Reader response to the lovely family film The Secret World of Arrietty, I’m delighted to say, has been almost entirely positive. However, I did receive one negative email from a reader who not only didn’t enjoy the film, but considered it downright immoral. Why? Because the Borrowers, tiny people who live in secret in big people’s homes, survive by “borrowing” (i.e., taking) the things they need from the big people. Here’s the complaint:
I heard you review The Secret World of Arrietty on the radio after taking my granddaughter to the movie. I was appalled that you rated it so highly. From the moment I started watching the film, I felt it went against Catholic values and teachings. Since when is it okay for someone to enter someone else’s home to “borrow” things and it not be called STEALING? When I was growing up that would have been called breaking the commandment “Thou shall not steal.” I’ve known many children whose attitude is “Finders keepers, losers weepers.” They see nothing wrong with stealing because they’ve had no moral instruction. Please consider reviewing this movie again. I would like a reply as I plan to contact the radio station on this matter.
Really? Are the Borrowers thieves? Let’s think it through. (Some Arrietty spoilers ahead.)
- To begin with, some perspective. The Borrowers were created in 1952 by British author Mary Norton. The Borrowers book series, like the similar Littles series, have been popular with generations of English and American children. They can be found in countless Catholic school libraries, and are recommended by orthodox Catholic resources such as Seton Home Study School, Adoremus Books and Good to Read. That doesn’t prove anything, but if you’re going to take issue with Catholic sources recommending stories based on the premise of the Borrower way of life (which is fundamentally the same in the book as in the movie), you’re going to have to write a lot more emails.
- Even if the Borrowers’ lifestyle were sinful, which I will argue it is not, it would be at most a very slight sin due to what Catholic moral tradition and catechesis calls paucity of matter. Any well-instructed Catholic schoolboy or girl making their first confession knows that stealing something small enough (a nickel, say) is not serious sin. The Secret World of Arrietty is at pains to emphasize that the Borrowers limit their appropriations of human property to what they need and what will never be missed—indeed, their lives depend on it not being missed. (For example, Pod insists that they take nothing from the dollhouse.) This is a very clear-cut example of paucity of matter. Gravity is proportionate to harm, and since the harm Borrowers cause to humans is negligible, even if it were sinful, the sin would be vanishingly slight.
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You ask, “Since when is it okay for someone to enter someone else’s home to ‘borrow’ things and it not be called stealing?” Here is the answer, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “There is no theft” in cases of “obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing…) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others” (CCC §2408). This is traditional Catholic moral theology going back at least to St. Thomas Aquinas, who likewise teaches, “It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need” (Sum II-II, 66, art 7). Many Catholics are not aware that this is Catholic teaching, but it is.
How does this apply to the Borrowers? Let’s consider their situation:
- The Borrowers are very small and therefore very vulnerable. They believe, reasonably, that their survival depends on their very existence being secret from humans.
- Because of this, it is not possible for Borrowers to live openly in the world, or to travel openly from place to place. They cannot farm or garden, or build houses, villages or cities of their own, as humans can. They cannot easily travel about in order to meet and have commerce with other Borrowers, nor can they communicate with other Borrowers who are even a short distance away. Even if there were remote locations far enough from humans where Borrowers could live openly without fear of discovery, there would be no way for Borrowers far from such places even to know where they were, let alone to find them.
- As the movie emphasizes, therefore, Borrowers necessarily lead lives of profound isolation as well as secrecy. This would make it extremely difficult for them to be self-sufficient. Most human beings depend on human society and commerce to provide for our needs; if individual persons and individual families had to be entirely self-sufficient, we would find it much harder to keep body and soul together, to say nothing of raising children, etc. If, in addition to that, we found ourselves in a world densely populated by giant creatures who would capture and possibly kill us unless we hid from them at all times, it would become harder still.
- Think about what you would do in that situation. What would God expect of you? Would He demand that and your family wayfare in the wild, wandering through uncharted terrain, having no idea what dangers you will face, whether you will ever find safe berth, or even whether you will find food to stay alive? If there were no other alternative, you might be forced to do that, as the Borrowers are forced to set out at the end of the film (though happily by then they have help and additional information from Spiller). However, prior to Arrietty’s encounters with the boy and Pod’s encounter with Spiller, by far the safest and most certain way to provide for the family’s immediate needs (though still with great danger) was to live by “Borrowing.”
