Dissecting Claudine

[Yak]

Well not literally, obviously *puts scissors away*. Claudine is one of my favourite characters from any series, though. I love her intelligence and her humour, and the fact that she manages to effectively silence anyone who opposes her through a mixture of charm and simple biting wit. She is interesting also because she is one of the poorer characters - called a 'charity girl' by Angela, because she is unlikely to be paying full (or maybe even any) fees. Nonetheless the other girls mainly accept and like her and she settles in well. I wish she had arrived in the school before the final two books!

Anyway, anyone up for a discussion of this character?

[Spitfire]

Anyway, anyone up for a discussion of this character

I am!

Claudine is one of the most appealing characters of the SC series IMO, along with Carlotta and Alison - yes, I have a soft spot for Alison!

From the moment she is introduced as 'small, dark and smart' with a very 'cheeky look' it is obvious that she is going to be a lot of fun. She provides us with a lot of amusing moments, from her amiable 'hello buddies' greeting and her 'wonderful sick noises' after the stink-bomb trick, to more adventurous things such as locking Matron in the cupboard and calmly leaving her there until the feast is over and the fun has been had. Go Claudine!

Claudine's crowning moment of glory has to be when she 'falls' into the swimming pool and drenches Angela's mother from head to toe with water, in order to punish the snobbish woman for snubbing her aunt. She obviously holds Mam'zelle in high affection, even though she is embarrassed by her overwhelming attentions at half-term.

One thing that always irritates me about this book is the oft-mentioned English Sense of Honour. GROAN!!! How lucky French Claudine is to come to an English school where she can develop this Sense of Honour - which essentially seems to be a conscience sensitive enough to gently prick when such temptations as purloining a few fresh strawberries from a tea table presents itself!

Ok, so perhaps I'm being a bit too flippant! I know that the girls are proud of their sense of honour - they have a code of conduct which they all understand and live by. That's quite normal in any situation where people live together like this. It's Blyton who overdoes it by making quite a point of it - and yet at the same time, providing us with a character who is generous, loyal, kind-hearted, intelligent, amusing and courageous without any help from the English, thanks very much!

I think Blyton does describe Claudine as 'deceitful' at one point - but she also comes across as an open, honest character. She doesn't steal - I can't think that she lies at all? And isn't it Claudine who borrows things and forgest to give them back, but is also absolutely generous with her own belongings?

Oh, now I'm going to have to go and read the book!!

[Yak]

Ah yes I loved the scene where she 'fell' into the pool .. but I always wondered what would have happened if she'd drenched someone else instead!

The thing with the strawberries is interesting. Wasn't it Bobby who told her that to steal strawberries was against the English girls' sense of honour - and yet Claudine neatly turns that one right back round by pointing out that Angela's spiteful behaviour is a good deal worse than pinching a few strawberries!

[Spitfire]

Ah yes I loved the scene where she 'fell' into the pool .. but I always wondered what would have happened if she'd drenched someone else instead!

Well, as a reader I would still have found that quite funny - but the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Favorleigh getting her just desserts would have been missing. I don't suppose Claudine would have got into trouble as she didn't anyway (did she?), but if her spectacular water display had missed the intended target, she then would have had to find another way to punish Mrs. F., such as putting spiders in her strawberries or something.

Wasn't it Bobby who told her that to steal strawberries was against the English girls' sense of honour - and yet Claudine neatly turns that one right back round by pointing out that Angela's spiteful behaviour is a good deal worse than pinching a few strawberries!

Yes, I think it was Bobby - and then Angela says somehing snobby so Claudine retaliates - and is quite right! She's worth ten of Angela!

Another thing I've remembered is Claudine's hatred of being outdoors amongst the insects. I presume she hates sports too, but I can't remember. And she's a wonderful needlewoman. A perfect stereotype, in fact! I do love Claudine as a character, but I do think that a lot of Blyton's foreign creations are intended as a sort of clumsy culture contrast to add interest to a book (always works well in school stories).

[Yak]

Heh yes she more than hated sports .. she refused to participate in them if she could at all get away with not doing so She is one of the few of Blyton's non sporty school girls who are still nonetheless likeable (Pam is another).

[Daisy]

I don't suppose Claudine would have got into trouble as she didn't anyway (did she?),

As far as I can remember it was thought to be an accident by everyone until she dropped some hint that she had done it on purpose. The girls were delighted but the teachers never knew of course!

[Spitfire]

I don't suppose Claudine would have got into trouble as she didn't anyway (did she?),

As far as I can remember it was thought to be an accident by everyone until she dropped some hint that she had done it on purpose. The girls were delighted but the teachers never knew of course!

