I stumbled on a review of Thomas the Tank Engine on the Guardian today, and was truly horrified. I haven’t ever really paid attention to the little-blue-train-that-could, but I didn’t realise the underlying politics was so horrid (or so sarcastic?) The review describes an episode where a train is walled up inside a tunnel simply for refusing to work in the rain! I was suspicious of the interpretation of this, so I checked at the Thomas-wiki, and it’s true. Henry gets walled up in a tunnel “for always and always and always” for refusing to work in the rain! And in another episode, some truck gets torn apart by wild steam trains for being incompetent at his job.
I have a suspicion that this is all an Orwellian piss-take: the fat controller’s real name is “Topham Hatt,” which is too much of a caricature to be true, and all the horrors visited on the trains are so obviously straight from the communist playbook that it makes me think the books are an ironic take on capitalism. But this could just be my better nature refusing to believe that someone would seriously write such a book for children. But look at the narrator’s opinion of Henry: “I think he deserved his punishment, don’t you?”
It’s also interesting to compare the British and American versions of the story of Henry the Walled-in Tanker Engine (aka the Countess Bathory of Steam). They have different names (The Sad Story of Henry vs. Come Out, Henry) implying in the latter version that Henry’s fate is not inevitable, and he can rescue himself by cooperating and moving forward. Also, various crucial ideas get changed: in the British version Henry is walled in forever, running out of steam, while in the American version he is only walled in until he “is ready to come out of the tunnel”; while in the British version we are asked whether he deserved his fate, in the American version we are asked “How long do you think Henry will stay in the tunnel before he overcomes his fear of the rain and decides to journey out again?” I think those differences speak volumes about the cultural differences between two apparently very similar nations. But either way, that is a cruel and horrible story that children do not need to hear!
Compromise and Conceit 
July 5, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Are you campaigning for a more subtle approach to storytelling in children’ literature? Do you think that Henry should be sent to the naughty step for refusing to do his chores? Because it appears that Marxist thought thinks the word needs either a more nuanced approach to trains, or alternatively to put the Fat Cat Controller up against Henry’s wall before crashing through it.
On the other hand, the review pointing out the hard-on the original author had for archaic transport modes is very humorous and well done. Thinking back to my younger brother watching it I can definitely see the love of steam trains coming through.
On a related topic, would you care to put forward a Marxist analysis of Teletubbies that summaries to anything other than “Kill me now.” Or “I refuse to let my children watch that drek, regardless of how brightly coloured they are.” Presumably that series ticks more Marxist boxes than Thomas does, which says more about Marxist thought it does trains or gender-lacking overstuffed aliens [1].
[1] I’m open to being corrected on the appropriate description for teletubbies.
July 5, 2012 at 3:06 pm
I’ve never seen teletubbies! There is actually an excellent little book, The Pooh Perplex that takes the piss out of major literary criticism styles, which I read many years ago and strongly strongly recommend to anyone who is fascinated by the perplexing beauty of academic literary criticism. The Marxist critique of Pooh Meets a Hephalump is hilarious, and I think the feminist critique is of Kanga and Roo. The reviews at Amazon tell you all you need to know.
I thought the Fat Controller seemed too much a parody of the Marxist image of the capitalist (portrayed in le Guin’s The Dispossessed or Orwell’s 1984) to be a genuinely-envisaged character. So I’m slating the whole thing up as a piss-take of Marxism.
I don’t think we want a more subtle approach to story-telling in children’s literature. It’s up-front bravado is like a mirror into a culture’s soul. What Teletubbies has to tell us, I can’t begin to imagine – but I’m sure it would be instructive in the hands of the correct critical theorist!
July 5, 2012 at 4:01 pm
I’m pretty certain that all Teletubbies tells us is that the End Times are near.
July 10, 2012 at 9:38 am
Ah, but in a later book —Henry the Green Engine Gets Out; — Henry gets released from his tunnel when Gordon blows a safety valve and the express train Gordon was hauling (and Edward was banking) proves too heavy for Edward to push up the steep hill.
The result is that the wall is demolished, the tracks re-laid, and Henry’s firebox gets relit so he can go back into service on Sodor.
As for the stuff about bolshie goods trucks &c., as a goods train driver I can attest to goods waggons (“trucks”) being troublesome things to haul when the locomotives are only at one end of the train. If you don’t get things just right with your train handling, the waggons will remind you of their presence behind you with an emphatic BANG!
July 10, 2012 at 9:39 am
Damn. Missed a “<" to end the link tag.
July 10, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Terangeree! I should have known I’d find you at this post! Do you know if the later book was a response to horrified queries from parents and children??
I’ve always been suspicious of goods wagons. They’re dirty, and struck me as lazy and shifty. Prey to every dodgy political idea that floats by, I’ve no doubt…
July 10, 2012 at 9:41 pm
And the Fat Controller, apparently, was known as “the Fat Director” until the railways of Sodor were nationalised in 1948 and became part of British Railways.
I don’t kow if the pop-up book was a response to horrified queries, but I do recall reading somewhere — a long, long, time ago — that many of the Reverend Awdry’s original railway stories were based on actual events that happened at various places in the United Kingdom.
Goods waggons are still preferable to passenger carriages, though. For one thing, the cargo doesn’t complain if it gets banged about en route.