Shannon Costello

It occurred to me the other day that Dr. Chilton publicly put Aunt Polly in a situation that was absolutely unendurable to a woman of her pride. Refusing to consider reconciliation until the other person seeks you out is hardly altruistic. And so I decided to re-read Polyanna as well as (drum-roll, since you may not know it even exists…) the sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up, also written by Eleanor H. Porter.

Comparisons

It turned out I was confusing stories by different authors. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s characters would not hesitate to behave in this manner, both offended parties swearing not to speak until the other does. Awkward.

In Polyannait was Aunt Polly alone who set forth the difficult conditions. And, amazingly, neither party gossiped — the whole town was kept in the dark for years. And so I conclude that it was Aunt Polly who put herself in an unendurable situation. I find this more understandable, if not more sensible (pardon my irrational feminine bias).

Reading the forward to Pollyanna, by Marion Dane Bauer, put me in the path of another book which I did not hesitate to locate and read: The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Peterson, written over fifty years later. Bauer felt that, while Pollyanna was “uplifting”, Gilly was “real”.

Pollyanna spends two books putting into practice the good things that her father has taught her, and those things see her through. Gilly has never known a parent who loved her, and creates her own, ultimately unsuccessful philosophy. It is her casting off of her old ideas and her adoption of new ones, taught to her by a loving adult, that ultimately see her through.

Gilly is definitely more fascinating than Pollyanna, but that is because bad generally appears more interesting than good. Both can seem extreme, though in very different ways. Both are so real in their portrayal of the huge influence a parent has on a child that it almost hurts to think of it.

Review

I enjoyed Pollyanna, though I did wonder rather more than I used to about its theology. The minister is painfully deliberating over how best to handle the problems in his church. He is torn between “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” and the “rejoicing texts” of the Bible favored by Pollyanna. What decides him in favor of the rejoicing texts is an article he reads which concludes, “When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that…”

I wouldn’t bet on always finding the good, mostly because I don’t think people are ultimately good. Perhaps Eleanor Porter and I disagree. Just let me get my next bestseller published and then perhaps I will have a leg to stand on.

Pollyanna Grows Up was interesting because it put Pollyanna in situations where her philosophy of life was seriously challenged and she had to find new ways to live it out. It’s all well and good to convince a friendly small town to be happy, but what happens when you find yourself in a bad part of a large, unfriendly city? What about when the adults in your life leave gladness for despair? What happens when you don’t know what to do at all?

Pollyanna changes in ways that make sense, which is impressive. It is rather tricky getting a character like Pollyanna to grow up successfully. And of course, with Pollyanna all grown up, there’s always the possibility of my favorite classic ending, which is really no ending at all but the beginning of a major (though worthwhile) undertaking: marriage…