Pollyanna

📖 The Scoop

Pollyanna is a novel by Eleanor H. Porterpublished in 1913... That is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook.[1] Also, the subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997.Plot : The title character is named Pollyanna Whittier, a young orphan who goes to live in the fictional town of Beldingsville, Vermont, with her wealthy but stern and cold spinster Aunt Polly, who does not want to take in Pollyanna but feels it is her duty to her late sister. Pollyanna's philosophy of life centers on what she calls "The Glad Game," an optimistic and positive attitude she learned from her father. The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how bleak it may be. It originated in an incident one Christmas when Pollyanna, who was hoping for a doll in the missionary barrel, found only a pair of crutches inside. Making the game up on the spot, Pollyanna's father taught her to look at the good side of things--in this case, to be glad about the crutches because they didn't need to use them.With this philosophy, and her own sunny personality and sincere, sympathetic soul, Pollyanna brings so much gladness to her aunt's dispirited New England town that she transforms it into a pleasant place to live. The Glad Game shields her from her aunt's stern attitude: when Aunt Polly puts her in a stuffy attic room without carpets or pictures, she exults at the beautiful view from the high window; when she tries to "punish" her niece for being late to dinner by sentencing her to a meal of bread and milk in the kitchen with the servant Nancy, Pollyanna thanks her rapturously because she likes bread and milk, and she likes Nancy.Soon Pollyanna teaches some of Beldingsville's most troubled inhabitants to "play the game" as well, from a querulous invalid named Mrs. Snow to a miserly bachelor, Mr. Pendleton, who lives all alone in a cluttered mansion. Aunt Polly, too--finding herself helpless before Pollyanna's buoyant refusal to be downcast--gradually begins to thaw, although she resists the glad game longer than anyone else.Biography : Eleanor H. Porter (1868-1920) was an American novelist.She was born as Eleanor Emily Hodgman in Littleton, New Hampshire, on December 19, 1868, as the daughter of Llewella French (née Woolson) and Francis Fletcher Hodgman. She was trained as a singer, attending the New England Conservatory for several years. In 1892 she married John Lyman Porter and relocated to Massachusetts, after which she began writing and publishing her short stories and, later, novels. Extrait : In due time came the telegram announcing that Pollyanna would arrive in Beldingsville the next day, the twenty-fifth of June, at four o'clock. Miss Polly read the telegram, frowned, then climbed the stairs to the attic room. She still frowned as she looked about her.The room contained a small bed, neatly made, two straight-backed chairs, a washstand, a bureau--without any mirror--and a small table. There were no drapery curtains at the dormer windows, no pictures on the wall. All day the sun had been pouring down upon the roof, and the little room was like an oven for heat. As there were no screens, the windows had not been raised. A big fly was buzzing angrily at one of them now, up and down, up and down, trying to get out.Miss Polly killed the fly, swept it through the window (raising the sash an inch for the purpose), straightened a chair, frowned again, and left the room.

Genre: Literary Collections / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh (fancy, right?)