Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Children's Literature and the Rise of "Mind Cure": Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siècle by Anne Stiles

2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 50; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chl.2022.0024

1543-3374

Jan Susina,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Reviewed by: Children's Literature and the Rise of "Mind Cure": Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siècle by Anne Stiles Jan Susina (bio) Children's Literature and the Rise of "Mind Cure": Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siècle, by Anne Stiles. Cambridge UP, 2021. Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote in A Little Princess, "Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes" (118). Anne Stiles confirms this observation in her fascinating study that situates several of the most popular children's books written during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries within the overlooked, but important, connection [End Page 313] to Christian Science and its more secular offshoot New Thought, or mind cure. Both were extremely popular religious practices during the period. Given the gradual decline of these once influential ways of thinking, Stiles argues few contemporary readers or children's literature scholars recognize the faith-based messages in these novels that their initial readers would have easily recognized. Borrowing from diverse fields of scholarship including religious studies, medical humanities, and children's literature, Stiles shows how these books embody many of the principles that were promoted by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875). This faith-healing movement promotes the belief that thoughts, positive or negative, could affect one's health and have the ability to improve the world. This form of magical thinking blurred the boundaries between the sacred and secular and religion and entertainment. Many of these beliefs have not completely disappeared in American culture but have simply been repackaged into New Age practices. Stiles notes the continued popularity of these ideas, pointing to the appeal of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), success of pop psychology, self-help books, twelve-step programs, and the prosperity gospel. Christian Science's rejection of mainstream medicine has its counterpart in the increased interest in alternative medicine ranging from herbalists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and homeopathy. New Thought practices of creative visualization, the affirmation of positive thoughts, and the denial of negative ones are promoted in self-help texts such as Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (2006) or Bernie Siegel's Love, Medicine, and Miracles (1984). Stiles examines several influential children's novels and briefly discusses some of their film adaptations from the 1890s to the 1930s, including Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911); L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908); Kate Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903); and Eleanor Porter's Pollyanna (1913). Stiles's strongest example centers on Burnett, whose books for children and adults are the focus of her study. While Burnett never officially became a Christian Scientist, she was a long-time enthusiastic student of the religion and Stiles argues that Christian Science and New Thought provide an important context for understanding Burnett's children's books. Mary Lennox, the protagonist of The Secret Garden, is perhaps the most obvious and best-known incarnation. Stiles suggests that Mary was named after Mary Baker Eddy who died shortly before Burnett's [End Page 314] novel was published serially. Mary Lennox cures herself by changing the nature of her thoughts. In The Secret Garden, Burnett explains that sad or negative thoughts are as harmful as scarlet fever to one's health. After improving her own health, Mary goes on to cure her cousin Colin Craven, who believes that he will die young from his hunchback, and then reconciles the damaged relationship between Colin and his father Archibald Craven. By viewing Colin as Mary's alter ego since his healing is connected to that of Mary's, Stiles provides an alternative interpretation to the assumption that Mary is marginalized or forgotten in the novel's conclusion by emphasizing that Mary is crucial to Colin's transformation. In rejecting mainstream medicine for positive thinking, Burnett's characters follow the beliefs of Christian Science, so it is not surprising that Stiles discovered in interviewing Christian Scientists that The Secret Garden was the book that most inspired them as children. Little Lord Fauntleroy was Burnett...