Caddie, in Carol Ryrie Brink’s novel Caddie Woodlawn, spends the majority of her time outside playing with her brothers. Despite her father’s insistence early in the story that she run around with her brothers to protect her health, he later tells her that women have their own place in society and that she should welcome it and set aside the freedom she experiences as a tomboy. At the end of the novel, Caddie begins to embrace the role she is expected to play since Mr. Woodlawn parents Caddie by combining masculine and feminine roles and traits. He teaches Caddie that she does not have to completely occupy only one gender sphere; she can incorporate both and accomplish what society expects of her while being true to herself. Caddie is encouraged
…show more content…
In the first paragraph of the book, the narrator says that Caddie “was the despair of her mother and of her elder sister, Clara” (Brink 15). Jane Agee, in her article “Mothers And Daughters: Gender-Role Socialization In Two Newberry Award Books,” argues that Mrs. Woodlawn stands in direct opposition to what her husband is teaching Caddie, and this opposition is what creates the rift in the mother-daughter relationship. “From Harriet Woodlawn’s perspective, Caddie’s behavior represents the wild and savage elements that she works constantly to tame” (Agee 170). Contrasting Mrs. Woodlawn’s world of order in her house to the rugged, untamed world outside shows the difference between Caddie and her mother. Mrs. Woodlawn expects Caddie to return to the domestic sphere and follow her example, but Caddie does not willingly obey. Instead, she insists that although she cannot make bread or samplers, she still contributes to the family: “I can plow” (Brink 150). Caddie seems to know that her mother, at this point, is not too upset about her daughter’s refusal of gender norms because of the “twinkle in her eye” (Brink 150). Agee, however, considers Caddie’s viewpoint “untenable in nineteenth-century Wisconsin and in the mind of Brink” (Agee 170). Agee assumes that Caddie’s childhood is unique, and that other girls in her time would not have been raised like her, and so her refusal to return indoors stands
In the first paragraph of the book, the narrator says that Caddie “was the despair of her mother and of her elder sister, Clara” (Brink 15). Jane Agee, in her article “Mothers And Daughters: Gender-Role Socialization In Two Newberry Award Books,” argues that Mrs. Woodlawn stands in direct opposition to what her husband is teaching Caddie, and this opposition is what creates the rift in the mother-daughter relationship. “From Harriet Woodlawn’s perspective, Caddie’s behavior represents the wild and savage elements that she works constantly to tame” (Agee 170). Contrasting Mrs. Woodlawn’s world of order in her house to the rugged, untamed world outside shows the difference between Caddie and her mother. Mrs. Woodlawn expects Caddie to return to the domestic sphere and follow her example, but Caddie does not willingly obey. Instead, she insists that although she cannot make bread or samplers, she still contributes to the family: “I can plow” (Brink 150). Caddie seems to know that her mother, at this point, is not too upset about her daughter’s refusal of gender norms because of the “twinkle in her eye” (Brink 150). Agee, however, considers Caddie’s viewpoint “untenable in nineteenth-century Wisconsin and in the mind of Brink” (Agee 170). Agee assumes that Caddie’s childhood is unique, and that other girls in her time would not have been raised like her, and so her refusal to return indoors stands