In Which I Buy a Stuffed Bunny at the Age of 26

Hello Everyone,

Last Thursday was Rabbit Day in my Anthropomorphism class here at Hollins. Anthropomorphism, as common in children’s literature as molecules are in chemistry, occurs when people assign human characteristics to non-human objects or characters. For this class, we read Peter Rabbit, The Velveteen Rabbit and several articles about these two iconic texts. We talked about the degree to which Peter acts like a human, and about what it means for a toy rabbit to become (really) real. (Incidentally, I think I was finally able to articulate why I loathed The Velveteen Rabbit as a child, a very welcome breakthrough. I’d be happy to pass on my rant about it if you’re interested.)

I don’t know if I somehow had our discussions in the back of my mind on Monday when I was in a gift shop in the middle of southern Virginia. For the Fourth of July, my friends and I had gone to a lake about an hour away from Hollins, but it started storming when we arrived. In search of something to do, we got directions to a small shopping center boasting an arcade, a mini-golf course, and a restaurant with a giant wooden moose welcoming patrons. As we pulled in, my friend Rachel announced that she was going to find us the fudge. “There are always fudge stores in places like this.” I told her that in that one simple observation, she had pierced the core of American culture. Five minutes later, we found a large sign directing us to the fudge.

I had no idea that there could be so many different kinds: German chocolate, watermelon, orange swirl . . . beautiful. As we were contemplating fudge purchases, we explored the rest of the store, which contained various gift items. My friend Lindsey and I found ourselves in a corner with stuffed animals. Before we knew it, we had each chosen a companion and were sitting on the floor trying to contemplate whether we could justify buying them. Mine was a beige rabbit with fur so soft it might actually have been made out of cloud. It was floppy enough that it was either a very young bunny or a very old one. Its head tilted slightly to the left, giving it an expression that was both quizzical and patient. It nestled in the crook of my arm perfectly, and I tried reading it a nearby picture book to test it out as a story time partner. It passed the test. Also, it turned out, I loved it.

What on earth was going on? Was I suddenly being struck by a wave of nostalgia? Had all the talk about rabbits on Thursday made me overly sensitive to the leporine cause? Was there some kind of consumerism-inducing drug in the fudge? I tried to think rationally: Mouse, you’re 26 years old -- snap out of it! You just love its soft ears. You’re just remembering fond times you had with your stuffed animals. You never should have watched Toy Story 3! Remember, you know what actual love is, and this is something entirely different . . . right?

Lindsey, at least, had a relatively grownup excuse: she teaches third grade and was planning on putting her new hippo friend in her classroom. The best I could come up with was that if I was studying children’s literature, a story buddy was an essential tool of the trade. Or I could argue that having a stuffed animal is an essential aspect of childhood which, as a writer for children, I need to understand firsthand. Both could be true, I suppose, but I don’t think I could write “stuffed rabbit” off as a school expenditure. Lindsey and I had spent too long with our new friends to abandon them now, so we didn’t. I also didn’t abandon some chocolate chip cookie dough fudge.

I could tell you which specific category of anthropomorphic story I was fitting into (the toy animal tale -- see Winnie the Pooh, and especially Corduroy for themes of toy adoption), but I couldn’t for the life of me explain why I was unsettled when my friends and I made my new rabbit dance to *NSYNC in the car on the ride back to the lake. It’s just not an *NSYNC bunny.

I now faced an interesting issue. Usually, when I’ve gotten stuffed animals, I’ve had no problem knowing their gender. It normally just seems obvious. Most of the time, they are male. I’ve tried to determine whether this is because the unspoken norm in society is that someone is male until proven otherwise. I think, though, that it has more to do with the fact that as a female, when I create an imagined identity, be it for a picture book character or a stuffed animal, I want it to be distinct from me. One of the simplest ways of doing so is to make it male. In my other class this summer, which is called Men, Women, and Dragons: Gender and Identity in Fantasy, we’ve been talking about the ways gender roles are portrayed in fantasy literature, particularly in non-human creatures. So the question of gender has been very much on my mind recently.

The problem was I couldn’t tell what my rabbit’s gender was. Gender (as opposed to biological sex) is socially constructed, I told myself. So you can choose the gender of this rabbit. I thought about the other stuffed animals I’d acquired in the last decade or so: Cookie (short for Cookie Monster) and Tob-Tob (long for Toby) -- both males. If I added a male rabbit, I would be creating quite the boys’ club. Alright, so my rabbit needed to be a female. I was still uncomfortable. This seemed so arbitrary and gave me a power I found a bit troubling. Good grief, Mouse, I interjected. Power over whom? This bundle of synthetic fur and stuffing? Ok, ok, fine. I choose girl rabbit.

The next problem was choosing a name. I tried out many different ones to see how they would fit: Kennedy, Alex, Rose, Jacqueline, Sophie, Josie, even -- in a nod to feminism -- Gloria Steinem. They were all close, but didn’t quite match. I believe that naming is vital. I wasn’t just giving this bunny a label, I was giving her an identity. I decided to wait and see if a name settled into place as we got to know each other.

Certainly these issues didn’t come up for me in such direct ways when I got a new stuffed animal as a child. But anthropomorphism, identity projection and gender construction are at work in childhood in such subtle and pervasive ways that it is crucial to understand how we are shaping our children’s views of the world and of themselves. As a creator of literature for young children, I have to be particularly aware.

I realize I’m projecting my own opinions, wishes, and narratives onto this bunny. I get that. And I get that this is what kids do when they interact with their toys, pets and invisible friends using that enviable creative prowess they tend to have. And I believe adamantly in the importance of these opportunities. To some, they may be merely the quaint trappings of childhood. I think, though, that they often provide some of our first chances to be mindful of and to care for something outside ourselves.

I will continue to think critically in my courses this summer, if only to convince my professors that I haven’t completely jumped off the deep end. There’s a lot more reading, writing and thinking to do.

Besides, my new friend Fudge is particularly looking forward to critiquing patriarchal social structures in Watership Down with me.


Have a good week,

Sarah/Mouse

ps: I’m realizing as I’m concluding that by using my nickname, I am engaging in a form of reverse anthropomorphism, but that’s a letter for another time.