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Grandparents in Fiction: A New Stereotype?

1986; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chq.0.0162

1553-1201

Marilyn Apseloff,

Media, Gender, and Advertising

Grandparents in Fiction:A New Stereotype? Marilyn Apseloff (bio) Several children's books published in recent years have featured strongly drawn grandparents in significant roles, a refreshing change from the old stereotypes. Given the growing militancy of the elderly and the fact that children's books tend to reflect current problems and trends, it is not sur prising to discover that grandparents are now being presented as strong individuals instead of ineffectual secondary characters. There are, however, disturbing notes in much of this recent fiction: the grandparents' strength is often built upon the weakness of others; men (grandfathers or fathers) are often weak or absent altogether; and the consistent portrayal of female strength may be creating another stereotype equally as false as the traditional one. A look at three novels for adolescents, all published the same year (1982), reveals what may be becoming an unfortunate trend. In Only My Mouth Is Smiling, by Jocelyn Riley (New York: Morrow), mother (Elaine) and Grandma bicker constantly, and even come to blows. In the past, Elaine has had nervous breakdowns, and the symptoms are reappearing. The two have a violent confrontation, and Elaine runs off from Chicago to Wisconsin with her three children, Merle (thirteen), Ron (eleven), and Diane (nine). Grandma, undaunted, seeks them out and tries to make amends by bringing them a pot roast Sunday dinner, only to be rebuffed and sent home (the dinner stays). After the meal, Merle reflects: "Grandma obviously cared about us. She must have gone to the trouble of calling the Green Bay relatives, and they must have remembered that we'd mentioned Lake Lune when we visited them on Palm Sunday weekend. Why would she go to all that trouble if she didn't care about us? (64-5) While Grandma is showing her resourcefulness, her daughter Elaine is rapidly deteriorating. Her face has broken out, in the past a sure sign that she will disintegrate again; she becomes increasingly paranoid, and her thinking and conversations are irrational. It is obvious, especially to Merle, that something will have to be done. "She's like a star-spangled circus performer for a while until all of a sudden she falls off—splat—into the sawdust. And half the time she tries to take us with her" (12). There is no grandfather or father to turn to for help. When Grandma writes to Merle and gets no answer, she contacts the authorities: she is a doer. Elaine is finally committed to a psychiatric hospital, and Grandma takes the children. All of them will receive counseling to better understand Elaine's condition. This grandmother, loving to be sure but frequently ill-tempered, even physically violent towards her daughter, is an individual with unique problems created by her daughter's illnesses, which she does not fully understand. But must her strength come at the expense of Elaine? Grandma is a productive woman, independent and strongwilled, while her daughter appears to share none of those qualities. Both grandparents are present in Nina Bawden's Kept in the Dark (New York: Lothrop, Lee, & Shepard). Grandpa is over eighty, and Liz, the name grandma prefers to be called, is a few years younger. Again there are three children, Noel (fourteen), Clara (twelve), and Ambrose, called Bosie (ten). They have been left in the care of their grandparents while their mother tends their sick father, hospitalized because, like Elaine in Only My Mouth is Smiling, he is suffering a nervous breakdown; he does not appear until the end of the book, and then only briefly. Here his mental illness is merely a device to get the grandparents and grandchildren together; it is not integral to the story as Elaine's illness is in Riley's novel. As the story unfolds, the grandparents prove to be complex characters, quite different from the traditional stereotypes. Grandpa's manner initially seems harsh, cold. He is a self-made man: he left school when he was eleven, worked hard, studied at night, went into business, and eventually became very wealthy. Grandpa also "had set ideas about children. Good manners were important for [End Page 80] both boys and girls . . . . But only boys had to be brave. Boys...