Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)

Daddy-Long-Legs

Title cover
Author Jean Webster
Genre Young adult
Publication date
 1912
Followed by Dear Enemy

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.

Plot summary

Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron off a gravestone (she hates it and uses "Judy" instead), while her surname was selected out of the phone book. At the age of 17, she finished her education and is at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.

One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum's dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and also give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter, because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he will never reply.

Judy catches a glimpse of the shadow of her benefactor from the back, and knows he is a tall long-legged man. Because of this, she jokingly calls him Daddy-Long-Legs. She attends a "girls' college" on the East Coast. She illustrates her letters with childlike line drawings, also created by Jean Webster.

The book chronicles Judy's educational, personal, and social growth. One of the first things she does at college is to change her name to "Judy." She designs a rigorous reading program for herself and struggles to gain the basic cultural knowledge to which she, growing up in the bleak environment of the orphan asylum, was never exposed.

At the end of the book, the identity of 'Daddy-Long-Legs' is revealed as Jervis Pendleton, whom she had met and fallen in love with while she was still unaware that he was 'Daddy-Long-Legs.'

Dedication

The book is dedicated "To You." Today this book is often classified as children's literature, but at the time it was part of a trend of "girl" or "college girl" books which featured young female protagonists dealing with post-high-school concerns such as college, career, and marriage. These books predated the contemporary view of adolescence. Other authors who wrote in this vein include L. M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott.

Themes

The themes of this book reflect upon Webster's interests in social work and women's suffrage. Some scholars have criticized Daddy-Long-Legs as being an "anti-feminist fairy tale", while others have argued that Judy shows growing independence, including increasing disobedience to her benefactor and his wishes, and indeed succeeds in educating Daddy-Long-Legs that he cannot control her, and that his socialism needs to move from the academic into real life.[1]

Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

This book was Webster's best-known work. Webster herself adapted it into a stage play which debuted in 1914. In addition, it was adapted into a 1952 British stage musical comedy called Love from Judy,[1] as well as films in 1919 (starring Mary Pickford), 1931 (starring Janet Gaynor and Warner Baxter), 1935 (a Shirley Temple adaptation called Curly Top) and a 1955 film, Daddy Long Legs (starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron). The latter two film versions departed considerably from the plot of the original novel.[2]

In Japan, Daddy-Long-Legs was made into a musical anime television special in 1979 by Tatsunoko Productions, directed by Masakazu Higuchi of Superbook fame with Yūko Tanaka as the voice of Judy. The Tatsunoko TV special was released, dubbed in English, on home video in the United States.

This was followed in 1990 by the TV serial Watashi no Ashinaga Ojisan (My Daddy-Long-Legs), directed by Kazuyoshi Yokota for the Nippon Animation studio as that year's installment of the studio's World Masterpiece Theater. It notably makes Judy younger, with Daddy-Long-Legs paying her tuition for high school, not college.

One of Japan's longstanding charities, properly called The Foundation for Orphans from Automobile Accidents (交通遺児育成会募金), takes its inspiration as well as its nickname from the novel, providing financial support to fatherless children and calling itself the Ashinaga Ojisan Bokin (足長おじさん募金) or Daddy-Long-Legs Fund.

In 2005, the Korean movie Kidari Ajeossi (Daddy-Long-Legs) was released. The film starred Ha Ji-won and Yeon Jung-hoon.

In India, the novel was adapted into a Malayalam movie, Kanamarayathu[3] in 1984. Directed by I. V. Sasi and screenplay by P. Padmarajan, it starred Mammootty as the benefactor, Shobana as the orphan and Rahman as her lover, in the lead roles. Mammootty won the Kerala Film Critics Association Award for the Best Actor in 1985 for his role.[4]Anokha Rishta, a Hindi remake of the director's own film in 1986,with Rajesh Khanna, Smita Patil and Sabeeha playing as Mammootty, Shobana and Rahman respectively.

In 2009, the novel was made into a two-person musical play by John Caird (book) and Paul Gordon (music), which premiered at the Rubicon Theatre Company (Ventura, California) and TheatreWorks (Palo Alto, California).[5] On September 27, 2015, the musical premiered Off-Broadway at the Davenport Theatre with Megan McGinnis and Paul Alexander Nolan. On December 10, producer Ken Davenport live-streamed the musical worldwide for free.

In 2013 and 2014, Daddy-Long-Legs was put on stage in Hong Kong.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 Keely, Karan (Sep 2004), "Teaching Eugenics to Children:Heredity and Reform in Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy", The Lion and the Unicorn, 28 (3): 363–389, doi:10.1353/uni.2004.0032
  2. ↑ Phillips, Anne K (1999), ""Yours most loquaciously": Voice in Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs", Children's Literature, 27: 64–85, doi:10.1353/chl.0.0124
  3. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269422/
  4. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269422/awards
  5. ↑ TheatreWorks program, January 2010
  6. ↑ http://www.facebook.com/chuangdiantheatre
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