When Nonhuman Sidekicks Take Over: The Bakhtinian Carnivalesque and the Upturned Hierarchy in Sir Gadabout by Martyn Beardsley (1992)

Abstract

In her The Middle Ages in Children’s Literature (2015), Clare Bradford observes that “[c]hildren’s texts... are far more likely to make fun of the Middle Ages than of classical antiquity, the early modern period or the Victorian age” (155). It is also true for Sir Gadabout (1992), the first book of Martyn Beardsley’s series for children, whose title character is the worst knight in the world. In this context, Sidney Smith, a cat and a sidekick, proves to be the most powerful character. One source of humour in the book is the Bakhtinian carnivalesque inversion of anthropocentric hierarchy, which results in the cat being granted human-like agency—even if it is rarely explicitly acknowledged by the narrator. The objective of this paper is to analyse the carnivalesque power reversals that elevate the character who, as a nonhuman, does not belong to the historical feudal system. The use of the figure of Sidney Smith is crucial, as it allows for a subtle rebellion and inverts the book’s power structure. At the same time, such inversion is perceived as comical rather than threatening precisely because the character is an anthropomorphized cat and thus cannot permanently distort the real-world social order.