The consequence of the disobedience comes in the form of the unpleasant situation and condition. As Nodelman states in his analysis on Alice in Wonderland and
Purple Jar that the effect of gaining the desire and being disobedient about the future
result always comes in a bad result for the children characters, like in the following. It seems odd that Carroll would make the consequences for Alice so
uncomfortable, and thus confirm what the didactic stories like ”The Purple Jar” want to teach: getting what you want always has bad consequences, and
therefore wanting is not a wise thing to do 2008:31.
Nodelman says that the narration in children’s literature shows how children’s desire can bring a bad consequence. The bad consequence appears in a form of disobedience
that the characters of children have. This disobedience comes when the desire takes control of the children. The characters of children become disobedient when they act
base on their desire. It is seen in the Nodelman’s explanation about the bad consequences as the
result of the desire based act, the narration of the novel also gives a scene about this kind of consequence. These bad effects are constructed as the result of the disobedience
of the children characters. In the novel, Laura and Mary burn their finger when they insist on touching the hot bullet. This unhappy experience happens to them because
they have followed nothing but their desire. They are amazed by the physical appearance of the bullet that shines so temptingly for them. Then, the consequence
comes in this sentence, “Then they burned their fingers” 1971:46. The other bad consequence can be found when Laura’s dress pocket is torn. It
can be seen in the citation below; this thing happens because she wants so many
pebbles that so pretty for her. Laura becomes ignorant about the capacity of her pocket when she desires the pebbles.
When she found a pretty one, Laura put it in her pocket, and there were so many, each prettier than the last, that she filled her pocket full. ...The heavy
pebbles tore her pocket right out of her dress. The pocket fell, and the pebbles rolled all over the bottom of the wagon box 1971:172-174.
The citation above shows that Laura’s desire is to fill her pocket with the pretty pebbles. She follows her desire and that has its own consequence. The bad consequence
for Laura is that the heavy pebbles tear her pocket. Bad consequence is also experienced by Little Grand Pa and his brothers. They
want to fulfill their desire of playing the slide receives terrible consequences. They are given a jacket tanning as a punishment by their father as can be seen in this sentence,
“Their father took them out to the woodshed and tanned their jackets, first James, then George, then Grandpa” 1971:95. Their disobedience has made them break the rule.
Their desire brings this unpleasant effect to them. Pa also experiences the bad consequence as he follows his desire to play in the
woods and ignores his main task. The consequence comes as the day turn into night, as seen in the citation below.
‘I looked down at my feet, and then I saw that one big-toe nail had been torn clean off. I had been so scared that I had not felt it hurt until that minute... Then
your Grandpa went out into the yard and cut a stout switch. And he came back into the house and gave me a good thrashing, so that I would remember to mind
him after that’ 1971:58.
Pa big-toe nail is torn off when he tries to escape from the woods. Moreover he is trashed by his father. He says that it is a good thrashing which mean that it is a painful
punishment for him. For Little Pa, the bad consequence comes from his big-toe-nail- accident that he has and from the punishment from his father.
The other children character who experiences the unpleasant consequence because of the desire based act is Charley. In the previous citation about him, Charley
unwillingly helps his father working in the field. He follows his desire to make fool of his father, and Pa. It is depicted that it is a good joke for him. The consequence of his
disobedience is the lost of trust from the adult in him. This lost of trust brings him into a terrible situation as seen in the quotation below.
Charley kept on screaming, louder and shriller. Pa did not say anything, but Uncle Henry said, ‘Let him scream’. So they went on working and let him
scream. …The yellow jackets lived in a nest in the ground and Charley stepped on it by mistake... He was jumping up and down and hundreds of bees were
stinging him all over. They were stinging his face and his hands and his neck and his nose, they were crawling up his pants legs and stinging and crawling
down the back of his neck and stinging 1971:206-207.
Charley is stung by hundreds of bees, a yellow jackets type, and when he yells for help, the adults do not listen to him because they do not want be fooled as what he has done
to them several times before. As seen in the second citation above, the bees sting him badly, and this is the consequence that Charley receives.
b. Lack of Knowledge
The characterizations of children in the story reveal some ideas that might be concerned as significant points for this analysis. One of the points is the idea of the lack
of knowledge that can be seen in children’s characterization. Moreover, the discussion on the concept of lack of knowledge is based on the theory of children desire and adults
knowledge which is developed by Nodelman. The lack of knowledge is, as Nodelman said, an identification of the character of children.
Since being childlike is identified with lack of knowledge and being adult with the possession of knowledge, the texts represent explorations of the relative
merits of knowing and not knowing 2008:78. Furthermore, the concept of lack of knowledge is about the characterization of
children in children’s literature. Nodelman postulates that the lack of knowledge in children character is one of the identifications of those characters. It is also a point to
identify the position of children characters with the adult characters in children’s literature. In this part, the discussion will be focused on the point of the lack of
knowledge that can be seen in the characterization of characters of children in the story. The importance of the lack of knowledge in the discussion about children desire
is on its rule of elaboration. The concept of the lack of knowledge shows that since the children character in children’s literature are characterized as act based on their desire,
their access to the knowledge is limited. Characters of children, who are controlled by their desire, at the same time, have less knowledge than adult characters. Therefore, for
children characters the more they are controlled by their own desire, the more they have the lack of knowledge. As Nodelman states, “The texts tend to confirm the idea that it
is adult knowledge that reveals the inadequacies of childhood desires. Children are innocent enough not to know the danger in what they desire and need to learn it”
2008:80. Nodelman’s opinion shows that children characters are said as not knowing the danger that the desire can bring to them and the adult is the one who has knowledge
and able to release them from the danger.
