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needs to develop “an understanding of how to ‘read’ a picture in terms of the conventions by which it operates” (161).
In its broadest definition, a picturebook is about a book in which the illustrations play a significant role in telling
the story. Picturebooks are gorgeous to behold for the richness of their color, layout, and the attention given to the cover,
font, and texture. In fact, picturebooks are polysemic or multimodal, that is, they tell a story in a variety of ways.
Illustrations are created by the innovative use of line, shape, color and other aesthetic choices to evoke setting, establish
character, convey theme, display information, explain a concept or create a mood. With this rationale, picturebooks can be
defined as “text, illustrations, total design, an item of manufacture and commercial product; a social, cultural, historical
document, and, foremost, an experience for a child” (Italics mine, Bader, 1).
Thus, the selected Children’s picturebooks – to my knowledge - have not been studied against their fluid textual
entity incorporating lexical and visual signs codified in an interaction of word, image, and reader. The picturebook, as a
potential sign, conveys a narrative through verbal language and visual grammar. The point of departure is that the analysis
relies heavily on the Kress and van Leeuwen theoretical framework of visual semiotics in relation to children’s
picturebooks. This semiotic capacity makes picturebooks ideal for children to establish “contexts for literary and real world
understandings” (Kiefer, 260).
Visual Semiotics of Children’s Picturebooks
In his illuminative work, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books (1988), Perry
Nodelman pinpoints the fact that “it is unfortunately true that most discussion of children’s picturebooks has either ignored
their visual elements altogether or else treated the pictures as objects of a traditional sort of art appreciation … rather than
narrative elements (1988: ix). In “The Constructedness of Texts: Picture Books and Metafictive” (1990: 140), David Lewis
identifies the dominant paradigm of research of picturebook in three main types:
• Pedagogic, where the printed word supersedes the pictorial aspects of the text as the focus of examination in the
meaning-making process;
• Aesthetic, where the rationale for research is drawn from art history as an appreciation of form leaning toward the
pictorial aspects of the text at the expense of its lexical co-text;
• Literary, where the picturebook is subsumed in the vast oeuvre of children’s literature “as a marginal genre, or a
larval stage of literature proper”.
He also notes that “an adequate theory of picturebook must directly address the bifurcated nature of the form
(word and picture) and must account for the whole range of types and kinds including the metafictive” (1990: 141). In a
similar stance, Nodelman argues that it is convenient to understand images in picturebooks “in the light of some form of
semiotic theory” which suggests "the possibility of a system underlying visual communication that is something like a
grammar – something like the system of relationships and contexts that make verbal communication possible” (Italics
mine, ix).
The propensity of children picturebooks to be a highly an unconventional literary genre foregrounds the seminal
work, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (1996) by Kress and van Leeuwen to employ visual systems of
signification. Kress and van Leeuwen set out the first social semiotic framework for analyzing images, noting that “we
intend to provide inventories of the major compositional structures which have become established as conventions in the
course of the history of visual semiotics and to analyze how they are used to produce meaning by contemporary image-
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 11 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
Table 2: Size of Frame and Social Distance Adapted from The
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Grammar of Visual Design (1996) p. 130
Frame Size Characteristics Social Relation very close up less than head and shoulders of subject intimate close shot head and shoulders of subject friendly or personal medium close cuts off subject approximately at waist social or ' one of us' medium shot cuts off subject approximately at knee level 'familiar' social medium long shows full figure general social long shot human figure fills half image height public, largely impersonal very long shot and anything beyond (wider) than half height little or no social connection
Table 3: Visual ‘Clues’ for Compositional Salience Adapted from The
Grammar of Visual Design (1996) p. 212
Salience Indicator Features Size Larger objects are more easily noticed by the eye that smaller ones.
Sharpness of focus Objects are more clearly seen because their features are in sharp focus and are more easily noticed by the eye than those that have their features less sharply focused.
Tonal contrasts Areas of high contrast, for example black borders placed on white spaces are higher in salience than a grey-shaded, less distinct border performing the same dividing function.
Color contrasts The contrasts between highly saturated colors and softer muted colors, or the contrast between red, white, and blue.
Placement in the visual field The aspect of visual ‘weight’ - objects are ‘heavier’ when close to the top, and ‘heavier’ when placed on the left.
Perspective Objects or entities placed in the foreground are visually more salient than those in the background, and elements which overlap others are more salient.
