Book Analysis 3: Winnie-the-Pooh

Back home in Idaho in the garage under a few boxes, inside a Rubbermaid bin, under  clothes and drawings and Polly Pockets and blankets is a little stuffed bear—A Pooh Bear, in fact. He’s not yellow anymore, but more of a dirty mustard, and he’s way skinnier than any respectable Winnie the Pooh should be. His nose is flat and any signs of tags are completely gone. To me and my family he’s a precious bit of fluff, a friend who probably has seen more important moments of my life than any other object. Revisiting Winnie-the-Pooh as an adult was a delightful experience that is seeped in hunny-flavored nostalgia. The structure and nature of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories depicts the interplay of the child who is desperate for new life experience and the adult who longs for a simpler life an a familiar home.

            When we first meet Winnie-the-Pooh the first question to be answered, quite logically, is his name. The narrator, as most adults might be, is confused by Edward Bear being called “Winnie-the-Pooh.”

            “But I thought he was a boy?”
            “So did I,” said Christopher Robin.
            “Then you don’t call him Winnie?”
            “I don’t.”
            “But you said—“
            “He’s Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don’t you know what ‘ther’ means?”

In the book, Christopher Robin is always set up to be the most knowing character, and in many ways acts like the adult throughout the stories. Christopher Robin is desperate to have some sort of experience or memories under his belt so that he can contribute to the conversations. In the exchange of dialogue above, he takes the lead and patronizes the narrator for his perceived ignorance of the situation. Later, after he asks what it means to live under the name, he pretends that Winnie-the-Pooh had the question, not him. Christopher Robin and he narrator both “know” that Christopher Robin knows all of these stories already—they are supposed to be memories—it’s just that he forgets sometimes. In the stories, Christopher Robin is the leader and the explainer. For example, when Winnie-the-Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s hole, Christopher Robin knows that Pooh must not eat for a week or so, and then he will be thin enough to wriggle out.

            On the other hand, the narrator is set up to be more childish. When we first start on the stories, Christopher Robin has to give detailed instructions in order for things to go smoothly:

            “Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the Pooh [a story]?”
            “I suppose I could,” I said, “What sort of stores does he like?”
            “About himself. Because he’s that sort of Bear.”
            “Oh, I see.”
            “So could you very sweetly?”
            “I’ll try,” I said.
            So I tried.

In this case, the narrator often has to take the hat of student while Christopher Robin reminds him of how to play. Additionally, while Christopher Robin seems to take a certain glee in correcting the narrator and being the “adult” figure in the stories, the narrator takes glee in making the stories as nonsensical as possible, even though he most definitely knows better. For example, when they go on the expedition, the north pole ends up being a literal pole that Winnie-the-Pooh finds.

            The whole story flips the relationship between adult and child and allows the adult to enter back into a nostalgic world of play while the child gets to play at adulthood. The whole story, rather than being told from the perspective of a child, is from the perspective of an adult, and consequently serves not the child’s needs but the adult’s needs for a little bit of nonsense and a whole lot of simplicity. The narrative structure lets the adult leave their world and go back home to the world of childhood.