Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna by Harde Roxanne;Kokkola Lydia;

Author:Harde, Roxanne;Kokkola, Lydia;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

Beyond the Glad Game: The Power of Pollyanna’s Knowing

The will to believe has to do with (what we now recognize as) psychology, but it is also an epistemic position. James’s will to believe is more than “putting a good face on things.” According to him, our thoughts can often shape, and even create, reality. Thought is powerful; it is action or deed (hence, the name “pragmatism” from the Greek word for “deed”). James often uses the phrase “the right to believe” interchangeably with “the will to believe” (in, for example, The Will to Believe). The will to believe is part of his argument that it is rationally permissible to believe in some cases without any evidence of truth prior to adopting (and acting on) it. According to James, in some instances the only way to get evidence for the truth of a belief is to embrace the belief before there is any evidence. Once again, we can see how this philosophy resonates with the behavior and belief of Pollyanna with regard to Aunt Polly: she believes that her aunt loves her, and by the end of the novel Pollyanna has abundant evidence that her aunt does, indeed, love her.

Recall the above passage from The Will to Believe, which ends with “the desire for a certain kind of truth here brings about that special truth’s existence” (24). As I noted above, James’s pragmatism is much more than the psychology of positive thinking. According to James, our beliefs—which are themselves a form of action—and consequent behavior sometimes create reality. To put it baldly, sometimes thinking it does make it so. As James says “there are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming. And where faith in a fact can help create the fact,” it is reasonable to choose to will that belief (James, The Will to Believe 225).

We can see that such is often the case with Pollyanna. According to James, the activity of thinking is enormously powerful. Pollyanna’s insistent optimism and inveterate gladness give her a kind of power. Her power is in sharp contrast to the adults around her who, we read, are often struck speechless by Pollyanna. However, this power is not derived from her positive attitude. The effect of Pollyanna and her glad game is far more complex: Pollyanna acts on her beliefs (as James would say) and her actions bring about the reality. For example, she believes that Aunt Polly loves her and wants Pollyanna to live with her; through her sincere actions based on this belief, it indeed becomes the case that Aunt Polly does love Pollyanna. In the character of Pollyanna, we see that acting as though something is so can make it so. Paradoxically, the realism of the adults renders them powerless, whereas Pollyanna’s active beliefs empower her to transform her life and the lives of those around her.

Aunt Polly’s love for Pollyanna is not the only example of the power of thought in action.

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