Nodelman also states, “You are doomed as a child to keep on being childlike, which means that you will continue to try to act on your desires because you will
always have less knowledge than the adults around you 2008:35”. The main reason why the text of children’s literature tends to put children in desire based action is the
less of knowledge of the children characters. This is the point about the connection between children’s lack of knowledge and their desire.
The idea of children characters’ lack of knowledge will turn into the discussion about the relation between children characters and adult characters. The knowledge that
is discussed here is the basic knowledge that must be gained by any person or the skill of living that should be owned by any person. This knowledge is owned by a person
through their experiences. In a simpler composition, it can be said that the lack of knowledge that the children have is basically the knowledge that belong the adult. As
Nodelman said, “Adult knowledge is knowledge, and in being represented as the opposite of adult knowledge, childlike or animal wisdom can only be understood as a
lack, a deficiency—a state of bliss defined by what is absent from it” 2008:44. By Nodelman’s statement, it can be seen that what the children is lacking of is actually
something that the adult perfectly possess. The point of knowledge that will be a focus in this part is related to the life skill
that the character should have when they do social interaction. In their connection to this knowledge, the children characters are described lack of knowledge or have
knowledge in lower level than the adults. This is the reason why the lack of knowledge can be seen vividly when there is an occurrence of adults. It can be seen in the two
following citations. Laura’s way of speaking is corrected by his mother, ”Can’t I go out to play, Ma?’ Laura asked, and Ma said: ‘May, Laura.’ ‘May I go out to play?’ she
asked 1971:118. In another situation Laura is told how to behave politely, like in this quotation, “Ma had to ask her: ‘What do you say, Laura?’ Then Laura opened her
mouth and gulped and whispered, ‘Thank you’” 1971:171. In the first citation, it can be seen that the way that Laura expresses what she wants is corrected by his mother.
She must use a term which is correct according to the common knowledge or adult knowledge. In the second citation above, Laura is asked to say thank you and she says
it nervously. It shows the lack of knowledge. The long passage in the following citation shows how Laura and Mary are
confused by the cookies sharing. This situation happened to them when they receive cookies as a gift from a neighbor.
She always gave them each a cookie when they left, and they nibbled the cookies very slowly while they walked home. Laura nibbled away exactly half
of hers, and Mary nibbled exactly half of hers, and the other halves they saved for Baby Carrie. Then when they got home, Carrie had two half-cookies, and
that was a whole cookie. This wasnt right. All they wanted to do was to divide the cookies fairly with Carrie. Still, if Mary saved half her cookie, while Laura
ate the whole of hers, or if Laura saved half, and Mary ate her. They didnt know what to do. So each saved half, and gave it to Baby Carrie. But they always felt
that somehow that wasnt quite fair 1971:179.
Laura and Mary want to share the two cookies fairly between the three of them; both of them and their youngest sister, Baby Carrie. Even though they had tried to do it as
fairly as they can, by giving an exactly half of both cookies to Baby Carrie, Laura and Mary still feel that the dividing is not fair. They do not have skill to divide it fairly.
As it can be seen in three citations before, children characters act in a way that are not standard according to the adult because they are characterized as having lack of
knowledge. This condition brings them into the feeling of incorrectness, unfair, but they cannot do anything because of the limitation, as seen when the two children are unable
to solve the dividing problem. The knowledge which the children are lacking of in the novel mainly related to
the daily live in the woods. There are lots of descriptions about the daily life in the woods that mostly depict the technology or system that people use at that time. The
children in the story are depicted as the characters who know very little about those systems. In the first two citations below, there are depictions when Laura reacts to a
system she finds in their life. Laura is worried by the fact she found about what happened to the tree when the people cultivated it to make maple syrup 1971:124. In
the system or process, the tree should be pricked and Laura thinks that it will hurt the tree. The same thing happens when Laura sees that Pa takes honey from the bee
1971:198. She feels sad on the fact that the bees lose their honey as she says, “They worked so hard, and now they won’t have any honey” 1971:198.
Sometimes the family in the story has to face the hardness of living in the woods. The wildlife such as bear is one of the dangers for the family life. Laura and her
mother stand very close to a wild bear wandering around their house. Then Laura said, ‘Ma was it bear?’ ‘Yes, Laura,’ Ma said. ‘It was a bear.’ Laura
began to cry. She hung on to Ma and sobbed, ‘Oh, will he eat Sukey?’ ‘No,’ Ma said, hugging her. ‘Sukey is safe in the barn. Think, Laura—all those big,
heavy logs in the barn walls. And the door is heavy and solid, made to keep bears out. No, the bear cannot get in and eat Sukey.’ Laura felt better then
1971:106.
