A Little Princess

“A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized some one she was intimate with and fond of.”

Burnett describes the moment that Sara finds her ideal doll: Sara’s expression is that of someone who just recognized a friend. Sara attempts to deal with the upcoming separation from her beloved papa by imagining a doll named Emily who will serve as her intimate friend. The episode shows The Power of the Imagination as Sara’s strong imagination gives her the feeling that she knows the doll the moment she sees her in the shop window.

“‘No,’ she answered. ‘I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.’”

Sara’s mother died when she was born; consequently, Sara has a very close relationship with her father. Sara is also an avid reader. When Sara’s papa is about to part with her and return to India, he asks if her long look at him means that she is “learning” him by heart. Sara answers that she already “knows” him, so he is “inside” her heart. Burnett’s choice of verbs suggests that Sara’s papa is a book that can be studied. Sara reassures her father that she already learned the book’s contents—she has absorbed the knowledge of him inside her heart.

“‘What I believe about dolls,’ she said, ‘is that they can do things they will not let us know about.’”

A key comfort for Sara while her father is absent from England is to pretend that her doll is alive, with the ability to hear and understand what Sara confides in her. Sara enjoys imagining that all dolls secretly read, talk, and walk when humans leave the room; they return to doll-like stillness when people return. Sara’s powerful imagination about dolls fascinates another pupil, Ermengarde, and amuses Sara’s French maid.

“‘If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago,’ her father used to say, ‘she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending every one in distress.’”

Captain Crewe’s characterization of Sara foreshadows her behavior throughout the book: her empathetic responsiveness and desire to help whenever she sees people or animals in distress. Sara feels sorry for Ermengarde when she hears other girls laugh at her slowness as a student, and Sara befriends her. Sara is motherly to four-year-old Lottie when the older girls show disdain for the child. Sara sympathizes with the terrified servant Becky, who is ordered about by everyone. 

“Perhaps I’m a hideous child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials.”

Sara initially thinks that she is good-tempered because she happened to be born to a loving, wealthy father and never experienced any trials. However, Sara does not dwell on self-pity, unlike Lottie, despite also losing her mother at birth. Ermengarde points out that Lavinia is horrid despite having no trials. When Sara does later experience misfortune, she tries to maintain her standard of good behavior. Burnett uses the example of Sara to show that what matters is how a person relates to her circumstances, not whether she is an heiress or a person begging for food.

“There are much more splendid stories in Revelation.”

When Lavinia criticizes Sara for “making fairy stories about heaven” (49) because Sara tried to comfort Lottie about her deceased mother, Sara defends her imaginative storytelling. Sara points out that there are even more wonderful accounts of heaven in the Biblical book of Revelation and that Lavinia does not know whether Sara’s stories are accurate or not. Sara also warns Lavinia that she may never find out if Lavinia does not change her behavior and become kinder to people.

“‘Why,’ she said, ‘we are just the same—I am only a little girl like you. It’s just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me.’”

Sara’s theory that the circumstances a person is born into are accidental enables her to have an egalitarian attitude towards others. Sara overlooks obvious differences of wealth and education, seeing that the servant Becky is a little girl like herself. This attitude allows Sara to empathize with Becky, who deserves to enjoy what other little girls enjoy, such as food, rest, and listening to stories.

“She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of, and what you do.”

This is Sara’s conception of The Inner Princess, as reported by a schoolgirl, Jessie. Sara’s attempt to imagine herself as a princess is not to be grander than someone else or based on appearance or wealth (“what you look like, or what you have”), but on the basis of character and behavior (“what you think of, and what you do”): kindness, courtesy, and generosity. Sara uses the “princess” fantasy to hold herself to a higher standard: “I pretend I am a princess so that I can try and behave like one” (64).

“‘I am getting very old,’ she wrote; ‘you see, I shall never live to have another doll given me.’”

As Sara approaches her 11th birthday, she realizes that she will not be receiving future gifts of dolls because she is getting older. Therefore, she calls her father’s extravagant 11th birthday gift for her the Last Doll. The name turns out to be fitting in more ways than one since Miss Minchin confiscates the luxuriously dressed Last Doll when she realizes that the deceased captain will not be able to reimburse her for the bills she paid. Also, this is truly the last doll Sara will ever receive from her father.

“Scullery-maids were machines who carried coal-scuttles and made fires.”

Burnett uses this metaphor to convey Miss Minchin’s lack of empathy, which enables her to think of scullery maids as machines instead of little girls. Miss Minchin does not consider that Becky may have desires and experience cold and hunger. Miss Minchin looks only at external appearances and lacks the imagination that allows Sara to empathize with another person’s internal experience.

“She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable, and she did so now.”

Miss Minchin finds it difficult to contend with Sara’s independent thought, kindness, and truthfulness, which expose the schoolmistress’s heartlessness under her respectable façade. As Miss Amelia tells her sister, “The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always disliked her for that reason. . .She saw that you were a hardhearted, worldly woman” (253). Miss Minchin wants to dominate, and she is enraged at not being able to break Sara’s spirit.

“Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are.”

Sara believes that adversity is a kind of test of a person’s character. Sara feels remorse that she assumed her friend Ermengarde did not want to speak to her after Sara lost her fortune. Ermengarde is bewildered by Sara’ avoidance of her and finds her way to the attic room, where the girls reconcile. Sara acknowledges that she was oversensitive and too proud to try to talk, concluding that Ermengarde’s loyal friendship in altered circumstances proves how nice she is.

“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”

The unnamed narrator refers to animals’ understanding a language not made up of words, enabling the sparrows, rats, and the monkey to realize that Sara is kind. The book suggests that there is a mysterious, invisible, benevolent force beyond the material world of appearances: “The mysterious thing which speaks without saying any words” (118) tells Melchisedec the rat that Sara is trustworthy. According to the book, there is a soul in every creature that can be reached by another empathetic soul.

“It is the prisoner in the next cell.”

Sara refers to Becky in the next attic room, with whom she communicates by knocking on the wall. To endure the harsh conditions in the attic, Sara imagines that she and Becky are prisoners in the infamous French prison the Bastille, and Miss Minchin is the jailer.

“We are not all made alike.”

Sara’s uniqueness makes her stand out in Miss Minchin’s seminary, but she is also empathetic enough to realize that everyone has different abilities. For example, Sara recognizes the value of Ermengarde’s kindness, even though she lacks Sara’s cleverness. After Sara suffers terribly, she finally becomes frustrated with her doll’s lack of response. After impulsively knocking Emily off her chair, Sara feels remorse and resigns herself to the fact that Emily cannot help being a doll made of sawdust, any more than some pupils cannot help not having sense.

“‘It’s a Splendid one,’ said Sara, softly, to herself. ‘It makes me feel almost afraid—as if something strange was just going to happen. The Splendid ones always make me feel like that.’”

One of the only advantages of living in the attic is that Sara can thrust her head out of the attic window to view beautiful sunsets. One evening, Sara observes a particularly splendid sunset, that makes her feel that something out of the ordinary will happen. Her sensation foreshadows a turning point in her life, as she then interacts with Ram Dass and the monkey who are watching the same sunset. Burnett capitalizes the word “Splendid,” hinting at some larger magical force at work.

“If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.”

Earlier in the book, Lavinia sarcastically questioned whether wealthy Sara would still be able to imagine things if she were a beggar. Since Sara’s conception of being a princess is not based on what she owns or looks like, she can maintain her “inner princess” standards even when she is impoverished (“in rags and tatters”).

“It had consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world.”

Sara’s powerful imagination keeps her “mentally living a life” that holds her above the material circumstances of life. To endure harsh treatment, Sara empathizes with royal personages who have lost everything, such as Marie Antoinette, or those who were in disguise, such as Alfred the Great. The unimaginative, small-minded Miss Minchin cannot understand how Sara’s spirit is not broken by her awful situation.

“Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls.”

Even before she meets him, Sara empathizes with the ill Indian gentleman in the house next door to the school. She believes that he must have been through misfortunes similar to those her beloved father experienced. Sara imagines that her kind, sympathetic thoughts can somehow pass through the walls to comfort the man.

“The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib.”

Ram Dass explains to Mr. Carrisford’s secretary that Sara is not like other children: She has befriended the sparrows and the rats, as well as Becky, the servant. Ram Dass personally experienced Sara’s kindness, as she was friendly and respectful to him and spoke to him in his language. Ram Dass recognizes that Sara is an extraordinarily loving child, even when she is suffering, so he makes it his duty to secretly watch over her safety.

“Somehow, something always happens,’ she cried, ‘just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worst thing never quite comes.”

When hungry Sara feels rescued by Ermengarde’s offer of a hamper of food, she experiences “this simple, cheerful” event as a “thing of magic” (197). Sara has a sense of a benevolent force (“the Magic”) that prevents the very worst from happening. If she can remember this, she will never lose hope. Even after Miss Minchin spoils the party and removes the food, Sara finds a new supper waiting for her when she awakens. Sara concludes that “the Magic has come and done it . . . the Magic that won’t let those worse things ever quite happen” (212).

“One of her favorite fancies was that on ‘the outside,’ as she called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them.”

Sara imagines that she receives inspiration from a larger, benevolent force—“The Magic will tell me”—when she needs ideas. Becky often sees Sara waiting and then seemingly receiving enlightenment. In this description, “thoughts” are personified as living entities waiting to be called.

“I feel as if I might wish for anything—diamonds or bags of gold—and they would appear!”

When suppers and beautiful decorations keep arriving in the attic, Sara begins to feel as if she were living “in a fairy story” (221). Sara experiences the power of the imagination when her spoken vision about the attic room mysteriously transforms into reality.