Literary Borrowings in 'The Borrowers': Intertextuality in Mary Norton's children's book series 'The Borrowers'

Abstract

No text stands on its own. Indeed, no text has meaning alone because all texts have meaning in relation to one another and to the context in which they are produced. Therefore, each text is linked to others in many different ways, which can either be obvious, because of literary conventions, such as genre or shared themes for example, or these connections can be made by the readers themselves, because the process of reading itself implies moving between texts. However, not only reading but also writing are not linked to one text only, but they imply a link between texts and a movement from one text to another. This process is called intertextuality. Mary Norton's The Borrowers are a series of five books for children about a family of tiny people living under the floorboards in Edwardian England: the Borrowers. Their name comes from the fact that in order to survive they borrow from “human beans” (human beings). These books, published between 1950s and 1980s, are at the core of the so called second “Golden Age” of children's literature, not only quite obviously because of their publishing dates, but also because they can be read in terms of intertextual connections with many other children's books belonging not merely to the same period, but also to earlier or later ones. Indeed, The Borrowers share with them either the same literary genre, or the fact of dealing with some central issues, which were or still are part of the so called “main” literary canon, not only the children's literature one. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyse how Mary Norton's books can be interpreted from an intertextual point of view; classifying all the main different intertextual links The Borrowers have mainly with children's books, but also with some adults' ones. The work is divided into three chapters. The first one gives a general overview of the theory of intertextuality, including its historical evolution and its specific application in children’s literature, with the problem this kind of literature arises. This chapter then sets the parameters according to which the analysis of The Borrowers books has been carried out. Since the intertextual theory showed a sort of bottom-up evolution, starting from the focus on the written text and then moving out including its whole broader context; this analysis does the same. Indeed, the second and the third chapters directly concern the focused texts: The Borrowers’ series. Starting from the textual evidence, chapter 2 focuses on the concept of series, the first intertextual element that links the five Norton’s books. The concept of series is analysed in terms of children’s books, identifying the different types of series and the formal elements that characterize them, in order to apply them to Norton’s books then. The series makes the books become a system in themselves; however, this narrow intertextual world of literary borrowings can be further expanded. Indeed, the third chapter concerns the specific “modes” of intertextuality (genre and themes) dealing directly with texts and outlining the different intertextual links The Borrowers books establish with both children's and adults' books belonging to either earlier or later periods. The Borrowers’ intertextual world is then considerably expanded.