character sketch of Anne of famous five of enid blyton
Answers
Explanation:
So, what to make of Anne? In my memory from childhood reading she was quite annoyingly domesticated and being told she was a ‘proper little housewife’ was a compliment of the highest order. Approached from an adult and 21st century perspective, I am a lot more sympathetic to Anne. Yes, she does do ALL the cooking, sandwich making etc. (and yes, on occasion forces poor George to help on the grounds that she is a girl) but she also tells the rest of the gang “You ought to be glad I like messing about with the food and getting it ready for you” (Five Get Into Trouble). So in fact she’s a bit of a 1940s Nigella Lawson prototype and if making others happy through providing domestic delights is her cup of tea, well, that’s fair enough (although I still think she should bargain with the boys a bit more and get them to pull their weight. Surely washing up can’t be that enjoyable, even if you have found a convenient spring and basin-shaped rock pool).
Anne’s not completely passive either. In Billycock Hill (one of my favourite FF stories) she gets quite grumpy when pondering noise pollution of the countryside by tourists playing their records too loudly. The theme of Anne’s inner ‘tiger’ is continued later in the series. In the penultimate adventure, Five Have a Mystery to Solve, Anne gets so irate with animal-loving Wilfred that she tips a bucket of water over him. Rather than making him angry this actually inspires a bit of a crush on his part: ‘”I’m sorry too,” he mumbled. “You’re nice – and your nose is like that baby rabbit’s – it’s – it’s a bit woffly.”‘ No comment.