- In the world of this film, therefore, it can be argued that Catholic moral theology would conclude that God has made the race of the Borrowers essentially dependent upon human beings for their livelihood. The Borrower way of life is in keeping with what natural law and moral theology would prescribe for their condition.
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It’s worth reflecting why Norton came up with the idea of a race of little people living under the floorboards and in the walls of people’s homes, and why children universally love the idea: because it’s fun to think about. It’s the same reason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to believe in fairies: It’s just a charming idea. It’s fun to look at human-sized architecture and furniture and so forth and think about it from the perspective of miniature mountain climbers, foresters, spelunkers. We naturally make legs with our first two fingers and walk them along tabletops and such. Also, of course, we all lose things from time to time, and sometimes we’re sure we left a thing where it isn’t now, and it’s fun to pretend that it was taken by imaginary beings like little people. (We certainly aren’t encouraged to think that the little people are stealing from us. It’s only cranky Hara who says that.)
At the end of the day, though, we are the big people and they are the little people. Their way of life is not ours. No child can live the life of a Borrower, and I’ve never known one to try. Moreover, while I didn’t read the Borrowers books growing up, I did read the similar Littles books, and it certainly never encouraged me to think that there was nothing wrong with stealing.
Of course there are children whose attitude is “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” especially if, as you note, they’ve had no moral instruction. But in the first place, when I speak on Catholic radio, I’m addressing parents whom I presume are instructing their children, and a movie like this is not going to harm a child who is well instructed. As for children who have had no moral instructions, well, they have much bigger problems than a cartoon like this.
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On the contrary, there is so much moral goodness in this film that will do young viewers good that I can’t imagine stumbling over worries that they will somehow learn that stealing is okay. This movie is wise and humane and decent in a way that utterly transcends virtually all American family entertainment. It is gentle, compassionate and thoughtful. There are so many things to love, morally, about the film:
- Arrietty respects and admires her father, and he is proud and encouraging of her even when she makes a serious mistake. He looks out for her safety, and insists that she follow the rules. Unlike so many family films, coming of age doesn’t mean adolescent rebellion or defiance.
- Likewise, Arrietty is responsible and contributes to the family—and when her mother credits her for it, Arrietty credits her mother for having taught her.
- On the other hand, Shawn’s own family life isn’t nearly as rosy—but he’s clearly unhappy about it, and neglected by his busy parents, so the movie is honest about the negative effects of divorce and of parents’ careers taking precedence of family.
- Shawn’s curiosity about Arrietty is unselfish and generous, and each of them expresses solicitude and concern for the other’s well-being, and each helps the other. The movie expresses acceptance of mortality, but also the value of life.
- Spiller, like a Good Samaritan, comes to the aid of a stranger, Pod, when he finds him hurt in the yard. Homily overcomes her native alarm at the stranger’s wild appearance to be courteous and hospitable to him.
- There’s even a fleeting prayer to God offered by Homily for Pod and Arrietty’s safety.
A family film so beautiful and wise and good is a rare thing. To ignore all that and focus on the issue of stealing, which as I’ve argued is just not an issue here, strikes me as missing the forest for the trees.
What do you think?
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I think it is a ridiculous, but totally expected price to pay for writing for Catholic audiences that you have to waste your valuable time answering this sort of thing.
I still can’t believe that this is actually a concern that occurred to someone while watching this film. Your reply is excellent and a lot more charitable than mine would have been.
In the Dark Ages, a child could be executed for stealing a loaf of bread, even if he were starving. Times have changed, but people still get upset when a big-screen television is stolen because it will get money for more than a loaf of bread. The Borrowers “steal” only what people were willing to tolerate—no big deal.
In short, it matters a heck of a lot on what is taken.
@ Another Guest:
Children executed in the Dark Ages for stealing bread? Have you been watching Costner’s “Robin Hood” again?
Seriously, this is a strangely loaded example for you to bring up. Are you implying that executing a child for stealing bread was ACCEPTABLE in the “Dark Ages” (by which I assume you mean the “Middle Ages” or medieval period in history), or just that it happened sometimes?
If it’s the former, you are wrong. That was never acceptable law or proper moral behavior in Catholic Europe. If it’s the latter, so what? That happens today as well. People execute other people for all sorts of stupid reasons. Not sure what the point is in bringing that up, other than to demagogue a bit in an off-topic manner.
