Pippi Longstocking, There's no one like her!

 

All photos of book artwork by @melodyh_s

I was recently reading Pippi Longstocking, and I delighted in the interesting though experiment of comparing her with Peter Pan. In some ways, she is the female counterpart to him. They are both resolutely insistent upon their state of childhood. Peter Pan, by definition, does not grow up. For Pippi, it is ultimately her series of childrens' tales the define her by her performance of childhood.

What was most interesting to me in contrasting the two children was the kinds of games that they like to play. Peter Pan "plays" doctor, family, school, war, and many others similar. It is often unclear to those around him whether or not Peter understands these to be games and not reality. 

Half of Pippi's fun is in the stories she tells. Sometimes, she admits that these are lies, and therefore appears to know the difference between real and make-believe. The other half of Pippi's fun is ordinary child's play with extraordinary twists. These twists are only possible with the unbelievable amount of freedom Pippi has; without a family, without school, without all the social roles young women are usually accustomed to being raised with.

Unlike Pippi, Peter's games revolve around filling these roles. As much as he says that he never wants to grow up, he seems to desperately like pretending to. While this irony makes sense for the story of Peter Pan, I also think that gender partially provides some context for these differences.

Both Pippi and Peter exemplify a fantastical freedom of childhood. For boys, social roles are more freeing. They are chances for Peter to be powerful, then run off from these starting points on fabulous adventures. For girls, these roles are more constraining, and restrict Pippi's freedom to be herself. I won't go on anymore, but it was fun for me to think back to the make believe games of my childhood in this stream of thought. I encourage you to do the same.