The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Critical Commentaries

Critical Commentaries

Writing in Storyteller: The Classic that Heralded America's Storytelling Revival, in discussing the difference between stories that lend themselves well to telling and stories that lend themselves well to reading, Ramon Ross explains Peter Rabbit is a story created for reading. He believes Potter created a good mix of suspense and tension, intermixed with lulls in the action. He goes on to write that the writing style—"the economy of words, the crisp writing"—lends itself well to a young audience.

Lear writes that Potter "had in fact created a new form of animal fable in: one in which anthropomorphic animals behave as real animals with true animal instincts", and a form of fable with anatomically correct illustrations drawn by a scientifically minded artist. She further states Peter Rabbit's nature is familiar to rabbit enthusiasts "and endorsed by those who are not ... because her portrayal speaks to some universal understanding of rabbity behaviour." She describes the tale as a "perfect marriage of word and image" and "a triumph of fantasy and fact".

Carole Scott writes in Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit that the reader cannot help but identify with rebellious little Peter and his plight as all the illustrations are presented from his low-to-the-ground view, most feature Peter in close-up and within touching distance, and Mr. McGregor is distanced from the reader by always being depicted on the far side of Peter. Scott explains: "This identification dramatically instills fear and tension in the reader, and interacts with the frequently distanced voice of the verbal narrative", sometimes with contradictory effects. In the verbal narrative and the illustration for the moment when Mr. McGregor attempts to trap Peter under a garden sieve, for example, the verbal narrative presents the murderous intent of Mr. McGregor as a matter-of-fact, everyday occurrence while the illustration presents the desperate moment from the terrified view of a small animal about to die – a view that is reinforced by the birds that take flight to the left and the right.

Scott writes that Potter is inconsistent in the use of "contradictory effects in the word-picture interaction". For example, in the illustration of Peter standing by the locked door, the verbal narrative describes the scene without the flippancy evident in the moment of the sieve. The inability to overcome obstacles is presented in the verbal narrative with objective matter-of-factness and the statement, “Peter began to cry” is offered without irony or attitude, thus drawing the reader closer to Peter’s emotions and plight. The illustration depicts an unclothed Peter standing upright against the door, one foot upon the other with a tear running from his eye. Without his clothes, Peter is only a small, wild animal but his tears, his emotions, and his human posture intensifies the reader’s identification with him. Here, verbal narrative and illustration work in harmony rather than in disharmony.

Scott writes that Potter subverts not only her age’s expectations of what it takes to be a good child but subverts the hero genre with its young, objective, rational, resourceful white male who leaves the civilized world to brave obstacles and opponents in the wilderness, and, once his goal is achieved, returns home to grateful welcome and rewards. Peter is quite unlike the traditional hero because "he is small, emotionally driven, easily frightened, and a not very rational animal". She suggests Potter’s tale has encouraged many generations of children to “self-indulgence, disobedience, transgression of social boundaries and ethics, and assertion of their wild, unpredictable nature against the constrictions of civilized living.”