Kress and van Leeuwen distinguish three types of systems those of (i) image and gaze, (ii) social distance and
intimacy and (iii) involvement and power. The three systems work to show the way in which Represented Participants
(RPs) are visualized within the interaction with the viewer. In this sense, the present paper examines the semiotic choices
made by Potter, Marsden and Tan in the verbal and visual cues to analyze children's picturebooks to establish them as
multimodal texts.
Beatrix Potter’s the Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)
• Demystifying the Victorian Child Hero
The Tale of Peter Rabbit, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, is one of the most popular children’s picture books.
It is a story with an exciting chase and exquisite illustrations in which Potter has created a mix of suspense and tensions
and praised for its simple rhythmic words. In Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (2007), Linda Lear states that the tale is “a
perfect marriage of word and image” and “a triumph of fantasy and fact” (154). She also notes that Potter has introduced “a
new kind of animal fable she made one in which anthropomorphic animals look and act like real animals” (153).
The tale was intended for children of English middle class in the Victorian era, characterized by strict and
conservative manners in court and in children’s education. Potter demystifies moralizing literature and despite the
moralistic values that predominate in the verbal narrative: “the good little bunnies” are rewarded at the end of the tale with
a nice supper while Peter ends up with a stomachache; she is on the side of the “disobedient” bunny advocating natural
instinct. Peter faces a giant who is stronger than himself, yet Peter manages to outsmart Mr. McGregor and proves to be a
hero.
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 13 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
Potter’s illustrations exhibit a juxtaposition of recognizable humanness and an understanding of rabbit's behavior.
The visuals convey the rabbit’s humanness by emphasizing its anthropomorphic nature, that is, Peter has a realistic rabbit's
body living in a typical rabbit's burrow, yet, he wears a blue coat and expresses feelings of distress. The illustrations
combine realistic details with fanciful intent to mock many accepted notions of Victorian society. Thus, the story conceals
social criticism in animal fantasy. Peter flouts the Victorian code of behavior a child was expected to observe such as
despite its boredom, home is a better place to be than the dangerous world outside. Peter’s flaw is his sense of curiosity (Id)
which his super ego tries to suppress. By his escape, Peter expresses his rejections of his adult-controlled world that all
children resent. Therefore, the child reader sympathizes with Peter who suffers at the end from a stomachache. In a word,
Peter is a symbol of rebellion and Potter deconstructs the portrayal of Peter as “a naughty hero with a proper moral at the
end” (Mackey, 2002:19) and changes the traditional good child and conservatism of Victorian era.
Throughout the story, Peter uses no direct speech. He lacks the voice and therefore has a position that is less
powerful. Peter’s transgression ignores four commands: “but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden”, “Now run along”,
“and don’t get into mischief” and “Stop thief”. These commands are not heeded by Peter: “he trespasses in the garden, not
because he needs food to survive, since that is provided by Mama Rabbit, but rather for the pure joy of breaking
established rules” (Scott, 2001: 19).
• An Interplay of Verbal and Visual Cues in The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The aim of this section is to explore both the verbiage and the illustrations and how far they combine to reinforce
the child reader’s identification with the protagonist, Peter. The illustrations are dramatic, intricate in detail and contribute
to the meanings of the text.
In figure 1, Mother Rabbit directs her gaze at the child reader to invite him/her to her family world. “The
realization of a visual demand”, Kress and van Leeuwen note, “is determined by the presence or absence of a gaze which
indicates a form of direct or indirect address to the viewer” (Italics mine, 1996: 121):
Figure 1
On the other hand, no eye contact is established with the viewer when Peter feels sick and looks for parsley to alleviate his
pain. Therefore, there is no demand on the child reader to be involved in an imaginary social relation.
The verbal components of the names of the four little rabbits are displaced towards the left from Flopsy to Peter.
Peter’s depiction is done through “a visual metonymy” (Forceville, 56), that is, Peter’s tail. Figure 1, moreover, conveys
more information about Peter’s different personality as a transgressor. The visual is a long shot and has a frontal angle to
show the difference between Peter and his sisters. The child viewer sees their heads, but Peter plays in the burrow and only
his tail is visible.
Figure 2 provides information that does not exist in the text. The child reader knows that Flobsy, Mobsy and
Cotton-tail are girls since Mama Rabbit dresses them pink coats and the boy a blue coat:
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Figure 2
They are docile submissive and cute bunnies while Peter is “naughty”. This difference prepares for the forthcoming event,
Peter’s dangerous adventure which is a signifier of the ordeals that he has to go through to be unusual hero. The
underground burrow is a signifier of a safe childhood and Peter has to choose between dull respectability and mysterious
forbidden territory – Mr. McGregor’s garden.
