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

As one of the most suc­cess­ful char­ac­ters in the world of chil­dren’s books, Peter Rab­bit’s image was basi­cal­ly fixed in “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit” pub­lished by Miss Pot­ter in 1902: he wears a blue short jack­et and a pair of wood­en-soled shoes; he is very dis­dain­ful of what adults say, and looks igno­rant; he acts rash­ly and reck­less­ly, but it can also be said that he is full of ener­gy and does what he says. Although he may get into trou­ble, he always finds a way to get out of it in the end.

How­ev­er, there are two points that are eas­i­ly over­looked by read­ers: first, Peter Rab­bit is a very rebel­lious child, and Miss Pot­ter gets great plea­sure from his rebel­lious­ness, and suc­cess­ful­ly con­veys this to read­ers; sec­ond, Peter Rab­bit is a con­stant­ly evolv­ing char­ac­ter, far more com­plex than the fixed image, and it can be said to be a pro­jec­tion of a cer­tain aspect of Miss Pot­ter’s char­ac­ter.


  A lit­tle trou­ble­mak­er being taught a les­son? Or a clever one being encour­aged?

Peter Rab­bit entered Miss Porter’s sto­ry on Sep­tem­ber 4, 1893, when she was 27 years old. She was on hol­i­day with her fam­i­ly at a coun­try estate in Scot­land, where she was fas­ci­nat­ed by her botan­i­cal stud­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly fun­gi. She recount­ed the orig­i­nal sto­ry of Peter Rab­bit in a let­ter to her for­mer gov­erness and best friend’s son, Noel, accom­pa­nied by a draw­ing. Peter’s ini­tial appear­ance in the let­ter is depict­ed fac­ing the read­er, with his nametags beneath him and his sis­ters. This image of the crouch­ing, naked rab­bit, seem­ing­ly in its nat­ur­al state, lat­er became the title page of the book.

In the sto­ry in the let­ter, Moth­er Rab­bit appears serene­ly lying in front of her sand hole, fac­ing the read­er. Behind her, four rab­bit heads poke out of the hole, but it’s impos­si­ble to tell which one is Peter Rab­bit. In the lat­er pub­lished book, Moth­er Rab­bit is fac­ing the chil­dren in the sand hole, but turns her head to look at the read­er. Three heads poke out of the hole, and the fourth rab­bit is on the far left, only the back half vis­i­ble, as if about to enter the sand hole. We have good rea­son to believe that this reluc­tant indi­vid­ual is Peter Rab­bit.

This change had already appeared in the black-and-white edi­tion of The Tale of Peter Rab­bit, which Miss Pot­ter print­ed at her own expense before Christ­mas 1901. Peter Rab­bit was clear­ly dis­tin­guished from his three sis­ters when he first appeared. This ver­sion had no edi­to­r­i­al involve­ment, so it is cer­tain that it was entire­ly Miss Pot­ter’s own idea.

When Peter Rab­bit first puts on his short coat and shoes, his back is to his moth­er, his expres­sion hint­ing at a hint of reluc­tance. The scene depicts his moth­er giv­ing instruc­tions to her chil­dren before leav­ing the house. The oth­er three sis­ters, draped in red capes, sur­round her, lis­ten­ing to her instruc­tions. Inter­est­ing­ly, her moth­er’s skirt is also blue (not red), a lighter shade than Peter Rab­bit’s blue coat. Two pages lat­er, her moth­er address­es Peter Rab­bit alone, but­ton­ing his coat and admon­ish­ing him, “Don’t be naughty!”—a seem­ing­ly indoc­tri­na­tion-like “reminder” based on a full under­stand­ing of her son’s char­ac­ter. On the next page, her moth­er leaves the house, and even more intrigu­ing­ly, she changes into a brown skirt, a red cape, and a red hood—just like Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood! Even more pecu­liar, despite the vibrant growth sea­son, the trees this “Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood” moth­er pass­es by are all bare, and out of sheer cau­tion, she even car­ries an umbrel­la!

Think about Peter Rab­bit’s sit­u­a­tion. When his moth­er but­toned his blue jack­et, did­n’t she real­ize that it was too tight? Lat­er, in Mr. Mag­g’s gar­den, Peter Rab­bit got caught on the net because of the but­tons on his jack­et. If he had­n’t bro­ken free from the jack­et in time and escaped shoe­less and naked, he would have been made into a rab­bit pie like his father!

There­fore, Peter Rab­bit’s rebel­lion is nec­es­sary! He is obvi­ous­ly a rab­bit, but he has to be con­strained to be a “civ­i­lized per­son”. He may only have two paths: to become a good lit­tle rab­bit like his sis­ters, or to become a rab­bit pie like his father — but Peter Rab­bit chose the third path: to keep his nature and sur­vive like a wild rab­bit!

