“Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails”: Boys and Behaviour in the USA

Author:

Smith Matthew1

Affiliation:

1. Matthew Smith – Department of History, University of Strathclyde

Abstract

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain introduced two of the most iconic boys in American literature. Tom and Huck become heroic figures, despite their penchant for bad behaviour. Indeed, it is their propensity to be impulsive, break rules and defy authority that win them the day. Today, however, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn have become the posterboys for a psychiatric disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. I trace how and why attitudes about pathological boys’ behaviour reversed during the twentieth century, from a focus on shy, introverted, and physically passive boys to the very opposite – boys like Tom and Huck. I argue that, rather than imposing limits on childhood behaviour, we should be more accepting and encouraging of all types of children.

Publisher

University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)

Subject

General Medicine

Reference103 articles.

1. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are the most famous examples of “bad boys,” who emerged in American literature during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Other examples are found in Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s The Story of a Bad Boy (1870), James Otis Kaler’s Ten Weeks with a Circus (1877), and Booth Tarkington’s Penrod (1913). In the opening of Aldrich’s memoir, he explains that he was “not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I did not want to be an angel and with the angels stand. In short, I was a real human boy.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich, quoted in Jerry Griswold, Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America’s Classic Children’s Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 147. Some might also include Horatio Alger’s Dick from Ragged Dick, but others, such as children’s literature scholar Kenneth Kidd, suggest that Dick is too well behaved to join this group of “bad boys.” Kenneth B. Kidd, Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 99.

Cited by 1 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Medical conditions revealed in fairy tales, folklore and literature;Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health;2019-09-04

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3