Grahame was born in Scotland and lived there until his mother died of scarlet fever when he was 5; Grahame himself contracted the fever, which left him with lung problems for the rest of his life.  His father, an attorney, abandoned the family and Grahame went to live with his grandmother. He attended school in Oxford but was kept by his family from attending university; instead, he went to work for the Bank of England, rising to a high position there even as he pursued a distinguished writing career. He retired from the bank in 1907, thanks to his writing success and his marriage several years earlier to a somewhat wealthy woman. He began publishing magazine essays during the 1890s, including work in The Yellow Book, famous organ of the Decadent movement.  Much of this was collected in Pagan Papers (1893); this was followed by The Golden Age and Dream Days, two books of fictionalized reminiscence of childhood.

    Although he had a number of "buddies" or "mates" (terms he would not himself have used), Philip says that he had no real friends (102 - central concern of novel may be friendship).  He married in 1899, a "disastrous" marriage which nevertheless produced one child, his son Alistair (b. 1900 - d. 1920, probable suicide).  WW began as oral bedtime stories to Alistair and was continued in letters to the son; the original stories constitute the first half of the book, up to "Piper at the Gates of Dawn"; later chapters (centered on Toad) were from the letters.  "Piper" and "Wayfarers All" were added later yet (these are the two "misfit" mystical chapters).  From 1908-1962, WW sold an average of 80,000 copies per year (Fadiman 277).

“The Reluctant Dragon”

    “The Reluctant Dragon” originally appeared in Dream Days but has since been published separately.  An animated short of the story was included in a movie by Disney in 1941, incorporating both a live-action frame and animated sequences; although the film is titled from the story, it also contained other animated segments.  It has also been adapted as a play and an opera.

Issues to explore:

• Frame story – the children are imaginatively playing outdoors in the winter.  First paragraph evokes Wordsworth, most prominent figure in British Romanticism; children seem to reject him (and by extension Romanticism?) as they comment “we didn’t think very highly either of the poem or the sentiment” (264-65).  Note how the story of the dragon undermines or deflates the romantic image of the noble knight confronting the dragon.

• The idea of the dragon enters the story through the mysterious footprints the children encounter: “a beast we could not at once identify” (265).  The boy and girl are somewhat complementary – he goes to realistic animals he has learned about from books, she goes to an imaginary animal, but one associated with Britain.  Pursuit of the beast along its tracks leads them to the circus-man, who responds to a request to tell a story with the account of the reluctant dragon.

• At the end, the man leaves them without fully satisfying Charlotte’s desire for closure – she wants to know if the dragon really settled down, etc. (279)  On being told there’s nothing more to the story, she wonders if it were true and notes “‘Sounded dreadfully  like nonsense, in parts!” – the boy suggests it might be true despite sounding like nonsense.

• The Boy differs from his father, the shepherd, in that he is particularly concerned with books – and the books he chooses to read are “natural history and fairy-tales,” i.e., a blend of the two children’s response to the dragon tracks, a merging of fact and fantasy.  When his father tells of encountering the dragon, the boy is almost nonchalant, taking a very casual attitude toward what is either a fantastic occurrence or a frightening one, if not both (268).  The son acts like the adult in the family as he explains the difference between himself and his father, and takes control of the situation, endorsed in doing so by his mother (268).  That he has been limited to book knowledge is clear from his surprise at hearing the dragon purr (268); despite the confidence with which he went to face the dragon, he lacks first-hand experience of the world.

• Undermining stereotypes – The dragon, despite its supposed nature, is peaceful, even lazy, and sensitive – a poet, in fact.  (Both he and the Boy are poets – picking up an echo of the frame’s dismissal of Wordsworth.  What is the text’s attitude toward the Romantic?)  The Boy attempts to make the dragon abide by the romanticized text, telling him he is “a scourge, and a pest, and a baneful monster” (270).

• Prejudice – The boy’s characterization of the dragon is echoed by that of the villagers, who know nothing of the actual creature but only its reputation.  However, they will do nothing: “no hero was found willing to take sword and spear and free the suffering village and win deathless fame” (270) – and the village doesn’t actually suffer, so this is a (humorous) case of mass hysteria, and a demonstration of the power of story to trump observed reality.  “‘Oh dear, oh dear,how stupid men are when they get an idea into their heads!” (272) “…the whole thing’s nonsense, and conventionality, and popular thick-headedness” (274)  All are subject to the demands of society, but those demands can be satisfied in ways less destructive.

• St. George is a pleasant sort, seemingly friendly and no-nonsense.  He reasonably points out to the boy that an apparently peaceful disposition and literary pursuits do not preclude one being a “rascal” (273).  He speculates on the wickedness in human beings after hearing that the dragon is favored in the betting (273) – but is this just because his pride is hurt.  An underlying theme of rules governs the fight – George says it is “quite against the rules” to abandon the fight.  The choreographed fight transforms it into an aesthetic event, emphasized by St. George’s view of the landscape (274).  His speech to the villagers (278) warns them “against the sin or romancing, and making up stories and fancying other people would believe them just because they were plausible and highly-coloured.”

A. Waller Hastings
Professor of English
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD  57401

Return to Wally Hastings' Children's Literature Page
Return to Wally Hastings' Homepage