A rhythmic pattern between words and the illustration below is established in the text that refers to Peter’s escape
from the garden:
Figure 3
Peter is almost under the gate; he is just about to slip underneath it and the action shown by the picture comes at some
point before the completion of the action. In this way, the text is read with a sense of anticipation and the illustration delays
the events, therefore increasing the narrative’s tension. As Nodelman affirms; “almost every picture in this tale shows a
moment towards the end of the actions implied by the text” (1988: 258).
Verbal and visual cues can contribute to the unity of message at the story level. The text describes Peter’s queasy
stomach: “And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley”:
Figure 4
The illustration on the opposite page shows Peter holding his stomach drooping facial features, shaky posture and ears
pointed straight upward. This mirrors the interplay of both words and illustrations to convey Peter's current mood and
physical condition.
Potter narrates: “And squeezed under the gate! The conflict starts”. This highlights the significant use of
exclamation mark that makes the story progress. Peter’s adventure begins after enjoying the feast of vegetables. The
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 15 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
aggressor’s chase is expressed through the interrogative structure: “But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should
he meet but Mr. McGregor!”. The inevitable happens and the little bunny’s life is now at risk. Potter uses the mood
structures punctuation to generate meaning at the semantic level. Rather than a regular interrogative of the Wh- structure,
the structure of “should” and “but” expresses surprise through the exclamation mark.
The illustration below depicts RP in a state of danger. The child reader sees Peter’s back and he is portrayed as a
small creature whereas Mr. McGregor is delineated as a giant human being:
Figure 5
This establishes Mr. McGregor as Peter’s main antagonist and reinforces the Victorian conception that the world outside
home is hostile and ambiguous. In addition, Potter manipulates “visual focalization” which is an important technique in the
narrative art since “the reader is usually positioned behind the character and sees what is happening within the narrated
world through the character’s eyes” (Painter, 40). Peter gets into an awful lot of trouble. Potter’s description of Peter’s
entrapping in “a gooseberry net” shows her stance in the favor of Peter. This is manifested in the use of the modal verb
“might” which expresses factual possibility and in the modal adjunct “unfortunately”. This encourages the child reader to
support Peter’s escape from the oppressor and identify with the defenseless rabbit.
Peter escapes the gooseberry net by letting his clothes go: “It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that
Peter had lost in a fortnight”. Peter’s garments are a signifier of repression of natural impulses and hostility to freedom.
Peter seems to be torn between his rabbit-like nature and his child-like behavior. By using clothing as a motive, Potter
creates the dilemma of whether Peter should act like a child as his mother wishes, following the civilized codes of
behavior, or naturally like an animal following his animal instincts (Scott: 1994, 79).
Again, Peter is portrayed through visual metonymy, that is, Peter’s ears, when both he and Mr. McGregor are in the
shed:
Figure 6
This puts the child reader in a position of dominance, as he/she knows more about what is going on than either Peter or his
foe. The illustration below is a middle-distance shot and the subjects of the illustration are situated from the sidelines:
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Figure 7
It depicts the aggressor’s physical violence. Mr. McGregor’s booted foot is about to step on Peter before he manages to
escape from the tool shed by jumping out of a small window. The viewer sees the flowers petals falling, the tufts of Peter’s
hair as well as the studs on the sole of Mr. McGregor’s boot.
The following illustration is a masterpiece in which the verbal narration and the visual work in harmony. The
illustration transmits not only actions, but also feelings. It depicts Peter’s posture and facial expressions:
Figure 8
The unclothed Peter begins to cry standing upright against the door and one foot upon the other with a tear running from
his eye. Peter is a defenseless animal, but his human posture intensifies the child’s identification.
Nodelman notes that the great presence of long shots (65.6%) gives the tale a sense of objectivity (1988, 151).
These long shots tend to show RPs against the background in which the actions are carried out, for example, Peter is in the
foreground when he is looking from the wheelbarrow towards the gate and later escaping from Mr. McGregor. Long shots
also tend to reflect exterior/interior settings like the tool-shed, Rabbit family’s house, kitchen’s utensils, and Peter’s bed in
the last illustrations. Thus, long shots offer “a high degree of contextual detail” (Scott, 2001: 20). On the other hand, in
middle shots, the RP is shown in full, but without much space around it. It is represented as within the viewer’s reach. In
turn, in close-ups, the viewer gets engaged with it, unless the RP is very small and shown in parts; ears, tail, shoe. Finally,
while the horizontal angle determines the emotional involvement with the RP (Frontal angle), the vertical angle reflects
relationships of power and Vulnerability, depending on whether the RP is looked at from a low or a high angle respectively
(Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996: 160-163). For example, the Rabbit Family is shown from a frontal perspective:
Figure 9
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 17 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
In these two visuals, the child reader observes the privacy of their lives: cooking, dining, and resting in bed.
