The Negative Representations of Mothers in Beatrix Potter’s Picture Books

The protagonists in most of Beatrix Potter’s picture books are animal characters with whom children can easily identify, for these characters exhibit the behavioral traits of human children. However, even though Potter’s protagonists may well be childlike, her books often reflect an adult awareness of harsh realities. Nicholas Tucker addresses this point in an essay included in Judy Taylor’s collection So I Shall Tell You a Story: Encounters with Beatrix Potter. Tucker (1993) praises Potter for striking a balance “between presenting things from a childlike point of view while at the same time periodically confronting a young audience with essentially adult examples of language and understanding” (p. 117).

One of the adult themes that runs through several of Potter’s picture books concerns the relationship between mothers and their children. A careful examination of the mothers in three of her most famous picture books reveals a negative image of mothers. In The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901), the mother is rather stern and unaffectionate; in The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907), the mother is shallow

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and unreasonable; and in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908), the mother is incompetent. To understand why Potter included negative images of mothers in her books, it is helpful to study her tense relationship with her own mother.

During her lifetime, Beatrix Potter discouraged would-be biographers from delving into her personal life, but since she died in 1943, the details of her life have gradually made their way into print. Potter’s first biographer, Margaret Lane (1946), broaches the subject of the picture book author’s unhappy youth in her book The Tale of Beatrix Potter. Lane devotes only a few pages of her biography to Potter’s relationship with her mother, but she makes it clear that this was not a close relationship.

Leslie Linder revealed some of Potter’s secret thoughts about her mother when he arranged to have Potter’s personal journal published in book form. Potter began this journal when she was 14 and continued to keep it until her early 30s. She wrote it using her own special code, which remained unbroken for decades. In 1958, Linder finally cracked Potter’s code, and in 1966, he published her decoded writings under the title of The Journal of Beatrix Potter, 1881-1897. This edition left out a few passages that he later inserted in the second edition published in 1989. Linder, however, left it to others to analyze the significance of her journal entries about her mother.

Linder’s research provided more recent biographers with information that had not been available to Lane. Judy Taylor drew on Linder’s work in her biography titled Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman, but she does not delve into Potter’s relationship with her mother. Taylor (1986) notes, however, that Potter “found her mother remote and even a little frightening” (p. 11).

The first biographer to focus on Potter’s relationship with her mother is a psychiatrist named Alexander Grinstein. In 1995, he published his psychologically probing work, The Remarkable Beatrix Potter. Drawing on his psychiatric training and making extensive use of the new information that is now available about Potter, Grinstein writes with authority about Potter’s unhappy childhood, her difficult and prolonged adolescence, and her negative feelings toward her mother and, to a somewhat lesser extent, her father. Grinstein’s insights into Potter’s childhood and adolescence provide literary critics with background information that is useful

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when analyzing Potter’s classic children’s books.

After reading Grinstein’s book, I have become convinced that Potter experienced a long period of repressed anger toward her parents, especially her mother, punctuated by increasingly successful incidents of rebellion against her parents’ authority. This pattern can be seen not only in the events of her life but also in her famous picture books.

The basic circumstances of Potter’s childhood and early adulthood are outlined in Grinstein’s book as well as in Lane’s Tale of Beatrix Potter and Taylor’s Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman. As is explained in these biographies, Potter spent most of her childhood sequestered in the third-floor nursery of her parents’ London home. Her parents required her to stay indoors and out of sight. Shortly after Potter’s birth in 1866, her parents hired a governess to raise her. She was educated at home because her parents did not approve of the children with whom she might come into contact at school. Nor did they allow other children to visit because they feared these children might introduce germs into their house.

Her father, Rupert Potter, had a strong interest in art, and he occasionally took his young daughter to art museums and galleries. He also purchased original artwork for her to enjoy, including several pieces by Randolph Caldecott, the famous illustrator of children’s picture books. Thus, art provided Beatrix with a way to connect with her father. When she showed an interest in drawing and painting, her father hired a special tutor to teach her various artistic techniques. Beatrix showed remarkable talent in this area, but her father seldom praised her creations. Nevertheless, she began to think that the way to win her father’s approval and establish a sense of self-worth was through artistic achievement.

During Potter’s early adulthood, her mother, Helen Potter, made more and more demands on Potter’s time. Potter seldom had opportunities to make friends, meet potential suitors, or exercise much independence. Instead, she felt obliged to help supervise the household servants and accompany her parents on their various excursions. Since she had no close friends, her pets became a very important part of her life. She acquired pet rabbits, several mice, and a number of other furry companions. Except for these pets, she had no one to whom she could confide her true feelings. However, her journal and later her artwork provided her with outlets to begin

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expressing some of these feelings.

