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“Beatrix Potter’s Subversive Ideal: Darwin and the Survival of the Writer”
Name: Stefanie A. Jochman
Year of Graduation: 2007
Hometown: Sheboygan, WI
Major: English, with Secondary Ed. Certification
Name: Dr. John Pennington, Professor of English
Research Specialty: Victorian Fairy Tales and Children’s Fantasy Literature
We all know Beatrix Potter. Or at least her creations: Peter Rabbit,
Mr. McGregor, Benjamin Bunny, Little Pig Robinson, and Jemima
Puddle-Duck, to name only a few. Potter (1866-1943) is most famous for
her illustrated children’s tales, but she was also an accomplished
scientist. This seemingly discordant connection is the focus for our
collaborative project.
Beatrix Potter’s scientific background, particularly her interest in
the lichen, a dual-organism, mirrors Potter’s own “dual perspective” in
her writing. Her animal tales and illustrations capture both the
idyllic landscape of the Lake District and the contrasting, ruthless
Darwinism of the animal cultures within it. Potter’s ability to portray
such a dynamic and dramatic universe within the context of children’s
literature makes her a daring and subversive writer for her time.
Potter’s illustrations have initiated discussion of the importance of
clothing (or lack thereof) in determining the demeanor and fate of her
animal characters. Past critics have narrowly examined Potter’s
stories, suggesting only that the animals’ acceptance or refusal of
clothing depicts Potter’s own feelings toward the confines of her
Victorian upbringing. Now having read studies of both Potter’s life and
work, I would argue that Potter was too determined, practical, and
scientific a woman to use her animal stories merely as a lightly
cloaked metaphor for the state of Victorian womanhood. Rather, Potter
addresses the lives of both women and men in a postlapsarian society
where the cruel reality of “survival of the fittest” pervades. Potter
acknowledges such Darwinism in full and presents it rather
matter-of-faculty in her “little books”; however, her illustrations
remain hopeful that some ideal, some piece of childhood can be
retrieved and preserved, a sentiment perhaps reflected in the author’s
philanthropic contributions to England’s National Trust. Beatrix
Potter’s stories combine her acute and perceptive knowledge of the
natural world with a reverent sense of wonder that inspires its
continued (albeit forewarned) exploration and preservation. In turn,
the stories’ revelation of human “beastliness” spurs readers into
examining another “natural” world—that of human nature itself.
My project with Professor Pennington, then, asserts Potter’s position
as a literary Darwinist; denied a voice in the scientific community,
Potter enabled her scientific theories’ survival by weaving it into the
ink and paint of her tiny children’s books.
I first became interested in this project as I was preparing for my
semester abroad in Lancaster, England. I needed to choose a topic for
my Honors Program Study Abroad credit, and Professor Pennington
suggested that I research the life and work of a writer from Northern
England, perhaps Beatrix Potter or William Wordsworth. As a child, I
read many of Potter’s tales, so I chose to focus my research on her
work as an author and advocate for the preservation of England’s Lake
District.
When I returned from Lancaster, I presented my work on Potter’s Peter
Rabbit tales and their role in preserving the Lake District. As I
completed my essay, I discussed my progress with Professor Pennington.
He proposed a faculty/student collaboration that would allow us to
pursue related interests. We would combine what I had learned about
Potter’s work as an amateur scientist and children’s writer with
Professor Pennington’s prior work on children’s literature and the
Pre-Raphaelites to develop a Darwinist criticism of Potter’s animal
tales.
Since beginning my study of Beatrix Potter, my interest in and respect
for her has only grown. Potter was a pioneer and an innovator; her
subversive children’s tales enabled her to demonstrate her scientific
prowess when the science community ignored her on the basis of gender.
While in England, I learned to submerge myself into an author’s world;
my visit to Hill Top, Potter’s farmhouse, was invaluable. I’ve also
learned to stay abreast of new critical developments, namely those of
the Darwinist critical movement, a growing school that is exciting to
learn about and investigate as we continue our project.
I am now a St. Norbert graduate, but I am pursuing graduate studies in
English at UW-Oshkosh, while teaching full-time at Notre Dame de la
Baie Academy in Green Bay. I am a better teacher when I am also a
student, so I appreciate how this project challenged me to be a
teacher-scholar even before I began my M.A. program. I look forward not
only to presenting the completed work at a conference and submitting it
for publication but also relating it to my future graduate work.
Professor John Pennington
As a Victorianist, I have always been interested in the impact Darwin
had on the literature of its age: Tennyson’s “nature red in tooth and
claw” anticipated Origin of Species (1859), which influenced such
divergent writers as Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Robert Browning,
and Samuel Butler. The major studies on Darwin and 19th century
literature examined how these writers grappled with evolution in their
works, particularly in relation to religious belief, or in Butler’s
case rejected Darwin for a moral, intentional revamping of Lamarckian
theory. In The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative,
Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson pose the following: “The
core problem posed by art and altruism is the same: How do we explain
behavior that produces such ostensibly unfavorable cost-benefit ratios?
. . . How could the artist . . . successfully compete with individuals
who eschewed cave painting, axe-handle elaboration, and storytelling in
favor of hunting, gathering, pursuing mates, lavishing investment on
offspring, cultivating allies, and other behaviors that directly
augment survival and reproduction?” Art, one might conclude, is a tool
of survival. Evolutionary literary theory investigates the survival
value of literature. Stefanie and I are speculating how Potter, herself
an accomplished scientist, who was unable to break into the scientific
“men’s club” of her age, used writing and painting to engage in
scientific debate while finding in this activity a survival technique. |
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Stefanie A. Jochman
“I am now a St. Norbert graduate, but I am pursuing graduate studies in
English at UW-Oshkosh, while teaching full-time at Notre Dame de la
Baie Academy in Green Bay. I am a better teacher when I am also a
student, so I appreciate how this project challenged me to be a
teacher-scholar even before I began my M.A. program.”
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