A visual is the result of “convergence of many different signifying systems” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996: 265).
Peter’s prominence is realized by relative size, place in the composition, contrast against background, color saturation,
sharpness of focus, and “psychological salience” which the RP’s face has for viewers (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996: 64).
These non-linguistic modes are the “grammar” of illustrations. Salience is a paramount visual grammar that refers to the
ability of RP to capture the viewer’s attention. For example, the larger the RP, the greater the salience and the RP in the
foreground has a greater salience too. Salience is also realized through color saturation. Potter illustrates an
anthropomorphic hero. Peter’s postures are detailed and naturalistic achieving a high level of modality, that is, Peter’s
tearful eye, frightened feelings, clothes, and human pose. Modality refers to how we feel about the illustration’s validity
and reliability (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996: 163). Potter’s visuals are expressive of high modality, that is, the realness of
the images. In addition, the full color saturation exhibits high modality. High saturated colors in the tale show intensity of
feelings and exuberant adventurous since the tale addresses children aged from five to seven years old. By adopting the
Kress and van Leeuwen social semiotic framework, The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a visual aesthetic work set by Potter
deliberately in no particular time. Peter is a signifier of every child in this timelessness to universalize his experience that
signifies the dichotomies between order and chaos, decorum and rudeness, home and wilderness, and family responsibility
and concern for oneself.
Anthropomorphism, as a literary device, has been deployed by Potter, Marsden and Tan to create a space for
children to explore challenging issues. However, in The Rabbits, anthropomorphism is manipulated to question
ecological/political issues in surrealistic illustrations, that is, the eighteenth century figures in strange antipodean deserts
versus Potter’s cute bunnies.
John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
The Rabbits, a “sophisticated, compelling” (Mortimer, 1) non-white children's picturebook written by Marsden
and illustrated by Tan, was honored by the Children’s Australian Book Council for the Best Picturebook in 1999 and won
many other international awards. The Rabbits has been used in “secondary schools in areas of curriculum that include
English, Art, and environmental studies –from Years 5‐6 through to Year 12” (Mortimer, 2). However, this section of the
present study aims at establishing The Rabbits as a postmodern children's picturebook that stands in contrast to Potter’s
realistic illustrations and linear narration.
The Rabbits is “a strange metaphor” of the colonization of Australia, that is, the Europeans posing as rabbits and
aboriginals as tree dwellers and small lizards and marsupial-like animals. It is written from the point of view of the
colonized (the bandicoots) and the rabbits throughout the book are silent, yet, their destructive power and ominous number
are verbally emphasized and visually illustrated.
The rabbits are triangular-shaped creatures walk on two legs and wear the uniforms of western culture. The
indigenous inhabitants are robbed of their way of life, their cultural heritage, and their children are stolen by the invading
army of rabbits who arrive with all the hallmarks of European culture with devastating effects and ruthlessly displacing the
indigenous. More universally, it is “the story of colonization everywhere, about power, ignorance, and environmental
destruction” (Tan, “Originality and Creativity”: www.shauntan.net). In this sense, Tan uses a powerful technique of
nameless creatures to represent the indigenous inhabitants prior to invasion to tackle the colonial dichotomy of “Us” and
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“Them”. What is more, Tan’s surrealistic art is functional in the sense that it helps avoid any specific cultural reference to
an Aboriginal experience as well as it signifies the sheer enigma of European culture. The rabbits themselves have only
two-dimensional legs and their faces are as concealed as their intentions. Rabbits are nicknames for strange and new
creatures that look a bit like rabbits.
• A Postcolonial Children's PictureBook: Rewriting the Past Surrealistically
What is outstanding about Tan’s visuals is that they reveal more meaning than the written narrative. Words and
images play off each other. Neither the text nor the image explains each other fully and the ‘implied reader’ must fill in the
gap of meaning with his emotional and intellectual reaction. When the text says, “they ate our grass”, there are no rabbits
eating grass, only a giant industrial fish-head machine stripping the landscape. When the text says, “they only know their
own country”, we see the rabbits examining the new environment through strange optical devices. Images of rabbits talk
through wires stung over vast distances and the rabbits have no visible mouths. For Tan, The Rabbits is a good example of
“reconstructed creativity”. It is a familiar story with a colonial/historical narrative and the subsequent injustices perpetrated
against the indigenous population. He believes that ‘originality’ is more about a kind of transformation of existing ideas
than the invention of entirely new ones (“Originality and Creativity”: www.shauntan.net).