Lane and Taylor both mention that Potter experienced loneliness and depression during her adolescence and early adulthood, but neither of these biographers focuses on this aspect of Potter’s life. Grinstein, however, devotes much of his biography to analyzing Potter’s emotional development. In examining this subject, he referred frequently to the entries in Potter’s secret journal. Grinstein (1995) argues that a number of these entries provide key information about Potter’s “intrapsychic life with all its conflicts and turmoil” (p. 17). Of particular interest to him are the entries that deal with Potter’s feelings toward her parents and that relate to her long period of depression.

Grinstein began his discussion of Potter’s entries about her parents by tabulating the number of times she refers to each parent in her journal. He reported that there are over 100 references to Potter’s father but only 25 to her mother. According to Grinstein, Potter’s references to her father indicate a sense of ambivalence. She often expressed admiration for his cultural knowledge while, at the same time, suggesting that she sometimes felt uncomfortable in his presence. Potter’s references to her mother, Grinstein argues, are much more negative in tone than those that deal with her father. After studying these references, Grinstein (1995) concluded that a “thinly veiled hostility toward her mother is especially evident” (p. 19). Grinstein points out that Potter seldom attacked her mother directly in these entries, but she often implied that her mother was manipulative, inconsiderate, or simply tiresome. Another point that he makes is that Potter generally used detached language when writing about her mother, which, he suggests, helped her contain the anger that she felt toward her mother.

According to Grinstein’s analysis of Potter’s journal entries, Potter’s period of depression began when she was around 16 and lasted throughout her 20s. Grinstein notes that her journal entries from this period contain frequent references to her sense of despair about her future. She often described herself as unattractive and held out little hope that she would ever find a husband. She also felt she was a disappointment to her parents. She began one entry, for example, by writing, “I always thought I was born to be a discredit to my parents” (Grinstein, 1995, p. 149). In many of her journal entries, she referred to death and occasionally mentioned suicide. After analyzing her journal entries from this period, Grinstein (1995) concludes that “Potter’s generalized depression, her low self

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-esteem, and the preoccupation with death were outward manifestations of her internal problems and conflicts” (p. 33). His analysis indicates that the underlying cause of Potter’s depression was the repressed anger she felt toward her parents, especially her mother.

Although Potter communicated a sense of depression in nearly all the journal entries she wrote during her 20s, there were a few notable exceptions. In the spring of 1890, when Potter was 24, she succeeded in selling some of her pictures of anthropomorphic rabbits to a publisher of greeting cards. She received a check for £6 (about $30 USD at that time) for these pictures and a letter encouraging her to send more. As Grinstein (1995) points out, the entries that Potter wrote about this development were almost joyful in tone. For Potter, selling pictures to the greeting card publisher was the first of a series of tentative attempts to break away from her parents’ control. Over the next several years, she continued to market her artwork to various printers, and she always took a great deal of satisfaction when she succeeded in making a sale. As she commented in her journal, “It is something to have a little money to spend on books and to look forward to being independent” (Linder, 1989, p. 411).

Potter’s efforts to win recognition for her own accomplishments also included an ill-fated attempt to start a career in botanical research. She began an intensive study of fungi and eventually prepared a scientific paper titled “On the Germination of Spores of Agaricineae,” which she hoped to present before a group of professional botanists during a meeting scheduled to take place on April 1, 1897. The members of this organization, however, did not have her present at their meeting. This rejection, as Grinstein (1995) stresses, “must have been terribly disappointing for Beatrix Potter and made her bitterly angry” (p. 43). Although her feelings of depression returned after this experience, she continued to search for some way to build a life independent from her parents.

Her next major endeavor ultimately met with much more success, although it, too, required her to rebound from rejection. She decided to try her hand at writing and illustrating a picture book for children. Seven years earlier, she had written a letter to the son of one of her former governesses in which she told the tale of a rebellious young rabbit named Peter. She located this letter and expanded it into a picture book titled The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She submitted the book to a number of publishers, but they all rejected it. However, her response to these rejections differed from her re-

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sponse to the rejection she had received at the hands of the botanists. Rather than become completely discouraged, she paid to have 250 copies of the book published, which she distributed to relatives and friends of the family during the Christmas of 1901.