If I misunderstand you, forgive me. I’m grumpy today.
Thank you for taking the time to answer this so beautifully and completely. Although your reader’s outrage that the Borrowers are stealing would have never occured to me, I didn’t know about the quotes from the Catechism and St. Thomas Aquinas. I’m sure you’ve educated a lot of people here. I think God was using that complainer’s outrage to get you to educate us! :)
Amy: You’re welcome! That’s why I did it, really. Ellen‘s feeling that this exercise was a “ridiculous waste of time” is understandable, but I look at these occasions as opportunities to explore some theological roads less traveled.
Well, Andrew, maybe I do watch too many old movies, but children were imprisoned and executed for relatively minor crimes in the past. And my point is that it depends on how valuable the item “borrowed” is to the owner as to whether the owner think the item was stolen. A bolt of fabric was valuable. There was a great gap between rich and poor as is growing in these times.
I’m grumpy too—Wall Street Banks got away with robbing us, but a petty thief will get years in prison.
Costner’s Robin Hood is NOT an “old movie.” Because that would make me an old man. And I’m only middle-aged.
I really, really loved The Secret World of Arrietty, and I loved your review, by the way :) (off subject—I saw The Vow, too…I liked ‘Arrietty’ much, much, more) ...basically I just had to say I agree with this whole article, and I saw nothing wrong with it. It’s such an amazing movie, so pretty, good values, yes and yes and yes! It’s sad how many people will go see The Lorax, which looks silly to me, or Journey 2 or something not as good as this. :)
But, borrowers are also fun to think about because…well…
Little things DO disappear in houses, and nobody ever knows where they go. So there’s this fun little idea…what if there were little people who stole to survive, and that’s where those things went?
Anyway, that’s just what I thought when I saw it(:
I want to be a Borrower.
I’ve neither seen the movie, nor read the review, but I want to comment to the impression of this article.
It sounds as though the “secrecy” involved has to do with facing fears. In that case, if the secrecy were more of a subjective requirement than objective, and if these little people really had no reason to fear the big people (as should be the case in our own society, but - thanks to original sin - we have to remind kids to beware of strangers), then there would be no valid justification of the stealing. I’ll bet on the fact that little people really, objectively do have to be wary of big people, and so the premise of the movie isn’t far removed from reality, and Aquinas’ explanation is perfectly apt. That quote, by the way, is gold. pure gold, Mr. Graydanus.
I also see a bit of distributism in The Borrowers. We all have all kinds of junk in our houses that we don’t even recall we have. In our forgetfulness of these items, we are helping the Borrowers live. What a wonderful & (in Doyle’s words) charming idea that our forgotten items are not just the accumulated junk of our surplus but actually helpful &, indeed, necessary for other intelligent life! So it’s a symbiotic sort of relationship with big people & the Borrowers. I’m reminded of Lazarus eating the scraps from the rich man’s table, too.
That is fun to think about! And in this often disheartening, lonely world, it encourages me.
I Love The Secret World of Arrietty!!! It’s already my Second Favorite Movie(after Spirited Away), and I can’t wait until it comes out on DVD! It’s such a great movie, and i hope more people see it! Thanks for Doing this Mr. Greydanus! I can’t see how anyone could hate this movie.
Ghibli (and Pixar, i hope) Forever!!!
6. Despite the physical similarities, Borrowers are not, in fact, human, and, therefore, are no more capable of sin than is my cat. (Although, upon consideration, I’m not so sure about that cat…)
SouthCoast: I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think that line of reasoning flies.
The Borrowers are clearly moral agents. They are rational and therefore, per Thomas Aquinas, have rational, subsistent, immortal souls.
Moreover, in principle Borrowers are able to engage human beings as moral and social equals (which sets them apart from semi-anthropomorphic animals in movies like Babe or 101 Dalmatians). Not only by their appearance and speech but by their cultural habits they are clearly equal to humans. If they can be virtuous, and they can, then they can sin.
Beyond all this, certainly children watching the film will easily identify them as people like themselves, and will appropriately see the Borrowers’ moral acts as equivalent to human moral acts.
I’d love to have a peek in the garbage can of anyone who claims the Borrowers are thieves. The average American throws away enough food every day to feed Arrietty’s family and then some.
There was a live-action Borrowers film a few years back, with Jim Broadbent as Pod. I confess I can remember almost nothing about it.