The cover illustration is a good example of developing a visual from an old painting, a reference source. It is
based on a nineteenth century painting of Cook’s first landing at Botany Bay by E. Phillips Fox. The visual details of
British colonialists striding a shore from left to right are mirrored by the rabbits with their clothing, guns, and flag. In
addition, two aborigines on a distant dune are replaced by two marsupial animals:
Figure 10 Captain Cook’s First Landing at Botany Bay, a Painting by E. Phillips Fox
However, Tan’s illustration is exaggerated to magnify the horrors of colonialism. The challenging cover
illustration depicts the rabbits’ surreal, massive ship leaps forth like a skyscraper:
Figure 11: Front and Back Covers
The portrayal of the rabbits/colonizers is very apt to signify the devouring nature of colonialism. The white rabbits
have an enigmatic and fierce appearance, i.e., they are sharp-angled in military attire: “I wanted to introduce a surreal
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 19 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
dreamlike quality, ambiguous in terms of mixed awe and dread, exaggerated but not caricatured or didactic” (Italics mine,
Tan, “Originality and Creativity”: www.shauntan.net). The angular-looking beings arrive on a vast golden ship introducing
strange machinery into a newly discovered wilderness and whose culture is incomprehensible.
With this rationale, the cover illustration, as well as all the subsequent illustrations, creates a subtext to question
the notions of ‘peripheral’ and ‘alienation’ within the postcolonial paradigm. The visuals follow the typical historical
progression of colonization moving from friendship to a sense of curiosity until the inevitable violence takes place.
The study of Tan’s visuals and their positioning in their political context can be analyzed by adopting Kress’s and
van Leeuwen’s ‘reading images’ terms (1996):
• Referential meanings are constructed by the forms of visual representation of events in the material world, the
objects and the participants involved, and the circumstances in which they occur.
• Interpersonal or interactive meanings concern the kind of relationship constructed between the viewer and what is
viewed.
• Compositional meanings deal with the ways in which the layout of the image indicates information value or
emphasis among the elements of image. Factors such as the location of elements to the left and or the right of the
page, the relative size of elements and the types of borders etc. influence the ways in which attention may be
drawn to various aspects of the image. Fascinating details, not mentioned in the written text, regarding textual
features (format, typography, color scheme, the organization of the double page).
At the beginning, for example, Tan’s angles denote distance. The tree dwellers are viewing the rabbits from a far.
However, as the story progresses, the illustrations are close up signifying the colonizer-colonized conflict as manifested in
the ecological and cultural destruction and the natives’ loss of wars.
Tan’s visual complexity springs from its intricate ‘grammar’ design. The first illustrations (cover page, front page,
half title page, and title page) act as a foreshadowing of the consequences of the rabbits’ arrival. Each double spread is an
informational progression from the last. The Napoleon-like creatures cover page is followed by front paper which
illustrates a calm blue lilac, clean water that is home to graceful long legged birds - a billabong teaming with life:
Figure 12: Front/Endpapers
This serene landscape is about to be invaded and distorted by a ruthless colonizer. A dark brown half title page comes next:
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Figure 13: Half Title Page
The Union Jack is ominous referring to the history behind the story. This indicates the reality of the postcolonial tale. There
is also a shield in the center superimposed over a map. It evokes a foreboding atmosphere. This threatening mood is felt in
the next page, the title page. It is a ripped sheet of paper, covering those blue-lilac birds:
Figure 14: Title Page
Some of the paper begins to soak up the water, turning the white into grey. The birds are moving away turning
their backs and looking to the right. They are observing something strange invading their environment. Typographically
speaking, the title font, as on the front cover, is not quite normal. The ‘e’ letter has a strange wave under it and the ‘t’ letter
is uncharacteristic. They are letters from the past, namely, medieval type font evoking religious connotations. Religious
purposes have always been the colonialist’s pretext or justification to invade the ‘Other’ territory. As a multimodal
picturebook, the blending of visual design elements and particular fonts are fused together to convey a message of warning.
