My adventures in parenthood continue, hence the recent lack
of posts. Along with the nappy changes, bathing, beard-pulling, finger-gumming
and the frankly bewildering quantity and variety of bodily fluids produced by
this tiny humanoid, there has also been the opportunity to read lots of
children’s books.
We have recently become acquainted
with a large portion of Julia Donaldson’s corpus (The Highway Rat and Room on
the Broom being a couple of my (um, I mean his) favourites). It’s also been an opportunity to reunite with a
few books from my own tiny-personhood, including Each Peach Pear Plum, and Hairy
Mclairy.
One of the books I have read to my son is one that was my
absolute favourite as a micro-human. It’s The
Elephant and Bad Baby, by Elfrida Vipont, illustrated by Raymond Briggs.
It is my opinion that this is one of the finest pieces of
prose ever written in the English language, a rich piece of surrealist art with
a solid moral and a memorable refrain. However, in re-reading it with eyes
rather older and more jaded than before, I’ve realised that a considerable sea
of subtext roils beneath the apparently placid surface.
The richness of the text demands a deeper and fuller
analysis, a broader and wider interrogation of its themes and ideas, than a
mere surface reading would allow. In these days of Brexit and border walls, a
fresh examination of this seminal work would, I believe, have significant
value. On the surface it’s a simple, albeit highly surreal, lesson on manners.
In this study I intend to show that the Elephant
and the Bad Baby actually represents an incisive exposé of the politics
of division, and the establishment’s use of systematic othering as a method of
deflecting criticism and defending the social and political structures that
maintain a wealthy elite at the expense of the proletariat.
WARNING: IF YOU’VE NOT YET READ THE ELEPHANT AND THE BAD BABY, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW.
To summarise the story, an elephant one day decides to go
for a walk through what appears to be an industrial town in the north of
England in the 1950s or 60s. Soon after setting off, he meets a baby sitting by
himself in the middle of the road. We are immediately informed that this is a
Bad Baby, although as yet he has done nothing to deserve this epithet.
Apparently Ms Vipont doesn’t follow the maxim of ‘show don’t tell’.
The elephant offers the baby a ride. The baby curtly
accepts, the elephant picks him up, sets him on his back and they go rumpeta
rumpeta rumpeta, all down the road. This is not the last time that they will do
this.
They soon come across an ice cream stand, and the elephant
asks if the baby would like an ice-cream. Again the baby offers a curt
acceptance. The elephant takes an ice cream for himself, an ice-cream for the
baby, and they go rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta, all down the road.
Eagle-eyed readers will have realised that they did this
without paying for the ice creams. The ice-cream man certainly realises this,
and chases after them angrily.
The elephant outpaces the ice-cream man sufficiently that
when they come to a butcher’s shop, the scene can be repeated, only this time
with pork pies. The elephant takes one for himself, one for the baby, and they
go rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta, all down the road. Now though they are pursued by
not only the ice-cream man, who by now has caught up, but also the butcher, who
is wielding a meat-cleaver.
The scene repeats itself at a baker, snack bar, a grocer’s,
a sweet shop, and a fruit barrow. Each time the elephant takes an item for
himself, an item for the baby, and goes rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta, all down the
road with an ever-growing posse of angry shopkeepers, some of them armed,
chasing after.
We now learn why the baby is Bad. It is now that the
elephant realises that throughout this whole process, the baby has not once
said please. He stops so suddenly that the baby goes flying off his back onto
the road, and the posse chasing close behind run straight into the back of the
elephant and fall in a heap. By some miracle, none of them are hurt.
The elephant complains loudly at the baby’s lack of manners,
and the posse pick themselves up and commiserate, expressing their shock at the
baby’s rudeness. The baby asks (politely) to be taken home to his mummy. The
elephant picks him up, puts him on his back and goes thrice rumpeta all down
the road. The posse continue to chase them, some of them still brandishing
weapons.
They get to the baby’s house, where his mummy offers
everybody pancakes for tea. They politely accept, then everybody leaves. The
elephant rumpetas all down the road, the shopkeepers run off (still waving
weapons) and the baby, having learnt a salutary lesson in basic courtesy, goes
to bed.
That’s the story as it first appears, but I believe a deeper
analysis of the work is possible, nay desirable.
Firstly then, what does the eponymous pachyderm represent? I
would argue that the elephant represents the bourgeoisie, the establishment operated
by a wealthy elite which includes high-level business people, press barons and
financiers in addition to the traditional aristocracy and political classes. It
might be going too far to suggest that Ms. Vipont was thinking of the
traditional symbol of the Republican party in America when she wrote this work.
Then again, it might not.
The elephant decides to take a stroll. However, unpleasant
details immediately intrude on his comfortable world. A small but intrusive
presence sits in his way. The book was first published in 1969, so I think it
most likely that the baby represents immigration, but a modern reading might
identify the Bad Baby as being any kind of identifiable minority.