I grew reading and watching the books, movies and tv shows based on the Borrowers and the Littles, never once did I think they were teaching me to steal. I’m not sure if it was the Borrowers or the Littles or both, but the emphasis was always on 1) things that wouldn’t be missed or 2) things that were already missing i.e. stuff that had already rolled under the bed or gone in the garbage bin. In fact I remember being intrigued as child at their resourcefulness using all the leftovers of someone elses life to live theirs!
I can’t wait to see this movie, I love Studio Ghibli - you can always count on their films to be less about ideal romantic love and fairy tales and more about sound moral values.
Also the BBC is doing a live action version of the Borrowers for television with Christopher Eccleston as Pod, it looks great!
Roger Hollis: Congratulations on being as insightful a commentator of children’s fiction as Lou Dobbs on Fox News. (If you need to know if that was sarcastic, it was.)
Of course you don’t really think that. You are just being a troll. I could easily respond to your trollery with another blog post as detailed as the above on the absurdity of the supposed Occupy parallel, though if I do it will be in response to Dobbs and not you.
I am more curious to know why, like the Obama administration, you continue to lie about the long-debunked “98% of Catholic women” in your comments in other threads. Don’t you know lying is a sin?
Steven: “Costner’s Robin Hood is NOT an “old movie.” Because that would make me an old man. And I’m only middle-aged.”
You are correct, sir. The Errol Flynn version, “The Adventures of Robin Hood”—that’s an old movie. The Douglas Fairbanks version from 1922—now THAT’S an old movie. In my view, anything made before 1970 can fall under the technical term of “old” movie, but certainly not a film from the ‘90s!
Unfortunately, many people’s knowledge of film seems to end somewhere around 1990. For them, the great era of silent film must seem like a faint, rumored relic of the Victorian age. Sadly.
But I digress..!
Quote by Cephas: “I’ll bet on the fact that little people really, objectively do have to be wary of big people, and so the premise of the movie isn’t far removed from reality” Well, I am the little people and our government is the big people and the way things are going today, we little people have to be very careful, because it is the “big People” taking away from us “little people”. Before you know it, our government will have “complete” control of us “little people, the taxpayers” [that is what the new healthcare bill is all about]
Yes my parents taught us about stealing and lying and the nuns taught us what St. Thomas Aquinas stated. I am sure that the people in the world who are being bombed out of their homes are scrounging for food every day. My heart and prayers go out to them. [again controlled by their government]
Oh for crying out loud. I can’t believe you have to answer these questions, Steven! (Good response, though.) I suppose it comes from the same crowd that believes that Glinda the Good Witch is going to get their children into Wicca.
Just my 2-cents: In my experience, and that of a few good friends, the Borrowers actually do just borrow: they just return those little things in totally unexpected places, and you have to work hard to find them…
Marthe Lépine: Thanks for your 2 cents. :-)
FWIW, the American Littles books were at pains to point out that the Littles repaid the Biggs in their own way: As I recall, they secretly helped to maintain the house, find things that were legitimately lost and return them, and so forth. I like this approach a lot, and if the movie had adopted this element that would have been a nice touch, though I don’t think it is necessary.
The English Borrowers books, from what I can tell, seem to take a different tack. The stories are set (or at least the first book is set) in the late Victorian period, in the last days of the British Empire—for example, the Boy corresponding to Shawn is coming back to England from India—and the Borrowers worldview seems to have a sort of colonial-era myopia, almost an inverted White Man’s Burden: In their view, it is in the natural order of things that Beans exist in order to provide for Borrowers. (Needless to say, this is not the view put forward in the movie, which is set in contemporary Japan!)
Obviously the view of Norton’s Borrowers in the book differs from the moral analysis I put forward above (which is mainly in reference to the film). On the other hand, it is also no more likely to lead children astray in their thinking about the morality of theft, since obviously no child is going to believe that Norton’s Borrowers are right to think that big people exist for the sake of Borrowers, much less that by the same token other people and their property equally exist for one’s own sake.
Steven, thank you for the Aquinas. (So much for my cat.) I am not,alas, as yet as conversant with him as I obviously should be. Just for the reoord, I loved the Borrowers books when I was a child. I really didn’t give any thought to their acquisition of the objects they purloined. I was, however, fascinated and delighted at the uses to which they put what they took. Offhand, I’d bet that that’s what gets most children’s attention.
