Where in those days would a little girl even know of anything like this, in our times, kids regularly bandy about words to do with homosexuality but back then for an all girls school with very young girls, how did they make up such a rumour.
Both times I have caught this film half way through. What happens that makes this girl find this lie, even if she had seen Martha look at Karen in a certain way, would she have known what it meant?
See the whole movie. In the beginning, Mary and the other girls pass around an obviously forbidden book that is never identified but that clearly contains something they find shocking in a titillating way (there's a lot of gasping and eye-widening). I think we are supposed to assume that this is some sort of "sex manual" (as they were called in those days) or maybe a pulp novel that has some lesbian content. While is arguably true that most kids would have been less well-informed about matters of sexuality in 1961, they were surely just as curious and prurient about them as they are now.
shareThanks. Never can catch the start.
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You can actually download this as an ebook for free at Project Gutenberg, it's not copyrighted in the US.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14288
There's also the scene where Mary is hiding in the hallway and she sees Karen kiss Martha on the cheek. That definitely has something to do with it, since it gives Mary the idea of physical contact between the two women.
Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once.
Yes, that scene seemed to be what made Mary first think that Karen and Martha were lesbians...by the way, I think its rather unusual for the past two posters to have posted so soon after this movie just finished airing on TCM....did you just finish watching it? I know I did...I liked it quite a bit!
Thanks, I've never seen it from the beginning either. I just caught it on TCM last night, saw the name Audrey Hepburn, and started watching.
share"Where in those days would a little girl even know of anything like this, in our times, kids regularly bandy about words to do with homosexuality but back then for an all girls school with very young girls, how did they make up such a rumour."
Actually, the play is based on a true story, athough Lillian Hellman always denied this, preferring to have people believe that she created the story herself (she was a talented playwright, but an extremely dishonest, narcissistic person). But it really happened in Edinburgh, Scotland, just as in the play: the two headmistresses, the evil little girl, the rich grandmother, even the elderly aunt who was a former actress. The only character hellman created was the boyfriend, who didn't exist in real life. The "Martha" character didn't commit suicide, though. The two teachers sued the grandmother for libel. I believe they won, but their lives and careers were still ruined.
The kicker? The actual case occurred in the year 1810, proving that little girls always had information on "things like this" and were able to start rumors.
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Yes, she was! It's possible that all the trouble she caused at the school was motivated by supressed anger at her status as an "outsider" among the pupils. She had a rich and aristocratic grandmother who indulged her, but her mixed blood (she was the daughter of a Scottish officer and an Indian mother)would have meant that she would never be fully accepted in Scottish, i.e., white society. Probably a lot of resentment directed towards authority figures like her teachers. Mhearn, have I found a fellow Wiliam Roughead fan?
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William Roughead was a Scottish crime writer of the 1930s and 40s. He wrote an essay called "Closed Doors; or The Great Drumsheagh Case" about the two headmistresses and their half-Indian pupil. It's very likely that his essay is where Hellman got her inspiration for "The Children's Hour". Since there aren't many other sources that mention the 1810 case, I thought that perhaps you learned about it through Roughead's essay.
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Well, one thing that made me curious was if Mary possibly had developing lesbian inclinations herself. I say this because I am not straight, and from a young age knew it. I was also in denial and would act almost homophobic to seem straight, even at ages 8-14. I would be interested in books that had the content matter, and sort of project it. I know people, especially children, can be curious about many taboo things (especially with a lack of sexual education of any kind), but her interest was very keen. I also could pick out women who might have been similar, and Martha definitely would've fallen into that category.
I wondered when watching the film as well if this is Mary's reasons for acting out. I'm sure for anyone in that time period there was conflicted internalized loathing.