The Carved Lions by Louisa Molesworth

First published: 1895; illustrated

Type of work: Psychological realism

Themes: Family, education, and emotions

Time of work: The early nineteenth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Great Mexington, Middleshire, England

Principal Characters:

• Geraldine Le Marchant, a nine-year-old child, who is sent to the Green Bank boarding school
• Blanche Le Marchant, her compassionate mother
• Haddon “Haddie” Le Marchant, her eleven-year-old brother, who is sent to a Rugby preparatory school
• Mr. Cranston, a furniture dealer, who owns the carved lions and helps Geraldine after she runs away from Green Bank
• Myra Raby, his nine-year-old granddaughter, who becomes Geraldine’s closest friend
• Miss Fenmore, a pretty young teacher at Green Bank, who becomes Geraldine’s and Myra’s governess
• Miss Ledbury, the proprietor of the Green Bank boarding school
• Miss Aspinall, her niece, who, as second-in-command at Green Bank, is really the principal authority
• Miss Broom, a governess at Green Bank, who thinks Geraldine has “airs” and later accuses her of lying

The Story

The theme and setting of The Carved Lions relate it to the nineteenth century school novel, in which the protagonist encounters the painful trials and frustrations of boarding-school life. As the narrator of her own story, now nearly fifty years later, Geraldine LeMarchant tells of the separation from her family: Her father takes a position in a South American bank to regain his financial well-being, and Geraldine is enrolled in Miss Ledbury’s boarding school, Green Bank, on the outskirts of Great Mexington, Middleshire. Leaving the quiet happiness of her home and the loving care of her mother, she enters the school with expectations of meeting children her own age and finding her place among them, giving little thought to the adults who will teach and take care of her.

The story focuses on the contrast between the affectionate family circle and the more impersonal world of the boarding school. The opening of the novel portrays Geraldine’s family life as her parents consider taking the position in South America and separating the family for two years. They decide it is their duty to go and make provisions to send her brother, Haddie, to a Rugby preparatory school and Geraldine to Green Bank. During these deliberations, Geraldine describes the tranquil happiness of her family life, including trips to the grocery, the bakery, and Cranston and Company, the furniture dealer. The visits to Cranston’s are particularly welcome because the children are allowed to play with the pair of life-sized lions, carved from a dark wood, that guard the entrance to the showroom.

This stage in her life comes to an end when Geraldine enters boarding school. Almost immediately, she runs afoul of her teachers as the family maid tries to help her settle in. Miss Broom, a governess, dismisses the maid, insisting that the child must learn to do things for herself. A plain-looking girl and small for her age, Geraldine has none of the cute ways of ingratiating herself with adults. Taking her brother’s advice not to be a cry-baby she fails to win sympathy by expressing her pain and loneliness in a display of tears. Her simple directness is considered rude and presumptuous. Though Miss Fenmore tries to comfort her, she fears that, by showing special attention, she might worsen Geraldine’s situation with the others. Geraldine grows dull and withdrawn and fails to make close friends. Worried about her parents and accused of lying, Geraldine runs away from the school.

Wandering around her old neighborhood on a cold and rainy April day, Geraldine comes to Cranston’s showroom, where, exhausted and ill, she falls asleep against one of the carved lions. She dreams that the lions take her and her brother to visit her mother in a beautiful garden. When she wakes, she is in the Cranston home, surrounded by a group of friends, including Miss Fenmore, and Mr. Cranston’s nine-year-old granddaughter, Myra Raby. After writing to her parents in South America for permission, Mr. Cranston arranges for Geraldine, along with Myra, to be educated privately by Miss Fenmore. Geraldine is thus returned to a family environment, where, although she continues to miss her parents, she passes the rest of the separation happily.

Context

Humphrey Carpenter has noted that Molesworth’s novels are derived from the moral tale, yet her didacticism is subtle. She believed children’s stories “should be like the pure bracing air of some mountain height—unconsciously strengthening towards all good, while assimilated with no realized effort.” Two developments in children’s fiction of the nineteenth century encouraged this move away from didacticism. First, with the arrival of Romanticism early in the century, writers were more intent on exploring the child’s world itself, in which the child was conceived as a real and interesting person, and not as a miniature adult. This conception of childhood initiated a more thorough and accurate understanding of child psychology. Second, English children’s fiction in the last quarter of the twentieth century became more realistic.

Though The Carved Lions lacks the engaging fantasy of her Cuckoo Clock (1877) and the more complex plot of her Palace in the Garden (1887), the novel continues to secure new readers by the psychological richness with which it explores the experiences and feelings of a lonely child.

The Carved Lions concentrates on a realistic portrayal of boarding-school life. Unlike Sarah Fielding’s The Governess (1749), the first school story for girls, or Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days (1857), the novel does not explore the protagonist’s satisfactory adjustment to institutionalized schooling. A similar school story, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Sara Crewe (1888), stands in instructive contrast to The Carved Lion. Like Geraldine, Sara is separated from her father and placed in a boarding school, but unlike Geraldine, her rich fantasy life and her skill in storytelling mitigate her misery. The fairy-tale substructure of Sara Crewe also contrasts with the realism of The Carved Lions. Inasmuch as The Carved Lions deals with female education, its conclusion suggests that young women should be educated either at home or in schools that provide a homelike atmosphere. In this regard, Molesworth is “old-fashioned.” Her ideas of female education probably stem from her uncritical acceptance of the English class structure in the nineteenth century.