Keiko Tanaka
The Dynamics of School Hierarchy as Seen in Juvenile Literature
Keiko Tanaka
Abstract
The term ―school hierarchy‖ is often used within American culture to describe the power structure in
schools. Using this concept we can examine socialization in schools as seen in juvenile literature.
The rise and fall from the “queen” to the bottom of the social hierarchy is often the plot of juvenile
literature set in girls‘ schools. The classic novel, Little Princess, set in a small Victorian private
school makes a good example of this. Lavinia, the main antagonist, gains the status of ―queen‖ by
dominating younger pupils, while Sara, the main character, gains true popularity among the pupils
because of her good nature.
Exclusion inevitably derives from this kind of system of hierarchy. A girl will learn about herself and
her world through the betrayal of not being invited to a birthday party, for example. Lucy
Montgomery‘s protagonist, Emily, in Emily of New Moon learns about the nature of true friendship
by experiencing this painful initiation.
In American women‘s colleges and girl‘s high schools prestigious and exclusive circles called
sororities are a very artificial system of social hierarchy. Being selected to join a sorority can highly
affect a female students‘ college or high school social life. However, in ‗Initiation‘ Millicent, Sylvia
Plath‘s heroine, decides to decline an invitation to join such a sorority while going through the
initiation process designed to test the ego of prospective members.
A school hierarchy is significant because labels and social status in school constitute the basis of
identity for adolescents.
Key Words:
Girls, school, adolescent, identity, queen, hazing, sorority
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1. School Hierarchy
The term ―school hierarchy‖ is often used within American high school dramas of popular culture
to describe the power structure in a school.1 But this is originally a phenomenon which is deeply
rooted in the culture of schools. I think regardless of the age, place and size of the school, a clear
hierarchy exists. Using this concept we can objectively examine the socialization of children in
schools as seen in juvenile literature, even if the child herself is unaware of this structure. When
examining the pyramid which shows this system of hierarchy, we can see that the parts of the
bottommost side are valid with the classic works. In this study I will examine girls‘ fiction because it
is girls who go through relational crises in their development rather than boys2. How is the decisive
ability, popularity which becomes ―Queen Bee‖ described in girl novels? Also, I want to verify from
the literary works about how it concerns the desire for approval and the forming of pride in girls. In
school stories, the rise and fall from the ―Queen Bee‖ to the bottom of the social hierarchy has
formed the basis of many plots in juvenile literature.
The Dynamics of School Hierarchy
2. Queen Bee, Sidekicks
The role of ―Queen Bee‖ and ―Sidekicks‖ can be well illustrated in the classic novel, Little
Princess, set in a small Victorian private school for girls in London in the 19th century. The main
protagonist, Lavinia had been the ―Queen Bee‖ of the school by domineering younger students until
the character of Sara enters the plot.
Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara. Until the new pupil's arrival,
she had felt herself the leader in the school. She had led because she was capable of making
herself extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered over the little
children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough to be her companions. She was rather
pretty, and had been the best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked
out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, combined with drooping
ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin at the head of the line.
3
Sara gains true popularity and friendship among the other pupils because of her good nature.
So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known to have a tea party,
made up of these despised ones, in her own room. And Emily had been played with, and
Emily's own tea service used—the one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened
weak tea and had blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set before.
From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen by the entire alphabet class.4
Sara is chosen as a student representative by Miss Minchin for having a rich father and being the
best-dressed. Consequently, Lavinia, was dislodged for Sara hates her. It is bankruptcy of the father
and no her fault that Sara falls from the seat of ―Queen Bee‖. Not only does she fall from her high
position in the school but is not allowed to continue to study and is only allowed room and board by
working as a scullery maid. Despite her miserable new circumstances, Sara struggles with dignity
and friendships as the kind and noble lady she was born to be.
