It's hard for individuals to find their place in society. Societies have to have rules, and the rules don't always suit all the individuals, but it's even harder when the individuals are individual to the extreme. Like Pippi in Pippi Longstocking—she's not exactly a blend-into-the-crowd kind of gal, and she certainly has her own ideas about how to live. Being raised on the ocean seems to have made her particularly unfit to live amongst others on the land, but with her super-strength and her refusal to be boxed in according to her age, gender, or size, we wonder if being raised in a more traditional setting would have made fitting in any easier for her.
Questions About Society and Class
- The people in the town give up on putting Pippi in a children's home after she outwits (and outmaneuvers, and outmuscles) the police, but should a nine-year-old really be able to live in a house alone with no adult supervision?
- If Pippi is allowed to live on her own and decide whether or not to attend school, won't other kids be encouraged to rebel against the system? What kind of impact do you think her decisions will have on others around her?
- You've probably heard someone use the old If we let one person do it, then everyone's going to want to do it line as a reason for not allowing someone a particular individual freedom. What do you think of this justification? Can exceptions to rules be made for individuals, or does that just encourage others to ignore the rules?
- What do you make of the coffee party scene? Is it funny? Is it sad? And how do you interpret Pippi's last line in that chapter, when she yells after the ladies, "SHE NEVER SWEPT UNDER THE BEDS!" Is it significant that this is the only piece of dialogue in the entire book that is in all caps?
Chew on This
Pippi Longstocking is amusing, but the choices she makes—such as ignoring police officers and refusing to go to school—make her a bad role model for children,
By the end of the book Pippi has found her place in the society of the small town and been accepted by the other residents.