Of course! I remember now. And she drops a heavy hint to Mam'zelle who can hardly believe that her demure niece would do such a thing for her! Its all these things that build Claudine into such a great character.

[Yak]

Yeah . It was a brave thing to do and an amusing one. Shame that Mrs Favourleigh did not get to realise that it had been deliberate .. or did she? I am sure that the girls talked about it amongst themselves for a long time afterwards and Angela might just have got to hear.. and related it!

When it comes time to debate the next head girl of the school Claudine is ruled out too decisively, I think. Okay, she might not have been entirely suitable but she has a whole lot of good points which did not seem to be raised. By contrast, the twins just come over as staid and dull..

[MARKTAYLORUK]

Trying to visualise her future - it wouldn't have been dull!

[dsr]

Yeah . It was a brave thing to do and an amusing one. Shame that Mrs Favourleigh did not get to realise that it had been deliberate .. or did she? I am sure that the girls talked about it amongst themselves for a long time afterwards and Angela might just have got to hear.. and related it!

When it comes time to debate the next head girl of the school Claudine is ruled out too decisively, I think. Okay, she might not have been entirely suitable but she has a whole lot of good points which did not seem to be raised. By contrast, the twins just come over as staid and dull..

This is quite a resurrection of an old post! But sionce it's here ...

The reason Claudine wouldn't be considered as head girl is because the head girl's role had to be taken seriously, and if Claudine saw the opportunity for a bit of fun she would go for it even if it impacted on her head girl duties. She wouldn't see the role as being more important than the person, and so she would do what she the person wanted to do rather than what she the head girl ought to do. IMHO.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

The reason Claudine wouldn't be considered as head girl is because the head girl's role had to be taken seriously, and if Claudine saw the opportunity for a bit of fun she would go for it even if it impacted on her head girl duties. She wouldn't see the role as being more important than the person, and so she would do what she the person wanted to do rather than what she the head girl ought to do. IMHO.

Hmmm....

Compare and contrast Teresa May with Boris Johnson

[timv]

Claudine's a bit like Alicia in a way, in the sense that she's a forceful and independent-minded 'maverick' who 'joins in'. works hard, and obeys the rules only when she wants to - though she's less committed to 'achieving' (both work and sports) than Alicia , she's as inventive and mischievous. (One of her best incidents is locking the bossy temporary matron in a cupboard to stop her ruining a midnight feast, which no Malory Towers girl dares do ; another is evading the over-demanding Mirabel and her search for helpers for her sports practice by hiding in the Head's study and pretending that the Head is in there so M won't come in to investigate, then jumping out of the ground-floor window .)

The school authorities, as in real life, would probably not trust her enough to be 'reliable' and do what she's told to be Head Girl, and to a certain extent this is reflected by her seeming to lack the 'English schoolgirls' sense of honour' (which partly amounts to being responsible and putting others first). The 'honour' theme was a big one in girls' school fiction from the Edwardian period to the 1950s , but then seems to have died out except in magazine/ comic stories (which were mostly written by middle-aged adults, a lot of them men, and so reflected what they had learnt as children from their own reading). It plays a major role in top best-sellers of the genre in the 1920s-40s, eg 'Dorita' (Dorothy) Fairlie Bruce', born 1885, 's famous 'Dimsie' boarding-school series, and probably Enid remembered this theme from her own teenage reading and had seen that it was important in contemporary books when she started writing the St Clare's books (1940?) so she put it in. Did it reflect the attitude of the Belgian girl at her own school c. 1910 who was said to have inspired Claudine? Some writers analysing the theme have speculated that lazy Edwardian teachers invented the idea of 'honour' for their boarding-school girls to aspire to, so they would control themselves , 'police' each other, and not need a lot of supervision!

It's a shame, if realistic, that both Claudine and (by this point surely much more responsible and reliable?) ex-joker Bobby, who was cleverer and probably more charismatic than Claudine and who clearly 'leads' her friends, were not trusted to be Head Girls - in case they went 'off the rails' for a bit of fun to see what would happen? We don't see the twins being as forceful or inventive as Bobby or as bossy as Mirabel (who again was probably passed over despite her talents as unreliable) in the middle St Clare's books. In a way it's a surprise to see them as Head Girls - but they were presumably seen as 'steady' and level-headed by the Fifth, with tempers under control by then. (Miss Grayling at MT took more of a risk in appointing Darrell as Head Girl, in a more nuanced series written later.) But the choice of HG is clearly set up as the fitting finale to the series - though I'm sure a lot of readers would have liked to see Enid go back to the series later on and see how the twins turned out in the Sixth. (Cf continuation novel.) But unlike with the Famous Five and Find Outers, Enid clearly drew a line at only doing a series of six books and then 'moving on' - unlike , say, Elinor Brent Dyer who kept on bringing out Chalet School stories (around 60 in all) for 44 years and ended up repeating a lot of plots!