In this sense, typography exists to “honor content” (19) – to use Bringhurst’s phrase. This religious typeface stands in
contrast to Potter’s traditional title font: “traditional fonts are naturalized to the point that readers are not expected to pay
attention to their design” (Serafini: 2012, 5) and this adds complexity to Tan’s illustrations to evoke a mysterious mood and
to enhance the theme of colonial dispossession and alienation.
The opening illustration depicts a wilderness in brown, yet it is moist. It is also an age-old land full of fossil-like
shapes in the dark cave behind a huge snake whose gaze in the foreground is not directed towards the viewer:
Figure 15
Tan does not seek the emotional identification of the child reader as Potter does in some of her visuals to evoke feelings of
sympathy towards Peter. There are also fleeing birds at the right edge of the page as if they are giving an alarm. “The
rabbits came many grandparents ago" is very suggestive of the depicted old landscape that looks epic and ambiguous.
The illustration below shows a juxtaposition of two different worlds watching each other: “At first we didn’t
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 21 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
The rabbits in the background with their optical devices and the indigenous tiny creatures as birds and insects are in the
foreground as they are still in control of their immense homeland. The rabbits’ telescopes signify their inability to see
beyond their own preconceptions and flawed ideals. The land has been marked by the wheels of a strange machine as
illustrated on the horizon. This foreshadows the mechanical life that is about to invade the wilderness as illustrated in the
next visuals
Figure 17 is dazzling and startling in its unusual visual design. The illustration shows massive grass eating sheep
machines dressed in lambs' wool and cows are sketched as butchers’ knifes in rectangular shape:
Figure 17
These are strange creatures: "some of the animals scared us." Even the colonizers’ food “made us sick”. This is cleverly
illustrated in the right corner of the page to draw the viewer’s attention. A colonialist rabbit gives a bottle to aboriginal
creature collaged upon illustration of a dried up water bed, littered with flapping, gasping fish. What is unique is that the
last three words are turned upside as though rolling over with bellyache. The original inhabitants are unable to adjust and
adapt to new automated life.
The following illustration is very shocking and appalling. Hundreds of air machines with aboriginal babies inside
them and Mother creatures, in the background, screaming and their hands raised up towards their “stolen” children – their
hope and future:
Figure 18
The rabbits, in the foreground, are big, black with evil red eyes and their vertical backs turned against the mothers. They
use bloody ink dripping from a peacock feather to write the verbal text of this illustration; each word on a separate sheet of
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paper, as though being spoken in jerks of distress: “and. stole. our. children”.
The final page shows a small cameo illustration against a black background. It depicts two solitary creatures, a
rabbit and an aboriginal, sitting opposite each other on the edge of a pond reflecting the stars in the sky. It is a remnant of
great land which has been distorted, wasted, littered with bones and broken pieces of machines and empty bottles. The
helpless marsupials are waiting for a savior: "Who will save us from the rabbits?"
The colonized remain peripheral to the center power of the rabbits. Inhabitants’ passivity is mirrored in the text.
The bandicoots are seen holding spears just watching the rabbits. They are less involved, except during wartime, and only
engaged in mental process as seen in verbs like “warned” and “liked”. In contrast, the rabbits have active roles with verbs
like “made”, “ate”, “brought”, “spread”, “ate”, “chopped” and “stole” (Unsworth & Wheeler, 72). The illustrations focus
on the rabbits, their destructive tools and abusive power while the bandicoots are seen destitute and stricken curled in tight
balls and sometimes appear to be dotted underground beneath the surface which is dominated by the rabbits and their flag
whose lines are like arrows pointing everywhere. The feeling of helplessness, after the natives’ loss of war, is brilliantly
portrayed by the fragmentation of the page into separate pictures showing different episodes of the war and the colonizer-
colonized fights.
Drawing upon Kress’s and van Leeuwen’s terms (1996: 142-3), the difference between The Tale of Peter Rabbit
and The Rabbits lies in the use of angles. That is, the frontal angle, in The Tale of Peter Rabbit, “projects a message of
inclusion”, suggesting that the RP is part of the viewer’s world. In contrast, the oblique angle, in The Rabbits, “projects a
message of exclusion” suggesting that the RPs are not part of the viewer’s shared world and as a result there is a lack of
involvement since the indigenous inhabitants are not part of the colonial world that has devastated their homeland.
Furthermore, Potter’s illustrations are very delicate, detailed, and realistic to depict Peter and his environment achieving
high level of modality while Tan’s visuals, full of geometric shapes and lines, achieve low level of modality since they are
startling images as one could experience in nightmares or in a state of hallucination.
