The Challenges of Growing Up as a Girl

In Cummins’s The Lamplighter one of my favorite characters, Gerty, is struggling through the hardships of life and to become a good young girl with a balance to handle her anger and to be useful to the ones she now loves. Throughout the history of our society little girls have been dealing with the challenges of growing up, pleasing every one, finding themselves, and a plethora of other issues. After watching a video posted to our blog I was able to compare and contrast an eight year old, Anna, to our spunky character, Gerty.

A very special eight year old was featured on the show we were asked to watch and she really completely blew me away. I have never met an eight year old that is so composed, controlled, mature, and does yoga to become calm so she can collect her thoughts. Anna was asked a question concerning what people should think of when they say the cannot do something and she responded “try your best and try harder.” To hear those words come out of an eight year olds mouth was amazing along with another comment concerning how to react when people are rude or not accepting of others for who you are. Anna believes that girls should be themselves and to not think about what you have to do to have friends because people should want to be friends with you for your true inner self. When she confronts such uses yoga, which is an advanced use of the body and mind, to meditate and clear her mind.

Referring to the issue of caring what others think of you Anna and Gerty are on a completely different level. Due to eight years of intense verbal and physical abuse Gerty is mentally unable to accept love or compliments and thinks very low of herself. “Poor, ragged, and miserably care for, as most of them were, they all knew that Gerty was still more neglected and abused. They had often seen her beaten, and daily heard her called an ugly, wicked child, told that she belonged to nobody, and had no business in any one’s house.” (84). Astonishingly Gerty is able to go to school and love it at first until cruel words make her cave in and act inappropriately. “Did anybody ever drown your kitten? Did anyone ever call your father Old Smutty?” (148). I believe Gerty is on the path to becoming a “good” girl and will learn self-control. “Miss Emily, I mean to try, but I don’t think I can.” Here Anna is different then Gerty because Anna has gained the self-control and understanding to know that at some point you will succeed. Because of comments like these I believe that Gerty would have been very different and would have bashed Nan Grant and had a fit of anger as she usually does when she talks about things like that. I think that our depictions of girls have changed drastically because there is such a bigger movement to be independent in a variety of ways. I think they have stayed the same in the respect that women are expected to do all the domestic duties, stay composed, and to now be an independent providing for themselves. But at the same time I think that they have stayed the same because there is still so much pressure on women and young girls to be almost perfect in every way including looks, intelligence, and more.

The contemporary “girl” compared with our historical Gerty is similar and different as we have seen through the text. There was and still is pressure to be a “good” girl but the pressures have evolved and become greater. As children’s literature makes it obvious to us there are guidelines for girls and if they don’t meet the “good” girl image they will not succeed in life.