Little Lord Fauntleroy

I think knowing if the author is male or female changes the way we read and understand the text. I believe that if you can’t tell whether the author is a male or female you can most likely figure it out from the way the author writes and the way the characters are portrayed in the stories. At first when I read Little Lord Fauntleroy and I thought Frances Hodges Burnett was male, I thought it was a little strange the way he portrayed Cedric’s character because it was not the “typical” boy that we saw previously in Ragged Dick or Tom Sawyer. It seems to me that male authors wanted to portray boys as rough and tough, rather than sensitive characters. Ragged Dick and Tom Sawyer were both very independent and did what they had to do to be successful, whatever that meant to them. They were not measured by their looks at all and there was no focus on being “good”, but it was important to make money and have ambition.

I thought Cedric was described more like a girl during the 19^th century than a boy. “In the first place, he was always well, and so he never gave any one trouble; in the second place, he had so sweet a temper and ways so charming that he was a pleasure to everyone; and in the third place, he was so beautiful to look at that he was quite a picture” (Burnett 444). From the beginning of Little Lord Fauntleroy Cedric is described over and over as being beautiful or pretty, not something that boys were usually valued for.

“And then they went into the carriage and Cedric sat very close to her, and as she looked back out of the window, he looked at her and stroked her hand and held it close” (Burnett 500). Cedric loved his mom so much and would do anything for her. He worried about her after his father’s death even though he did not completely understand. Cedric read to her and kept her company all the time. This reminds me of Ellen in a Wide Wide World because she would read to her mom, spend time with her, and comfort her because she cared about her so much.