The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler

Throughout the majority of The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Tyke's gender is not disclosed, neither by other characters nor in the text. The story can therefore be described as having an ungendered narrative.[3] All but the final chapter is narrated from Tyke's first-person perspective, which limits the use of gendered pronouns. The dialogue of other characters similarly avoids the use of gendered pronouns by, for example, using the word "child" to describe Tyke.[4][5] It is revealed near the beginning of the story that 'Tyke' is a nickname. The reader learns that Tyke's character despises her real name, which is not uncovered until the end of the story, along with her gender.[4]

She [Mrs Somers] used my real name, the one I hate, so I pulled my worst, most horrible face at her, the slit-eyed, yellow-tooth, ears-wiggling monster-from-the-centre-of-the-earth one.

— Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Chapter One[6]

Only at that moment, Mrs Somers came round the corner, stopped, spoke to Sir, looked up, saw me and shouted, her face red and corrugated: "Get down at once, Theodora Tiler, you naughty, disobedient girl!"

— Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Chapter Fourteen[7]

The daring nature of Tyke's exploits and behaviours – such as fighting, climbing the bell tower, and protecting Danny – often lead readers to assume Tyke is a boy.[4][8] The name 'Tyke' itself is gendered with connotations of roughness and maleness.[9] The other characters in the story too are stereotypical of their gender: the headmaster of the school is referred to by Tyke as "Chief Sir" and is depicted as powerful with a deep voice; the student teacher Miss Honeywell is described as being pretty; Tyke's father is authoritative; Tyke's sister Beryl is interested in her boyfriend and makeup.[10] The final chapter of the novel is a postscript written from the point of view of Mr Merchant, Tyke's teacher. Tyke's gender is confirmed again to be female and for the first time in the book the character is described as "she".[4]

In the book Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, Mary Cadogan writes how Tyke Tiler "demolishes many accepted ideas about aspirational and experiential differences between boys and girls."[11] Although the novel does challenge gendered stereotypes with its twist reveal at the end, in a chapter on the representation of girls in literature in the book Teaching English, Susan Brindley argues that Tyke Tiler "is, in effect, presenting non-stereotypical girls as abnormal – and as such supports the dominant ideology." Brindley writes that the idea of Tyke's real gender being a revelation reinforces "sexist roles in society". She states how some readers feel that they have been "made fools of" when discovering Tyke's true gender.[12] Kery Mallan in the book Gender Dilemmas in Children’s Fiction calls this discovery a "narrative deceit".[13] Bhagirath Khuman and Madhumita Ghosal write that reactions like these to Tyke Tiler demonstrate the strange notion that "supposedly male characteristics are only suitable to boys' characters and that that is how they should be portrayed."[14] Furthermore, they write that rather than being a "narrative deceit", the revelation of Tyke's gender shows how readers have to challenge their own false beliefs about gender roles.[8] Going beyond cisgender interpretations of Tyke's gender, some analyses of Tyke Tiler interpret the protagonist as transgender or reference the novel in broader critiques of transgender fiction.[15][16]

After discovering Tyke's gender, the reader is – as Victor Watson comments in his article on multi-layered texts – "in the know", and thus the book warrants re-reading. Furthermore, he writes how the illustrations throughout the book add to this new perspective as the reader now knows the images depict a girl character.[17]

In the book, Tyke Tiler's relationship with her friend Danny Price represents a child's perspective of how children with disabilities are treated by others and typified by adults. The character of Danny has limited ability and a speech defect which does not go unnoticed by Tyke. Near the beginning of the story, she calls him "as thick as two planks" and shouts to him that he is an "idiotic imbecile" after stealing a £10 note. However, throughout the story she recognises that there is more to Danny than the teachers at their school realise, who discuss whether Danny should be segregated from other children, including Tyke, and sent to a special school. In the book Disability in Modern Children's Fiction, John Quicke writes that this shows how Tyke "resents Danny being typed, just as she resents people... attempting to type her."[18] Furthermore, Mary Anne Prater writes how this book is an example of a story where a character with learning difficulties attends a school which is identified as an inappropriate environment.[19]

Mrs Somers said in a voice like a dentist's drill:

"I can't agree. Danny Price must be sent to the Russell Dene school they have the facilities to deal with children of that type."

I wanted to cry out that Danny Price, my friend, was not a child of that type, that he was funny and nice and all right, and that I could tell what he said perfectly clearly and that he would be unhappy without me around.

— Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Chapter Seven[20]

In the story, Tyke decides to cheat on her school's annual Verbal Reasoning Test and teach Danny the answers so he will not be sent to the special school. Prater calls this action a "pupil and instructor" relationship, notable due to the fact it is between two schoolchildren rather than a teacher and pupil.[21] Throughout the book, Tyke protects and cares for Danny. Catherine Nichols writes how this kind of relationship functions as a way to demonstrate to the reader that the protagonist is a good person, rather than giving Danny more to do in the story.[15]

The character Danny Price is given the part of Sir Galahad in the school play and is inspired by the character's description "His strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure".

There is an emphasis throughout the book on chivalry and heroism. When writing the book, Gene Kemp was keen for the schoolchildren in the story to have a background topic which they would learn about throughout their final term. Kemp chose King Arthur as the topic because she was inspired by the novel The Sword in the Stone, considering it to be one of the finest children's books ever written.[22] In an article on Arthurian antecedents in The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Gill Vickery writes that the novel itself "is built on a framework of Arthurian myth and legend".[2] In the novel, the student teacher Miss Honeywell reads T. H. White's The Once and Future King to Tyke's class, which they later perform as a play. The characters in the book largely resemble the characters they play in this performance: the part of King Arthur goes to Tyke's trusted friend Ian Pitt, the cunning Guinevere and Morgan le Fay go to unfavourable classmates Linda Stoatway and Lorraine Fairchild, and the part of noble Sir Galahad goes to Danny Price. In the story, Danny in particular is pleased to be compared to Sir Galahad and is inspired by the description "His strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure". He resolves to live up to this comparison, which makes Tyke realise that he could not have stolen Mrs Somers' watch.[23]

Settings and plots in the story also follow tropes similar to those found in classic myth and legend. In the story, Tyke's confrontation with the headmaster after Danny is accused of stealing Mrs Somers' watch is comparable to a hero entering a dragon's lair. Tyke and Danny's hideout – an old watermill – is ultimately abandoned by the pair and is described by Vickery as "an imprisoning tower". The tantalising bell tower is the Holy Grail of the story with Tyke ultimately succumbing to its temptation, ringing the bell and facing the consequences when the bell tower collapses.[24]