Literature Review
The tale of Babar begins with Jean de Brunhoff’s origin story, Histoire de Babar, where we meet baby Babar and his doting mother. Sadly, in an unusually tragic scene for the picture book genre, Babar’s mother is murdered by a wicked hunter, and Babar is left on his own. The resourceful young elephant travels to the city, where he meets “La Vieille Dame” (“The Old Lady”) who becomes both his patron and his substitute mother figure. She buys Babar his signature green suit and melon-colored hat, and he becomes educated both in the world of books and the ways of man. His young cousins, Céleste and Arthur, eventually come to visit Babar, who has transformed himself into a gentleman elephant who walks on two legs. He duplicates the Old Lady’s generosity and buys his cousins clothes and offers them an education. Soon Babar leaves the Old Lady to return to his home among the elephants with Arthur and Céleste. Shortly after Babar arrives back in the jungle, the king of the elephants dies from an accidental ingestion of a poisoned mushroom, and the elephants clamor for Babar to become their new king due to his keen intelligence, education, and human mannerisms. As the new king, Babar nurtures a cultural renascence among the elephants, bringing human customs and technology to their lands. He marries his cousin Céleste and makes her queen, naming the new capital Célesteville in her honor. Further books by Jean de Brunhoff expand Babar’s circle of friends to include such characters as Cornelius, his wise and aged advisor; Pom, Alexander, Flora, and Isabelle, Babar’s children; and Zephir, the prince of the monkeys and a close family friend who lives with the Old Lady. After assuming control of the Babar legacy, Laurent de Brunhoff’s stories initially followed the same narrative style, with Laurent seeking to duplicate his father’s artistic patterns. However, over the course of his expanding list of titles, Laurent has contemporized Babar for both educational and entertainment purposes. As a result, while the artwork remains faithful to Jean’s original pictorial sensibilities, several of the newer stories themselves serve tutorial purposes, teaching aspects of language and natural sciences. Such titles include Babar’s Yoga for Elephants (2002), Babar Goes to School (2003), and Babar’s Museum of Art (2003). Additionally, while Laurent continues to pen Babar stories with themes reminiscent of his father’s books, the plots are generally looser, taking Babar on a wide range of adventures across many foreign countries and, on one occasion, the moon.
MAJOR THEMES
Despite their intended audience of young readers, the Babar books often depict a wide range of strongly emotional themes that—while atypical for picture books—are indicative of heroic allegories. Jean de Brunhoff’s early stories, meant to serve as the foundational blocks for the continuing Babar saga, evince particularly surprising levels of emotional depth and frank depictions of tragedy. Histoire de Babar originates with a young Babar bonding with his mother in several deliberately tender images, a scene that is suddenly jarred by the depiction of the loss of his mother at the hands of the hunter. Within this same book, further harrowing elements emerge, such as the death of Babar’s predecessor from a poisoned mushroom and the threat of war with the neighboring rhinoceroses. And yet, in the gentle hands of de Brunhoff and Babar himself, the reader can feel secure that the resourceful elephant will somehow emerge triumphant. Harry C. Payne has suggested that this willingness to venture into difficult emotional territory is “in part a father’s way of talking to his children about the world, its anxieties, and its powers of restoration. It is, no doubt, in part the work of someone who instinctively knew not to hide trouble from children but, in the end, wanted to reassure and amuse them.” Many scholars have noted that de Brunhoff’s awareness of his impending death unquestionably contributed to the frank paternalistic themes that transformed Babar from a struggling orphan into a mentor figure for his young readers. Famed picture book author Maurice Sendak has argued that Jean’s “devotion to family and the circumstances of life that produced Babar must account for the special power and honest sentiment that are the essence of de Brunhoff’s work.” Some critics, such as Bettina Hürlimann, have even theorized that the more paternalistic books in de Brunhoff’s later canon might not have been written had the author been healthier.
Another major theme throughout the Babar series is the elaborate social strata within the animal communities, comparable to the human society of Babar’s “Old Lady.” Annie Pissard has noted that, “In Babar two worlds interrelate: the town and the jungle.” Babar’s return to his animal compatriots drives a seeming tidal shift in the world of animals. Bringing home mankind’s culture, the elephants advance quickly, leaving their more primitive homes and society behind them to build a shining new city on a hill. Some species are almost on par with the humans, though clearly a step behind culturally and technologically, such as the elephants and the rhinoceroses. Edmund Leach suggests a hierarchy of species exists, with man, monkey, rhino, and elephant situated at the top. Beneath them are what he terms the “servile” classes, a status represented by de Brunhoff’s depiction of hippos, kangaroos, and dromedaries working as assistants to the higher classes. Farther down the scale are lesser-humanized animals; wild beasts, such as snakes who seem to lack social intelligence; and finally the “domestic animals” like dogs and cats, the animal pets to the humans in Paris who lack anything other than basic intelligence. Arguably, these classifications invite comparisons to the colonialism and social stratification that were emblematic of the period. Whether these ideals were intentional in de Brunhoff’s molding of his elephantine-centered universe remains cause for speculation, although no definitive proof exists. Still critics such as Hildebrand believe “Célesteville is a model for an ideal world based on a real one, many of whose bourgeois values Jean believed in and wanted to perpetuate.”
CRITICAL RECEPTION
A large presence throughout much of the twentieth century, the de Brunhoffs’ Babar stories have been applauded for altering the picture book landscape irrevocably upon their release in the 1930s, with many critics arguing that they represent the origins of the modern picture book. Maurice Sendak has commented that, “Babar is at the very heart of my conception of what turns a picture book into a work of art. The graphics are tightly linked to the ‘loose’ prose-poetry, remarkable for its ease of expression.” The Babar books, particularly the early works by Jean de Brunhoff, have been repeatedly commended for their easy narrative style and strong emotional impact. In her 1933 review of de Brunhoff’s first two Babar volumes, Marguerite MacKellar remarked, “Lucky youngsters, to have had their tastes so cleverly considered.” However, the somewhat dated belief system evident in the earlier Babar books has given some critics pause. Scholars such as Edmund Leach have suggested that the series is rife with colonialist and social elitist themes, arguing that, for de Brunhoff, it was “important that the comfortable bourgeois adult readers should not have their basic assumptions about social relationships in any way disturbed. Babar has the prejudices of a middle class colon of the 1930s.” Those who agree with such readings have further asserted that Babar’s period philosophical bent makes the series potentially inappropriate for contemporary audiences. Herbert Kohl has found Histoire de Babar particularly worrisome because it represents the “perfect model of the genre of illustrated children’s books meant to be read aloud. And, if offensive, it is a masterpiece of propaganda, since it is easy to accept the whole of it unquestioned and even to internalize some of the attitudes and ideas it presents.” Nonetheless, the Babar books have remained internationally popular and, despite charges of Jean de Brunhoff’s alleged endorsement of colonialism, his early Babar texts have endured as the most popular works of the series. Laurent de Brunhoff’s picture books have never received the same critical praise as Jean’s works, although many have credited Laurent for widely expanding and enriching the literary universe created by his father. In attempting to summarize the innate qualities of Babar that have aided his enduring legacy, Annie Pissard has suggested that, “Whatever their individual differences, their particular richness, the pictures of Babar over a history spanning some fifty years are strong and sweet images that imprint themselves in the memory, carrying dreams with them.”