![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/05\/Elsie-Dinsmore-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Elsie")
<\/a>A Guest Post by Tracey<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\nThis is the point in the book(s) where the chapters all start running together. This time I will summarize the events from chapter 8 of book one through chapter 3 of book two, spoil the ending, touch on some themes, and compare\u00a0Elsie\u00a0to other books.<\/p>\n
Picking up where we left off,\u00a0Elsie\u00a0and Papa (Horace) are all sweetness and shiny-happy. Horace has no major beefs with his obedient little daughter, although he does keep her on a pretty tight leash.\u00a0Elsie\u00a0still cries at the drop of a hat, sometimes when she\u2019s sad, sometimes happy, and sometimes when she thinks about Jesus. There are two minor incidents which almost land\u00a0Elsie\u00a0in hot water; first she refuses to tell a secular story on a Sunday. Luckily her dad thinks storytelling shouldn\u2019t be forcibly extracted regardless of subject matter. Then she refuses to play a secular song on the piano on a Sunday. As punishment, Horace forces\u00a0Elsie\u00a0to sit at the piano until she is so tired she faints, striking her head. Horace is so shocked at\u00a0Elsie\u2019s injury he lets the matter drop.<\/p>\n
Christmas goes by and there are some minor punishments for fairly ridiculous infractions, but things are mostly smooth and a Merry Christmas is had by all. By now we are into book two. There is a rather interesting commotion in chapter 3. Arthur really seems like he may be a sociopath. He continues to show himself hopelessly deficient in empathy.\u00a0Elsie refuses to loan him money which he needs to pay a gambling debt. (He\u2019s a little young for this cliche isn\u2019t he?) To get revenge Arthur pushes her down a hill, then tries to make out like\u00a0Elsie\u00a0slipped. He is found out, and sent away to boarding school.<\/p>\n
It was somewhere in these chapters that I started becoming seriously annoyed with the author. She is the one writing all these weird demands into Horace\u2019s character, but in the end she makes sure he always has a point. He was right to keep\u00a0Elsie\u00a0from Rattlesnake Meadow. He is right to control her food intake by forbidding butter and coffee. He is right to proofread all her personal correspondence. He is right to emotionally monopolize her. In chapter 1 of the second book he tells her he wants \u201cnot a single thought or feeling concealed from me.\u201d This is all written as if it is normal and positive, rather than odd and manipulative.<\/p>\n
This was also the point at which I began to see the books as one long, boring sermon. The author manages to work in a ridiculous number of bible verses and concepts\u2014often at the expense of the story. As an adult reader I can follow the neat little trail of breadcrumbs the author left us to follow if we want to be good Christians. We must love Jesus and follow him at all cost, bringing our burden for him to make lighter with his blood. And always remember what reprehensible sinners we are; this is an absolute must. You sinned, tell it to Jesus, and his blood will save you. Repeat. Total downer if you ask me. And probably the most times the word \u201cblood\u201d has appeared in a book for children.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019d like to compare the\u00a0Elsie\u00a0story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess<\/em>. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like\u00a0Elsie\u2019s polar opposite however. She has retorts to match the volume of her mistreatment and isn\u2019t afraid to sling them. Where\u00a0Elsie\u2019s good deeds are trivial and fall on those the least likely to need or appreciate them (see Arthur and the sailboat incident), Sara has a record of feeding the wholly destitute, even when she herself is hungry. Sara has a strong inclination towards justice. And justice is just not one of\u00a0Elsie\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\nI also revisited The Secret Garden<\/em>. It stars a girl named Mary Lennox who is pampered and coddled as a British child in India. Her parents die and she is sent to England to live with an aunt. Mary is presented less pathetically than either Elsie\u00a0or Sarah Crewe. Mary has a couple of friends and her main problem is boredom. The striking thing to me is that Mary arrives in England still very spoiled, and expecting to be given a servant who will dress her, because she\u2019s never actually dressed herself<\/em>. Regarding\u00a0Elsie\u00a0Dinsmore, dressing\u00a0Elsie\u00a0seems to be one of Mammy\u2019s primary duties. The girl is sometimes dressed two and three times a day. Does she peel all her clothes off constantly or what? And I\u2019ve been wondering for a while now if\u00a0Elsie\u00a0is even capable of putting on clothes.<\/p>\nMy final comparison story will be Wuthering Heights<\/em>. Wuthering Heights<\/em> is a story of love and love withheld and its twisted repercussions. Heathcliff and Catherine (unrelated by blood) grow up together, and over the years fall in love. Catherine makes a careless statement at a critical moment, causing Heathcliff to doubt her love and flee for several years. When he returns she has married another. The rest of the book is about how they torture one another over this love they can never really express. The culmination of Catherine\u2019s life involves an illness that is worsened (if not outright created) by a hysterical fit she has over Heathcliff and the desire for his love. Here\u2019s the part where I spoil the ending of Elsie\u00a0Dinsmore; she also works herself into illness over possibly losing her Papa\u2019s love. The only difference here is that while Catherine dies,\u00a0Elsie\u00a0merely hovers at death\u2019s doorstep. This seems a rather common theme in older novels: death from heartbreak and excitation. I get the distinct feeling that the type of sobbing and gasping happening in the Elsie\u00a0story are on par with those in Wuthering Heights. And that\u2019s disturbing, because\u00a0Elsie\u00a0and Horace are NOT lovers. They shouldn\u2019t both be in such hysterics over one another. It\u2019s creepy and unnatural\u2014even more so given the shortness of their knowing one another.<\/p>\nI am forced to wonder again who this author is and where she gets her information on normal human behavior. Was her life as a child this dramatic and father-obsessed? Or is she merely overplaying the allegory of our desire as Christians to obtain the Father\u2019s love? We really don\u2019t know. In the next post I will give what little information I have regarding the author, follow the second book to its conclusion, and make some final remarks.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Guest Post by Tracey.<\/i> Now I’d like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie’s polar opposite however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[363,338,361],"class_list":["post-15326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore","tag-elsie-dinsmore","tag-guest-post"],"yoast_head":"\nGuest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-19T09:32:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-10T02:10:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/files\/2013\/05\/Elsie-Dinsmore-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html\",\"name\":\"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-19T09:32:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-10T02:10:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \\\"purity culture,\\\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II","description":"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II","og_description":"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html","og_site_name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","article_published_time":"2013-05-19T09:32:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-09-10T02:10:08+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/files\/2013\/05\/Elsie-Dinsmore-300x225.jpg"}],"author":"Libby Anne","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Libby Anne","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html","name":"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-05-19T09:32:33+00:00","dateModified":"2013-09-10T02:10:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2"},"description":"A Guest Post by Tracey. Now I'd like to compare the Elsie story to some others that I actually read and liked. Early on in my reading I felt compelled to revisit the story of Sara Crewe, sometimes called A Little Princess. Sara is also presented as a long suffering child with no one to love her. Her father sends her to a posh boarding school for an education. He then dies, leaving her penniless and forced to become the house servant. Sara is like Elsie's polar opposite however.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/an-outsider-reads-elsie-dinsmore-part-ii.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Guest Post: An Outsider Reads Elsie Dinsmore, Part II"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/","name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2","name":"Libby Anne","description":"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \"purity culture,\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/05\/Elsie-Dinsmore.jpg\" "\\"Elsie")
<\/a>A Guest Post by Tracey<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n