3. Target
Bullying inevitably derives from this caste system. The long-selling young adult novel Blubber
written by Judy Blume, which was incidentally banned from many American school libraries, was
and has been thought to be a realistic description of the way and essence of bully between girls. 5
Published over 40 years ago, Blubber, remains a timeless example of school hierarchy. The novel is
set in a public school in a suburb of Pennsylvania. Linda Fischer, who is teased by being called
―Blubber‖ exemplifies a character who is a target of bully and the lowest of the rank in school
hierarchy. She is plain and overweight with discolored teeth and is awkward and a bad speaker. Her
sense is out of line with the rest of her class as was the case when she chose the topic of blubber, the
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fat part of a whale, for her presentation and thus the impetus for her the nickname ‗Blubber.‘ The
narrator, Jill Brenner is the Sidekick of the Queen Bee, Wendy. They would eat lunch together
drawing their desks face to face. Wendy is a typical Queen Bee, excellent in everything, smart,
popular and powerful. ‗Wendy is a very clever person. Besides being class president, she is also
group science leader, recess captain and head of the goldfish committee.‘6 She is the image of
goldfish.
Jill had no racial consciousness of her next-door neighbor, Tracy Wu, but she was among her
classmates that bullied Linda. Jill didn‘t follow Wendy when the bully of Linda reached a desperate
situation. Later Jill is made the new target of the bully. A socialist, Rachel Simons says that the bully
resembles the game, Musical Chairs where the winner and the loser are replaced easily. Wendy
invites Linda into her circle of friends and shows off her new friend at Jill. The characteristic of this
novel is that readers can criticize Jill as one of the bullies more objectively rather than identify with
her. Other narrators of girl‘s fiction are often ordinary but positive and charming girls and the readers
can empathize easily with them.
There is a scene in Blubber where the Fischers and the Brenners sit at the same table at a
classmates‘ Bar Mitzvah. Jill interrupts her mother because she is fearful of being found out as a
bully. In this novel there is neither release nor forgiveness in the problem of the bully. Readers expect
Jill can identify with the pain of the target.
4. Making friends of Newcomers
Freshman are at the bottom of the school hierarchy at first, according to the Urban Dictionary7.
Therefore, in Little Princess it was Ermengarde, a child at the bottom of the school caste system that
Sara befriended first. Ermengarde is fat and dull from a wealthy, though academic family. In Blubber
after parting with Wendy, Jill helplessly approaches a new girl named Rochelle, who has made no
friends yet.
Other examinations of the state of making the friend of a newcomer include Lucy Montgomery‘s
protagonist in Emily of New Moon. Emily is an orphan who enrolled in a local school in the middle
of the school term who until then had only had one companion, Emily-in-the-Glass, her own image
in the mirror. She made her first real friend, Rhoda Stuart upon entering school. Rhoda pretends to
give a present to Emily but the gift box contains a snake. Later she coyly denies knowing the content
of the box and tries to get into favor with Emily. Rhoda says that the two should become friends
because they are suitable for each other as members of the families of high social standing. Actually,
Rhoda was the girl who is ‗always chasing after anybody she thinks up in the world.‘8
The Dynamics of School Hierarchy
Emily became rapturous about her first friend who praised her appearance and swore eternal
devotion to Emily. However, Rhoda intentionally neglected to invite Emily to her birthday party for
another friend Muriel who was hostile to Emily. This betrayal was a first for Emily, even the pride of
the Murray family is useless to heal the wound in Emily‘s heart. However, it is Ilse, a tomboy who
helps Emily out of her first traumatic depression and is, as well, a Newcomer bully. Ilse is on one of
the lowest rungs of the school hierarchy system. Although she is the only daughter of a cold-hearted
doctor and as Ilse has no mother, her manner is bad, at times wild, and her clothing shabby so she is
often isolated from her classmates. Despite Ilse‘s wild appearance and behavior, she is honest and
sincere. The friendship of Rhoda was only superficial and vain and thus Emily had had a false
illusion of friendship. Emily learns about the nature of true friendship by experiencing this painful
initiation of betrayal and makes a true friend, Ilse.
5. Hazing
Newcomer Hazing can sometimes be accompanied by abuse, not only verbally but also physically.
Hazing is the rite of passage which exists from long ago in many group organizations. A notable
example is the initiation that often occurs among privileged students in universities and sometimes
high schools in America. Many women‘s colleges and girls‘ high schools have prestigious and
exclusive social circles, sororities, the female equivalent of a fraternity. Being selected to join the
cliquey system of a sorority can affect a girl`s college or high school life. To be able to pledge into
the society, a sometimes strict initiation must be completed. Some of the rituals are often bizarre and
unexpected. The origin of the practice dates back to the 19th century and some serious cases of boy
initiation have even resulted in death.9 Once a new student is pledged to a sorority, close friendships
are often made and its members can receive sincere support from senior members.
