THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

by Kenneth Grahame

Adapted for the Stage by

Michael O'Brien

Janet Mitchko

Christopher Schario

Produced by The Public Theatre

A Study Guide by

Martin Andrucki

Charles A. Dana Professor of Theater

Bates College

I. THE AUTHORS: (The following biographical sketch of Kenneth Grahame is quoted from the website www.kirjasto.sci.fi)

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)

English bank official, writer, author of The Wind in the Willows (1908), set in the idyllic English countryside. The work established Grahame's international reputation as a writer of children's books and has deeply influenced fantasy literature. . . . Grahame also published essays, stories, andcollections of sketches.

. . . . Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh, as the son of a lawyer from an old Scottish family. Due to the alcoholism of his father, Grahame was brought up by elderly relatives. In the early years he lived with his family in the Western highlands. When his mother died of scarlet fever, the children were sent to live with their maternal grandmother in the village of Cookham Dene, Berkshire. Her house, set in a large garden by the River Thames, provided the background of The Wind in the Willows. . . . .

Grahame was educated at St. Edward's School, Oxford. His plans to go to Oxford University were thwarted by his uncle, who was acting his guardian, and in 1879 he entered the Bank Of England. While pursuing his career at the bank, Grahame began composing light nonfiction pieces as a pastime. He contributed articles to such journals as the St. James Gazette, W.E. Henley's National Observer and The Yellow Book. Grahame's stories about a group of orphaned children were published in PAGAN PAPERS (1893). In 1895 appeared THE GOLDEN AGE, a collection of sketches from his published works. It was followed by DREAM DAYS in 1898, which included Grahame's most famous short story, 'The Reluctant Dragon'. . . .

Grahame was appointed as the secretary at the Bank and in 1899 he married Elspeth Thomson, whose snobbish attitudes Grahame did not share. Living in a disastrous marriage, Grahame wrote parts of The Wind in the Willows originally in a letter form to his young son Alistair. He was born blind in one eye and withsevere squint in the other. Grahame did not intend to publish the stories; they were partly educational for his son, whose excesses of behavior had similaritieswith Toad. After his manuscript was rejected by an American publisher, the book appeared in 1908 in England. First it was received with mild enthusiasm, butE.H. Shephard's illustration and Grahame's animal characterizations soon gained fame. In 1929 A.A. Milne dramatized it as Toad of Toad Hall. Milne focused on the animals, cutting out most of Grahame's romantic fantasy.

The Wind in the Willows reflected the author's unhappiness in the real world - his riverbank woods and fields were ''clean of the clash of sex,'' as he said to Theodore Roosevelt. . . .

After the publication of the book, Grahame retired from his work because of health reasons or under pressure from his employees. He spent the rest of his life with his wife in idleness. Alistair committed suicide while an undergraduate at Oxford two days before his 20th birthday - he was killed by a train. Grahame stopped writing after WW I. He died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on July 6, 1932.

THE ADAPTORS.

Michael O'Brien. Insert his program bio here.

Janet Mitchko. ditto.

Christopher Schario. ditto.

II. THE SETTING. The Wind in the Willows takes place in an imaginary world resembling rural England in the late nineteenth century. There are farms and fields, riverbanks and horse ponds, small towns with cozy inns and larger towns with courts and prisons. Above all there are the Wild Wood and the Wide World. The last two are confusing places, the Wood being populated by creatures both benign and threatening, and the World being a place that, in the words of one of the main characters, "doesn't matter. . . . I've never been there, and I'm never going." Home base for the denizens of Grahame's universe, then, is a snug and safe enclave nestled between the menace of the fairy-tale forest and the bafflements of adult reality.

This cozy slice of imaginary England, located on the cusp between a quaint Victorian past and a mechanized new century, is home to both horse-drawn Gypsy caravans--something like motor homes without the motors--and furiously racing automobiles. Inhabitants of stately homes lead leisurely and privileged lives, even though they are merely toads rather than mammalian English gentlemen, while Badgers, Rats, and Moles, dozing in front of their fires, lunching sumptuously, and canoeing on the river, enjoy the secure prosperity of a nation at the height of its power.

Like so many works of fantasy, then, The Wind in the Willows makes its extravagant impossibilities believable by surrounding them with prosaic detail: thus, talking animals who drive cars live, not in a world of fairy dust and magic, but amid a welter of waistcoats, galoshes, overstuffed chairs, and sandwiches. Just like us, only with paws.

