Little Lord Fauntleroy

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1886

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Dorincourt Estate

Dorincourt Estate symbolizes one thing for Fauntleroy and another for Lord Dorincourt. The scene in which the two ride in a carriage to Court Lodge illustrates this divide. As they travel through the estate, Cedric’s “heart was filled with pleasure and happiness in the beauty that was on every side” (152). For him, the estate represents an opportunity to begin a new life of renewed happiness after the death of his father and the sorrow it brought. The estate also represents opportunity more broadly as well. It represents the future—a beautiful life ahead of him—and the prospect of using this newfound wealth, here symbolized by the land, to help others.

In contrast, for Dorincourt, the estate symbolizes a life wasted on himself. It represents the past, not possibility. It reminds him of how he’s alienated everyone around him—his family, his tenants—and he knows, as Fauntleroy doesn’t, that:

In all those homes, humble or well-to-do, there was probably not one person, however much he envied the wealth and stately name and power, and however willing he would have been to possess them, who would for an instant have thought of calling the noble owner ‘good’ (153).

Whereas in the estate Fauntleroy sees land rich with possibility, overflowing with a beauty and happiness to be shared, Dorincourt sees only poisoned soil symbolizing his selfishness and misery. The things he thought mattered—money, land, status—have betrayed him, leaving him unhappy and alone. His estate serves as a cruel reminder of how mistaken he was in choosing those things over love and generosity.

Kick Marks on Mr. Hobbs’s Stool

When Cedric would visit Mr. Hobbs’s grocery, he would sit on a stool and kick as he talked, leaving marks that later remind Mr. Hobbs of Cedric. Cedric is still, in many ways, a typical little boy even though he’s an earl: “even youthful earls kick the legs of things they sit on;—noble blood and lofty lineage do not prevent it” (227). As with Cedric’s mistaken pronunciation or misunderstanding of long words, Burnett uses the marks Cedric makes on Mr. Hobbs’s stool to normalize him. The marks symbolize a touch of humanity, a touch of imperfection in an otherwise extraordinary boy, lending his character a bit of realism.

The marks also symbolize the goodwill Cedric inspires in ill-willed people. In the first chapters, Mr. Hobbs is described as grumpy and unfriendly. These character traits don’t align with an appreciation for a little boy damaging his stool. However, Cedric slips under this grumpy exterior, becoming such fast friends with him that he doesn’t mind the marks. The goodwill Cedric inspires also opens obstinate people, such as Dorincourt and Mr. Hobbs, to change. Mr. Hobbs, who hates aristocrats, tempers his hatred after learning that Cedric has become a lord. After Cedric has left for England, Mr. Hobbs even proudly says of the marks: “Them’s a lord’s kicks; they’ll be a earl’s kicks some day” (233). In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Hobbs declared that he’d throw any aristocrat out of his store. By the end, he’s proud not only to have had one in his store but to have been friends with one. This shows the power of Cedric’s goodness to better people.

Dorincourt’s Grim Smile

Burnett uses characters’ physical appearances to indirectly characterize them: The harsh, cynical Earl has “a nose like an eagle’s beak between his deep, fierce eyes” (97), whereas Fauntleroy has a “strong, lithe, graceful little body and a manly little face” (34). Burnett often describes Dorincourt as having a “grim” expression on his face, indicating his severe inner nature. Over the course of the book, as Fauntleroy slowly transforms his grandfather into a better person, Burnett repeatedly returns to the motif of Dorincourt’s grim expression to track his deeper transformation.

As he spends more and more time with his grandson, Dorincourt’s grim look, which seems set in stone, begins to falter. When Cedric amuses Dorincourt with his polite insistence that he’s American, the Earl emits a laugh that “was short and grim, but it was a laugh” (107). Later, after Fauntleroy suggests his grandfather be lenient with Higgins, Dorincourt’s frown is “scarcely grim at all” (141). Fauntleroy slowly melts his grandfather’s grimness because he shows him that there’s something worth living for and tells him that he’s a good person, as no one else does.

Burnett also uses the return of Dorincourt’s grim expression to indicate a regression into his former self caused by his attachment to his old ways. When he senses Higgins’s low opinion of him after the farmer has come to thank Fauntleroy for his leniency on the eviction, Dorincourt’s grim smile returns because he’s reminded that he’s been living in the fictitious bubble of his grandson’s love and admiration (166-69). However, soon after his grim expression retreats again as he spends even more time around Cedric: “he wore the smile so often that there were moments when it almost lost its grimness” (170). Cedric’s presence wears thin his grandfather’s obstinacy—his determination to stay set in his ways, in his grimness and misery. In the final chapter, the Earl’s grim smile disappears, symbolizing the extent of his transformation.