Claudine at St.Clare's
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Claudine at St. Clare's is the fifth novel in the St. Clare's series by Enid Blyton. The narrative follows the O'Sullivan twins, Patricia and Isabel, and their adventures at exclusive boarding school St Clare's. The book introduces four new characters: Claudine, the French mistress' niece; Eileen, whose mother joins the school as matron; Pauline, a wannabe rich girl; and Angela, a rich and spoiled society girl.
[edit] Plot summary
When Pat and Isabel arrive at school, they are surprised to meet a new matron. Then Mam'zelle introduces Claudine, her niece, who will be joining them for this term. Alison O'Sullivan, the twins' rather silly cousin, meets and befriends Angela, who is rich, beautiful and well dressed. Soon, Alison is completely under Angela's spell. Angela is spoiled and a snob. The new Matron's daughter Eileen is a rude girl who is later identified as a sneak. Pauline is soon discovered to be a snobbish and conceited girl who continuously brags about her family's wealth.
During the inevitable midnight feast the girls find themselves in trouble when Matron is accidentally locked for hours in a broom cupboard by Claudine. She is furious to find that she is released by her daughter, Eileen.
Eileen hero-worships her brother, Eddie, who later shows up at the school - having got himself in a bit of minor trouble - finally exposing Eileen as irredeemably working class.
Pauline suffers a worse fate than Eileen when her mother visits unexpectedly and is happened upon by Alison and Angela, who mistake her for one of the servants. Pauline, like Eileen, is exposed as working class. Angela is scornful to discover that all Pauline's boasts of wealth are lies, and that she is ashamed of her lower class background. The more compassionate Alison, however, takes pity on the tired and lower class mother of Pauline. For once, and to her credit, she stands up to Angela's snobbish and domineering attitude and vows to be less in her thrall in future. The wisdom of this decision has already been underlined by the appearance of Angela's own monstrously spoilt and arrogant mother at half-term.
[edit] Themes and morality
As is typical in Blyton's boarding school novels, class lines are drawn sharply. St Clare's is an upper-class domain, and its pupils are from upper class (if not always fabulously wealthy) backgrounds. With wealth, however, comes responsibility - the girls are expected to treat any lower class people with the respect that goes with their own privileged positions. Lower class girls are seen to try to fit into St Clare's by deception, but their class lies are unmasked, to their great shame. Being lower class is not considered intrinsically bad, but lower class girls are expected to know their place in society and are not able to fit in to the St Clare's milieu. Eileen, for example, is the daughter of a servant - the Matron -and has a brother with a working-class name - Eddie - who gets into trouble. All these things are marks of a lower class girl. This book shows a moral. Never judge others or yourself from the amount of wealth you have, or famiky background. Always see one for the person they are.
