“No,” she answered. “I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.”
Sara tells her father that he is "inside (her) heart" before they say goodbye for what, though neither of them know it, is the final time. Because Sara has so thoroughly internalized her relationship to her father, she is able to draw strength from his love even when he has died. This allows her to maintain a sense of self-worth even when others see her as unworthy. While both of Sara's parents die before she is an adult, her knowledge of their love helps her survive, and their deaths do not erase the close relationship she feels with each of them.
On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin’s side, aware that the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had a good-naturedly pouting mouth.
This introductory passage about Ermengarde assesses her somewhat harshly, letting readers know straightaway that she is neither intelligent nor beautiful. However, Sara notices her right away, able to see past some of her unremarkable features to her true good nature. Ermengarde, though she is rather simple, is intensely loyal and remains Sara's friend even while her circumstances shift unrecognizably. The bluntness of Burnett's description makes Ermengarde's deep-seated goodness stand out by contrast, demonstrating that cleverness and good looks are less important than kindness and loyalty.
If she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would have learned nothing.
At school, before her father's death, Sara is treated reverently by adults and children alike. In spite of this, she remains down-to-earth and unspoiled. This circumstance gives Burnett an opportunity to emphasize her protagonist's extraordinary nature, noting how she avoids the temptations that might prove irresistible to another child in the same circumstances. At the same time, this description contains a hint of disapproval towards Miss Minchin's methods. Though Sara is not negatively affected by her special treatment, Burnett suggests that most children react badly to such luxury and constant praise. While Burnett speaks positively about gift-giving and adoration in the context of loving, familial relationships, Miss Minchin dislikes Sara and spoils her primarily for selfish, materialistic reasons, offering her no additional moral lessons or examples to go with her material wealth and praise.
"Well," she remarked, "I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know my mamma wouldn't like ME to do it."
Lavinia is something of a foil to Sara herself. She disapproves of imagination and finds the idea of friendships between upper-class and lower-class people repulsive. Furthermore, she regularly invokes her mother, drawing attention to the fact that Sara and Lottie's mothers are dead. Since Sara and Lavinia come from similar class backgrounds and are both leaders among their peers, Lavinia represents a vision of what Sara might be like were she less committed to generosity and openness.
“I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. I’ll pretend that to do things people like is scattering largess. I’ve scattered largess.”
Sara wants to be a princess and become even wealthier than she is at the start of this novel, but not for selfish reasons—rather, she knows that a princess has the power and wealth to help others. Therefore, Sara's fantasy about being a princess allows her to remain giving, generous, and empathetic even when she has very little for herself. By reframing helpfulness as "scattering largess," Sara comes to see her small acts of gift-giving and kindness as elements of a broader goal of helping those in need. Sara's imagination, here as elsewhere, is an instrument through which to change reality as well as a way to escape it.
“Well,” she said, with some fire, “I should like to slap you—but I don’t want to slap you!” restraining herself. “At least I both want to slap you—and I should like to slap you—but I won’t slap you. We are not little gutter children. We are both old enough to know better.”
This moment shows readers that Sara, despite her patience and kindness, is not a perfect child. In fact, young readers might be relieved to see that she feels anger and loses her temper, just as any other child does. Sara's loss of temper stands out, though, in two ways. For one thing, she is angered not by her own mistreatment but by others'. Therefore, in this quote, she threatens Lavinia after Lavinia frightens Lottie. For another, Sara feels and expresses anger, but ultimately retains her self-control and does not act violently. One way in which she keeps herself from slapping Lavinia is by reminding herself that they are not "gutter children." Here, we see a typical invocation of class. While this book encourages empathy towards people from all classes, it also presumes a fundamental difference between upper-class people and members of society's underclass. Sara, then, reminds herself of her own upper-class origins so as not to act, by her definition, like a member of the underclass.
She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her cheek upon the great cat’s head, and look into the fire and think and think and think.
In this moment, Sara is recovering from the shock of her father's sudden death and her own loss of fortune. In spite of Miss Minchin's blunt warnings, she does not yet understand the reality of her circumstances. Sara's instinct is to return to her room, a place of leisure and privacy, in order to process her emotions. While she is able to recognize changes in her material reality, she is unaccustomed to others' sudden lack of respect for her. It is this lack of respect that causes Miss Minchin to immediately expel Sara from her room and send her to sleep in an attic, and to deprive her, not only of the luxuries she has known, but of the right to leisure time, privacy, and emotional well-being. This quote, then, represents Sara's final moment of naiveté before even her expectation of dignity and kind treatment is stripped from her.
How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.
When Sara is overworked and isolated in her attic, she still finds ways to make use of her empathetic nature. In this case, she extends that empathy to a class of beings even she had once previously dismissed: animals, namely rats. The fact that Sara becomes more kindhearted during her sojourn in the attic, rather than less so, is evidence of the effectiveness of her princess fantasy. That is, through a disciplined focus on acting like a princess, Sara is able to befriend those who she might otherwise view as mere pests. However, perhaps to ensure that readers are able to suspend disbelief and not question Sara's ability to communicate with animals, the narrator steps in more heavy-handedly here, even using a first-person pronoun. This narrator explains how Sara is able to communicate with animals, framing their conversation not as a magical impossibility but as a poetic, almost spiritual exchange.
There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it must be admitted her cheeks burned.
When Donald (known to Sara as Guy Clarence) takes it upon himself to offer money to Sara, she accepts, not out of a real desire for money, but out of a feeling of obligation. This moment, then, calls into question the idea of charity even while celebrating Donald's kindness. In spite of his good intentions, Donald's gesture ultimately ends up making him feel better and making Sara feel worse. At the same time, this passage highlights interesting attitudes about class in this novel and in Sara's society. Sara does indeed need money, and is in no position to turn down charity, since she is going hungry. At the same time, Sara does not think of herself as someone who accepts charity, since she is from a wealthy background. This is no matter of mere pride, since Donald's sisters berate him for offering money to someone from a wealthy upbringing—even though she is clearly in need of it.
"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not starving," she said—and she put down the fifth.
Here, Sara has recently been able to buy six fresh-baked buns. Since she is rarely given enough to eat, this is a rare, exciting moment for her. Still, when she sees someone in greater need than herself, she disregards her own suffering and gives almost all of her food to the other child. This exemplifies Sara's selflessness and her attentiveness to those in need. The moment also demonstrates one of Sara's coping mechanisms in her most troubled times. Helping others, as a princess would, allows Sara to feel less powerless and restricted. Therefore, even while giving away her food, she benefits from the knowledge that she is taking action against injustice and misery.
“It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights,” he said. “Only an Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London fogs.”
In this line of dialogue, Mr. Carrisford's young secretary is referencing Ram Dass's plan to surprise Sara with food, a warm fire, and new decorations. In spite of the fact that Ram Dass is from India—not the Arab world—the line summarizes many British beliefs about the "Orient," especially the parts of Asia controlled by the British empire. Whereas the secretary characterizes Britain as a serious place restricted by the rules and conventions of everyday reality, he conceives of India as a place of childlike wonders, exotic and free from the laws of society and nature. These "exotic" tendencies were prized primarily for their potential benefit to British colonizers and their beneficiaries back in Europe. In this case, Ram Dass's impressive plan is valued insofar as it serves Sara and Mr. Carrisford.
