Critical Commentaries
Potter's three panorama books of 1906 – The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit, The Story of Miss Moppet, and The Sly Old Cat – are vignettes rather than the typical tales she produced of causality, extended plot, and variety of character. Each story has a very limited cast of characters with one dominant character (the title character), and each is dependent upon an archetypal animosity: rabbit versus hunter and cat versus rodent. In their simplicity and unusual format, these stories were intended for babies and very young children, but Potter was never at her best when writing for a clearly defined audience. A Fierce Bad Rabbit fails for this reason, and for its overt moralizing and stiff illustrations. Most damaging to the book's success are the two rabbits. Both lack the adorable cuteness of Peter Rabbit and his kin.
A Fierce Bad Rabbit focuses on a traditional rather than a creative approach to storytelling and reflects Potter's inexperience with babies and very young children. She appears to be more interested in naming and designating this or that rather than developing plot and exploring character. She names and directs the child's attention to the rabbit's tail, whiskers, and claws, for example, rather than to the animal's facial expression. When the hunter appears, he is blandy introduced with, "This is a man with a gun." The gun goes off as expected with the stereotypical "BANG!" instead of a more creative onomatopoeia term Potter would have surely devised had she been writing this book for older children.
The panorama books are not Potter's best efforts, but do demonstrate her ability to pare text and illustrations to essentials. She worked best though with more complicated plots and characters, and with specific settings rather than generalized backgrounds. Her inexperience with babies and very young children is evident in the original panorama format itself for a long strip of paper and a wallet are likely to be mutilated by the very young. The story in its current standard small book format of the Peter Rabbit series is considered to provide very young children with an introduction to books in general and to the world of Peter Rabbit.
Pop culture references: The book is referenced in the final episode of To Play the King. The Prime Minister states that Britain is "a nation of fierce, bad rabbits," and that Potter, more than any other writer, influenced his personal prose style.
Read more about this topic: The Story Of A Fierce Bad Rabbit
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