Pollyanna

Pollyanna’s aunt, Miss Polly Harrington is Jennie’s younger unmarried sister. At the start of the novel Miss Polly is about 40 and of a stern, perennially dissatisfied demeanor. She becomes the stereotype of the cross old maid, wearing her dark curly hair in an unflattering tight bun and fussing over small matters such as the dust in corners of rooms. She grimly sets store by her duty, trusting that she is “a good woman” when she takes Pollyanna into her home (6). Miss Polly’s need for control manifests in her emphasis on good manners and propriety. For example, she insists that Nancy look at her when she is talking to her and chastises Pollyanna for enthusiastically pointing out her wealth. Valuing productivity above joy, Miss Polly insists that Pollyanna should learn the accomplishments of a middle-class young girl, such as piano and sewing. Her decision to confine Pollyanna to the attic at the beginning of her stay is a metaphor for Miss Polly’s wish to curtail her niece’s influence and enact the fantasy that nothing has changed because of her arrival.

Still, as Pollyanna confuses Miss Polly by being grateful for her punishments and twists her arm over previously unthinkable matters, such as bringing in an adopted cat or dog, Miss Polly cannot help but alter her outlook. She finds that she is staggered by the feelings of affection and curiosity that she shut herself off from, ever since her sister’s elopement and the trouble with her former lover, Dr. Thomas Chilton. Further, she discovers that she is vulnerable to Pollyanna, for example, when she finds herself pleased at the flattering changes that Pollyanna has made in her appearance. Importantly, Pollyanna is not making Aunt Polly into a new person, but rather showing her the fullness of her personality before she closed herself off to love and other people. Aunt Polly is a less extreme variant on Charles Dickens’s character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations (1861), as misfortune in love leads to a closing off from the world and being stuck in the past.

Miss Polly begins to care for Pollyanna and gives her room more at the center of the house, a metaphor for keeping her in the center of her heart. Still, Miss Polly’s final points of resistance are hearing about Pollyanna’s beloved father, the man who Miss Polly blames for taking her sister away and admitting Dr. Chilton in the house when Pollyanna is sick.

When she falls under the influence of the glad game and opens her heart to the man she was separated from for reasons that the novel keeps vague, Aunt Polly allows herself to be truly transformed by Pollyanna. She goes from the stereotype of old maid to that of romantic heroine, as Pollyanna reminds her how to love.

Nancy is Miss Polly’s hired girl. She is from a farm called The Corners and has been forced to seek outside work when her father dies, leaving her mother with the care of three younger children. While Nancy’s exact age is not given, she is referred to as a “girl” (5). Class differences between Nancy and Miss Polly are accounted for, as Nancy’s speech is peppered with ellipses and colloquialisms rather than standard grammatical English.

Nancy, a newcomer, serves as the lead into Miss Polly’s household prior to Pollyanna’s arrival. Her view of Miss Polly is as a stern old maid who could have never possibly had a lover. Her outraged reactions to how Miss Polly treats Pollyanna act as a moral compass, even when Pollyanna is being unusually optimistic. It is up to Old Tom to show that Nancy is only aware of recent history and alert her and us that Miss Polly and Beldingsville were not always as they are now. The notion of Miss Polly having a lover intrigues Nancy and she makes a mistake in coupling her with Mr. Pendleton.

Nancy is from the outset delighted with the idea of a child entering the household and brings the sentimental views of the time about children bringing “sunshine” to a home (5). When Pollyanna arrives, Nancy vows to be her “rock ter fly to for refuge” and thus give her the comfort that Miss Polly cannot (21). A friendship forms between Pollyanna and Nancy; albeit it is not one of equals as Nancy addresses Pollyanna with deference, as though she is her young mistress. While the two remain close, as Miss Polly warms up, Pollyanna transfers her affections over to her aunt.

Old Tom Durgin is “Miss Polly’s right-hand man” and he works in the grounds of her home (15). His son Timothy is also in Miss Polly’s service, giving the impression that his family has an established tradition of service with the Harringtons.

While this bent old man has a minor role in the narrative, he is important in having seen Miss Polly’s generation of Harringtons grow up and in providing the perspective that things in the village were once different. He offers a more nuanced, generous view of Miss Polly to Nancy’s stereotype, tantalizing Nancy with the morsel that Miss Polly was once handsome and had a lover, without revealing the full truth. Old Tom’s loyalty to Miss Polly provides a point of hope for her change in character.

Old Tom idealizes Miss Polly’s sister Miss Jennie, calling her “an angel straight out of heaven” and sees Pollyanna’s likeness in her (11). While we do not witness many direct interactions between Old Tom and Pollyanna, Pollyanna plays the glad game with him, telling him that his being so bent is an advantage, as he is closer to the ground he is digging. While Old Tom finds this endearing, some readers may find it a patronizing comment to a weak old man, who is overworked and has not yet retired.

