The Werewolf series of essays on classic children’s books continues this week with this story by Avi of murder, mutiny and teenage rebellion on the high seas
All children have the same needs for security. Obviously though, social class and economic circumstance shape our childhood experiences in vastly different ways. One of Avi’s useful abilities as a writer is that he can take his youthful readers out of their comfort zone, and drop them down into historical settings where everyone – characters and readers alike – have trouble finding their bearings at first, physically and morally.
In The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle this playful sense of dis-orientation begins with the very first sentence of the book: ‘Not every thirteen year old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty.’ Indeed. The year is 1832. When we first meet Charlotte Doyle, she is very much a conventional, well-bred young girl in attitude and appearance. On her dear father’s instructions, Charlotte is about to leave Liverpool and cross the Atlantic as the sole passenger aboard the Seahawk. It is a prospect that fills her genteel soul with no end of concern, which she tries in vain to communicate to her father’s agent:
“But.. but they would all be men, Mr Gummage. And…I am a girl. It would be wrong!” I cried, in absolute confidence that I was echoing the beliefs of my beloved parents. Mr Gummage drew himself up. “Miss Doyle,’ he said loftily, ‘ in my world, judgements as to right and wrong are left to my Creator, not to children. Now, be so good as to board the Seahawk. At once!’
Once on board, Charlotte gravitates quite naturally to the manners and graces of the ship’s master, a Captain Jaggery. Suffice to say that during the journey across the Atlantic her perceptions of the captain and crew, and of her own place in the world all undergo some very drastic revisions. As Captain Jaggery’s true nature becomes apparent, we are soon sailing the turbulent waters of mutiny on the high seas, with Charlotte forced to choose sides and take the consequences – which she does, with great resilience. In a surprising coda, Charlotte also comes to recognise that the rigid, intolerant captain of the Seahawk and her own beloved Papa have far more in common than she realised.
What we have here is a rattling good yarn, brilliantly told. One that casually spoofs and subverts the conventions of gender and social class. Like Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte is on a one-way journey out into the world – he on a raft, she on the Seahawk. Like Mark Twain’s hero, the young white adventurer in this book gets indispensable help from a black man who befriends her. In Huck’s case, from Jim the runaway slave. For Charlotte, her guardian angel proves to be the old ship’s cook, Zachariah. Pointedly, he and Charlotte have a conversation that establishes that while he ran away to sea, Zachariah was never a slave.
Avi was entirely aware of what he was on about here. Books that do not return their hero/heroine safely home after their grand adventure are the most subversive stories of all, he once wrote in an essay in Horn Book magazine in 1993. Like Charlotte, some of us find salvation by leaving the Eden of our family home. Parents have to be put to one side in the process: lovingly, one hopes. As Avi says, the process of separation was once succinctly described by a character in Jenny Davis’ book Goodbye and Keep Cold :
Charlie says everybody has to raise their parents. Is that true? He says the time comes for all of us when we have to kiss them goodbye and trust them to be okay on their own.
Partly through circumstance, and partly through her own sense of self preservation, Charlotte Doyle reaches the same conclusion.
The Life
Edward Irving Wortis (aka Avi) has been a prolific writer in just about every genre imaginable: historical fiction, animal stories, fantasy, serials and experimental fiction. Now 86, he was raised in New York within a family of writers and social activists. As a child, he suffered from dysgraphia, a writing dysfunction characterised by chronic bad spelling, word omissions and confusions between right and left hand columns on the page. Despite these handicaps, he persevered as a writer.
Towards the end of Charlotte Doyle, one of the worst sins levelled at her by her enraged father is…the bad spelling in her journal.
More to the point Charlotte, your spelling is an absolute disgrace. Never have I seen such abominations. And the grammar…It is beyond belief ! An American tutor miss, shall instil a little order in your mind. But the spelling, Charlotte, the spelling…”
If things had gone to plan, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle would have already been turned into a big budget film directed by Danny DeVito, with Pierce Brosnan as Jaggery, and Morgan Freeman as Zachariah. In a casting coup, the brilliant Irish actor Saoirse Ronan was set to play Charlotte. Yet four weeks into pre-production in late 2008, Freeman had a late night car accident, and with a woman who was not his wife in the passenger seat.
The film production was derailed as a result. DeVito still owns the rights, but the film seems permanently on hold. True, there were people who liked Devito’s film version of the Raoul Dahl story Matilda, but I can’t help seeing the cancellation as a blessing in disguise for people who really love this book. Saoirse Ronan would have been a great Charlotte, but she alone might not have been able to save the film from DeVito’s eccentricities.
What we’re left with is the book. IMO, only Katniss Everdeen comes close as a satisfying female character in relatively recent YA fiction. Charlotte’s initial prejudices are depicted realistically enough to be credible. In their early exchanges, Jaggery plays on her snobbery and sentimentality in order to turn her into his spy below decks, but the treatment is just broad enough to be self-satirising, even for teenage readers. For example:
And so you and I, Miss Doyle, shall understand one another, shall we not? Oh yes sir, I’m sure, sir. You do my heart good,’ he cried. ‘And you have permission to come to me if you are troubled in any way, Miss Doyle. If something frightens you or…if perhaps you become…how shall I say…apprehensive. If you hear rumours…This crew, like all crews, grumbles and complains, You go to school?’ he asked suddenly. I nodded.
