Rose-Tree Dryad wrote:Glumpuddle's posts in this thread about Jill's trust issues and the fact that her family is never mentioned, as well as waggawerewolf27's thoughts on when she finally learns to trust, have gotten me thinking... is it possible that the filmmakers will present Jill as being an orphan?
Actually that is what I'd expect to happen, and I'd already assumed how SC will be filmed, no matter by whom. Especially if Walden had gone on to produce SC, in particular, I would have expected them to continue with the war-time reality background that was used in the films they did produce. In those days children were often sent to boarding schools and like establishments if their families were in any sort of crisis, and what could be more of a crisis than losing even one parent, let alone two?
The trouble is, that some families are truly dysfunctional, and bullying other students might well reflect this sort of thing, when there are all sorts of reasons for children to be at boarding school. I am writing from personal knowledge, of attending such an establishment. I trust that my children had a much nicer start to school-life than what I did, since unlike them, I didn't get to go home at the end of the day, the week, or before the end of term. SC was published in 1953, the year of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and also when I started school, having just had my fifth birthday. And though I don't remember being treated too badly, I can remember feeling horribly alone, especially as many of my fellow students had their brothers and sisters to turn to, who if older, would look out for them, to fight with and to share memories of school holidays with.
The book says that Jill knew Eustace from a previous term before the summer holidays and that at the time of the story it was well into the autumn term. But I do agree that a bit of background, such as the violence of the London Blitz, with houses being bombed, or even fleeing refugees from other places involved in conflict, would not go amiss to explain how she got to be at Experiment House, in particular.
From my own RL experience, I'd expect my first sight of Jill would be when a stern supervisor of some sort, on a train platform, reading her name off a list, directs her and other children to a bus, or onto a line of students, to take them to Experiment House. And having arrived at Experiment House, I would expect Jill to have seen others, maybe like Eustace, being shoved off a diving board, fully clothed, books and all, and that she, herself, experienced being shut up in a cupboard, possibly the one she had been assigned to, which someone else had been using, regardless of any rules. Or maybe she was jeered at by those sorts who, having been there a while, felt they were superior to more recent arrivals, especially if welfare or charity had something to do with her presence at the school.
It might even suggest why Jill had so many problems with remembering. I've heard that people with painful memories tend to try to suppress them, finding it more useful to concentrate on the present moment.