Con­sid­er­ing Miss Porter’s cir­cum­stances at the time, she was more or less trapped in a wealthy, upper-mid­dle-class Vic­to­ri­an fam­i­ly. It seemed she had only two options: stay home for the rest of her life as a maid, serv­ing her par­ents and help­ing with house­hold chores, or, whether she liked it or not, mar­ry into a fam­i­ly of equal sta­tus and achieve inde­pen­dence from her fam­i­ly (while also remain­ing depen­dent on her future hus­band). She was uncer­tain­ly try­ing a third path…


The issue of “eat­ing” is cru­cial

When you first read “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit,” it’s easy to get the impres­sion that the sto­ry ulti­mate­ly teach­es chil­dren a les­son: always obey your moth­er! Because at the end of the sto­ry, Peter Rab­bit is pun­ished for his reck­less disobedience—his sis­ters get a deli­cious din­ner, while he’s con­fined to bed and forced to drink chamomile tea (which is said to have a mild lax­a­tive effect). In the image where his moth­er pre­pares med­i­cine for him and his sis­ters watch, Peter Rab­bit is in the dis­tance, lying on his bed, small and wide-eyed, in the shad­ows, look­ing a lit­tle aggriev­ed and frus­trat­ed. Then, in the image oppo­site the title page, where his moth­er pre­pares med­i­cine at his bedside—a pic­ture that appeared in Miss Porter’s own 1901 edition—Peter Rab­bit is hid­den under the cov­ers, with only his hands and large, pointy ears vis­i­ble. Imag­ine how this fear­less “lit­tle hero” dread­ed the chamomile tea!

But for all this, would chil­dren who have read this book pre­fer to be Peter Rab­bit or to fol­low his sis­ters and become good bun­nies? I believe the vast major­i­ty would choose Peter Rab­bit. Why? Let’s not even talk about Peter’s thrilling chas­es and fights in the veg­etable gar­den. Let’s just talk about “eat­ing,” which is the pri­ma­ry focus of “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit.” Peter’s father was once made into a rab­bit pie, his moth­er went out to buy bread, his sis­ters went to pick black­ber­ries, Peter went to the gar­den to feast, Mr. McG­o­na­gall plant­ed veg­eta­bles, the cat watched the gold­fish by the pond, and a pass­ing mouse held a pea in its mouth… All of these actions are almost entire­ly direct­ed towards sat­is­fy­ing the desire for food, a basic sur­vival instinct. There­fore, the ulti­mate “pun­ish­ment” also comes back to “eat­ing.”

Was Peter Rab­bit real­ly pun­ished for eat­ing? Clear­ly, he ate more food than his sis­ters, both in terms of qual­i­ty and enjoy­ment. He ate every­thing in the gar­den that rab­bits tru­ly love, and he appar­ent­ly overeat­en, even hav­ing to find some pars­ley to help with his meal! We have every rea­son to believe he prob­a­bly ate every­thing his sis­ters could eat. Mean­while, his three sis­ters obe­di­ent­ly picked some black­ber­ries. If you watch them pick­ing, you’ll see a few black­birds (the ones that weren’t fright­ened by the scare­crow lat­er) busy “help­ing” them eat the berries in their bas­kets! — There are no black­birds in this pic­ture from the 1901 edi­tion; Miss Porter must have had ulte­ri­or motives when she added them in the 1902 col­or edi­tion. — By the way, would­n’t you agree that birds are Peter Rab­bit’s allies through­out the book?

Illus­tra­tions from the 1901 self-print­ed edi­tion (for com­par­i­son)

 

Peter Rab­bit’s sis­ters obe­di­ent­ly went out to pick black­ber­ries, and they did indeed gath­er quite a few. Although the black­birds ate a good por­tion, they did­n’t seem to eat them while they were pick­ing (Peter would prob­a­bly have been quite dif­fer­ent). So, in the evening, they got a reward: bread and milk from their moth­er, plus the black­ber­ries they had picked!—If you were Peter, would you have glad­ly trad­ed with them? Actu­al­ly, they could have eat­en their fill while they were pick­ing, but they chose to wait until din­ner because they cared more about their moth­er’s praise for them being “good lit­tle bun­nies”!

This is prob­a­bly why “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit” has remained so pop­u­lar for so long. It’s adorable and seems to have a les­son for chil­dren, so adults love it and are will­ing to read it to their chil­dren. Chil­dren also love it because behind the “les­son” lies a mis­chie­vous tri­umph, a sub­tle one, yet chil­dren under­stand it clear­ly, and they are hap­py to be Peter Rab­bit and Miss Pot­ter’s accom­plices.

  （To be con­tin­ued, next episode link →)