Governing Boyhood in the Novels of George MacDonald and Robert Louis Stevenson

Author

Meredith Louise Hale

Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2009

Capstone Advisor

Professor Mike Goode

Honors Reader

Professor Claudia Klaver

Capstone Major

English

Capstone College

Arts and Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Humanities

Subject Categories

English Language and Literature | Other English Language and Literature

Abstract

In a literary world in which a girl is capable of passing herself off as a man and a young boy is pleased when others tell him that he is “as good...as if [he] were a girl,” one questions what defines masculinity (MacDonald, ABNW 146). These individuals are two characters created by the Scottish novelists George MacDonald and Robert Louis Stevenson in the late 1800s. This project analyzes how novels by MacDonald and Stevenson depict boyhood and includes MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind (1871), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and The Princess and Curdie (1883) as well as Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), and The Black Arrow (1888). It argues that the novels of MacDonald and Stevenson envisioned boyhood as a stage in life in which one must learn how to govern one’s own person, with an eye towards learning how to govern others without the use of violence.

Recommended Citation

Hale, Meredith Louise, "Governing Boyhood in the Novels of George MacDonald and Robert Louis Stevenson" (2009). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 427.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/427

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