Empire’s Boys And Girls: Imperialism And Gender Models In Children’s Fiction Of "the Golden Age"

Roger Lancelyn Green first brought up the term “golden age” in his publishedpaper---The Golden Age of Children’s Books in1962. Since then, many critics haveworked on how to decipher the code of children’s literature in the Golden Age. Thegolden age is commonly acknowledged to have lasted from the middle of theVictorian period (around1850) to the early Edwardian time (roughly before WorldWar I). This dissertation sets children’s fiction from this particular period as subject tounearth the correlation among Imperialism, children’s fiction and gender models. Theauthor first separates fiction from other genres of children’s literature, then focus onthe political, economic, cultural background of Victorian period to unlock the secretof how the golden age came into being. The main purpose is to analyze the imperialinfluence from a powerful empire on its children’s fiction, and how such an influenceis embodied in literature; especially from a gender point of view. How gender modelsevolve with the development of imperialism and what effect it has on the empire isthe core issue of this paper.The first chapter makes an attempt to define the golden age of children’s fiction,and tries to explain the age’s economic, political and culture background. Thensettling empire in children’s fictional discourse, the second chapter discussesimperialism and its direct embodiment in children’s fiction---masculinity, whiletaking sociological definition of gender identity into account. In the second and thirdchapter, the author argues that imperialism had changed the muscular and feminineideal of children’s fiction by comparison and contrast. Thus, finally coming to theconclusion that imperialism propelled gender identity to maturity, while gendermodels in children’s fiction provided the possibility of more determined andcompetent human resources for the empire.