Haven’t seen the movie yet (though I plan to! one of my favorite childhood series brought to the big screen by Studio Ghibli? A match made in heaven!), but I had to roll my eyes in sympathy for you at the ridiculous objection you got. This person needs to think their ideas through a little more, even though they’ve overthought in the wrong direction. They’re really not too far off from the Pharisees having a hissy fit at the Apostles for helping themselves to some standing grain in a field on the Sabbath.
I don’t see the Borrowers’ way of making a living any different from hunter-gatherer type people collecting food: relative to the Borrowers, we would be the jungle predators that they have to look out for. It’s not as if the Borrowers are wreaking economic havoc on a family; it’s not like they’re rifling people’s cash or jewelry boxes. In the books, they seemed to live mostly in upper-middle class and upper-class houses, where little things like pins and postage stamps and fabric trimmings could easily go astray without the “human beans” suspecting anything, much less be hard put to afford to replace lost items.
Thank you, I was worried a little bit about the issue of stealing, I’m glad to know I don’t have to(with Disney, latly, you always are having to worry.)
Steven,
I believe you explained why Norton invented the Borrowers. As a child, I often dreamt of giants and leprechauns and everything in between. It’s fun.
Accidentally, or coincidentally, I think the Borrowers creates a powerful allegory for the unseen and our unknowable impact on them.
My mother cared for two handicapped men for years. One had Downs, and the other had been in a car accident. The physical experience of these men could never be translated to film. They are wholly dependent on the generosity and surplus created by “human society” - really by Western-Christian-Civilization. These men cannot even steal; they lack the physical and mental capacity to do so. And, as we have seen with Downs, their lives are forfeit in the face of far-away bureaucrats who would play with their lives: Aborting them, exploiting them, providing or denying them healthcare or necessities out of political expediency, and so on.
I am sure Mary Norton had none of this in mind when she wrote her books: But the allegory fits so well it gives pause.
My only regret is that Studio Ghibli has to team up with Disney, a corporation that has worked hard to become everything Liberals hate about corporations (but is excused for obvious reasons). I wish there was another choice besides Disney, Dreamworks, Lucasfilms, Sundance, yada, yada, etc, etc, ... even when they support decent work: It is so obvious they honor our culture and civilization more in the breach than in the observance.
Thank you, btw, for the reviews!
I understand what Marthe LePine is saying [I think} When my mother who lived in NYS & was elderly the young neighbor next door would sit with her and spend time with her. When I moved to the next three different States, I did the same thing. I spent time with an elderly person in each state, we became friends and elderly people can teach you and tell you the most interesting stories. That is how I paid back the “borrower” who was nice to my Mom. Unfortunately, where I live now for the past 6 months, I, as an elderly person, is ignored by the young. Too bad as they are missing out. I have never read those books and neither have my children. I shall have to check Mary Norton out on the internet.
It’s not really relevant to the discussion of whether Borrowers do/should steal, but in regards to Mary Norton’s original book, the text also leaves open the question of whether or not the Borrowers were even *real*, or just an invention of the narrator’s younger brother.
The book is framed by a young girl being told about the Borrowers by her grandmother (or nanny - can’t quite recall), who tells her that her younger brother (the unnamed Boy that Arriety befriends in the story) passed the story onto her. She produces Arriety’s book as “proof” of his story, but points out with a laugh that Arriety’s handwriting is exactly the same as her brother’s - and the book ends on this note of ambiguity.
Please, please tell me this woman signed her complaint “Hara”.
We went as a family to see this today. I insisted we see it on the big screen—so that we would feel small, of course. My children, 5 and 8, declared that they love Arrietty even more than Ponyo. Hayao Miyazaki is a treasure I would never have discovered without your recommendations. Thank you!
Colet:
This is now officially my favorite comment in this combox, thanks to sentences 1 and 3 above. And I’m delighted that I had the privilege of introducing your family to Miyazaki!
You wrote way too many words replying to that guy. I would have just told him to lock his granddaughter in a closet or something until she’s 18, because if the moral message of the Borrowers is ‘appalling’ to him, there is literally nothing in a theater or on a TV that’s safe for the fragile little snowflake to see, and obviously the real world is even scarier.
(Don’t even let her have a Bible in the closet, Jesus told his disciples to steal a donkey one time, WHAT A TERRIBLE MESSAGE FOR CHILDREN.)
