Winnie-the-Pooh (2) Characters, major themes and linguistic features

The Characters

Christopher Robinthe ideal ‘parent’ to Poohplays at being responsibleorganizational skills (solves his friends’ problems)clever, compassionate and brave but also playful and lazy (likes doing nothing)all the Pooh stories end when he is six and has to start school

Winnie-the-Pooh

takes its name from a bear that the London Zoo bought from Winnipeg (>Winnie)... ... and from a Swan Christopher Robin called ‘Pooh’

Winnie-the-Pooh

has the virtues but also the faults of real childrenlovely and always ready to help...... but also greedy (it’s always time for ‘a little something’)... and self-centred (he believes that what is good for him will be good for others too (e.g. on Eeyore’s birthday)humble (he says he’s a ‘Bear of Very Little Brain) and yet a competent writer of light verse and ‘hums’

Piglet

Piglet is tiny, shy and very fearful... but also proud about his supposedly grand family ties:he claims that the sign ‘Trespassers W’ signals his grandfather’s property (‘Trespassers Will); contrast to Pooh’s modesty (someone else’s name on his house door: Sanders)

Eeyore

Like an old, self-centred and hypochondriac relativeself-pitying, melancholic and always sulkycynical wit, adult-like speech: “Somebody must have taken [my tail]. How like them!”; “Good morning, Pooh Bear [...]. If it is a good morning [...], which I doubt”; “All except me, as Usual”

Kanga and Roo

Roo is the smallest animal in the forest, but he is completely fearless and cheerfulKanga: the only fully adult character...... and the only female character!a fussy mother, always worried about Roo’s safety

Owl and Rabbitthey are not based on the toys of Milne’s son but on animals (>fables)Owl: pedantic father, the representation of useless adults’ didacticismOwl: preposterous language, exaggerated and often blatantly incorrect: “HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH”Rabbit: bossy and interested in the small and trivial details of life

Nonsense in Winnie the Pooh

Every humorous situation in the book is reached by the logic of nonsense: the logical pursuit of an idea to the point of absurditye.g. Pooh and Piglet think they’re tracking the Woozle but are in fact following their own footprints:

Nonsense as false reasoning:When Pooh and Piglet want to catch the Heffalump, they dig a trap and are sure the Heffalump will fall into the ‘Very Deep Pit’ because he will be looking at the sky and wondering if it will rain:

“Piglet said that this was a very good Trap, but supposing it were raining already? Pooh [...] said that, if it were raining already, the Heffalump would be looking at the sky wondering if it would clear up, and so he wouldn’t see the Very Deep Pit”

Winnie the Pooh and identity

Although critics tend to dismiss the Pooh stories as stories for children, we find some Alice-like crisis in the characters’ identity. People and object change their shape or function somewhat unpredictably:

Pooh decides to turn himself into a cloudPooh’s legs are used as a towel-horse in Rabbit’s houseEeyore’s tail is used as a bell by OwlPiglet pretends to be Kanga, and cannot get his name back

Differences with Alice

The narrator’s attitude is more detached and cool, the space is more protected. No verbal attacks, but just ‘silliness’ and amicable behaviour

The tea-parties:

Children’s language

Winnie-the-Pooh shows features that are typical of children’s language:

difficulties with long words and spelling: expotition > expedition; Crustimoney Proseedcake > Customary procedureplay with words: “Help, help, a Heffalump ... A Horrible Heffalump!... a Herrible Heffalump! ... Holl, Holl, a Hoffable Hellerump!”

Children’s languagethe use of capital letters is particularly important: e.g. “a Very Useful Pot”, “a Bear of Very Little Brain”. Piglet: “It’s a little Anxious ... to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water”

the capitalized nouns are names for definite categories (ontological units)for children, words are things: they pick up and re-use phrases even if they don’t fully grasp their meaning

If in Wonderland language creates reality, in the garden there is a safer play with childish language

Text and Illustrations

each verse (graphic unit) mimicks a branch of the tree;this makes it difficult to read for the reader, and thus the text reproduces Pooh’s effort as he climbs up the tree

Text and Illustrations

When Piglet is in Kanga’s pocket (Ch. 7):

“Ifthis

isflying I

shallnever

takereally to

it.”

Text and Illustrations

Shepard’s illustrations are more cartoon-like than Tenniel’s. He uses pictures in series and energetic illustrations that recall comic strips

Space: the MapAt the beginning of the book, the map sets the reader in an Edenic space:

no large human constructionsharmony with naturestatic and ‘paratactical’ world

the map is typical of adventure books: e.g. Treasure Islandbut Milne’s map is non-sequential and open to multiple readings/interpretationsencourages a ‘poetic’ use of possible explanatory narratives

the map becomes a kind of reference for the child reader, helping him or her not only to locate the setting of the stories, but also to remember the stories themselves:

Christopher Robin as ‘surveying’ and as ‘explorer’The self-centred child: “drawn by me and Mr Shepard helpd”

the map in Winnie-the-Pooh depicts a space for enclosure and ‘safe’ play or adventures:

the space of the garden is not threatening, and the map grants the child some mastery over italthough in the book there are some hints at objects or animals changing their function (e.g. Eeyore’s tail used as a bell, or Pooh’s legs as towel-horse), there is no serious disruption of the laws of physics

Pooh today

1961: Disney buys all the rights for the Pooh stories

1977: first Pooh animated film: from Winnie-the-Pooh to Pooh’s ‘Adventures’New characters:

the heffalump Gopher Darby

Pooh today

Winnie-the-Pooh, philosophy and literary criticism:Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh (1982)John T. Williams, Pooh and the Philosophers (1995). Subtitle: In Which It Is Shown that All of Western Philosophy is Merely a Preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh.Frederick Crews, The Pooh Perplex (1963) and Postmodern Pooh (2001): parody of literary criticism applied to Milne’s book.Some examples of titles from the fictitious essays in Crews’ books: “A.A. Milne’s Honey-Balloon-Pit-Gun-Tail-Bathtubcomplex”; “The Fissured Subtext:Historical Problematics, the Absolute Cause, Transcoded Contradictions, and Late-Capitalist Metanarrative (in Pooh)”