1. Children Desire : A View of the Innocent
a. Disobedience and its Consequence
Little House in the Big Woods is a story about the daily life of a little family.
The world inside the novel comes to the reader by the narration of one of the characters in it, a little girl named Laura. The characters in the story can be divided into two main
parts, characters of children and characters of adults. The discussion in this part will be about the point of disobedience and its consequence as one of the points of the concept
of children desire. Characters of children in children’s literature are related very closely to the idea
of desire. The desire is an instrument that mainly belongs to the children. Children are characterized as having the desire as the basic tool in their live. The desire is the center
of all motivations that can be found in the character of children as it is seen in a narration, story, or texts of children’s literature. As Nodelman says, “’The Purple Jar’
hinges on Rosamond’s desire for the jar and her discovery of the implications of getting what she wants. Because of her desire for the jar is based on her ignorance about its
true nature” 2008:33. The previous quotation is about Nodelman’s explanation taken from his analysis on the text of The Purple Jar. He states that the children character in
the story is basically driven by her desire. Rosamond, a child character in the story, is controlled by her desire of the purple jar and the story goes by the appearance of the
consequences of her desire. The acts of the children characters that are basically maintained by the desire
will be resulted in particular consequence. Most of the children characters will become
disobedient people when they follow their desire. Nodelman says that childhood is defined by its ignorance and consequent willingness to act on desire 2008:35. In
Nodelman’s idea of children in children’s literature, the concept of children desire can be discussed by looking at the disobedience in characters of children. Disobedience is
the stage or the identification that comes when children is following their desire. Therefore, the characters of children in children’s literature are constructed by the
disobedience that they have in themselves. In the following part, there is discussion of the disobedience and its consequences in the characterization of children in the novel.
The disobedience is showed by the character of Laura when she breaks the rule of Sunday in the story as seen in, One Sunday after supper she could not bear it any
longer. She began to play with Jack, and in a few minutes she was running and shouting 1971:86”. The other example is in the situation when Laura and Mary really want to
touch the hot bullet as seen in, ”The bullet was too hot to touch, but it shone so temptingly that sometimes Laura or Mary could not help touching it” 1971:46. The
disobedience is shown when the children want something. They do not have any consideration about the future consequence of their acts. Laura as quoted in the first
quotation above knows the fact that producing loud sound and some acts are forbidden on Sunday. On the contrary, she cannot control herself, or her desire, to play with Jack.
Laura and her sister Mary, in the second quotation, show a disobedience when they cannot control themselves of not touching the hot bullet. They are led by their desire
that some sort of pleasure can be gained if certain act is accomplished.
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