The children plead for mercy, and when the station manager learns why they are stealing, he lets him go free and tells him not to steal anymore coal. When he gets to the coal mine, the station manager grabs him with the intention of reporting him. One day, Peter sneaks out, not knowing that Roberta and Phyllis are following him. They help him to transport the coal with the aid of a wheelbarrow up the hill to their home. He comes up with the idea of taking some of the coal, but he doesn’t want to get his sisters involved in taking it. While the children explore the railway yard, Peter notices a lot of coal, and he makes up these rules as to what constitutes stealing. At their new home, they no longer have ‘every modern convenience.’ Their home is no longer as warm as they are accustomed to, and mother doesn’t earn enough to buy the amount of coal needed. Roberta, Peter and Phyllis love to visit the railway. The three children no longer go to school, and to while the time away, they spend a lot of time exploring their new surroundings. For instance, their housekeeper, Mrs Viney, is much poorer than they are. In The Railway Children by E Nesbit, even among the poor, a class structure exists because there are different levels of poverty. The mother often emphasizes to the children that they are now poor. The children are very aware that their situation has changed, but it doesn’t bother them that much – children are very resilient, and they are more intelligent and understanding than most adults give them credit for. In those times, the children get a special treat of buns. Like any writer, there are times when her work is rejected and there are other times when a magazine publisher accepts the stories. The mother is forced to work to take care of her family, and she does what she knows to do, which is to write children’s stories, and she has some success. And they take only the things that will be useful to them in their new life. Shortly after the father leaves, the mother and children have to move out of suburbia into the country because their social and financial status has radically changed. The mother is quite upset, and tells the children not to ask questions. One day, two men come to visit their father and he leaves with them. And as a special treat, for their birthdays, she writes special poems for them. While they are at school, their mother writes stories and reads them to the children during tea time. The children are well-loved, and their parents make time to play with them. Nesbit, Roberta, Phyllis and Peter are living idyllic lives with their parents in what is described as an “ordinary red-brick fronted villa, coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bathroom with cold water, electric bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint, and ‘every modern convenience,’ as the house agents say.” We need more of this in business today! The Story: The Railway Children by E Nesbit The main themes in the story are bravery, kindness and compassion, hope and optimism, and the importance of family. This tells us, that in the good times, no matter how little we earn, we should put away some of the money for ourselves, for the rainy days that will inevitably come. Today, with the economy still in a downturn, many people are only a pay cheque away from financial devastation. The loss of income of the primary breadwinner forces the family into poverty. In the story, you have a father who is taken away, and we learn he is arrested for being a spy, which is a false accusation. Though The Railway Children by E Nesbit is a children’s book, it’s a perfect demonstration of why a safety net is so important.
Introduction: The Railway Children by E Nesbit
0 kommentar(er)
