Pollyanna

 

                                              

                         Pollyanna

 

I thought I’d share another bit of wisdom from my cousin Steve. See posts Ambivalence and Earning Your Oxygen. 

Steve’s favorite movie is Pollyanna – the 1960 version. Pollyanna was based on a book by Eleanor H. Porter, published in 1913. It features an 11- year- old orphan who comes to live with her spinster aunt, Polly Harrington, who agrees to take her in out of a sense of duty. Pollyanna is disarmingly cheerful and she proceeds to make friends with everyone she meets, even those with serious difficulties. Her secret, taught to her by her father, is the “glad game,” which is thinking of a way to be glad over any sort of misfortune. The impact of Pollyanna’s  philosophy becomes clear when Pollyanna herself is seriously injured and the whole community rallies to cheer her up, even her aunt Polly. 

The 1913 book and the 1960 movie were extremely popular. Haley Mills won an Oscar for her role as Pollyanna in the movie. But, over the years, Pollyanna has become a pejorative, symbolic of someone who is naively optimistic and unwilling to face reality. 

Steve watches Pollyanna over and over, reminding himself to be empathetic and to look for the good in others, something perhaps we all should do, in a time when so many people form arbitrary opinions and refuse to listen to others or try to understand their point of view. 

A few years ago, as I was writing Wenonah’s Story, about my mother’s childhood and young adulthood during the First World War and the Depression, I read several books written during the early 1900’s, to get a better understanding of the times, and also of my mother, who was an avid reader. 

One of the books she recommended to me was A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter, published in 1909. It was about Elnora, a girl who lived with her widowed mother on the edge of a swamp. Although they were poor and her mother was cold towards her, Elnora loved nature and was kind to everyone she met, so she earned the love and respect of those around her and eventually her mother. My aunt used to call my grandmother “Girl of the Limberlost.” She was like Elnora in her love of nature, and her yard was overgrown much like Elnora’s swamp. 

It occurred to me when Steve told me of his admiration for Pollyanna, that the plots of both novels were strikingly similar. They tell of young girls, unloved and living in poverty, who are nevertheless kind and generous, and who have a positive influence on those around them. Both novels were popular, especially among young people. As I read other novels of the time – Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Lord Fauntleroy and others – I realized that they had a common theme. They featured characters who succeeded by being kind and generous.    

Then I thought about the novels that are popular with teenagers now. The heroes and heroines nowadays succeed by outsmarting evil villains, instead of showing kindness and generosity to the poor or misguided. Their virtues are strength and cunning. Pollyanna and Elnora wouldn’t be admired now. They’d be laughed at. 

I’m certainly not nostalgic about the early 20^th century. There was no welfare for the poor, no civil rights for people of color, no retirement benefits for the elderly. It was a time before child labor laws, women’s rights to vote, and laws protecting farm and factory workers. 

But, as Steve says, the more you know, the less critical you can be. The popularity of these themes, this literature, reveals that people of the time valued kindness and generosity, not just wealth and power. Maybe it was because material gratification was harder to come by back then. I don’t know, but as Steve would say, ‘the more you look, the more good you will see in people.’ 

We can all learn from Pollyanna. She definitely earned her oxygen.