Little Bruised Backsides on the Prairie
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70042/eroth/904202Keywords:
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Corporal Punishment, American Frontier, Little House on the Prairie, Elaine ScarryAbstract
The Little House series of children’s novels by the American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder is one of the most memorable literary explorations of pioneer life on the American frontier. The eight novels in the series celebrate self-reliance and initiative. However, the application of corporal punishment is contradictory in the series in that the recipients in two instances disappear entirely from the narrative, and presumably, from the possibility of future success. This study applies the work of theorists Michel Foucault and Elaine Scarry to argue that the ambiguous treatment of corporal punishment in the novels tends to inadvertently question whether the American Dream as depicted by Wilder is really as free from the hand of authority as it purports to be.
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