‘Well—are girls like boys, then?’: genre and the gender divide in school stories

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of genre and gender in twentieth-century British school stories, exploring whether the sex of the characters is of itself divisive enough to make girls’ school stories and boys’ school stories separate genres. The similarities as well as the differences are addressed, and the paper looks at whether the sex of the characters is the sole obvious difference between the stories, and if so, whether this is a large enough difference in and of itself to make girls’ and boys’ school stories parts of separate genres. It addresses the arguments of previous critics, as well as taking into account mixed-sex school series and their unique place in the world of school stories. This paper looks in particular at the following school story series: the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer; the Dimsie series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce; the Billy Bunter series by Frank Richards; the Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton; the Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge; the Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton; the Trebizon series by Anne Digby; and the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.