III. THE PLOT. The Wind in the Willows is a loosely-connected collection of adventures that befall its four major characters: Mole, Rat, Badger, and most of all, Toad.

The first of these adventures involves Mole and Rat. Inspired by the lure of spring, Mole forsakes his burrow and decides to explore the world. He meets Rat, who takes him boating on the river, and even allows him to row. Beside himself with excitement, Mole, who has never seen a river before, much less been in a boat, applies himself to the oars too enthusiastically, loses his balance, and capsizes the boat, soaking both him and Rat. Shamed by his bumptiousness and ineptitude, Mole apologizes, is forgiven, and taken home by Rat, who regales him with supper and "thrilling" stories. Mole and Rat become fast friends, sharing Rat's house, and embarking on further adventures.

Their next sortie takes them to Toad Hall where, naturally, they meet Toad, a wealthy amphibian who exists in a constant state of enthusiasm bordering on dementia. On the day of their visit, Toad invites them to come wandering with him in his Gypsy caravan, his latest obsession. However, Toad is soon won over to an even newer mania: a passion for automobiles--still newfangled contraptions in 1908. Toad soon becomes a sort of motorcar addict, buying and smashing-up vehicles in an orgy of recklessness that sets his friends worrying about his sanity and his finances.

But before they intervene, winter sets in, and brings with it another adventure for Mole. Longing to meet Badger, he sets off alone to find his house in the Wild Wood. But as he stumbles along, it begins to grow dark, and he hears strange sounds and sees frightening sights among the trees. Lost and discouraged, he curls up in a bunch of leaves and hopes for the best. Meanwhile Rat, who had been napping by the fire when Mole set off, wakes up, realizes what his inexperienced friend has done, and sets off into the Wood to find and rescue him. By the time Rat discovers Mole, deep darkness has set in and it has begun to snow. Now both are lost and cold, and when mole injures his leg on a sharp-edged object in the underbrush, things look very bad. But Rat realizes that that sharp object must be something out of the ordinary. He sets himself to digging, and discovers that the sharp edge that injured Mole belongs to the hardware on the door of Badger's house. They ring his bell, are admitted, and are saved from the dire cold and dark of the winter night.

It is during their visit with Badger that the friends resolve to do something about Toad's alarming fascination with automobiles--but only once the winter is over. While waiting for the seasons to change, Mole and Rat accidentally stumble across Mole's old house, which the suddenly homesick Mole persuades Rat to visit. Finding the place plain, but very snug, the two friends settle in for an extended visit, spending the holidays there being sung to by caroling mice.

Eventually warm weather returns, and Badger summons Rat and Mole to take Toad in hand. They descend on Toad Hall, where they find their friend still in the throes of his automotive passion. In fact, his passion for cars has grown into something like an addiction, and the three friends must forcibly tear Toad away from his newest car, and lock him up in his room, where they subject him to a severe regimen of withdrawal from the mechanical drug that has taken over his life.

But Toad is too clever for them. Feigning terminal illness, he tricks Mole, whose turn it is to guard him, into going into the village to seek medical help. Immediately, Toad breaks free, and takes to the road. While stopping for lunch at an inn, he notices the arrival of an automobile, whose owners also stop to eat. Unable to restrain himself, Toad, in a kind of trance, steals their car and takes off on a mad dash through the countryside. Unfortunately for him, he is arrested, brought to trial, convicted, and sentenced to twenty years in prison for his misdeeds.

Ever determined, Toad arranges an escape disguised as an old washerwoman. He manages to board a train traveling to his home village, but soon finds himself pursued by the authorities. Leaping from the locomotive, he makes a mad dash through woods and fields, eluding the police. Finding himself free, he sings a song of self-praise, and hitches a ride in yet another motor-car, which turns out to be the very same one he had stolen on the fatal day of his arrest. Unrecognized by the drivers because he is still disguised, and now beyond all self-restraint, he steals the car again, driving it into a horse-pond, and then fleeing to the river, where he is rescued by the ever-reliable Rat. At which point, it seems, his pursuers give up the chase.

Despite his restored liberty, however, all is not well for Toad. During his absence in prison his home, Toad Hall, has been invaded by squatters--stoats and weasels--who now rule Toad's own roost. Together Toad, Rat, Badger, and Mole plan and execute a daring invasion of Toad Hall, fighting a mock-heroic battle which restores the manor to its rightful owner. Following which, the four friends settle down to a quiet life of comfort, companionship, and even adulation as the victors of the battle of Toad Hall.

