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Tuesday, September 29, 2020

The Tale of Peter Rabbit as being suitable for today Children Literature

 

Introduction

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a clear example of a pictured children book that represents a moral message in a form of words and pictures through the characters of Peter rabbit and his family members to show childhood in the Victorian society that can be suitable for today's world too. 

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a popular novel that is relevant to today's readers as it is a story of family and the Peter rabbit is not different from any child of today's world who wishes to discover forbidden things, he has feelings of fear and needs the caring of his mother. It bears lessons mothers of today can learn such as how parents can engage and understand their children and their needs and ways of handling their desires and wishes in order to control them and guide them to the right behaviors.

Body

The story of Peter, his sisters, animals he met during his adventure and his mother sheds the light on the childhood life through animal characterization as Potter presents readers who are mainly five years children with the main character that is Peter the rabbit, a rebellion who likes adventures in spite of the mother's warnings, the author tries to make Peter near humans making the rabbit wearing shoes, blue jacket and walking straight up on the hind legs. This makes the characterization of the animals clear in eyes of children who read. Childhood is presented by the author through many ways such as mother's warning to the rabbits: "You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden, your father had an accident there." Mothers usually warn children who should obey but the nature of male child that he seeks adventure that's why Peter visited the garden of McGregor, his behaviors there show how far childhood is characterized, he ate too much till he became sick, ran from the man, jumped into a can and did many risky but interesting things all children will wish to do. The Victorians considered childhood a separated stage of life from that of adults but the child should also obeys orders and guides or many troubles will be faced by them away from parents. (Ryan et al, 2007)

Adventure in the book was supported by pictures that open the imagination of the reader and add much colorful imaging to the adventures of Peter, the author has also portrayed different incidents in the book to make suspense and attraction to the story that the reader wants to learn more about what is going to happen and how the rabbit will act and what harm may occur to him at the end. The language used was suitable to reflect the different adventures Peter went into such as: "Peter ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden", "whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!", Peter was most dreadfully frightened.", he had forgotten the way back to the gate.", shed big tears." and wriggled out just in time. He here tries to raise the attention of the readers and gets them into the adventures. The gender role in the story is clear as Peter clothes were different from clothes of the sisters colored reddish while Peter's clothes were blue, sisters were obedient while Peter was not and this makes it clear that the author wants to focus on the difference in gender and their relation to the adventures each sex has or should have. (Guijarro, 2010)

Although the Victorian considered the childhood a separated phase of life that a child should encounter certain morals and lessons to learn, this doesn't contradict with today's morals as parents of today always fear that their children may lose childhood and its morals which makes them interested in a story such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and the lessons and morals it includes. Children of today yet has much knowledge and openness to the world than the Victorian child had which makes parents seek old texts such as the current one so that they may find imaginary world children can learn lessons from. The character of Peter is presented by a large amount of courage, risky attitude and love for adventure which makes it suitable to the children of today and makes them love to have adventures such as those ones who had especially that he wasn't defeated at last by the outer world he entered in spite of warnings. The end also can be satisfying for children of today as the mother's punishment wasn't hard and Peter only lost a nice dinner meal his sister enjoyed: "I'm sorry to say that Peter wasn't very well during the evening.", "But Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail had bread, milk and blackberries for supper.".  (Chozick, 2012)

The book can be used as a teaching material for children under the age of six because it is well illustrated with pictures drawn in a high artistic way and its language simple and thorough at the same time. The story itself can be a good source material for classroom activities such as role play and acting scenes due to the richness of events and the number of many characters the story has such as the character of Mr. McGregor, the mouse, the sparrows, sisters and the mother and Peter the rabbit. The author tried to send some messages to both children and parents who are both supposed to be readers for the book. Among those messages are the difference of freedom given to children based on their sex as male are really different from females in nature although the life of today reduced the differences between make and females even children but parents should take care of this issue and give it much care. Another lesson is that children can take risks and do adventures but they have to learn that passive results and outcomes may occur as although Peter wasn't caught by Mr. McGregor, his father was caught once and made a pie for the family of McGregor. Lessons can also include cooperation and helping others represented in the acts of the mouse and the sparrow. An important feature the author yet didn't focus on and parents should is stealing because Peter shouldn't have stolen vegetables from Mr. McGregor's garden. (Winckelmann, 2012 )

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to refer that The Tale of Peter Rabbit can be a story for all ages because the author has presented a character that is rebellion enough to suit all ages and the story is illustrated with pictures which makes it a teaching book that is interesting for all children. Childhood and adventure are presented in the story to give certain lessons related to difference between males and females and having adventures and what results in this according to what occurred to Peter.


References

1.      Chozick, A. (2012). ' Bet Your Camomile Tea, Peter, You’re a TV Star Now.' https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/arts/television/peter-rabbit-on-nickelodeon-for-christmas-then-as-series.html

2.      Guijarro, A. (2010). 'A Multimodal Analysis of The Tale of Peter Rabbit within the Interpersonal Metafunction.' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289558303_A_Multimodal_Analysis_of_The_Tale_of_Peter_Rabbit_within_the_Interpersonal_Metafunction

3.      Ryan, M. Hannah, N. Lobb, J. (2007). ' The Tale of Peter Rabbit: A Case Study in Story-Sense Reasoning.' https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Symposia/Fall/2007/FS-07-05/FS07-05-022.pdf

4.      Winckelmann, A. (2012). ' Stealing as a moral feature in animal stories: A comparative analysis of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and "The Wind in the Willows" GREN Verlag.

5.      https://freekidsbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Peter-Rabbit-FKB-Kids-Stories.pdf

 

 

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