Initially, the elephant is apparently kind. ‘Would you like
a ride?’. Surprised and pleased by this unexpected offer, the baby immediately
accepts. Rumpeta rumpeta rupeta, all down the road.
Now though, the apparently benevolent elephant reveals a
little of his true intentions. ‘Would you like an ice-cream?’ Another generous
offer. Of course the baby would. He’d like a pie, a bun, a packet of crisps, a
chocolate biscuit, a lollipop and an apple too, when each of these is
generously offered in turn.
However, the elephant has not paid for any of these things,
and has no intention of doing so. More, he takes two of each thing, suggesting
that he only ever offers the baby things that he wants himself. An angry mob
quickly builds. The various shopkeepers of course represent the native working
class. They are butchers, bakers, grocers, market stall owners. Ordinary, decent,
hard-working people. The elephant seizes the fruits of their labour and rushes
away without a word. Understandably angry, opposition starts to grow.
Soon the elephant can’t ignore the growing, increasingly
angry backlash to his repeated depredations, his stripping away of the working
class’s hard-won but meagre wealth. He stops so suddenly that his pursuers run
into the back of him, losing all organisation and direction in their surprise.
Now for a piece of masterful deflection. ‘He never once said
please!’ the elephant cries, pointing accusingly at the fallen baby. The shopkeepers
pick themselves up, and immediately fall for the elephant’s trick. ‘How
terrible! He never once said please!’ Swept up with moral indignation, the
thefts and the chase are already forgotten. The illustration on this page is
particularly revealing. The baby sits huddled miserably on the ground. On one
side of him is the elephant, frowning and pointing accusingly with his trunk.
On the other are the assembled proletariat, all also frowning and pointing
accusingly. The elephant has taken the anger of the mob and deftly turned it
away from himself.
The people have, in a flash, forgotten that it was the
elephant that stole their produce. They have forgotten that every time, the
elephant kept half of the stolen goods for himself. All they are focused on now
is this small, defenceless individual who has marked himself as an outsider by
failing to follow cultural norms that he was in all likelihood honestly
ignorant of. Apparently, the fact that the baby didn’t say please is of far
greater weight in the minds of the shopkeepers than the fact that the elephant
has stolen their goods and led them on a chase all around the town. The fact
that the baby merely accepted what was offered to him is forgotten, or goes
unnoticed.
The baby has no defence, no recourse. ‘Please,’ he begs
belatedly trying to assimilate himself, ‘I want to go home to my mummy’. With
exaggerated magnanimity, the elephant agrees. He picks him back up and takes
him home. Here, faced with an angry elephant and an armed mob, the baby’s mummy
has no choice but to adopt a cheerful facade and attempt to appease her child’s
persecutors. Her offerings are immediately seized upon and devoured, both by
the establishment and the proletariat.
The subtext is clear. ‘Ignore the misuse and
misappropriation of public funds,’ the elephant cries. ‘Ignore the inflated
salaries of CEOs, the off-shore tax havens, the legal loopholes that allow the
rich to grow richer from the work of the ordinary person, while they struggle
with rent increases, price inflation and stagnant wages. Look over there! Look
at that person! They’re different to us! Their ways are not our ways, their
customs are not our customs! They have benefitted from our generosity. They
have eaten the food that you have made, and you have received nothing in
return. Is this fair? Is this just? Will you accept this state of affairs for a
second longer? No!’ And to their shame, the proletariat fall for the deception
and turn their wrath on the minority. It is far easier to believe the elephant
and take out their frustrations on a target that can’t fight back than to
question him, and risk shaking the foundations of their world, no matter how
badly they might need shaking.
Once the minority has suffered the misplaced wrath of the
majority, the elephant gallops away without punishment, and the workers return
to their businesses, temporarily sated and convinced that justice has been
done. And, as the last line of the book goes, the Bad Baby went to bed.
Elfrida Vipont’s bitter satire is more relevant today than
it was when it was written. A surface reading presents the elephant as the
put-upon protagonist, and the baby as the ill-mannered antagonist. A more
rigorous examination flips these roles around. The elephant is a cunning,
silver-tongued rogue, using his benevolent public image and powers of
persuasion and rhetoric to obfuscate his crimes and protect his vested
interests. The baby becomes the innocent protagonist, as much a victim as the
hard-working men and women whose goods the elephant steals, if not more so.
Unlike Yurtle the
Turtle, Dr Seuss’ famous essay on
the need for Marxist revolution, this is not a call to action. It is a
condemnation of the easily swayed and easily distracted public, a raw look at
the ease with which ruling elites can create scapegoats, and the way in which
the mob will eagerly fall on them. With The
Elephant and the Bad Baby Elfrida Vipont holds a mirror up in front of us
and asks us to confront our fear of the other, our tendency to lash out, the
ease with which we are manipulated, and the injustices that occur as a result.
And she never once said please.