While Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville in a state of deep bereavement, she is eager to make the most of her new life. Miss Polly is unenthusiastic about adopting Pollyanna, but she considers it her moral duty. Miss Polly is 40, single, and miserable, following her older sister’s elopement with Pollyanna’s father and her estrangement from her own anonymous lover. This study guide uses the Poetose Kindle version, first published in 2021.įollowing the death of her minister father, 11-year-old orphan Pollyanna Whittier leaves the Western town she grew up in to go East to Beldingsville, Vermont to live with her deceased mother’s sister, Polly Harrington. While Porter’s original heroine balanced looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses with practical good deeds that enhanced the lives of others, over time, the term “Pollyanna” has gained pejorative connotations, as it has come to mean an impractical, passive character who ignores the harsh truth in favor of the reality they would prefer. In 1921, the term “Pollyanna” entered the Merriam Webster dictionary accompanied by the following definition: “a person characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything” (“Pollyanna”). Pollyanna has ascended her status as a fictional character to become a recognizable personality type. One of these was in existence in Denver, Colorado as late as 2008. Some fans were not content to leave Pollyanna’s unfailing optimism to the fictional realm and formed Glad Clubs to practice her outlook on life.

More recent renditions of Pollyanna include a Japanese anime series directed by Kōzō Kusuba (1986), which shows how Pollyanna’s appeal has crossed national boundaries. These included a silent movie starring Mary Pickford (1920) and a Disney adaptation (1960), which earned its star Hayley Mills an Oscar. The book was adapted into a movie several times, as different generations reinterpreted Porter’s sunny heroine for themselves. Eleven more “glad books” featuring the heroine were written after Porter’s death, namely by ghost writers Elizabeth Borton and Harriet Lummis Smith. In the years following its publication, Pollyanna provided hope in the turbulent years of World War I, and it continued to capture the national imagination throughout the 20th century.

Pollyanna eleanor porter