Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s great-grand nieces: the Powerpuff Girls

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The relationship between the subjects of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Children’s Hour is unclear. Yet in short, he illustrates that familiar time after a day’s “occupations” (school, job, duty, etc.) and before dinner in which those who share a living space acknowledge their neighbors. Although it is never disclosed explicitly whom the characters are to one another, their jovial affection towards the others presented in Longfellow’s few lines is palpable. We are introduced to the young girls’ “voices soft and sweet” and “their merry eyes”: this describes how the filial figure (presumably paternal) feels towards them. While “devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine,” 
conveys how the girls’ admire the narrator. The Children’s Hour ends with the image of a crumbling castle that outlives their sweet cherishing of one another as in till death do us part.

 

Like Cartoon Network’s the Powerpuff Girls, The Children’s Hour pivots on the analogous stories of three young women. Longfellow’s “Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
 
 And Edith with golden hair.” foil animator Craig McCracken superpowered sisters Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. “By three doors left unguarded 
They enter my castle wall!” In both instances, it was misconstrued misfortunes that found path intersect among these 8 comparably star-crossed wonderers. I’m certain that these “three doors” are a euphemism for the same Chemical X that Professor Utonium disturbed before provoking the arrival of the Powerpuff Girls. In later episodes of the series, the dynamic between the characters develops through an identical swift paced competitive condition to that portrayed in The Children’s Hour. “A whisper, and then a silence…
They are plotting and planning together
 To take me by surprise…A sudden rush from the stairway, 

 A sudden raid from the hall!” It’s fascinating because the co-protagonists in either piece are girls who are adventure-seeking to the point of rebellious and unruly; they embody tomboy (age-appropriate masculine) features instead of the docility more traditionally associated with their gender.

 

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