Sara Crewe catches my imagination because she is a superhero. What? Sara Crewe can run with the Avengers? The Hulk is big, invulnerable, and smashes things. Ironman has an exoskeleton that enables him to fly and blow things up. Spiderman, a favorite of mine, can do what a spider does times 10,000, and he’s funny to boot. What can the skinny, little, orphaned Sara Crewe do? It’s true, Marvel superheroes have fantastic powers, but those powers can only be used to stop bad guys from hurting those less powerful. While the world is saved from physical destruction, the world has not become a more beautiful world. Sara Crewe’s power is to make the world a better place.
Before the loss of her father and her fall into poverty Sara imagines herself as a little princess. At this point she has all the physical things a princess would have: expensive clothes, expensive books and dolls, a carriage, and a French attendant. She even has adoring subjects in her schoolmates. After the loss of her father and her money, all the physical manifestations of a princess are stripped from her. She is moved to a bare, cold attic room. She is worked mercilessly. Not only do her former subjects treat her with disdain, even the servants abuse her. Her clothes become near rags and she is slowly starving.
This is where Sara Crewe’s superpower manifests. In the face of unfairness of life, physical deprivations, and the cruelty of those around her, she refuses to see herself as anything less than a little princess. Instead of falling into self-pity, she forces herself to function and to stand tall while doing so. Instead of lashing out in anger at those who now look down on her she endures their attitudes with meekness. She performs her duties well. She endures the never ending ridicule of Miss Minchin with silence. And she suffers the deep hunger always present without complaint. Her superpower, is refusing to return evil for evil.
If Burnett had made Sara incapable of returning evil for evil, the book would not be the classic it is today. Sara is an intelligent girl. She understands completely that the world is wrong to treat her the way it does. The ability to strike back is within her. Anger, bitter words, and unkindness hover around her within easy reach. But she refuses. Her continued refusal is what keeps me reading. Sara striking back would be Joker killing Batman, or Venom destroying Spiderman.
Sara’s final test comes after her riches have been restored. Miss Minchin confronts her and demands to know why Sara won’t return to her school as an honored parlor student. It is a bold and ludicrous request from a common, vulgar woman who is a lady only in appearance. Sarah has the opportunity, and the right, to strike out with a litany of the wrongs Mrs. Minchin has done her. Sara only looks Mrs. Minchin in the eyes and say, “You know very well why I won’t return with you.” Mrs. Minchin is struck down with those simple words. Mis Minchin knows very well what she is, and that is why she hates Sara, her superior, so much.
In the end Sara is restored to the luxuries of life and to people who value her. She is a different Sara than the Sara before her trials. She doesn’t behave any differently, but instead of wondering what she would be like if life weren’t so easy, she now knows who and what she is. Even more important, the world is a better place because a reader like me wants to destroy evil in the world by destroying evil within myself.
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