The Social Function of Child Cruelty

Abstract

The introduction to this collection of essays on the representation of the cruel child in popular texts makes the case that cruelty is something that is either granted or denied children. Rather than focus on the idea that children are characterized by an innate cruelty, this collection instead focuses on the ways in which cruelty is connected to child agency. Whereas children have in general tended to be romanticized as innocent, in the nineteenth century writers and artists began to argue that, in order to achieve social power, children need to have a kind of survival mode that borders on the performance of cruelty. By either  granting or denying children the power to be cruel, society sends strong messages about what type of child is allowed to achieve agency. At the heart of this collection, then, is the question of what role the cruel child trope plays in delineating power structures and rules of behaviour along lines of age, class, race, and gender.