Who is Rhoda Manning in the collection, Victory over Japan?

Rhoda Manning, a recurring character in Gilchrist's fiction, is the protagonist of "Victory Over Japan." In the story, she appears as a thirdgrader narrating her experiences during the closing months of World War II. Although she aspires to be like her saintly mother, Rhoda's actions are far more self-serving than self-sacrificing. She attempts, for example, to befriend the victim of an animal bite, not out of genuine concern for the boy, but in order to obtain an exclusive interview for the school newspaper and to impress her mother with her apparent generosity. Rhoda is a rebel and a rulebreaker and hardly fits the stereotypical role of a little girl in the 1940s. She is determined never to become a victim—of an animal bite, of a potential child molester, of her potentially abusive father, or even of the Japanese. Her aggressive, proactive stance toward these threats is contrary to the notion of the passive female usually associated with this time period.