Scholarly Commentaries
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck is a tale of pursuit and prey. The theme runs through several of Potter's tales: Mr. McGregor lies in wait for Peter Rabbit, Simpkin for the mice in the tailor's shop, and the trout for Jeremy Fisher. Potter was following the pattern of fairy tales by dwelling on the theme of pursuit and prey and, if there is a moral to Potter's interpretation of the theme, it tells us that an innocent, helpless, simple, or rash animal may become someone else's meal. Potter often pointed out that the tale of Jemima was a retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood". Perrault's tale ends with the death of the heroine, but Potter understood children will not tolerate tragedy. The prey in her books survive for better or worse (Peter returns home for a dose of chamomile tea, for example) and, though Jemima loses her eggs to her hungry rescuers, she lives to return to the farm to raise a brood of ducklings.
The tale shows Potter at her best in depicting the life of the farm and the village of Near Sawrey, but the tale becomes one of something more than just local color and interest. The archetypical tale upon which Jemima is based – the foolish and naive are rescued from destruction by the loyal and dependable – is transformed in Potter's hands to one in which self-preservation and shrewdness become admirable virtues. Graham Greene thought the sandy-whiskered gentleman a character of ominous gloom and suggested Potter had suffered some sort of mental breakdown, but it is more likely she was simply coming to terms with life on a farm. Wild animals invade the precincts of the domesticated ones, and death is part of farming.
The victor in the tale is the farmer's wife: she regains her errant duck and is rid of the predatory fox. Ostensibly, she confiscates Jemima's eggs believing Jemima will abandon them, but the eggs are not confiscated for the well-being of Jemima and her kin but for the well-being of the farmer's wife and her family: the eggs (or the ducks hatched from them) will end up on their dinner table. In this respect, the farmer's wife is a predator like the fox, but the fox is condemned for his predation. Human values are at the top of the tale's hierarchy. Potter argues for the well-ordered home and the practicalities of farm life over the fantasy lives of animals. It was the modus vivendi Potter was to incorporate in her own life as she devoted more of her thoughts and hours to the business of farming and less to tales of fantasy animals.
Like many fairy tales, Jemima Puddle-Duck belongs in a remote, but not-too-distant, past. Jemima's shawl reflects the typical farm dress of the Lake District at the time of the tale's composition, but the poke bonnet does not, and the fox's long tail coat and exquisite manners also suggest another time. Jemima is a more interesting character when humanized with the clothing; without it, she is just a farmyard duck. As Potter pointed out, the tale is a revision of a fairy tale and belongs in the indefinite period of "once upon a time".
The story is one of Potter's more ominous and is fraught with tension. Jemima is a headstrong innocent distracted by her overwhelming desire to nest, and thus unable to penetrate the fox's designs and comprehend her dangerous situation. The tension rises in increments from the mysterious feather-filled shed (the place of slaughter), to the fox's plan for an omelette (of Jemima's eggs), to the ultimate horror and crowning irony, Jemima's errand to fetch the herbs that will be used to season herself.
The fox is the first male villain in Potter's work, saving Samuel Whiskers in The Roly Poly Pudding, the companion piece to Jemima, and, like all villains in Potter, the "gentleman with sandy whiskers" presents a false social front that conceals his bestial nature. He dresses and behaves as a country gentleman of leisure, idling with a newspaper and living off the labor of others by luring their fowl to his feather-filled shed. Potter had little tolerance for indolence and lack of industry, but, as a country woman, she knew foxes were clever and managed to escape more times than they were caught. From the first encounter between Jemima and the fox, the reader realizes the fox is more clever than Jemima and is forced to extend him a grudging admiration.
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