Pollyanna Grows Up · Chapter
When Pollyanna Came explained
Pollyanna and Aunt Polly return to Beldingsville after the doctor's death.
What happens
Pollyanna and Aunt Polly return to Beldingsville after the doctor's death. Aunt Polly is deeply grieving and bitter, wearing a black veil and refusing to acknowledge the townspeople. Jimmy Pendleton meets them at the station with Timothy's carriage. At home, Nancy has decorated the house to welcome them, but Aunt Polly reacts coldly, hiding her grief behind anger. Pollyanna comforts Nancy and expresses her own sorrow, while also discussing the family's financial troubles and her desire to find a way to earn money.
Themes in this chapter
Loss, Grief, and Healing
The chapter centers on the aftermath of the doctor's death, showing Aunt Polly's bitter grief and Pollyanna's struggle to maintain hope while mourning.
Social Class and Inequality
Aunt Polly's pride is wounded by the family's financial decline and the prospect of Pollyanna having to earn a living, reflecting class anxieties.
Characters to notice
- Pollyanna Whittier
Returns to Beldingsville grieving the doctor's death, tries to comfort Aunt Polly and maintain a cheerful front, discusses financial worries and her desire to develop a talent to earn money.
- Aunt Polly
Deeply changed by grief, appears aged and hardened, wears a black veil, rejects kindness from others, hides her sorrow behind faultfinding and coldness.
- Jimmy Pendleton
Meets Pollyanna and Aunt Polly at the station with Timothy's carriage, shows kindness and sympathy, is called 'Jimmy Bean' by Pollyanna in her nervousness.
- Nancy
Welcomes them home with flowers and decorations, is hurt by Aunt Polly's cold reaction, comforts Pollyanna as she cries.
- Timothy
Drives the carriage to meet them at the station, feels hurt by Aunt Polly's cold reception.
Key passages
“All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and sourness that had been hers when she was Miss Polly Harrington, unloved, and unloving.”
The kindness and warmth Aunt Polly had gained through marriage vanished, revealing the bitter, unloving woman she was before.
Describes Aunt Polly's regression to her former harsh personality due to grief.
“I think I'd like best to cook, and keep house. You know I loved that in Germany winters, when Gretchen used to bother us so much by not coming when we wanted her. But I don't exactly want to go into other people's kitchens to do it.”
Pollyanna says she would enjoy cooking and housekeeping, as she did in Germany, but she doesn't want to work as a servant in someone else's home.
Shows Pollyanna's practical thinking about earning money while maintaining her dignity.