Empowering girls? The portrayal of Anne and George in Enid Blyton's Famous Five series

Abstract

Several of the dominant discourses of the times in which Enid Blyton lived and wrote are reflected in her writing; and this resulted in much negative criticism of her work. However, her writing also offers evidence of alternative and emergent discourses, as defined by Raymond Williams. In this article, Blyton's often contradictory representation of gender roles is considered, with particular reference to the portrayal of the characters Anne and George in the Famous Five series. Although there is evidence that Blyton does support a dominant heteronormative discourse that encouraged girls and women to take a submissive role in relation to boys and men, she also undermines such stereotypes and shows her readers different possibilities for girls and women. In her portrayal of the tomboy George, Blyton illustrates that girls and women can succeed at traditionally masculine tasks, while at the same time she reassures young readers that a traditionally feminine role such as that ascribed to Anne is also available to them.