Pollyanna Problems: On Katharine Butler Hathaway’s The Little Locksmith and the Pitfalls of Excessive Optimism

Pollyanna Problems: On Katharine Butler Hathaway’s The Little Locksmith and the Pitfalls of Excessive Optimism by Ashley P. Taylor I. Two Pollyannas To be “a Pollyanna” is a complicated thing. According to Merriam-Webster, a Pollyanna is “a person characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything.” The original Pollyanna, the protagonist in Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 novel of that name, suffers endless bad luck but copes by playing “the glad game,” which consists of finding reasons […]

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