A Little Princess

A Little Princess is a story of a child’s resilience and the power of imagination. Sara Crewe is a fortunate child with a wealthy father that loved her dearly. Her mother had died in childbirth, making them have a greater bond with each other. When it was time for Sara to go to school, she went to a boarding school in London. It was a cultural shock from India (her father was British but they lived there for all of Sara’s life) and she quickly became the prize of the school not only because Miss Minchin like to show her off, but because of her ability to tell stories.

“Of course the great power Sara possessed and one which gained her even more followers that her luxuries and the fact that she was ‘the show pupil’… was her power of telling stories and of making everything she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one of not.” (page 42)

There were her followers; Ermengarde and little Lottie, whom she was the fondest of. She helped Ermengarde see past her dull life and became Lottie’s adoptive mother. When her father started helping his friend with a business in diamond mines, Sara’s popularity rose even further. Throughout the first part of the story, they referred to her as a princess since her mannerism is exquisite besides the wealth of her father. She is polite with leaving her frustrations to her inner monologues.

Eventually, she warms up to the idea of being a princess not because of her wealth, because she does not fully understand her wealth status (which is not a bad thing) but because she feels she can do so much to help others.

“If I was a princess — a real princess… I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people.” (page 54)

When her father’s sudden death leaves her penniless, Miss Minchin is in raged that she will have to be cared for. She makes Sara an errand boy along with teaching the younger children their French lessons. Just like the Sully maid, Becky, who Sara becomes fond of since she always wants a story, all the staff members in the seminary abused them. Making them starved and overworked.

Amid the drastic lifestyle change, it is commented that Sara took it in a way that almost scared the staff. She was open to helping to work for her keep and remained polite. Notwithstanding, her inner monologues show the frustrations and anger that she has with her life. Throughout the second part of the book, she speaks about how soldiers don’t complain and she can imagine the pain away.

“Soldiers don’t complain,” she would say between her small shut teeth. ”I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of the war.” (page 96)

Sara persuades herself that she was a princess and that in the rags and tatters she will remain so. Doing selfless acts that gain the attention of the neighbors. This also convinces the towns folk around her that she is something more, calling her “the girl who is not a beggar.” By the end of the story, the friend that knew her father sends someone to search for her to give her father’s wealth back, making her more wealthy than any princess.

Everyone is focused on material things cannot see that inner peace is better for the mind than outward things. Though Sara was 11 when her turmoil started, she was a peaceful person. It was refreshing to see that she was in fact frustrated with her life, because emotions are normal instead of her just okay with everything, emphasizing on keeping an even head with the right mannerisms is important and a test of character.

The story was written for a newspaper, being released about a chapter at a time. There were various changes to the format of the story. I believe this could have affected the original vision on how it was supposed to finish. This is considered an extended story of the original; the author could have changed the ending just based on the time it took for the finished product.

The end was bittersweet with her father’s death and the friend taking her in. With the way they wrote it and the explanation Burnett gives on the relationship, I do not think he originally intended to die.

OR

Maybe I prefer the movie. There have been a few films done under this title, but I feel the 1995 film Liesel Matthews is just better. The original A Little Princess was written in 1887, which is 30 years before the movie even occurred.

In the 1995 film, Sara went to New York instead of London, because her father had to go to war, instead of a random age of 7. It gives a reason in the book, but it was such an odd reason. It seems choppy, and the plot line with the war overall was a better idea than “The climate of India was very bad for children…,” (page3) even if it is historically correct.

Also, the school was recommended by a friend to Captain Crewe in the book (which I like the detail better) whereas Sara’s mother attended the school in the movie. This detail, I am sure, was just to fluff up the story, even though it was not abnormal at the time (1910’s) for girls of high families to go to school in the States and then move overseas.

Captain Crewe is thought to be dead because of chemical warfare in the movie vs. actually dying from depression and brain fever that his friend recovered from in the story. If he loved Sara as much as he did, why did a financial struggle kill him? Now in 1887, they did not know a war was going to happen. So, with the original nature of the story and comparing the updated story, I will watch the movie before I read the book to get my A Little Princess fix.