Actually, Jesus kinda can’t steal. “He can’t take it away, because He already has it,” as St. Augustine says. Everything already belongs to Him.
But yeah, the donkey was waiting for him. Either it was pre-arranged, or He just knew the people there were just the kind of people who would have and let him use the donkey. (In my romantic heart, I prefer the second.)
It has been many decades since I read the Borrowers books, but I seem to recall that they made some return their unknowing hosts by doing minor repairs in the house where they lived.
@ Maureen S. O’Brien
Come to think of it, God owns all of creation, and we’re just borrowing it. In a way, that makes us a bit like Borrowers, since He is infinite, and we’re very, very finite…
A thought: Many cartoons feature mice who take things that they find around a house (e.g. Cinderella, when the mice collect materials for a dress). This isn’t stealing; it’s scavenging. While in real life we may become annoyed with mice and get rid of them, surely we realize that the mice are not morally at fault. In the grand scheme of things, we’ve taken far more from other animals than they will ever take from us.
The Borrowers are obviously more fantastical, and I don’t think we’re meant to ponder how they evolved. Needless to say, you could look at them as a species built to scavenge their native environment, which in this made-up world happens to be human houses.
I thought the comment was silly, but it was great that you responded to it. The discussion prompted me to pose the question to my children at dinner the other day and ask them if the grandmother was right or not and how they would respond.
It was fascinating to see them grapple with it after initially being dumbfounded that someone had an objection (my 8 year old’s initial reaction was ‘some people are weird.’)
To my delight, between my 11, 8 and 6 year old they managed totally on their own to come up with three great responses:
11 year old - Well, they needed it to survive and I think that’s different than taking something you just WANT. Point 3
8 year old - Well, what they took was REALLY small. Point 2
6 year old - Well, they had to keep themselves secret to be safe, so they couldn’t ask or tell anyone. Also part of Point 3
This is a wonderful aspects of the stories we read and watch with our kids. When we allow for it, they let us see what and how our kids think, to see what they understand, and to engage in discussions that help us make sense of the world, and to deepen our moral understanding.
Thanks for this discussion.
Zee & Maureen S. O’Brien: I’m afraid from a Bible geek perspective I have to say that the donkey thing was probably prearranged (just as the disciples’ meeting the man carrying the water jar was; quite a bit was going on behind the scenes as Jesus planned his last trip to Jerusalem).
However, Jesus and his disciples did walk through grainfields picking heads of grain and eating them. The Gospels focus on the scandal of doing this on the Sabbath, but from the perspective of our present topic, there they were helping themselves to someone else’s grain—which the Torah said they could do, which is another way of saying that God’s law permits us to make reasonable use of other peoples’ goods.
Janette K: You may be right, although from what I’ve read you may also be thinking of the Littles, not the Borrowers.
Other SteveG: Great stuff. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s how families should watch movies.
The Borrowers mantra of “only what wont be missed” reminds me of a verse from “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns.
“I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve!
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ‘t!”
His reaction to seeing a mouse isn’t “You little Thief!”, he feels that the little that the mouse takes from him isn’t worth getting upset about, since he has plenty still.
I came here looking for something else but got caught up in this discussion.
My two cents, other than agreeing with your post and thinking it’s actually a good discussion that opens up the complexity of life without sacrificing clarity or integrity,
1. It’s not the dark ages where children were executed for stealing bread (with the implication that it’s the Church’s mind that it would be so)—it’s 18th century England. So take that, Protestantism.
2. I love Maureen S. O’Brien’s comment that maybe the people the donkey was taken from were the kind of people who wouldn’t have minded, because I think it applies to the Borrowers. If “our” (Bigs) point of view is that small things disappear annoyingly and mysteriously, then it might also be that if we knew a passel of Littles were actually dependent on those items, we’d be less annoyed. Happy, even, to see the things go. This does mitigate any wrongdoing, in my view, because I think that it’s less culpable to take something if you know the person wouldn’t mind if he knew the facts—like, you aren’t stealing when you borrow your neighbor’s ladder, even though it might look like stealing to someone else. It’s “do unto others”—because *we wouldn’t mind someone taking something they really needed, but we would stand on our rights if we thought they were just being disrespectful of our property.
Not that I think the Borrowers are stealing.
I can’t figure out how Mary Norton published The Borrowers in 1952 if she didn’t create it until 1955.
Kirk: I’m grateful for all corrections (even snarky ones). Thanks.
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