Introduction
The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) by Margery Williams has always been a favorite book of mine. I chose the original edition of the book, printed in 1922, for this evaluation. The illustrations are by Elizabeth Banks, copyrighted in 1922 and 1991. One of the most meaningful messages in this book is that the story can be interpreted as a lesson about aging, and the way that love is what makes us “real”. One commentator gleaned that the lesson learned from the Velveteen Rabbit is that: “I tell them that I loved until it hurt, that I knew I couldn’t break because somebody needed me to be strong. I tell them that…has made me Real” [italics] (Stevic-Rust, 2014).
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit: Evaluation of the Original Edition".
The Velveteen Rabbit is about a boy who receives a gorgeous velveteen rabbit stuffed animal for Christmas. The boy plays with the rabbit and loves him so much that the rabbit starts to get patchy, and it needed to be stitched up occasionally. One day, the boy gets sick, with scarlet fever. The doctor says that all of his toys have to be burned. The velveteen rabbit is rescued when one of his tears falls to the ground and a magical flower sprouts up. The nursery magic fairy takes all the loved toys that are old and worn out, and she makes them real to the world. The rabbit passes from one life, and into the next life. The passage can be analogous to death, with the promise of a greater life after death, one that is more real than the one we have now.
Functions of Illustrations
The illustrations are like sketches that are slightly colored in. The illustrations serve the purpose of furthering the plot, as we see the skin horse tell history, and the rabbit listens. The rabbit has an expression of concern in the illustration entitled Anxious Times (Williams, 1922, p. 23). The illustrations show that the rabbit is developing into a real animal, from the first picture when he is a toy hanging in a stocking.
Most children will probably be intrigued by the illustrations because they are different from the loud, in-your-face colors that many children’s’ books are illustrated with. The illustrations show that the rabbit and nature share the same colors, so the rabbit is a natural creature.
Style and Media
The cover of this book has a simple picture of the velveteen rabbit standing in nature. We can see that the colors are muted, and that the rabbit looks like a stuffed animal, but that his surroundings are where real rabbits would usually be.
Visual Elements
The visual elements of this book make it appealing to children, because they can look at the pictures that are simple and sketched, but they can also tell that the rabbit is changing throughout the book. The collage on the inside covers also shows the progression from stuffed animal to real rabbit, and having all the lines overlap creates a look of motion.
Action and Detail
Action and detail are captured in the illustrations, such as in Sumer Days (Williams, 1922, pp. 14-15). The reader sees that there is action because the live rabbits look on at the stuffed rabbit. And the detail of the stuffed rabbit’s shadow shows that he is real.
Conclusion
The message about growing old, and becoming less than physically perfect, and then dying, is captured in the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. The effective use of illustrations, that lack bold colors, allow the reader to see that the rabbit is becoming more real as he is loved by the boy. The rabbit becomes real to everyone in the end, whereas the fairy tells the boy that before, he was only real to the boy (Williams, 1922, p. 29).
- Stevic-Rust, L. (2014). Life lessons from the Velveteen Rabbit. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-stevicrust-phd-abpp/life-lessons-from-the-vel_b_5639925.html
- Williams, M. (1922). The velveteen rabbit. New York, NY: Doubleday.