[Debbie]

The choice of head girl is going to have years where it's easy to choose, and years when it's difficult-either because there's several who could do it well, or because there's no one who stood out.
However when I read it as a child, it really felt a cop out to give it to both the twins. Don't twins want to be separate entities anyway-the twins I've known would have far rather the other one got it than they were coupled together as "the twins" and both given it. Pat was clearly the leader too, so it would have made sense for her to be Head Girl.
It wasn't really a typical EB response either-I'd have expected it to be more a Chalet School making the triplets joint to make the point that they were all wonderful.

I always read Claudine's comments on "The English Honour" totally her being tongue in cheek-and also using it as an excuse why she would do things others wouldn't.
We've all known, I'm sure, someone who gets away with things no one else does, and that's how Claudine comes across. And things like when she goes to confess because she's "catching this English honour" it's actually a very clever way of making sure she doesn't get into trouble for it.
She's buttering them up to think "oh actually Claudine is sorry and she realises that we wouldn't do that..." it's making the listener feel pleasantly superior that Claudine is saying they're far more honourable than she is, but she's learning from them. So they don't want to punish her much or be too cross with her as they want to show they're so pleased she is realising it. Clever really.

[timv]

Claudine is also one of those characters who is strong enough to be able to 'bounce back' after a setback or telling-off, like June in MT - with Enid showing things from her point of view and clearly amused at her resilience and 'conning' people, which illustrates that Enid is showing she's on the readers' side not the parents'. In Claudine's eponymous book, she 'apologises' as instructed to the furious temporary Matron for locking her in the cupboard though it's obvious she doesn't mean it, then 'meekly' accepts her punishment of having to do extra sewing instead of sports. Matron clearly thinks that's a punishment , but Claudine is shown as not really liking sport so in a way she's manipulating the adults and telling them what they want to hear. Compare that to Elinor Brent Dyer's books, where the author is clearly on the side of Authority when a prankster or someone who has (accidentally or not) caused problems is punished and she shows it - Enid is thus less 'stuffy' than a lot of her contemporaries in the schools fiction world.

More subtlety can be seen in Enid showing that some girls just do not 'bounce back' and tend to give up after a setback or humiliation. After the initially forceful Pauline's pretence that her mother is rich and aristocratic like Angela's is exposed as her mother arrives to see her (on foot from the train) after her accident and tells Angela and Alison that she has to work as a secretary (and is divorced?), Angela broadcasts this to show her 'rival' up. P's 'photo of my glamorous mother' was clearly not of a relative and was brought along to school as a 'prop' in an attempt to impress her class, as P thinks that the girls are all rich and will only like someone with money - she clearly has 'issues' over her fees being paid by her mother' s employer not by her family, and is too ashamed to admit this. (Did Enid think this up as logical at an expensive school, or hear of a similar case from her elder daughter's or a friend's daughter's school? ) Pauline then fades into the background and is passed over to be Head Girl though she's clearly more 'steady and reliable' after learning her lesson than Claudine , boastful Angela or hot-tempered Carlotta and Janet - Mamzelle calls Pauline 'hopeless'. She may not have much 'leadership ability' anyway - but it looks as if she's 'given up' after her attempts to impress her classmates went spectacularly wrong. The 'Head Girl discussion is intriguing and a rare piece of Enid showing the staff interacting on their own - unlike EBD and other 1940s-50s writers such as Mabel Esther Allan.

[Hannah]

...her mother arrives to see her (on foot from the train) after her accident and tells Angela and Alison that she has to work as a secretary (and is divorced?), Angela broadcasts this to show her 'rival' up. P's 'photo of my glamorous mother' was clearly not of a relative and was brought along to school as a 'prop' in an attempt to impress her class, as P thinks that the girls are all rich and will only like someone with money - she clearly has 'issues' over her fees being paid by her mother' s employer not by her family, and is too ashamed to admit this.

It's never said that Pauline's parents are divorced or that her mother's employer pays for her.

“I hope Pauline is happy at St. Clare’s?” said Mrs. Jones. “She has always wanted to go there, ever since she heard about it. I didn’t see that I could afford to send her, but I managed to scrape enough together. Her poor father is an invalid, you know—has been for years—but I expect she’s told you all that. We haven’t a lot of money, but I did want Pauline to have a good time at a nice school. I said to her, ‘Well, my dear, you won’t have as much pocket-money as the others, and you won’t have as many treats, but there you are, if you like to go under those conditions, I won’t stop you.’ ”