The Railway Children

Fiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 1906

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Reversals of Fortune: Privilege Versus Adversity

The Railway Children is a riches-to-rags-and-back-again story in terms of its plot structure. At the novel’s opening, the privileged nature of the children’s lives in London is strongly emphasized through the description of their large, comfortable home full of “every modern convenience” (5), and the fact that “these lucky children always had everything they needed” (6). After their father’s imprisonment, the children’s new lives in the countryside forms a stark contrast to the lives they led before. Mother warns them that they now must “play at being poor for a bit” (24) and the children soon find themselves unable to even eat as much as before, as “there were buns for tea” only when Mother can sell a piece of her writing (65).

The children try to make the best of things by seeking out new connections with others and new ways to have meaning in their lives. Mother urges them to “be cheerful” (33) even in their own surroundings, and the children often seek to maintain a positive attitude despite their hardships. The children still try to do good deeds for others, such as when they attempt to surprise Mr. Perks on his birthday with gifts in Chapter 9. The novel consistently emphasizes the importance of maintaining hope and always doing one’s best in the face of adversity, with the story’s happy ending communicating that those who do manage to endure will eventually be rewarded regardless of status.

The Importance of Kindness and Friendship

Friendship with others is the key to emotional well-being and making oneself at home in the world of The Railway Children. The children seek to lessen the impact of their changed circumstances by forging new bonds with others, such as the railway workers, the Russian Exile, the old gentleman, and more. While these friendships do not always begin easily or run smoothly, the general theme in the novel is that friendship is essential for a harmonious social existence.

This belief in the importance of friendship is embodied most explicitly by Bobbie, who is always seeking ways to be kind to others and who is deeply sensitive to others’ feelings and needs. She tells her mother in Chapter 8, “I think everyone in the world is friends if you only get them to see you don’t want to be un-friends” (214). Bobbie’s belief is occasionally naïve, and her intentions do not always work out as planned, but it is true that the children manage to make friends out of virtually everyone they encounter in the novel, sooner or later. What is more, their eventual reunion with their father is facilitated by the old gentleman, whose friendship with the children leads him to act as their benefactor several times over. Despite Mother’s insistence upon self-sufficiency whenever possible, it is ultimately friendship and the kindness of other people that allows the family unit to fully heal.

The Nature of Justice

There are two miscarriages of justice in The Railway Children: the false accusation of treason faced by the children’s father and the imprisonment of the Russian Exile under the Tsarist regime. Both miscarriages of justice speak to a sometime divide between moral justice and legal justice within the world of the novel.

When Mother explains to the children the plight of the Russian Exile to the children, Peter is incredulous, because he argues that “people only go to prison when they’ve done something wrong” (138), to which Mother responds, “or when judges think they’ve done wrong” (138). Mother’s response hints at the children’s father’s own situation, although this is still unknown to the children at the time. Her remark gestures toward a tension between the legal process of justice and what is or isn’t morally just. The Russian Exile, in having written a book about poverty, incurred the wrath of the Tsarist regime, which imprisoned him for “three years in a horrible dungeon” in response (138). While what the Russian Exile wrote was legally wrong according to Tsarist law, the implication is that he was morally just in doing so.

Similarly, the children’s father is “good and noble and honorable,” according to Mother when Bobbie learns of his imprisonment (269), even though he has been convicted of selling state secrets to the Russians. The fact that Father has been unjustly convicted in England for supposed dealing with the Tsarist regime that unjustly imprisoned the Russian Exile enables the two situations to mirror one another, revealing that forms of injustice can occur even in democratic, law-bound societies such as England. True justice, the novel suggests, lies in upholding one’s moral values and in suffering for one’s convictions even when the treatment one receives is not deserved.

The Edwardian Ideals of Motherhood and Femininity

With Father absent for the majority of the novel, Mother becomes the sole parental figure and breadwinner within the family unit. Although she is forced to take on a what was considered a traditionally male role at the time in being the sole provider for her family, Mother continues to embody the time period’s idea of traditional femininity and model of motherhood within the world of the novel.

Before Father’s imprisonment, Mother is described as “almost always there, ready to play with the children, and read to them, and help them with their home-lessons” (6). In the countryside, Mother has less time to interact with her children because she must constantly write to pay the bills, but she nevertheless maintains her almost saintly demeanor by hiding her sorrows as best as she can and being loving and supportive toward her children. In return, the children idealize and adore their mother, seeking to help her by doing chores around the house and attempting to keep the peace with one another.

Dr. Forrest explains to Peter in Chapter 13 that it is the mothering instinct that is the hallmark of a woman’s true nature. After all, he argues, “it wouldn’t be nice for the babies” if women were too much like men (329). This nurturing ideal is also embodied in Bobbie who, although too young to be a mother herself, nevertheless seeks to imitate her mother in how she cares for her siblings and other people in a self-effacing and self-sacrificing way. The centrality of motherhood within the family unit thus forms one of the novel’s key themes, while also suggesting that nurturing in general is an essential component of traditional femininity during the time in which the novel was written.