The Role Of The House In The Long Winter By Laura Ingalls Wilder

Discuss the role of the house in any TWO texts.
When considering novels aimed at children, one of the most common features which appears in many subgenres is that of the house. The house represents many things to the child reader and as such it can be portrayed in multiple ways. In some novels the house is a place of safety, where the child character’s family resides. In others the house can take on a darker tone and, particularly in children’s horror, it can fulfil a role that is much more common to that of the gothic novel. Two novels which explore different representations of the house are The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which presents the house in a much more traditional safe place and Coraline by Neil Gaiman, which presents
In both Coraline and The Long Winter, the main characters find themselves in new and unfamiliar situations that provide them with the opportunity to learn and develop their relationships with those around them, whether is Coraline’s relationship with
Matthew Grenby states that freedom in the earlier books ‘is made possible only by isolation, and isolation necessitates self-sufficiency’. This is perhaps why Wilder writes that ‘Laura knew she would not like to live among so many people.’ This gives the reader the impression that Laura feels that the freedom she has in her claim shanty will cease to exist when she moves into a much grander house down in the town. This happens almost immediately as Laura and Carrie are reluctantly sent off to school the morning after the family settle into their new winter house . Even though both girls initially dread going to school they are able to make friends and soon begin to enjoy themselves and their lessons . This allows Laura to make connections out with her family and allows her to successfully begin to integrate herself into the wider community which she marries into in a later novel. By showing that the freedom Laura experienced in the claim shanty is replaced by the freedom to associate with people out with her family on an almost daily basis, Wilder shows the reader that the house that Laura lives in is directly associated to the type of freedom that she is able to