Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess was published in 1905 and has remained in print ever since. It has been adapted into numerous films and plays. It is with us still, though the world it depicts seems quainter and more old-fashioned when viewed from a century's distance. The world of boarding schools and servants living in drafty attics now seems as fantastical as a fairy-tale. Indeed, the riches-to-rags-to-riches story of Sara Crewe's descent from beloved daughter to orphaned scullery maid mimics another well-known tale: Cinderella. Except in A Little Princess, Sara is restored to good fortune when recognized by a wealthy guardian, instead of a handsome prince.
As someone who shares Sara's name, I was often reminded of its meaning: princess. Like many little girls, I often imagined myself a princess, but in my mind this had less to do with gowns and crowns than it did the way that I was expected to behave. When I was very little, I thought I might one day be required to rule a small country with wisdom and compassion, or called upon to use my skills for great service, like the biblical Queen Esther. Growing older, I discovered that being a princess had less to do with material conditions or political boundaries than it did with the ways in which one conducts oneself in the world and rules one's own heart. Key to the transformation of “princess” as a literal idea to a metaphorical one is Burnett's book and the example Sara provides in rising above her circumstance.
Although her situation is greatly altered when she is orphaned and goes from prize pupil to scullery maid, Sara's spirit remains unbending. By continuing to imagine herself as a princess, Sara finds dignity and the ability to endure. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the novel, a very hungry Sara even gives away the buns she has just bought with a sixpence she finds at a crossing to a child who is not just hungry but starving.
"'Whatever comes,'" she thinks to herself, "'cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.'"
Alfonso Cuarón's 1995 film adaptation of A Little Princess takes the idea a step further: "All girls are princesses," Sara is told by her ayah at the beginning of the movie. "It is our right." And later in the film, after Sara has lost her father and her fortune and is punished by Miss Minchin—the boarding school mistress and the villain of the story—she responds to Miss Minchin's insult ("Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess?") in one of the most moving and powerful moments of the film:
"I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags. Even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?"
Re-reading A Little Princess, I was surprised to find how much Cuaron's film had both superseded and elevated the book for me. Burnett's A Little Princess, though stringently observant, tends to define Sara by surrounding her with characters who aren't quite as kind, as smart, or as noble as she. The movie shows a Sara whose character is defined by her ability to inspire and ennoble others.
As an adult reader, I was also surprised to discover I was less satisfied with the ending of the book—where Sara is restored to wealth and power—than I had been as a child. Sara comes all too close to serving the rest of her life as a servant or governess, and there is nothing in her fantasies—or a world carefully constrained by class—that can give her the power to improve her material circumstances. Just like Cinderella, she is rescued at the end of the story through no virtue but her goodness and the accident of her birth. Where does that leave the rest of us, whose nobility is nothing more but good behavior? And where does that leave the rest of the girls at Miss Minchin's school who are left behind? While the inspirational message remains the same—that we can be noble in thought and deed despite the meanest circumstances—A Little Princess gives us no guidance about how to change one’s circumstance. I am not the only person to ask these questions, because they are precisely the questions Hilary McKay addresses in her recently released sequel to A Little Princess called Wishing for Tomorrow, which I will be posting about later this week.
Do you let your children play princess? Do you think such play is harmful? What books were an inspiration to you as a child? What books have you returned to as an adult to find changed?
Sarah Wood, a reviewer for Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com since 2003, is a lifetime reader and writer. She refuses to accept that there are people who don't like to read and stubbornly believes this is only because they have not met the right book yet.
Stephanie_K
on
Great column! I too loved this book as a girl and the movie version was just magical to me...especially that my name is Stephanie and not Sarah 
I had no idea that there is a sequel to the book and I look forward to reading about it!
