Week of February 19, 2007

Chapter Three: In Which I Travel—by Land and Sea:

Child Doll or Adult Doll?

This chapter covers a lot of action! It starts out in the Prebles' cabin. The Captain has made Hitty a cradle so I am guessing he and perhaps Phoebe see her as a child doll? Listening to the 'voice' of Hitty so far in the book has made me think she is an adult doll.

I don't know that Hitty is regarded so much as a young child with respect to the cradle. On a boat, many things are gimballed, which means they are self-leveling. For instance, the stove is hung on the bulkhead (wall) on a device that allows the top of the stove to remain mostly level for cooking. The main table is also usually gimballed. Hammocks are great as they sway so you mostly remain on the same plane rather than having your bed tip and tilt back and forth, much like the movement of a cradle on land. Depending on whether you have your "sea legs" yet, the movement can be soothing or nauseating. The rockers on the cradle might act as a gimbal to help keep Hitty from being tipped from her bed as could the high sides.

I agree that her voice sounds like more of an adult doll. I also agree that Phoebe may have viewed Hitty as a child doll to care for...tucking her into her cradle at night, etc., much like little girls often see their dolls.

To me, Hitty's "voice" and observations seem far too insightful, practical, and wise for her to be a child doll. Of course, people can see her in different ways, which is wonderful, but she has always seemed to be more of an adult doll to me.

Perhaps we think of Hitty as adult because we know her only from the book, which she wrote after 100 years of adventures. She is telling us about her life experiences just the way an adult human writes an autobiography--through the wisdom and insight gained by living a full life!

That's the wonderful thing about having a Hitty doll. She comes complete with a background, and we can choose any period of her life to re-create in our stories. She can be a youngster worried about being left at home while the family goes out, or she can be a woman of the world who has traveled, has met many people, both good and bad, and has had life-threatening adventures.

Perhaps Phoebe and Hitty seem more adult because Phoebe seemed to be growing up within the adult's world of travels, teachings and expectations.

I always thought that when she was with Phoebe she was still a child, remember she's telling this from her perspective much later, so she's got an adult voice now, since she is an adult telling the tale.

The time during which she would have represented a child's doll to Phoebe and when she wrote her memoirs were 100 + years apart and she went through a lot of adventures during that time. It would tend to age her perspective. Also, sometimes we project personality onto our little friends that may not be entirely accurate to their little spirits inside. So perhaps she was always a grown-up doll, but Phoebe pretended she was a child doll because that is what she needed. I believe Hitty enjoyed most being played with by children. She remembers quite fondly and eloquently being held between the thumb and
the first finger. So I think probably both interpretations are accurate.

I will always think of Hitty as a child. She is certainly dressed like one. I also always think of her belonging to the first house and what happened there and her return, and have always tried to keep her possessions something that would fit in a farm type house. (She does own a couple computers but they are only out when she is writing to her travel Hitty friends.)

I, too, think of Hitty as a child and plan to keep my Hittys that way. They will never grow up. I view my Hittys as descendants of the original Hitty that lives in today's world but sheltered from any unpleasantness. I want them to live a charmed life!

To me, Hitty is both childlike and also very wise. It's hard for me to think of her as a particular "age", I think because that would be comparing her to a human person. Since she is a doll, she seems always outside of the human experience, looking on and thinking about what she observes. So, after a hundred years, she has a lot of wisdom and experience, but she is also still very naive and innocent in many ways. That is how the Hitty character in the book seemed to me, and I think also how I view my own Hitty dolls. Of course, MY dolls haven't had a hundred years to gain wisdom, so they are still much more childlike than Book Hitty.

It also occurs to me that Hitty's voice may sound very much like the person who is her caretaker at the time. When she wrote her memoirs, she was in adult care and it had been many years since she was a child's doll. There is also no doubt that she matured over the years; she appeals less and less to children and more and more to adults. In fact as she gets older, the adults, realizing her age, don't even see her as a child's doll anymore and they keep her on a shelf. But perhaps, if she had stayed in the company of children, she'd have remained more child-like. ALSO, children back then were not really given a childhood like we demand for our children today. Everything they were taught to do was in preparation for being an adult. So what we see as a childish voice, is probably not what a child would have sounded like back then. I think, in particular, of the daughter in the
movie FairyTale. She had a very adult voice and outlook, but she had watched her brother die and had come close to death herself. I imagine Clarissa's voice would have sounded more adult to our ears as well.

I think Hitty in the book is an adult doll but she is wise enough to play the child for Phoebe. At the time the story is taken place adult bodied dolls were the norm and children often gave them the role of baby or child.
About 17 years ago I was taking a class where there was an assignment to write a paper on childhood throughout history. If I recall correctly, childhood did not begin to be viewed as a distinct phase of life until around the mid to late 1800's (I think...dates are not my thing...lucky to remember the current date). Anyway, I think Phoebe was a bit before the time when childhood emerged as an acknowledged phase of life. The Victorian
perception of childhood as a time of innocence when children needed to be sheltered from the harsh realities of the world...safe in their nursery havens... took awhile to develop.

I remember reading the reflection that children in art went from being depicted as solemn, miniature "adults" to being depicted as the pink cheeked, golden haired cherub-like children you see in old Victorian greeting cards, etc. Children's literature begins to change gradually. I remember looking back at some of the old readers and many of the early lessons were geared toward the dire fates of "naughty children" and describing the proper, mannered behavior of "good children." Very harsh sounding compared to today's
children's literature. And, again if I recall this correctly, even as the concept of childhood emerged, it was a shorter time than we see it today. Adolescence did not begin to be seen as a phase of life until a little later (early 1900's perhaps), when the shocking discovery was made that....adolescence can be a time of "storm and stress" (maybe that should have been the discovery of the century!). So you are certainly right that Phoebe and children from Hitty’s time would have sounded far different from the children of today.

Unfortunately, one of the things that struck me the most with thinking about children of past years is that the concept of childhood was only for privileged children initially. Other children still worked in cruel conditions in factories. I was fortunate to actually get my hands on a copy of Memoirs of a London Doll by Richard Henry Horne a few years ago. The wooden doll in that story, Maria Poppet, spent time with several less fortunate children, including a little girl apprenticed to her dress making aunt. The girls had to sew from 6:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night in chairs with no backs lest they actually be tempted to slow down their work or take a break! Maria's owner only found time to make her clothes because she happened to get sick and had to stay in bed a couple of days. So, definitely a different world from today.

Knitting:

Captain Preble needed 12 pairs of knit socks to go on his whaling trip, so she got out her knitting needles and got busy! We are wondering how Kate Preble could knit in the stagecoach on the way to Boston, but she was determined to make her husband enough socks to last him the entire whaling trip.

She must have been very determined. I suppose Kate Preble was used to snatching time to knit or do other such things for her family whenever and wherever she could, so perhaps it was not so difficult for her.

Even if the stagecoach ride was too rough and bumpy to knit, Kate Preble would not have wanted to have idle hands. "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop."

Hitty’s Quilt:

Did you notice that Hitty's quilt in the cradle has patches made from fabric scraps from her first dress? Peeking at the first illustration in Chapter 4 we see Hitty's first dress in the sea chest, even though she had told us that dress was nearly ruined by the crows, rain and sharp twigs.

Wouldn't it have been fun if Rachel had told us about the quilt? I want to think of it as being made by Phoebe. She did love Hitty so! She was so isolated and lonely being an only child living a ways from other playmates. Poor little girl. Luckily she did have Andy, who, being a little older, was able to play with her and teach her things--like why
crickets chirp!

General:

Like most little girls, Phoebe probably wanted to play Mother with her doll, and needed a cradle to put her dolly in. That is how many girls learn to be Moms--by watching how their own Moms care for siblings, then copying the actions. Even though Phoebe seems to have been an only child, she did visit neighbors and relatives, so no doubt spent time with younger kids.

Again in this chapter, we see that Mrs. Preble's days were so busy that she didn't have a whole lot of time to play dolly with Phoebe. She promised to make new clothes for Hitty, but didn't get around to it before they left for Boston.

I think this means that Mrs. Preble found the time to make her a little blanket anyways. Or perhaps Phoebe did it. I can see her Mother getting her to sew the quilt while Papa is making the cradle.

Mrs. Preble’s “Heathen” Difficulties:

I find it interesting that Mrs. Preble objected to the name of the ship as being heathen. Diana is a Roman goddess of the hunt, which is totally appropriate for a whaling ship.

The irony is that the ship was renamed to Diana-Kate. Hopefully the crew felt that there would be no curse on the ship since part of the original name was still there, but I’m betting Mrs. Preble didn’t deal too well with the new name.

Yes, Mrs. Preble really objected to anything heathen--the Old Peddler saying the wood had magic in it and then the name of the ship. And do you note that later in this chapter, Phoebe says something to the effect that it's lucky they have Hitty on board because she is bringing them luck (during the storm) and Mrs. Preble is too distraught to reprove her.

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