Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Thematic Approach

Spaeth's book is an unusual addition to Twayne's United States' Authors Series. The opening and concluding chapters are typical, the former offering a brief biography and the latter an evaluation of Wilder's influence. But rather than offer a book by book discussion of Wilder's work, each of the remaining chapters focuses on a theme important to understanding the Little House books. I find this approach not only novel, but also useful. It is, however, limiting. As an introductory study, the book does direct readers and scholars of children's literature to what are clearly ideas of major importance in Wilder's work. On the other hand, a text of only 98 pages, does little more than introduce these ideas and, as we might suspect, does not give equal consideration to the individual books of the series.

The biographical chapter is a bare recital of the facts of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, beginning with that of her parents and ending with two brief paragraphs about the success of her work after her death, especially in the form of the television series, Little House on the Prairie.

The second chapter deals with Wilder's use of folklore in the eight Little House books, especially in Little House in the Big Woods. The focus here is on storytelling as Pa's means of educating his daughters about the world and of reassuring them that they are safe indoors because he can manage the dangerous wilderness that is outdoors. Other elements of family folklore that Spaeth notes are repeated phrases, routines connected with housekeeping, the legend of Jack Frost, the game of "mad dog," and Pa's songs. She asserts that "the tradition of folklore established in Little House in the Big Woods recurs frequently in the subsequent volumes in the series" (21), but she mentions only the use of Native American lore in The Long Winter. Nevertheless, this chapter clearly identifies an important theme of Wilder's work: the use of folklore to "clarify or explicate society . . . [even] within the small society of the family" (21).

Chapter three explores the pioneering theme in the Little House books, especially in Little Town on the Prairie and, to a lesser extent, in Little House on the Prairie, but with some mention of several of the other books, including The First Four Years. Spaeth points out the many difficulties experienced by the pioneers—their destruction of the wilderness they loved, their desire to create something new but not to be out of touch with the East, the contradictions experienced as a result of the Homestead Act, the absence of sufficient water and trees on the prairie, their displacement of Native Americans, and the many other tests of their essential optimism and blind faith in the future. The pioneering spirit as understood by Wilder is also clearly a major strand in her work.

The next theme Spaeth addresses is Wilder's feminism, as it is embodied in her fairly complex portrait of pioneer women. As Spaeth notes, the Little House books are almost exclusively a female society and, in a range of female characters, present the variety of females' responses made to the wilderness. Recognizing that the pioneering experience challenged the traditional female sex role, Spaeth points out that it demanded a creative response from women or it destroyed them, and she cites the contrast between Ma's response and that of Mrs. Brewster in Those Happy Golden Years as evidence. But what is most interesting about the treatment of the female sex role in these books is the contrast between Laura's and Ma's attitude toward the wilderness. Ma accommodates, but she never learns to love the wilderness. She is always the family's link to the East and to a settled civilization. She is always fearful of the new demands placed on females by the wilderness—for example, the need to cope with the Indians or to do heavy physical labor in the fields. Laura is her opposite, reveling in the freedom offered by the prairie, especially as experienced by...