‘And though you love it, and love your mistresses, I’m sure even you and your companions have critical things to say ?I’m afraid so. Its much the same here, Miss Doyle. All friends, but…a few grumbles too. In fact, I shall ask you to help me, You can be my eyes and ears among the men, Miss Doyle. May I depend on you for that?’ I’ll try, sir….’
Her infatuated esteem for the captain not only makes Charlotte’s initial betrayal of the crew seem credible. It also helps make her guilt and gradual transformation difficult enough to be satisfying. Charlotte really does make a long journey, and crossing the Atlantic is only part of it. The ultimate confrontation between Jaggery, a Charlotte now under sentence of death, and the crew – after many see-sawing changes of fortune – comes down finally to Charlotte’s unnatural attitudes, behaviour and appearance:
‘She’s the one who lies! the captain cried, pointing his pistol now at me, now toward the crew, which made them visibly flinch ‘The truth is she wants to take over the ship. Yes, she does. Would you stand for that? Do you wish to put into port and have this girl spread the slander that she, a girl, took command of this ship, took over each and every one of you and told you what to do? A girl ! Would you ever be able to hold your heads up in in any port in any part of the world? Think of the shame of that!’
I had begun to edge towards the steps to the forecastle deck, thinking the men there would stand behind me. But as I approached, none moved forward. I stopped. You mustn’t believe him !’ I cried.
Don’t be afraid of her,” Captain Jaggery cried. ‘ Look at her. She’s nothing but an unnatural girl, a girl trying to act like a man. Trying to be a man. She can only harm you by living. Let her have her punishment.”…I backed away from him… He kept coming. Against the moon, he seemed to be a faceless shadow, a shadow broken only by the dagger-like glitter of the pistol that caught the light of the moon…I looked for a way to escape, but found none.
Striking a balance between an action packed story and gentle satire is far harder than Avi makes it seem here. More than anything, the palpable energy in his writing is what keeps the reader turning the page. (Much of that tautness came from the author’s constant re-writing.) While Charlotte Doyle remains one of Avi’s most enduringly popular titles, it reached only the shortlist for the Newbery Medal in 1990. In 2002, he won the Newbery award outright for his book Crispin: The Cross of Lead, set in 14th century England.
For Charlotte, finding security is only part of her goal. In the wrong setting, the family can be a trap. When we bid her goodbye, Charlotte has chosen a life of uncertainty and hope, in preference to the prison of society’s expectations about her gender and her class:
….Something Zachariah told me filled my mind and excited my heart. ‘ A sailor, ’he said, ‘chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port…but winds have a mind of their own.’
Footnote: A few years ago, I found online this wonderful review of the book written by a 12 year old girl who called herself “Chelsea Churro”. By now, she will be in her mid 20s. One can’t help wondering how things are turning out for her. Hopefully, Charlotte Doyle has proved to be a good role model. Here was her reaction, at age 12:
If you are a fan of this novel, it is well known that you have a huge capacity of inner feeling (similar to that of Charlotte). I am twelve and I am a person of such nature. If you hated this book, it is likely that you are a modern, go-along with the crowd type of person that cherishes technology more than anything else. People such as I and fans of this extravagant novel understand Charlotte Doyle, and quite honour books like this.
In fifth grade, my teacher read this story aloud to the classroom. I believed almost every soul present was hooked on it, but it turns out that I was wrong. For, once when the story ended, the magic was gone. I was the only one who ever spoke of it. I was craving for a sequel…and at the same time craving the original to be my own. So I rented it from the library and read it twice again. The same magic entered my mind and absorbed my heart each time. I couldn’t get enough of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.
Then the next time I had a chance to buy a book, without a second thought I hurriedly hunted Charlotte down, grabbed her gently (while staring into Charlotte’s beautiful eyes!), and strode toward the cash register. I read it all again that evening, same magic appeared once more. And just a couple of weeks ago when I started 7th grade, I read Charlotte Doyle once more. I have read it a total of 5 times in 2.5 years (that’s two and a half!).
Some of you say that it is boring. That may be true, but I believe you are referring to the beginning of the novel. Patience is a virtue. The information is vital later on in the novel. If you read the whole novel through and found naught a single interesting point, no climax or anything at all, THEN I can’t explain. I suggest it was because you expected gore, or machine guns, bombs exploding, or a shark attack. Allow me to remind you of the setting- 1832 -not the 21st century!
As for the author, Avi has written many excellent novels, and has earned a reputation for high standards. I find it absolutely amazing how he captured a perfect mind of a girl like me! Not a girl from the 21st century. No, not a girl that by the age of 7 is thinking about how ‘hot’ the boy in her class is, or how to cuss and get her parents upset. Watching R movies and getting into ‘relationships’. I find that sort of behaviour quite appalling. I’m talking about a REAL girl with Hopes and Dreams and following her senses, being brave, and listening to what her heart desires. If you loved this novel it may be true that you are a ‘young soul of justice’ yourself!!!
Previously : The Moomins by Tove Jansson; Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown; Badgers Parting Gifts by Susan Varley; The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford; Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; The Indian in The Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks; The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper