Beyond the Divide: Lasky's Feminist Revision of the Westward Journey

Children's books about westward journeys generally function as Bildungsromane by turning the physical itinerary of the journey they depict into a symbol of an inner movement toward self-development. The sense of transformation that the journey stands for in these books is engendered by their deployment of a "chronotopic" opposition between the East and West. I use the term "chronotopic" here in the way Bakhtin defines it, as a fusion of time and space, as a result of which physical space becomes a tangible representation of a specific time and values. In describing this process of spatialization of time and of temporalization of space, Bakhtin writes, "Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history" (84).

The East and West in books about westward journeys are chronotopes par excellence because they are the physical embodiments of specific temporal orientations and of world views concomitant to them. The East typically represents the past, and therefore also signifies a rigid lifestyle determined by a hierarchical class structure in which traditions and conventions stifle individuality and creativity. The West, on the other hand, stands for the future. Furthermore, the temporal meaning of this future is imbued with a celebration of equality, fluidity, individuality, and freedom. Consequently, the East and West do not merely serve as the backdrop of the portrayed adventure, but rather, through the opposition of the ideals that they embody, determine its meaning.

Moreover, the temporal connotations of the East and West structure the chronological sequence of the plot. By starting from the East and ending in the West, and therefore by situating the East prior to the West in the temporal sequence of their narrative, books about westward journeys re-enact and reinforce the temporal opposition between the East and the West, respectively, as the past and the future. It is through this emphasis on a movement from the past to the future that the literal journey designates development and charts the path of growth toward Bildung. The temporal and epistemological opposition between the East and West as chronotopes determines the telos of Bildung, both as trajectory and destination. Because the narrative and journey end in the West, as the locus of achievement of the celebrated ideals, the West becomes the unequivocal sign of Bildung.

Sid Fleischman's By the Great Horn Spoon and Marilyn Cram Donahue's Straight Along a Crooked Road offer two typical examples of the thematic and structural uses of the chronotopic opposition between the East and West. In By the Great Horn Spoon, Fleischman narrates the adventures that twelve-year-old Jack has with Praiseworthy, his aunt Arabella's butler, first during their boat trip from Boston to San Francisco, later as they try their luck at the gold mines near Sacramento. The goal of the pair is to get rich as quickly as possible to save Arabella's diminishing fortune and the big family mansion in Boston. But the freedom and opportunities of the West provide them with a bigger treasure than money, self-discovery and growth as human beings.

Fleischman succinctly juxtaposes the values of the East and the West through the two different images of Praiseworthy at the beginning and the end of the book. In the East, Praiseworthy is trapped by the social class into which he is born as the son of a butler, despite his intellectual capacities and extensive bookknowledge. Nothing can change the fact that he is a butler, and nothing else about him matters except that he is a butler. But in the democratic atmosphere of the West, he can become Bullwhip, the hero whose boxing talent and intelligent enterprises are unmatched by anybody. The freedom of the West allows his true essence as man to be discovered and appreciated.

Fleischman symbolically underscores the rigidity of the East in Praiseworthy's impeccable butler's costume complete with a black suit, gloves, an umbrella, and a top hat. As long as he wears this costume, which visibly identifies his social status, and therefore defines his identity in...