Mrs. Snow is poor, chronically ill, bedbound, and a serial complainer. The wealthier villagers such as Miss Polly pay patronage to Mrs. Snow by giving her foods such as calf’s-foot jelly and lamb’s broth. Prior to Pollyanna’s influence, Mrs. Snow exists in a state of depression when she refuses to draw the curtains or change her nightdress. She thus exacerbates her own misery. Her greatest pleasure in life is to complain, a pastime which tires out both her daughter and her visitors.

Pollyanna challenges Mrs. Snow in her mission to be miserable, by fixing her hair and telling her that she is pretty. In drawing attention to a positive feature such as pretty “black curls” in a woman who feels her body has let her down, Pollyanna restores a sense of pride which makes Mrs. Snow bother to change her nightdress (56). On a later visit, when Pollyanna keeps Mrs. Snow guessing about what she has brought, trying to force Mrs. Snow to say what she wants, Mrs. Snow is directly confronted with her tendency to be dissatisfied. While Porter portrays discontented Mrs. Snow as a comic figure, she does in her immobile state present a very real challenge to Pollyanna: how to be glad when you are stuck in bed all day. Pollyanna admits that being glad “’twould be kind of hard” in Mrs. Snow’s state (58). The question becomes relevant again when Pollyanna loses the use of her legs in a later part of the novel.

Mr. Pendleton first appears to Pollyanna as a figure who she nicknames “the Man” in a “long black coat and […] high silk hat” (51). Such an outfit would be distinctly unfashionable by the mid-1910s and would cast Mr. Pendleton as a remnant of the earlier Victorian period. This fits with the fact that Mr. Pendleton is living in the past, never having gotten over the rejection from Pollyanna’s mother Jennie, 25 years earlier.

Despite his wealth, Mr. Pendleton is an unloved figure in Beldingsville, with rumors of him being a miser and going on expeditions to heathen countries abounding throughout the village. Although he lives on a similar big house on a hill to Miss Polly, he is even more mysterious than her, with rumors of no one but himself and his servants setting foot in his house. Pollyanna, however, only sees him as lonely and so makes a concerted campaign to approach him.

He does not take her seriously until she manages to procure Dr. Chilton’s help for his broken leg, and he finds out that she is the daughter of his beloved Jennie. This is when his taciturn statements are traded with passionate rhapsodies such as “Why, Pollyanna, it’s only since you came that I’ve been even half glad to live!” (140). While Mr. Pendleton delights in Pollyanna’s character and finds that she makes him laugh, his fondness for her is directly related to his unrequited passion for Jennie as the 25 years love he has in store for Jennie gets transposed onto Pollyanna. Although his passion for Jennie was romantic and his feelings for Pollyanna are more paternal, the transference itself is unseemly. Additionally, it is a passion that makes Mr. Pendleton selfish, as he is willing to deprive Miss Polly of Pollyanna, as though he cannot conceive how anyone else would love her as much.

Instead, when Pollyanna posits Jimmy Bean as a replacement for her, it is a healthier choice as Mr. Pendleton is given the chance to love unconditionally, without any unhealthy ties to the past.

On a narrative level, Porter sets up Mr. Pendleton with his house and attitude to match Miss Polly’s, as a foil for her mystery lover. The secrecy surrounding both characters enable Nancy, Pollyanna, and the reader to be led along.

Like Pollyanna, Jimmy Bean is an orphan. Unlike her, he has no living relations and is stuck at the Orphans’ Home with the sensation that “I wa’n’t never wanted” there or by prospective adopted families (78). In the narrative, he is positioned as the third of Pollyanna’s rescues, following a stray kitten and puppy when he appears “in a disconsolate little heap by the roadside, whittling half-heartedly at a small stick” (77). Here, Jimmy is the picture of idle desperation; his half-hearted attempt to whittle down a stick being a symbol of his lack of faith in his ability to improve his situation.

Pollyanna, happy to have encountered a companion of her own age, is not put off by Jimmy’s brusque manners and dismissiveness. Still, though Jimmy longs for a home “with a mother in it, instead of a Matron”, he is distinctly unchildlike in his desire to work for his keep (78). Jimmy’s confidence comes from his sense as a worker and not a beggar who expects something for nothing.

While Pollyanna, as a nice-mannered, middle-class child is a more attractive adoption prospect and the anonymous Hindu boys are a more exotic charity case, the novel presents local boy Jimmy as the one who most urgently needs a home. When the Ladies’ Aid reject him, Pollyanna finds Jimmy a home with Mr. Pendleton. These two children in an adults’ world continue to look out for each other, acting as messengers and go-betweens, such as when Jimmy eavesdrops on Dr. Chilton’s visit to Mr. Pendleton and manages to bring an urgent message to Miss Polly on time.

Tall, handsome, broad-shouldered Dr. Chilton is Miss Polly’s former lover. The two broke up over what Dr. Chilton vaguely dismisses as “a silly wrangle” which has trivial significance “compared to the years of misery that follow” (204). This quarrel sees both Dr. Chilton and Miss Polly living lonely existences and giving up on love, as their former romance becomes a secret to all but the oldest in the community, such as Old Tom and Mr. Pendleton. However, while Miss Polly lives a secluded life on a hill and adopts a forbidding veneer, Dr. Chilton lives a life of service as a doctor and has a cheerful demeanor.