While Potter was making the arrangements to print her book, the Frederick Warne & Co. publishing company reconsidered its previous rejection and offered to publish it if Potter would agree to make a number of revisions to the original version. Elated by this news, Potter made the requested revisions, and Warne brought out the book in 1902. As Grinstein notes, the acceptance of The Tale of Peter Rabbit marked a turning point in Potter’s relationship with her parents. For the first time in her life, she succeeded in a significant endeavor without any help from her parents, and this gave her the confidence to begin distancing herself from them. An indication of this new attitude can be seen in the letters she sent to her new publisher. When, for example, her father insisted on reviewing the terms of the publication agreement, Potter sent Warne a letter that contained less-than-flattering comments about her father. She wrote, “He is sometimes a little difficult” (Linder, 1989, p. 46). Then, in what Grinstein interprets as a sort of declaration of independence, she added, “I can of course do what I like about the book being 36” (Linder, 1989, p. 62).

The tremendous success that greeted The Tale of Peter Rabbit helped Potter overcome her depression and self-doubt. Having finally found an outlet for her creativity, she began producing new picture books regularly. Her ongoing communications with her publisher provided her with social contacts who had nothing to do with her parents’ circle of friends. She developed an especially close relationship with Norman Warne, who served as Potter’s editor, and the two frequently corresponded. In July 1905, he proposed to Potter. When Potter informed her parents of the news, they expressed their disapproval of the whole idea. Potter’s mother seemed especially set against the marriage. For the first time in her life, however, Beatrix Potter openly defied her parents’ wishes and accepted Warne’s proposal. Tragically, Warne died a month later. In his discussion of this development, Grinstein (1995) writes: “Norman Warne’s death was a terrible shock to Beatrix Potter. We can only infer the depth and degree of her love for this man who,” he adds, “as far as we know, was her first adult love and the passport by which she could leave home forever and be a free woman in her own right” (p. 123). He concluded by saying, “As may be ex-

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pected, she received little sympathy from her parents when Norman Warne died” (Grinstein, 1995, p. 123).

Although Warne’s death sent Potter into a period of depression, it was different from the depression that she had experienced earlier. She felt heartbroken, but she did not lose her self-confidence or her urge to create. Nor did she revert to her old tendency of allowing her parents to control every aspect of her life. Against her parent’s wishes, she invested a good deal of her money into a working farm located in the Lake District. She bought the farm, called Hill Top, in November 1905, and the next year, she had a new wing built onto the original farmhouse. Although she reluctantly agreed to her parents’ demand that she continue to make their London home her primary residence, she began spending increasing amounts of time at Hill Top and came to think of it as her true home.

Potter began using Hill Top as a setting for her children’s books while the renovations to the house were still underway. In the summer of 1906, she started working on The Tale of Tom Kitten, a story about three mischievous kittens who disrupt the prim and proper tea party that their mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, is planning. This book, which Warne published in 1907, takes place primarily in the garden at Hill Top, and the illustrations capture actual scenes of the garden.

In many ways, The Tale of Tom Kitten parallels The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Both stories feature mother animals who have difficulties dealing with their troublesome sons. Both sons disobey their mothers and are admonished for being rebellious. In one key way, however, the stories are significantly different. Peter’s mother, Mrs. Rabbit, is a stern and unflappable authority figure, while Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit comes across as being unreasonable and socially pretentious. When one considers the changes that Potter experienced between the writing of these two books, the differing portrayals of these mother figures may well shed light on the changing nature of her relationship with her parents.

At the beginning of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit is pictured fastening the top button of Peter’s jacket. Peter looks as if he is being choked, and his behavior suggests that he finds his mother’s dictates to be a bit stifling as well. As soon as his mother is out of sight, he heads straight to Mr. McGregor’s garden, the very place she had forbidden him to go. This act of rebellion, how-

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ever, nearly results in his death. When he finally returns home at the end of the story, he is exhausted and frightened. Mrs. Rabbit, though, seems more concerned about her son’s missing jacket and shoes. She puts him to bed and gives him some medicinal tea, but she does not really comfort him. In the final pages of the story, Peter is pictured isolated from the rest of the family. The conclusion suggests that Peter has learned that it is best not to defy parental authority.

Considering that the plot of The Tale of Peter Rabbit first appeared in a letter written in 1893, Peter’s predicament at the end of the story is not that much different from the predicament that Potter found herself at the time that she wrote this letter. She was in her mid-20s at this point in her life. Like Peter, she often resented the parental demands that constricted her life during these years and harbored a desire to rebel. However, she usually repressed this desire out of a fear of rejection and failure. In a way, Potter shared the sense of isolation and resignation that Peter experiences at the end of the book. According to the story, “Peter was not very well” (Potter, 1989, p. 20), and according to Grinstein, neither was Potter during this period.