• ‘Color as a Semiotic Mode’
In “Color as a Semiotic Mode: Notes for a Grammar of Color” (2002), Kress and van Leeuwen state that “textual
cohesion can be promoted by ‘color coordination’ rather than by the repetition of the same color” (Italics mine, 349). They
pinpoint that “color itself is metafunctional”, that is, “color fulfills three metafunctions” (347-350): ‘ideational function’,
‘interpersonal function’, and ‘textual function’. Color can be used to denote specific people, places and things (ideational
function). Just as language allows us to realize speech acts, so color allows us to realize ‘color acts’. It can be and is used to
do things to or for each other, e.g. to impress or intimidate, to warn or to subdue people (interpersonal meaning). Color can
achieve internal cohesion through ‘color saturation’, color modulation’, articulation of background and articulation of
detail, depth, illumination and brightness to attain ‘color coordination’ (textual meaning). With this raison d'être, the aim of
this section is to examine color as central to the construction of the possibilities of the three metafunctions in the visuals at
hand.
Tan’s surreal illustrations rely heavily on his dazzling use of colors. There is interplay of dark and bright colors.
Some illustrations are in browns, blacks, and grays to evoke uncertainty and to create a foreboding mood to expose the
horror of colonialism while other illustrations are blue, and green or moist brown to refer to pre-colonialized Australia.
They are happy colors and evoke optimistic feeling. At the beginning, color is bold and bright; however, when the text
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 23 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
begins to discuss war, the color becomes dark and gloomy to lament the destruction of animal and plant life. For example,
the pages tell of the ominous spread of rabbits are in dark grey with small patches of yellow illuminating the rabbits’
presence. Tan comments on his surreal illustrations: “when working I often like to think of words and images as opposite
points on a battery, creating a potential voltage through a ‘gap’ between telling and showing. It requires the reader’s
imagination to complete the circuit, their thoughts, and feelings being the current that fills the silent space, without
prescription” (Tan, Lingua Franca: 2).
What is remarkable about Tan’s surreal visuals is the insertion of monochrome portion of the page which impinges
on the main story. “Monochromatic color scheme” uses “variations in lightness and saturation of a single color. It deals
with color without sacrificing quality and impact” (Straub, 84). Finally, Tan’s use of color underlines the tragedy of the
colonized in sepia tones, that is, the indigenous’ fight and resistance are illustrated in sepia-tinted cameos.
In the beginning, the rabbits make a cordial appearance symbolized in their delineation in a blue horizon. ‘Blue’
evokes a sense of peace, calmness, and stability. In contrast, the rabbits’ ruthless practices are symbolized by sucking the
blue out of the sky:
Figure 19
The illustration below sets juxtaposition between the rabbits’ mechanical/geometrical buildings and the natural setting of
the marsupials and tree dwellers:
Figure 20
This spread communicates ‘interpersonal’ relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in layers within color
‘ textual cohesion’. The slightly lighter blue strip at the top is the original layer and belongs to the indigenous who watch
the deformation of their environment. The darker blue is a superimposed layer due to the rabbits’ colonial distortion of the
wilderness. The rabbits’ buildings are like puzzles spewing black smoke. The rabbits’ houses stand on furniture legs
because they have no conceptual relationship to the raped environment as Tan himself remarks.
Figure 21 illustrates a grey automated world polluted and filled with grayish rabbits. The gigantic curved
chimneys sucking in blue sky and puffy clouds:
24 Marwa Essam Eldin Fahmi
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049 Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0
Figure 21
Then, the defeated inhabitants pose a number of questions: “where is the rich dark earth brown and moist? Where are the
lakes with long legged-birds? Where is the smell of rain dripping from the trees?” The background of this spread is in full-
saturated dark color to illustrate the land that has become bare and lifeless. Here, utopian past and dystopian present are set
in contrast to dramatize an aesthetic ‘strange metaphor’ of colonial rape of natural and virgin land.
To sum up, Tan's The Rabbits declares itself as “a rich and haunting allegory of colonization suitable for all ages
and cultures”. Tan believes that the subject of colonization is “an event of utter strangeness where two very different
worlds collide. I realized a long time ago that everything is fundamentally strange, but you need some oblique means of
puncturing familiar surfaces to appreciate the strangeness” (Italics mine, “Interview” with Shaun Tan done by Nick
Stathopoulous for the Eidolon magazine). The act of illustrating, for Tan, is “automatism”. He explains that the Surrealists
and Dadaists experiment with making uninhibited marks that are largely “subconscious” – an activity called “automatism”
or “automatic drawing”, like Max Ernst who makes dreamlike images from random mark-making. He adds that the process
is not “a casual or simple one. I find that good drawing requires conscientious effort: active research, careful observation of
things around me, ongoing experimentation and reference gathering, all of which exist ‘behind the scenes’. (Tan,
“Introduction”: 4).
