The Velveteen Rabbit
[Under development: 8 June 2005]
In The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams explores something of the nature of love. She recognises how love can lead to a deep openness and honesty.
· In what ways has love shaped and changed the person you are?
· In what ways has an absence, or a withdrawal, of love shaped and changed the person you are?
· How transparent are you to
1. the people who love you?
2. people who barely know you?
extract from The Velveteen Rabbit
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has dropped out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
by Margery Williams
