Goody Two-Shoes as a Self-Made Child: Children’s Literature in the Age of Enlightenment

Considered one of the earliest novels of modern children’s literature, John Newbery’s The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes harmonises moral instruction with entertainment, and it presents an exemplary female character for its child readers. Even though Newbery’s novel can be read as a modern Cinderella story with its eponymous Goody Two-Shoes transforming from an orphan into a lady of profession and good fortune, the novel also stands out with its celebration of the tenets of enlightenment. Goody Two-Shoes not only represents John Newbery and John Locke’s ideas concerning the education of children, but she is also a child of the Age of Enlightenment with her unique pedagogy, individualistic attitude, emphasis on rationalism, and rejection of the occult. In her character, Goody Two-Shoes, namely Margery, brings together patience, virtue, industriousness, and self-confidence, thereby becoming a female child counterpart of the individualistic literary characters of the eighteenth-century literature. Her social and economic mobility ensured by her own endeavours renders her a self-made child who contests normative gender roles drawn by the patriarchy. This paper analyses Newbery’s The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes as an example of children’s literature in the Age of Enlightenment with a specific focus on Margery’s development and the values she represents.