[Notes] Peter Rabbit’s Character Design and Development (Part 3)

Con­tin­ued from the pre­vi­ous chap­ter:Peter Rab­bit’s Char­ac­ter Design and Devel­op­ment (Part 2)


Peter Rab­bit as an adult

In 1912 and 1914, Peter Rab­bit appeared in Miss Porter’s sto­ries again. He played a very impor­tant role in the pre­vi­ous “The Sto­ry of Mr. Todd”. Although he was a sup­port­ing role this time, he was not a “mere cameo”.

This sto­ry was some­thing Miss Porter tru­ly want­ed to write. It was­n’t some­thing the pub­lish­er (Vaugh­an & Co.) want­ed, nor was it some­thing read­ers expect­ed. It was sim­ply some­thing she want­ed to write. By then, her eye­sight was fail­ing (draw­ing small pic­tures was becom­ing increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult), and she was spend­ing a lot of time and ener­gy on farm mat­ters. So she drew less and was more engaged in mak­ing up sto­ries, much like writ­ing a short nov­el. She said that her pre­vi­ous sto­ries had all been about “good guys,” but this time she was going to write about two very bad guys—Mr. Todd and Tom­my Bad­ger.

Why does Peter appear in this sto­ry? Tom­my Bad­ger kid­napped lit­tle Ben­jamin Rab­bit and some of Flop­sy’s bun­nies, plan­ning to cook their rab­bits for them at Mr. Fox Tod­d’s house, where he was tem­porar­i­ly stay­ing. Lit­tle Ben­jamin Rab­bit and Peter Rab­bit fol­lowed them, and while try­ing to res­cue the bun­nies, they dis­cov­ered that Mr. Fox Todd had returned home…

This is a tru­ly thrilling sto­ry, with a touch of dan­ger. Two for­mi­da­ble vil­lains team up, and not only might the lit­tle bun­ny be unable to save her, but even the lives of the two old­er rab­bits are at stake. Miss Porter’s unhur­ried nar­ra­tion makes the read­er ful­ly immersed in the sto­ry, the final twist is clev­er­ly resolved, and there is a rather dry sense of humor through­out.

In this sto­ry, Peter Rab­bit is por­trayed as a tru­ly remark­able char­ac­ter. He brave­ly leads Ben­jamin Rab­bit to res­cue his nephews, remain­ing calm, patient, and resource­ful through­out the process. He is the true hero of the sto­ry; with­out him (and a bit of luck, of course), the res­cue oper­a­tion would have been impos­si­ble. Lit­tle Ben­jamin Rab­bit, as the father, appears weak­er and near­ly on the verge of col­lapse, which is prob­a­bly why the lat­er car­toons down­played the role of Lit­tle Ben­jamin Rab­bit.

In Miss Porter’s 1914 book, “The Tale of Cathy in Boots,” Peter Rab­bit reap­pears, this time in a sup­port­ing role, but still a cru­cial one, suc­cess­ful­ly lur­ing the pro­tag­o­nist Cathy into a fox trap, lead­ing the sto­ry to its cli­max. For var­i­ous rea­sons, the sto­ry was not pub­lished that year, and Miss Porter only drew two illus­tra­tions for the book (one of which fea­tures Peter Rab­bit). It was­n’t until 2016 that the book was repub­lished with illus­tra­tions by Quentin Blake.

Peter Rab­bit from “The Tale of Kit­ty in Boots” by Miss Pot­ter

Peter Rab­bit by Quentin Blake

In “The Tale of Kit­ty in Boots,” Peter Rab­bit appears to be mid­dle-aged, a bit over­weight, and a bit tem­pera­men­tal. He appears car­ry­ing an umbrel­la (a stan­dard item for a British coun­try gen­tle­man), which he uses to attack two treach­er­ous stoats, using it as a defen­sive ges­ture or a shield, giv­ing him the air of a sea­soned war­rior. After beat­ing the stoats to a pulp, he even man­ages to trap Kit­ty the hunt­ing cat, a skill that seems far supe­ri­or to that of old Ben­jamin Rab­bit.

We have to admit that Peter Rab­bit has become an “old hand” in Miss Pot­ter’s writ­ing, and it’s time to say good­bye to him!

Between 1912 and 1914, Miss Porter also achieved the great­est mile­stone of her life. As a lit­er­ary read­er, she was a fan of Jane Austen, and her favorite was report­ed­ly Emma. Austen’s nov­els are char­ac­ter­ized by mar­riage as a cen­tral theme. In 1913, Miss Porter mar­ried William Hillis, a local solic­i­tor in the Lake Dis­trict, set­tling there per­ma­nent­ly. Although her par­ents ini­tial­ly object­ed, they even­tu­al­ly relent­ed at her insis­tence (at least they went through with the cer­e­mo­ny).

Miss Porter and William Hillis on their wed­ding day in 1913

 

In a let­ter, Miss Porter revealed that one of the rea­sons she chose to mar­ry Mr. Hillis (besides emo­tion­al con­sid­er­a­tions) was that she was rel­a­tive­ly rich­er than Mr. Hillis. If she were to mar­ry a hus­band rich­er than her­self, she would prob­a­bly have to give up her beloved farm and live with him, which was some­thing she absolute­ly did not want to do.

 

After her mar­riage, she and Mr. Hillis moved to a larg­er farm, Chateau Cot­tage, across from Hill­top Farm. She retained the farm­house at Hill­top Farm as her stu­dio and pri­vate col­lec­tion. She thor­ough­ly enjoyed her mar­ried life, but she also reserved ample space for her own spir­i­tu­al life. Per­haps it could be said that by this point, Miss Porter had tru­ly reached adult­hood.

In 1909, Miss Porter bought Cas­tle Vil­la Farm with the help of attor­ney Hillis.

They lived here togeth­er after their mar­riage in 1913 until Miss Porter’s death in 1943.

Two years lat­er, the heart­bro­ken Mr. Hillis also fol­lowed…

(To be con­tin­ued) Peter Rab­bit’s Char­ac­ter Design and Devel­op­ment (Part 4)

Relat­ed Arti­cles:

Peter Rab­bit’s Char­ac­ter Design and Devel­op­ment (Part 1)

Peter Rab­bit’s Char­ac­ter Design and Devel­op­ment (Part 2)