Portrayals of Childhood in the Literary Works of Susan Hill

This article will explore Susan Hill’s portrayal of childhood and children in her works. The main focus of the analysis will be on how the author describes children in selected prose works, including their fears, family relationships, despair, and the characteristics of childhood. The goal of this article is to uncover recurring themes in S.Hill’s works and to study how she depicts children in stories such as “I’m the King of the Castle”, “A Change for the Better”, “The Albatross”, “Friends of Miss Reece”, “The Elephant Man”, and “A Bit of Singing and Dancing”. The research will involve analyzing the unique aspects of children’s depictions in these works.
The article utilizes scientific research methods such as artistic, comparative, and historicalbiographical analysis. It analyzes children’s characters based on their dialogues, appearance, and mental images in literary works. The main characters, Kingshaw, Hooper, Duncan, Col, and William, are compared with each other. The article also discusses the author, S.Hill, and how her experiences influenced the characters she created. It is demonstrated that there are both general and specific aspects of the analyzed children’s images: (1) fear is present in almost all children’s images; (2) children experience difficulties in family relationships; (3) children suffer from loneliness, leading to a portrayal of evil within the analyzed children. The children’s images reveal unsatisfactory family relationships, parental abuse of rights, and some children, like Col, feeling bored with their peaceful and happy lives. Furthermore, characteristics of cruelty and malice, born in children like Duncan and Col, or developed later as a result of external influences, are also identified. Some of the children, like Hooper and Duncan, seek to control others.
The results of the above research lead to the conclusion that many unfortunate events in the lives of children can be prevented through the understanding that the author tried to convey as a writer.