Recapitulations and Perspectives
The compound term “Picturebook” is used in contrast to “picture book” or “picture-book” since the compound
term “recognizes the union of text and art, that results in something beyond what each form separately contributes” (Sipe:
2007, 273). Picturebooks are “print-based, multimodal texts” (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001) manifesting fluid and open forms
embodying lexical and visual signs and codes in an unceasing interaction of word, image and reader. Multimodal means
incorporate a variety of modes including visual images, hypertext and graphic design elements along with written text.
Multimodal texts are complex, sophisticated and challenging. Picturebooks, especially postmodern ones, are multimodal
texts since they highlight “grammar of images” such as gaze, framing, color schemes, typography, and salience. Regarding
the features of postmodern picturebook as a ‘self-referential text, it has a non-linear plot as well as a non-linear format
with a gloomy indeterminate ending, and surreal images. It presents the world as a place of destruction and injustice. The
pages and illustrations are cluttered and require the reader to decipher their intentions. The printed text does not run from
left-to-right as is the structural tradition of English language, and the charactesr are not always attractive while in classic
picturebooks the protagonist resolves his conflict, learns a lesson and the story embraces a happy ending through a clearly
laid-out beginning, middle and end (Italics mine, Goldstone, 366). The use of ‘grammar’ implies the attempt to examine
the ways in which what is depicted in images is combined into a coherent, meaningful whole, in much the same way that
discourse analysts examine how words are combined into clauses, sentences, and whole texts. Kress and van Leeuwen
(1996) use semiotics to analyze the complex composition of images on a page. They have suggested that there are several
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 25 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)
16. Mackey, Margaret (2002). Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit: A Children’s Classic at 100. Lanham, MD: The Scare Crow Press,
Inc.
17. Marsden, John and Tan, Shaun (1998). The Rabbits. Simply Read Books.
18. Mortimer, Nancy (2009). “The Rabbits: Teacher’s Notes”. www.hachettechildrens.com.au
19. Nikolajeva, M. & Scott, C. (2001). How Picture Books Work, New York & London: Garland
20. Painter, Claire (2007). “Children’s Picture Book Narratives: Reading Sequences of Images”. Anne McCabe, Mike &
Whittaker, Rachel, (eds.) Advances in Language and Education. London: Continuum. P. 40-59
21. Potter, Beatrix (1902). The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The Project Gutenberg e-book. (2005, Pdf version)
22. Nodelman, Perry (1988). Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Book, Athens, GA: University of
Georgia Press
23. Scott, C. (1994). “Clothes in Nature or Nature Clothed: Dress as Metaphor in the Illustrations of Beatrix Potter and C. M.
Barker”. Francelia Butter, R. H. W. Dillard, & Elizabeth Lennox Keyser eds. Children’s Literature 22. Hollins Collegue: Yale
UP. p.70 -89
24. ………….. (2001). “An Unusual Hero: Perspective and Point of View in the Tale Peter Rabbit”. Mackey, Margaret. (2002).
Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit: A Children’s Classic at 100. Lanham, MD: The Scare Crow Press, Inc. p. 19-30.
25. Serafini, F. (2012). “Expanding the Four Resources Model: Reading Visual and Multimodal Texts”. Pedagogies: An
International Journal, 7: (2), p. 150-164
26. Sipe, L. R. & Wolfenbarger, C. D. (2007). “A Unique Visual and Literary Art from: Recent Research on Picture books”.
Language Arts 84: (3), p. 273-280
27. Stathopoulous, Nick. (Interviewer) (1999). “Rabbiting On: A Conversation About The Rabbits”, Published in Eidolon
Magazine. Quoted in Motimer’s “Teacher’s Notes” (2009) and also in www.shauntan.net.
28. Stephens, John (1992). Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction, London: Longman.
29. Straub, Philip (2000). “Artist’s Insight: Color Theory Simplified”. www.imagefix.com
30. Unsworth, Len & Wheeler, Janet (2002). “Re-valuing the Role of Images in Reviewing, Picturebooks” Reading 36: (2), p.68-
74
Towards a Visual Discourse in Children’s Picturebooks: Beatrix Potter’s The 27 Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits (1998)