Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park Essay example -- Literary Analysi

The Tale of Peter mo usance hare and Voices in the Park were published at either end of the ordinal century, a period which witnessed the creation of the modern picture record book for children. They are both exceedingly prestigious examples of picturebooks of their type, the one very traditional, the other surrealist and postmodern. The comment of picturebook partd hither is Baders an art form which hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the coincidental display of two facing scalawags, and on the drama of the turning of the page (Bader, quoted in Montgomery, 2009, p. 211). In contrast with a simple illustrated book, the picturebook can use all of the technology available to it to produce an indistinguishable whole, the meaning and revalue of which is dependent on the interplay between all or any of these aspects. Moebiuss claim that they can portray the intangible and invisible, ideas that escape easy definition in pictures or words is particularly relevan t to these two works. throwers book is, beneath its didactic Victorian narrative, remarkably impalpable and subversive in its attitudes towards childhood, and its message to its child readers. Brownes Voices in the Park, on the other hand, dispenses with any textual narrative by his use of the devices of postmodernism, visual intertextuality and metaphor, he creates a work of infinite interpretation, in which the dynamical involvement of the reader is key. Although The Tale of Peter Rabbit is not a modern picturebook, and was written to a different concept of childhood than Voices in the Park, it certainly falls within Baders description. Susan Hill has described the events of the book as reflecting the world of the Victorian nursery Naughtiness may be understood... ...h the message is conveyed. Potters juxtaposition of picture and word alike rewards the reader for trusting the evidence of his or her eyes, rather than simply submitting to the despotic voice. In comparison, Voi ces in the Park is infinitely complex and layered with meaning and symbol, wherever the reader should choose to find it. Moebiuss statement is in full realised here as Browne combines all of the technology of his mediocre - the words as text and picture, use of symbol, intertextuality and space - to portray ideas that ride out intangible, and concepts that are infinitely open to definition. In this he displays the complexity of his and his readers experience, in the way that Potter, in her own way, did of hers.