Beatrix Potter by Andrew Norman

Author:Andrew Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HBWQ; HIS027100; HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473831810
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Tell Louie [Harold’s daughter, Alice Louisa] I shall have to teach her kitten manners. I was scratched fearfully by the original manx Tom. I had to whip him.13

Those who read her ‘tales’ are beguiled by the fact that her ‘characters’ are both animal and human at the same time, a feature which makes them so endearing. Squirrel Nutkin gathers nuts to eat, Miss Moppet the kitten catches a mouse and teases it, and the sinister Mr Tod, in anticipation of a nice meal, attempts to lure Jemima Puddle-Duck into his residence. On the other hand, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle the washerwoman uses an iron, Old Brown the owl sits at a table and uses a spoon to eat honey from a plate, Ginger the cat and Pickles the terrier have their own village shop, and Tommy Brock the badger uses a spade for digging. Mischievous behaviour is commonplace, as when Peter Rabbit steals from Mr McGregor’s garden, and this is what children love. However, discipline and morality are also themes which feature strongly in the ‘tales’ as, for example, when Mr Bunny whips his son Benjamin with a switch for misbehaving, and when Tom Thumb, one of the two bad mice, breaks some items in the dolls’ house and duly does the decent thing by paying for the damage.

In her storytelling Beatrix was also able to draw upon her knowledge of botany. For example, in The Tale of Mr. Tod, Mr Bouncer offers Tommy Brock, the badger, a glass of his daughter Flopsy Bunny’s cowslip wine, and in The Fairy Caravan, Paddy Pig suffers from hallucinogenic effects after eating toadstool tartlets. And in her short story entitled ‘A Walk amongst the Funguses’ Beatrix is able to write with the confidence of someone who had studied the subject of mycology in great detail. ‘The Boletus … sat out in the sun, drying its sticky cap’, whereas the Cantharella ‘was like a very tall cream-coloured umbrella with brown spots on top, and a white fringe round its waist’.

It was Lady Ulla Hyde Parker who identified what was most appealing about the characters in Beatrix’s ‘tales’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.