tales, folk tales, myths and legends of all sorts - including Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Brer Rabbit, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Pandora's Box, King Midas, Sindbad the Sailor, Aladdin and many other favourites. Some traditional characters have even appeared in her own stories about modern (for her time) boys and girls - e.g. the Faraway Tree children meet Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, a number of Blyton children travel to Nursery-Rhyme Land and have adventures with the likes of Little Jack Horner, and Brer Rabbit visits Enid Blyton's house (Old Thatch). Mythical beings like Jack Frost, Old Father Time and the Sandman also pop up in Enid's writing. As well as valuing the content of traditional tales, Enid Blyton would no doubt have valued the style in which they're told. Pace, rhythm, onomatopoeia and repetitive motifs (e.g. things happening in threes) abound, and Enid was aware of the enjoyment that children find in these playful elements of language and story. There is no reason for all this to be lost.

[dsr]

Looking at the above, is it possible to point out to a university that a PhD is full of drivel and so the award should be rescinded?

The above may go part of the way to explain this latest bit of drivel



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVBqhVUr1fE

Viv

As the satirical writer Michael Deacon pointed out in the Daily Telegraph, Little Red Riding Hood is inappropriate for modern times because if the wolf identifies as a woman, then it is a woman - no questions can be asked.

And as for the original post from 2019, I don't think it's necessarily jingoistic to describe Nazi Germany as "an evil and powerful enemy". Then and now, it's a widely held opinion that Nazi Germany was both powerful and evil - people of all political views accept that.