The books we loved and cherished as kids say a lot about us as adults. Any grown woman who remembers Ramona Quimby or Katie John fondly probably has an independent streak. The boys who grew up reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Science Fiction for kids grew up to be men with an interest in science. But what do you say to the kids who fell for The Graveyard Book, Lemony Snicket’s series and The Mysterious Benedict Society? Welcome to the World of Gothic Literature, kiddies; your crypt is right this way? I hope not because Gothic doesn’t always equate to horror or an obsession with death. What it promises is a spooky atmosphere where anything could happen. The decrepit old cottage may turn out to be as wholesome as milk, the confining hills may be nothing but hills, but at first glance, every setting borders on the extreme. The castle isn’t a castle, but a ruin, the land isn’t boggy and cold, it’s a moor where you might get stuck and sink to your doom. Doom is a big concept in Gothic Lit. as is the idea of all things extreme. The heroes are usually resourceful and brave, their adventures are perilous and…
I like literary archetypes. To me, they’re the puzzle pieces a person can assemble to understand the canon of Western Literature. Anti-heroes, tricksters, mentors and shadows are all wonderful but my favorite is the orphan-hero. His search is for home, his judgments are his own and like all archetypes he/she morphs to reflect the values of whatever era he’s created in.** If yesterday’s Oliver Twist lives at one end of the Hero/Orphan timeline, then Tensy Farlow in Tensy Farlow & the Home for Mislaid Children resides at the other. As I said yesterday, Oliver is a sweet kid and everyone’s victim. Graceful and sympathetic beyond his circumstances, his victory is in surviving long enough to be rescued by kind adults. Well, that’s fair, given Victorian Times. Unprotected kids were nature’s victims and the best any of them could hope for is a reasonable adoption. But that’s not very heroic. Orphan heroes in today’s take charge of their own fates and everyone else’s. They’re brave, caring individuals who stand up to tyrants, tall and small, and they often rescue the adults. I realized this a few years ago when I was working on a long research paper tracing the evolution of…