As examples of girl‘s junior novels about high-school sorority life, take Anne Emery‘s Sorority
Girl, a popular American series from the 1950s. Most of her heroines are white, middle-class girls
and the themes are the joys and distresses of their lives including such things as dating, fashion,
proms and other common high school events. Jean Barnaby, one of the protagonists in the series,
enters a high school and was invited to pledge to a prosperous sorority. She confronted the initiation
with determination.
She went through the severe pledge of humiliation though she heard the flagrant rituals had
been ‗done away with.‘ Jean, who was painfully sensitive to public opinion, obediently made a
fool of herself before strangers. In the company of a watchful Nightingale, she sucked her
thumb and rolled her eyes and talked baby talk loudly on the bus. She rang strange doorbells
and presented outraged housewives with bouquets of wilted vegetables, and her compliments in
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pig Latin. She prepared a special lunch to order for a Nightingale every day for a week and as
the Nightingale feasted, sat beside her and ate dry bread and milk.
But she hadn‘t expected the ordeal of unpalatable food the night before the initiation, and the
molasses shampoo that trickled down her back. And she hadn‘t expected the paddles.10
Sylvia Plath posted a novelette to the girls‘ magazine Seventeen when she was a young author. The
work entitled ‗Initiation‘ treated the signing up ritual of sororities in high schools. Millicent, the
novelette`s main character, is becoming a candidate for a sorority, outstripping her close friend. At
first, she felt triumphant; however, she becomes skeptical of the process of the severe and
humiliating tasks eventually leading to the traumatic event where she is left in a dark vault, having
been blindfolded by a senior. What is the advantage of this mental abuse? It might test the minds of
absolute submission which become compliant to the sorority`s seniors. Its members might have a
good cause of making the group better; to get weaker members to toughen up or to weed out pedging
members to maintain higher standards. Some psychologist ascribes this abuse to some sort of
primitive psychic need.11 The tradition of hazing is explained as indirect revenge by its senior
members for the cruel treatment they themselves once endured as a rushee. This tradition never dies
because freshman who are usually friendless in their new locale and unfamiliar setting, crave for
relationships and acceptance to their new community. They who seek a sense of belonging can do
little but to endure harsh hazing. For them, it might be better than enduring the pain of loneliness.
6. Beyond the desire of approval
As for the rushee, what is the merit of belonging to the sorority in this kind of literature? One of
the merits is the increased chance of becoming a steady of a prominent boy such as a star sports
player.
―Oh, I know pretty much what it‘ll be like,‖ Liane had said. ―My sister belonged before she
graduated from high school two years ago.‖
―Well, just what do they do as a club?‖ Millicent wanted to know.
―Why, they have a meeting once a week … each girl takes turns entertaining at her house …‖
―You mean it‘s just a sort of exclusive social group…‖
―I guess so … though that‘s a funny way of putting it. But it sure gives a girl prestige value. My
sister started going steady with the captain of the football team after she got in. Not bad, I
say.‖12
A little girl might be rarely conscious about her rank in school hierarchy except the Queen Bee.
However, when becoming a high school student, to build up the identity of herself as an individual,
she starts to think of her own social status at the school.
The Dynamics of School Hierarchy
She had always been aware of the Nightingales. The Nightingales and the Amigas were two highly
exclusive girl‘s organizations whose membership comprised about ten per cent of the girls in the
school, by special and coveted invitation. The ―best girls‖ belonged to one or the other, the girls with
the pretty complexions, the smart clothes, the lovely hair – the successfully glamorous girls who
dated the outstanding boys. Jean had always been aware of them, with the resentment of the outsider
toward the clique, mixed with a kind of helpless envy.13
A secret society such as sororities wase prohibited by the school regulation at Sherwood High
school. Freshmen were required to sign a written oath not to join. But the Florence Nightingale
Auxiliary existed officially as a school volunteer organization so it had avoided dissolution, however,
in actuality, it remained an exclusive and privileged circle. The girls are chosen as members by
senior female students but the standard also seems to include male viewpoints as to whether they
wanted to date the girls. Jean was in raptures at being invited to the auxiliary. ‗Never before in her
high school life had she felt so wonderfully, so surely belonging.‘14
However, it was not until she became a member of the sorority that she knew she had to sacrifice
her own personal life, including dating of her own free choice, for the activities of the sorority. Her
mother worries about Jean‘s extravagance.
