A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Story of an Obedient and Brave Girl
“And I have a bed to sleep in, and something to eat every day. Many people don’t have that.”
Sara Crew, A Little Princess
Introduction to the story
A Little Princess is a motivational story authored by a British story writer, Frances Eliza Hodgson. Eliza was born in Manchester, England, in 1849. Her family shifted to the USA and made their home in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Eliza was born in a poor family, so to support her parents she started her career as a writer. She wrote many novels and short stories for adults and children, but A Little Princess earned her much fame. A Little Princess became so popular that it was made into a film in 1939.
Sara Crew’s life before hardship
A Little Princess is a long story about a girl named Sara Crew, daughter of a rich Englishman Mr. Ralph Crew. She lives in India and for her further studies, she moves to England, where she is admitted to Miss Minchin’s school for girls.
Miss Minchin is a greedy lady who is always angry with servants and pretends to be much kinder with daughters of rich fathers, for it is nice for her school’s reputation. Sara spends her time not as a student but as a princess in the school.
Despite her riches, Sara is in no way proud of her costly dresses and luxurious life at school and never looks down on anybody because of appearance or status.
Rather, she values people more than things: she likes to make new friends, she loves to tell stories of great kings, queens and princesses, and she always helps her friends remember their lessons.
The dramatic shift in Sara’s circumstances
On her eleventh birthday party, something happens out of the blue, which changes the course of her life. The little girl who, just a day before, lived like a princess turns to be a servant carrying heavy bags, running from one shop to another; an innocent child who used to wear expensive bright dresses is forced to wear a short and ragged black dress.
She works all day and cannot sleep well in the winter nights, for the attic is very cold and there are no fires for servant girls. Besides this, she is not even allowed to talk to other girls because Miss Minchin does not like servant girls to befriend other rich girls in her school.
Despite all these pains at a quite tender age, Sara is so life-affirmative and never lets her sorrows surface on her face as notions of agony and aggression.
Themes of kindness, strength, and endurance
In 1905, when A Little Princess came out as a longer story, many people bought this to their bookshelves. Especially parents who admired it so much that they wanted their children to read and learn the qualities such as obedience, understanding the value of little things, being all the time positive regardless of hard circumstances, and spreading love and care for others.
Why the author chose a young girl as the protagonist
I wonder why the writer chooses a character of so little age. First, she lives a cozy and comfortable life without having any clue of such a hazardous future. Second, she is gifted, on the best of her days, miseries, hardships and criticism.
Everybody wants to be her friend and talk to her, and so unpredictably, this innocent creature is left with no hope at all. But yet she withstands firmly against bad conditions and never allows herself to be drowned in the sea of pessimism.
What I think is that the writer wishes to inculcate in her readers the quality of being adaptable, for adaptability ensures survival and survival paves the possibility of seeing a new dawn of life.
The deeper message behind Sara’s suffering
Neither every unpleasant condition is a punishment nor is it permanent—rather many things happen in our lives to awaken us so that we could know the value of things and prepare us to receive precious gifts of life. As fire purifies gold, so are we purified by tough times, for crucifixion initiates the resurrection.
In the beginning, the story sounds very ordinary—ordinary in a way that it does not carry any profound philosophy, but yet Eliza attempts to highlight the functions of some of the innate human instincts and their role in our life.
Writer, quite understandably, points out that we find what we look for the most. To a pessimist a miracle is beyond nature of existence, but for the one who believes in inconstant and dynamic flow of life every situation one finds oneself in, pleasing or teasing, there is something new to be tasted, a new way to be walked on, a new adventure to be championed, and a new lesson to be learned. Perhaps this is where one can inhale the real aroma of life!
A personal recommendation for readers
Even if the story is fictitious, it possesses such a power that can mold the way one thinks and enables oneself to see the world from a different perspective. I thus recommend everyone, who finds solace in reading, to read and enjoy this great piece of literature.
About author
Mr. Yasir Ishaque is a Pakistan based research scholar. He is a full time teacher and has lectured at different universities of Pakistan as a visiting faculty. His areas of interest include Education, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Literature (English, Sindhi & Urdu). He is a passionate reader, reflective synthetic, and a book reviewer.
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