He comes into Pollyanna’s life during the period of Mr. Pendleton’s convalescence, and his role subtly increases as he goes from serviceable physician to Pollyanna’s courier and friend. He too is taken in by Pollyanna, calling her optimism the best medicine and enjoying her humor. He finds himself making her his confidante, as he allows her to see the pitiful two rooms he occupies in a boarding house and confesses that there is a single woman in the world that he wishes to marry. While Dr. Chilton’s reaction to seeing Miss Polly after Pollyanna’s makeover confirms him as her lover, Porter holds out from letting Pollyanna have the realization until he emerges as the hero who will save her from paralysis. Although Pollyanna tolerates Drs. Warren and Mead, she never gives up the sense that Dr. Chilton is her doctor, making the point that he is the only one that can cure her.

Dr. Chilton is shown to be Pollyanna’s doctor by proxy, as he never gives up his tireless search to find a cure for her and enlists the help of a college friend. However, he must first find a way to throw off the past and enter Miss Polly’s house. It is this spirit of courage and moral rectitude that enables him to help Pollyanna and dare to enter Miss Polly’s household again as her suitor.

Mrs. Payson does not appear in the novel until Chapter 28 when we learn about the extent of the glad game’s impact in the village. Although this character never appears in direct action with Pollyanna, she stands out as being a person who the village’s old guard such as Miss Polly disapprove of, but who Pollyanna visits and embraces as a near equal.

Mrs. Payson’s physicality consists of “unnaturally pink cheeks and abnormally yellow hair […] high heels and cheap jewelry” (194). As the wearing of obvious makeup and the use of hair dye was not taken up by respectable women until the 1920s, Mrs. Payson would be seen to exaggerate her charms in the attention-seeking guise of a prostitute. While the book only specifies that Mrs. Payson was on the brink of a divorce and used foul language towards her husband, the village gossip has given her a “reputation” that exaggerates her misdeeds (194). Indeed, Mrs. Payson points out to Miss Polly that were she to be more welcome in mainstream society “there wouldn’t be so many—of my kind”, women pushed to the margins and perhaps into disreputable professions such as prostitution (195).

Mrs. Payson’s ability to be moved by Pollyanna and her gratitude that such a good-hearted person would accept her, causes her to work on her marriage and resist the then socially unacceptable sphere of the divorced. It also gives her the confidence to enter Miss Polly’s homestead and presume to visit Pollyanna. She thus takes a step from the margins into to the center.

The often-mentioned Ladies’ Aid in Pollyanna is based on a real organization which middle-class women founded during the American Civil War (1861-1865) to care for wounded soldiers. After the Civil War, Ladies’ Aid branches continued to thrive around the country, as they engaged in other nursing and goodwill missions. In Pollyanna, the Ladies’ Aid is tied to parishes and performs such tasks as outfitting and rehoming local orphans and aiding more exotic missions abroad. For example, the Beldingsville Ladies’ Aid enters a mission to rescue Hindu boys from poverty.

Pollyanna speaks with fondness of the Western branch of the Ladies’ Aid, mentioning them in every other sentence at the beginning of her stay. However, she explains their generosity in buying her the trunk which will allow her to travel in the same breath as she describes their more aesthetic mission of buying red carpet for the church. She thus sees herself as a competing charity case. Later, when it comes to the more overtly superficial Beldingsville branch of the Ladies’ Aid, characterized by its gossip and raucous laughter, she will also see Jimmy Bean as a competing charity case with the Hindu boys. She notes with dismay that they prefer the glamor and renown of having their names associated with a foreign charity case than with helping locally. Each one considers taking in Jimmy, before passing him on to her peers, thus giving the impression that they prefer helping from a distance rather than locally.

Pollyanna and Jimmy mock the Ladies’ Aiders’ priorities, stating that Jimmy may be more appealing to the faraway Western branch of the Ladies’ Aid than a near one, as the distance will lend him a foreign glamor. Overall, the novel shows that the Ladies’ Aid’s efforts are half-measures compared to Pollyanna’s.

The initiator of the glad game, Pollyanna’s father, John Whittier, ran a small missionary church in the West. He also disrupted Beldingsville’s status quo 25 years before the novel’s main action when he courted Jennie Harrington away from wealthy John Pendleton. Given that the Harringtons became estranged from the new married couple and Miss Polly refuses to hear of the Reverend because he took her beloved sister away, he is framed as an undesirable element. While he passed away before the novel’s beginning, he casts his shadow over the narrative.

In reality, the Reverend, who was a missionary by profession, was also a missionary in outlook, as he focused on the eight hundred rejoicing texts of the Bible and taught Pollyanna to look for the bright side of every situation. He challenged himself to do this despite facing hardships such as multiple bereavement, poverty, and his own sickness. Pollyanna channels her unbearable grief into emulating him. This sole surviving heir remains close to him by continuing his legacy and she continues to talk to him at difficult moments in the novel.