Toward the beginning of The Tale of Tom Kitten, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, like Mrs. Rabbit, is pictured putting constrictive clothing on her son. In this case, however, the clothes clearly do not fit. Thus, unlike Mrs. Rabbit, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit seems a bit unreasonable when she persists in buttoning her son’s clothes. Once Tom and the other two kittens are finally dressed, the mother sends them out to play in the garden while she prepares for her tea party. Like Mrs. Rabbit, she gives her children instructions before leaving them alone, but Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit’s instructions also seem unreasonable. She tells the kittens, “Now keep your frocks clean, children! You must walk on your hind legs” (Potter, 1989, pp. 151-152). At first, the kittens try to follow their mother’s orders, but they find it nearly impossible to walk on their hind legs, and before long, they revert to their natural way of walking. Also, although they do not mean to, they soon ruin and eventually lose their clothing.

Toward the end of the story, the mother finds her kittens playing on a stone wall “with no clothes on” (Potter, 1989, p. 156). She then pulls the kittens off the wall, smacks them, and sends them upstairs. While she is punishing them, she says, “My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affront-

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ed” (Potter, 1989, p. 157). When her friends arrive, she untruthfully tells them that the kittens are “in bed with the measles” (Potter, 1989, p. 157). The conclusion of The Tale of Tom Kitten differs significantly from the end of Peter’s tale. Instead of feeling defeated or contrite, Tom and the other kittens forget their mother’s admonitions and spend the afternoon romping in the bedroom.

When contrasted to Mrs. Rabbit, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit comes across as a more obviously flawed character. The demands that she places on her children are often unrealistic, and her children seem to understand this point. She is also overly concerned about appearances, not above lying, and easily flustered. Potter’s unflattering portrayal of Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit was written at the same time that she was finally beginning to break away from her own parents. Perhaps her willingness to present a mother figure as being unreasonable and overly demanding grew out of her realization that her own mother was often unreasonable and overly demanding. Perhaps there is a connection between the unrepentant behavior of the kittens at the end of the story and her own unrepentance concerning her defiance of her parents’ demand that she not become engaged to Norman Warne.

Potter’s negative depiction of mothers is also evident in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, which came out just one year after the publication of The Tale of Tom Kitten. At the beginning of The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jemima sets out to lay her eggs and start a family. She foolishly agrees to let a fox help her find a spot to lay the eggs, and she seems oblivious to the fox’s preparations to eat her and her offspring. Due to her incompetence, none of her nine eggs survive long enough to hatch. She eventually lays some more eggs, but she is only able to hatch four of them. The concluding line reads, “Jemima Puddle-duck said it was because of her nerves; but she had always been a bad sitter” (Potter, 1989, p. 172). Potter based Jemima Puddle-Duck on an actual duck that lived on Hill Top Farm. Thus, it is unlikely that Potter associated Jemima with her own mother. Nevertheless, by depicting a mother as being too incompetent to raise her own children, Potter suggested that not all females are equipped to be ideal mothers.

The release of The Tale of Tom Kitten and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck coincided with Potter’s resolution to make a life for herself in the Lake District. In the final chapter of The Remarkable Beatrix Potter, Grinstein (1995) discusses this important development: “During the period of several years following Nor-

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man Warne’s death, Beatrix Potter gradually entered the next phase of her development. Her attachment to her parents diminished as her attachment to her house at Hill Top and her investment in her farmland increased” (p. 301). He also writes that “The life-style she adopted was that of a countrywoman, a farmer, one far different from what her life had been in London” (p. 301).

A key point in Potter’s break from her parents occurred in 1913 when she married a solicitor from the Lake District named William Heelis against her aged parents’ objections. After her marriage, Potter lost interest in writing and illustrating children’s books. She devoted her time and attention to her husband and various agricultural pursuits, such as breeding Herdwick sheep. She also played an important role in the movement to preserve the Lake District’s natural beauty and historic buildings. Potter continued to live happily in the Lake District with her husband until she died in 1943.

Admirers of Potter’s picture books sometimes wonder why she stopped bringing out new books after her marriage. At the conclusion of his book, Grinstein offers a possible explanation for this development. He suggests that Potter used her picture books as a way “to overcome her anxieties and childhood conflicts” and “work through her unconscious wishes and fantasies” (Grinstein, 1995, p. 315). Once she had finally resolved these issues, she no longer felt driven to express herself in this way.

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