Revision of Little Cog-Burt and Cotton Candy

After reading both “Little Cog-Burt” and “Cotton Candy” I noticed the many differences and similarities. Lola and Little Cog-Burt shared some of the same behaviors. Lola was able to communicate verbally, however, she could have been labeled as bashful or even strange. She would send the men she loved dead butterflies and she did it in secret. The butterflies symbolized the men she had fallen in love with and wanted to be with sexually. She was not satisfied sexually.  When Lola would visit the zoo, she would feel a connection with the zoo animals. Some might consider this very odd. I think Lola was missing that personal connection with humans and a lot of this had to do with the way her mother was. Her mother was very strict and tried to control her.

 Little Cog-Burt had  issues with connecting to humans but in a different way. The story calls him a

little boy who always whined. Moira did not care for Cog-Burt because of his whining and he always hid from her. On the day of the Christmas party all the other children gathered around in a circle and received their gifts from Moira and Richard happily. Poor Cog-Burt was last and sat in the corner very quietly. He did not want the large ball that Moira had picked out for him. Unlike Lola, Cog-Burt would cry or “whine” to show expressions and communicate. In today's culture, someone would automatically assume Cog-Burt suffered from autism or another mental disability. If someone is not familiar with autism someone might be like Moira and just think he is ungrateful and rude. Like any mother would, his mom was able to tell them what he was saying and communicate for him. I think this is Allfrey’s way of letting the reader know that Cog-Burt has a social disorder whether it be Autism, social anxiety, As burghers, or any other mental disorder. Communication skills, fairies, butterflies, mothers, and other similar aspects of the readings made me believe that it was done so on purpose. Caribbean kids and the women in these stories were very interesting and I would have loved to visit their towns and their people.