‘what does the fox sign?’ (meta-animals in children’s literature)...
owen cyclops@owenbroadcast
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Mar 15, 2025
~5 min read
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‘what does the fox sign?’
(meta-animals in children’s literature)
animals seem to have an inherent symbolic content: winged birds have always been related to the spirit, we call someone “a rat” or “a pig”, or as in the intuitive relationship between lions and being a king.
[…]
(meta-animals in children’s literature)
animals seem to have an inherent symbolic content: winged birds have always been related to the spirit, we call someone “a rat” or “a pig”, or as in the intuitive relationship between lions and being a king.
[…]
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this is one level of symbolism: what does each animal mean? we can also climb up to a higher question: what do “animals” mean, as a class? how do we perceive and depict “animal”-ness? one case study of this is in an art and literature intersection often overlooked: kid’s books.
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conveniently we have two artists we can compare whose careers begin almost exactly fifty years apart: beatrix potter, whose career starts right around 1900 (in art, this would be ‘modern’), and richard scarry, whose career starts right around 1950 (in art, this is ‘contemporary’)
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both of these artists made stories about animals, in an animal world. the main characters are animals - often even the same exact animals, even seeming to line up in levels of prominence: primarily cats, pigs, rabbits, foxes, then some dogs, some fowl, and a few random others.
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what is most notable for our purposes is that these two authors deploy a completely oppositional hermeneutic of animality (two opposite paradigms for how the reader is meant to read “animal-ness”). even more notably, this is both essential for the reader and never communicated.
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in beatrix potter, the animals signify their literal nature as animals - and this is essential for understanding the stories. for example, in ‘the tale of jemima puddle duck’, the titular character (a duck) meets a fox while traveling off her farm. he is friendly and helps her.
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however, you as the reader are meant to make the connection: he’s a fox, and foxes eat ducks. you can’t take this fox’s actions at face value because he’s a fox, and she’s a duck. this connection is essential for understanding the story. the story makes no sense without this.
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but, this is never directly communicated. you aren’t told “hey, just so you know, he’s wearing clothes and stuff, but he is still retaining his nature ‘as a fox’, with regards to jemima puddleduck’s ‘duckness’. you just infer it. and, if you didn’t, the story does not function.
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interestingly, this is the total opposite of richard scarry’s stories. a fox and a duck might meet in a richard scarry story, but if you brought the same framework over, and inferred that the fox has retained any aspect of his natural “foxness”, the story wouldn’t function.
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here is mistress mouse. she’s a mouse. she goes to help cats. if you were reading this story and thought “ah, well, i know how mice and cats relate”, that would block you from taking in the story. it would scramble the meaning entierly. again, this is essential but not explicated
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its difficult to pin down how this is communicated, but apparently it is done so perfectly, because there aren’t a large percentage of people failing to understand both of these author’s work. in fact, they’re both for kids, who some would assume might be more easily confused.
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you might say, well, the richard scarry animals do human things. they have stores and are butchers and wear clothes - but the beatrix potter animals do all those things as well. is it just the illustration style? the narratives? is it intuitively inferred? i leave this up to you
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there is also the question of time period. surely this is a factor: were people in 1901 more enmeshed in “nature”, or something, than people in 1951? perhaps. but the stories still function today, even for children without this larger possibly theoretical civilizational context.
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my primary contention here, which i believe to have social-civilizational (made this term up rn) significance hinges on: animal-ness signifies the exact opposite thing in the work of both authors. here we have a rare direct case of an entire realm of meta-symbolism being inverted
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in potter’s work, animal-ness signifies a proximity to the harsh reality of life: namely, death. here’s a rabbit, but don’t forget, he’s a rabbit: he might get shot. here’s a cat, she’s cute, but don’t forget her cat-ness: she would tear a mouse’s head off (real textual examples)
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in scarry’s work, it’s the opposite: here’s a pig. he might get in a car accident, but they’re pigs, relax. they’re not going to die. this is a book about pigs. there’s a fire at the cat family’s house. but this is a book about talking cats - worry not, everyone will be fine.
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i believe this inversion of what ‘animalness’ means relates primarily to a change in how we conceptualize childhood: not how we conceptualize nature or animals. potters work brings children into the world of the animals: their human qualities are subservient to their animal-ness.
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meanwhile, scarry’s work ushers children into the world they already inhabit, at their own developmental level. the animal-ness is a stepping stone: a stepladder for the child to build upwards into a zone of proximal development via analogy: the pig has a car, like your dad.
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this pig drives a car. my dad drives a car. but my dad isn’t a pig. its just similar. pigs don’t drive cars. this allows “car driving” and “dad” to be isolated as a concept that can then be related to in and of itself, separate from any individual person or specific instance.
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this stopping point raises many questions: is one better? is creating a microcosmic world (scarry) without death or consequence shielding kids from something essential? is there a good reason not to directly confront kids with the reality of the death of a friendly hare (potter)?
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of note is when the animal loses something: its animalness. it is just a sign now. not a symbol for “pig” but just “a symbol”. potter is closer to religious epics and fables. richard scarry is our time: hyperreality. the pig is a butcher. but he’s a pig without pigness. pure sign
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[footnote]: here’s a thread of kid’s books
owen cyclops@owenbroadcast
[book release week: the 3rd morning]
we (me, baby, dog) just dropped our first children's book. therefore, it is time to open a special file
people often ask me for kid's book recommendations. so aside from... mine... here is a window into the kids book vibe at the cyclops hut
we (me, baby, dog) just dropped our first children's book. therefore, it is time to open a special file
people often ask me for kid's book recommendations. so aside from... mine... here is a window into the kids book vibe at the cyclops hut
