Children's Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Children's Literature - Essay Example Social class structures were beginning to break down as common men were able to make fortunes in industry and landowners found it more and more difficult to keep the idyllic life they’d constructed alive. Women, too, were beginning to question their allotted place in society as more and more opportunities opened for them in the urban centers of the country, providing them with a means of supporting themselves and freeing themselves from the yoke of male domination. However, at the same time, these positions were not the equal rights positions of modern times, so it was often difficult to determine whether one wanted to sacrifice freedom for comfort or comfort for freedom. Rarely was it possible to attain both. All of these social and economical concerns can be found in the novels written during this time period even in children’s literature as it is revealed in something as simple as the subject of clothing, dressing and ideas about fashion, such as the examples seen in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The type of clothes one wore during the Victorian period, during which these three children’s books are based, frequently said a great deal about the wealth of the home, the character of the individual and the degree of social status enjoyed by the family. Those at the lower rungs of society are given the cast off materials and clothing available only because no one else is interested in them. For example, when Anne Shirley first appears in Anne of Green Gables, she is seen as a homely child in a â€Å"very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey† with a â€Å"faded brown sailor hat† (21). This clothing is the result of a generous donation of a merchant who reportedly couldn’t sell it otherwise and thus at least ensured it was used