Study Guide ||| WEEK – 21 |||
A classic in words and pictures:
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
•
Joyce Whalley noted that
conditions of book production, and attitudes towards the role and
purposes of books for children, can profoundly affect final form
that a book takes.
•
Mackey uses Peter Rabbit
as a case study through which to explore importance of words,
illustrations and their combination
on the page, and other elements of book design like size, positioning
of words and images and space between and
around them.
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Activity 5.9 / P.225 = important issue
R2/ Aesop in the shadows by Peter Hollindale
•
Peter
Rabbit can be considered as an
animal fable.
•
Peter’s
behavior is rash, impolitic as well as disobedient.
•
Hollindale rejects
the notion that Potter wrote ‘moral’ or
‘improving’ tales for her younger readers.
•
Rather than
categorising Potter as a ‘fabulist’. Hollindale sees her as ‘post-fabulist
naturalist’: someone with keen focus on nature and its realities and an author
whose work derives in part from forerunners like
Aesop, but without an instructional agenda.
•
Hollindale takes
to task those who frame Potter as a moralist.
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Activity 5.10 / P.227: thinking about
perspective = important
R2/ Perspective and point of view in The
Tale of Peter Rabbit by Carole Scott
Scott
explores the issue of Potter’s ambivalent moral perspective in Peter Rabbit
raised by Mackey and Hollindale, by focusing closely on the text.
How readers are encouraged to identify with
Peter?
How Peter is framed as the hero of the tale,
visually and in words?
•
In Peter Rabbit, Peter is often shown in close-up and
near
to the ground- where a
rabbit would be.
•
We often share Peter’s line of sight, his point of view
becomes ours and we participate in his predicaments.
•
For these reasons, we identify with him against authority represented by Mr. McGregor.
•
Scott notes narrative importance of images in Peter Rabbit.
•
Peter’s
motivation is rebelliousness and an unwillingness to submit to
authority, rather than hunger.
•
This information is
gathered by reader from pictures,
not words.
ما من عبد مسلم يدعو لأخيه بظهر الغيب إلا قال الملك ولك بمثل.
