Beatrix Potter: writer of children’s stories, creator of anthropomorphic rodents behaving like British people in the backyard of farm country. Not a whole lot to analyze there, right?
Wrong. Beatrix Potter almost single-handedly changed the landscape of “the Hero’s Journey.” Heard of that, right? Joseph Campbell and Luke Skywalker and whiny boys on the verge of manhood leaving home to experience strange beast and wild adventures in order to return home as no longer whiny men? Except in the case of Luke Skywalker, that is, who was still whiny as ever after blowing up the Death Star, but that’s another story. Or maybe it isn’t Know who isn’t whiny? Know who doesn’t have to leave his home to have adventures? Know who isn’t endowed with the powers of a mystical force that binds together the universe or a ring with the power of invisibility or, in fact, any kind of special powers at all, but who still manages to heroic? And, more to the point, manages to be heroic and rebellious?
Peter Rabbit. Before Potter came along with her menagerie of animals, the path to heroism was lined mainly with boys. In order to experience heroism and have adventures they had to leave home. In order that they would not die from their inexperience, they would need an older mentor or guide or find some kind of special powers. And these journeys into the wild world of excitement and adventure beyond home almost always led to the same destination: right back to home. Beatrix Potter herself ached to leave home and lead that kind of adventurous life, but instead she not only spent most of her time at home, but most of that time alone. And so she invented friends and they became a world and source of inspiration that she would use to quite literally reshape the concept of heroism and adventure not just for a generation, but forever. Still, today, inventive and imaginative minds creating books, plays, films, TV shows and music are engaging in acts of rebellion against traditions going back thousands of years. With her stories of Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck and—especially—that most subversive of insurrectionists against the status quo, Squirrel Nutkin, Beatrix Potter undid the conventions of heroism and adventure tracing back to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Her characters never leave their backyards and yet experience adventures that range from fun-loving excitement to fear-inducing terror.
Potter molded minds at a time when their entire lives still stood before them but before society had gotten the chance to get in their start the processes of ideological brainwashing. By the time her readers got to school—especially in the mind-numbing doctrinal system of the British educational system—they had already been exposed to rebellious ideas running counter to everything the system is committed to engendering: boys and girls are different, common folk don’t live exciting lives, impertinence is death. To this Peter Rabbit thumbs his nose. To this, two bad mice blow raspberries and give the finger. And to this, many young Beatrix Potter fans grew up to say no. The rules don’t apply.
