One of our first hypotheses on the role of children in literature was that children function as an image of the future. Children, in a matter of twenty to thirty years, will be fully functioning adults, running the nation, writing, etc. By using children in literature the author can express his hopes and fears for the country, or for humanity in general. In Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger, I think that Dick is Alger’s ideal future American. He is stubborn, self reliant, hardworking, but not uptight about his funds. He is clever, funny and puts his superiors to shame. He stands up for those weaker than him; he is moral and is not afraid to start trouble for the sake of justice. But why must he be male, why must the representatives of future generations be presented to nineteenth century audiences as young men. As much as I hate to say it, it boils down to gender roles. Young women were too busy making toast and learning to take care of the family to represent a generation. In fact, as society stood, there was really no purpose in thinking of a woman as representative of the time. A woman’s job was the same no matter when she was born; she must take care of her family. That is a universal and timeless responsibility of woman of this time. Essentially, my point is that Alger used a young boy to give an image of the future because, let’s face it, the voice of the future must be young, and cannot be girl—there really wasn’t much choice involved. In the end, young boys like Dick represent the hopes of the author for society’s future. And what these young men in literature stand for shows much about the state of 19th century society. The 19th century was a time of excessive hope, but only because things were so dismal. The gilded age was a dishonest and oppressive time, a time when honest and fair heroes where created in literature as examples to the present society. In this way, all of this literature is pedagogical, in fact I would venture to say that most any literature worth reading is pedagogical in some way, shape or form.
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I never really thought about just how important children were in literature until reading your post. By bringing up the fact that these children are our hopes for the future, really puts everything into a bigger perspective. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI have never considered the idea that women had no hope or aspiration for finding a job for themselves, but men had all the opportunity in the world to find a job they liked and make the amount of money they wanted. Women were born and all they could learn how to do was cook, clean, and make their husbands happy. The only way to move up socially was to get married, while all men had to do was work. It would have been nice to be given the chance to pursue what women really wanted to pursue back then.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting the way you described Dick as being the future face of America. I think you are right, Alger defintitely had purpose in the way he created Dick. He is stubborn, self-reliant and hard working... all good things to make a good American working man. He represents what everyone wishes at the time - success.
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