Brats

The hidden child in children’s literature

Abstract

The figure of the "brat" appears in the literature for childhood as a means, often necessary, to convey messages of propositive and moralistic about the good conduct of the child’s behavior. Between the end of the Nineteenth century and the first half of the Twentieth century, the brat is represented in contrast to the child polite and respectful. For this reason, its characteristics are: the recklessness of behavior, the violence of actions, bullying, the rejection of any rule. But what are the pedagogical anxieties that lie behind the sweetening representation of a bourgeois morality that you want to impose even the smallest?

Starting from these premises, the essay takes as an example the story for boys Nannetti. The novel of the children, by the Venetian writer Maria da Rin.