―There‘s a difference between spiritual and material values, Jean, and you seem to be missing it.
These superficial standards of money and clothes and cheap popularity are just what I‘ve been
afraid of‖15
After Jean failed to negotiate successfully for an increase in her pocket money, she becomes a
bargain hunter and frequents the store. She neglects club activities and her sphere of action is solely
narrowed to the relationship with the same members of sorority such as the slumber party and
lunchtime chatting in the canteen. Sorority activity used up Jean‘s energy and she lost herself. At last
Jean decides to withdrawal from the sorority, as the status of the member is nothing but a load on her
mind. Now she can stand on her own two feet. She doesn't need the authority of a sorority to give her
worth as a person any more. Now Jean realized there was nothing wrong about being among crowds.
In ‗Initiation‘ when Millicent remembers the word of an old man she realizes that there is a way of
becoming happy even if she doesn't become a member of a sorority. She is determined to decline
signing up in a moment just before the trial ends. She knew the happiness is to be free like a bird
flying in the air without being tied to the others‘ sense of values.
Seated now on the woodpile in Betsy Johnson's cellar, Millicent knew that she had come
triumphant through the trial of fire, the searing period of the ego which could end in two kinds
of victory for her. The easiest of which would be her coronation as a princess, labelling her
conclusively as one of the select flock.
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The other victory would be much harder, but she knew that it was what she wanted. It was not
that she was being noble or anything. It was just that she had learned there were other ways of
getting into the great hall, blazing with lights, of people and of life.16
Adolescents who had not constituted the basis of identity yet are so keen to be approved by others
that they tend to lean to the established standard. To mature means that a girl ceases to live up to
others‘ principles of conduct but her own. This sense of maturity can be seen in many example of
juvenile literature and is often developed out of the social hierarchy that exists in many societies and
is often depicted in modern juvenile literature.
Notes
Jerry Adler, ‘The truth about High school’ Newsweek, May 1999
Lyn Brown & Carol Giligan, Meeting at the Crossroads : Women’s Psychology and Girl’s
Development Harvard UP, 1992, 2.
3 Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905) HarperCollins rpt. 1998, 41.
4 Ibid.,
5 Shelley Stagg Peterson & Larry Swartz, Good Books Matter: How to Choose and Use Childen’s
Literature to Help Students Grow as Readers Stenhouse Pub, 2008, 114.
6 Judy Blume, Blubber (1974) Yearling rpt. 1976, 2.
7 Urbandictionary.com/defined by Kayeman Laner 18/3/2006
8 Lucy Maud Montgomery, Emily of New Moon (1923) Bantam rpt. 1993, 102.
9 Hank Nuwer, Wrong of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing, and Binge Drinking Indiana UP
(2001) Prologue.
10 Ann Emery, Sorority Girl (1952) Scholastic Book Service rpt. 1961, 50.
11 Nuwer, Ibid., 37-38.
12 Sylvia Plath, ‘Initiation’ (1952) Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. Faber and Faber 1979, 145.
13 Emery, Ibid., 8.
14 Ibid., 42.
15 Ibid., 81.
16 Plath, Ibid., 146.
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Bibliography
Blume, Judy, Blubber (1974) Yearling rpt. 1976
Brown, Lyn & Carol Giligan, Meeting at the Crossroads : Women’s Psychology and Girl’s Development,
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Burnett, Frances Hodgson, A Little Princess (1905) HarperCollins rpt. 1998.
Emery, Ann, Sorority Girl (1952) Scholastic Book Service, rpt. 1961
Montgomery, Lucy Maud, Emily of New Moon (1923) Bantam rpt. 1993.
Nuwer, Hank, Wrong of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing, and Binge Drinking, Indiana UP, 2001.
Peterson, Shelley Stagg & Larry Swartz, Good Books Matter: How to Choose and Use Childen’s Literature
to Help Students Grow as Readers, Stenhouse Pub, 2008.
Plath, Sylvia, ‘Initiation’ (1952) Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. Faber and Faber, 1979.
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