IV. THE CHARACTERS

We first meet Mole who, true to his nature, has led a blinkered existence confined to his underground home. But the allure of spring leads him to poke his nose into the wider world, which draws him irresistibly on. Thus, caution and hesitation are balanced in his character by a tentative spirit of adventure. When Rat takes him boating, he tosses all restraint overboard for a moment, and surrenders to his most reckless impulses. But when his recklessness results in the capsizing of the boat, he is appropriately repentant, having understood the folly of his behavior. This is the general pattern we find in Mole's character: caution giving way to impulse, resulting in minor disaster and remorse. He makes mistakes, but he also acknowledges and corrects them. Mole is a tractable fellow.

Rat has none of Mole's inner tensions or outer confusions. Rather he is a self-confidently balanced character, with a calm and forgiving temperament. Thus, when Mole upsets his boat he doesn't lose his temper or chastise his little friend. Instead he says, "That's all right. Don't you think any more about it. What's a little wet to a Water Rat?" He then offers to take Mole into his own home, acting as a mentor to the inexperienced creature. "I can make you comfortable," he promises, "and I'll teach you to row, and to swim, and you'll soon be as handy on the water as any of us." If Mole is an adolescent in search of wise guidance, Rat is the adult who provides it.

Badger is a degree wiser, still, something like an older brother or an uncle to Rat. He lives in the Wild Wood, but does not partake of its more alarming and threatening qualities. Unlike the weasels and stoats who also make their homes their, Badger is deeply civilized and companionable: a quiet, settled, phlegmatic sort of creature. But when the chips are down, he can be a formidable figure: a leader of his friends, and a scourge to his enemies. We see this in his response to the weasel/stoat takeover of Toad Hall. Resolute and resourceful, Badger organizes the liberating forces, planning the invasion, acquiring weapons, and standing at the forefront of the battle. Without his courage and ingenuity, the interlopers would never have been dislodged.

Toad is the opposite of Rat and Badger; he is a perpetual infant, a creature who knows no self-restraint, who acknowledges no bounds to his enthusiasms and desires. When we first meet him he is obsessed by his dream of traveling the open road in his gypsy caravan. Then, before our eyes, in an instant, he loses all interest in the caravan and falls in love with an automobile. Thenceforth, motorcars become his ruling passion, leading him eventually to crime and disgrace. And yet, despite the reprimands of his friends and the punishments of the law, Toad remains blissfully unrepentant for his follies. Indeed, heaped on top of his boundless impetuousness is a towering pride, a sense of superiority that leads him to proclaim, "What a clever Toad I am! There is no animal equal to me in the whole world! . . . Ho, ho! I am the Toad, the handsome, the popular, the successful Toad!"

V. THE THEMES

The Wind in the Willows was written to instruct and delight Kenneth Grahame's only son, an unhappy boy whose Toad-like recklessness evidently troubled his father. The book's delight lies in the idea of badgers and rats behaving like eccentric characters out of Dickens. So do its instructive qualities.

Imagining animals as people is an ancient human pleasure, stretching as far back as storytelling itself and continuing down to the present. Not only children's literature, but adult fiction like Watership Down, attest to the thriving appeal of this genre.

Why is this so? Possibly because in animals we think we see in bold relief certain "characteristics" that complex humans rarely exhibit so clearly. Indeed, the word "character," in its root sense, is all about such boldness and simplification. "Character" is derived from a Greek original meaning something like "sharp stick," used for etching identifying marks on one's livestock or other belongings. This mark came to be known as a "character," and "character" in turn came to mean a shorthand expression of identity, a distillation of the essential features of an object, a place, or a person. We can see this when we call somebody a "character." What we usually mean is that that person stands out because of a set of vivid quirks--clear markings--that simplify him in our minds and set him apart from others.

Animals seem to be especially quirky. Thus, we "characterize" foxes as sly, turtles as slow, roosters as cocky, and snakes as "more subtile than any beast of the field." This makes their interplay in anthropomorphic stories an engaging theater of archetypes, a match-up of pure contrasts and opposites, and this explains our delight in such narratives.

Grahame, however, plays a different game in The Wind in the Willows. And here we see one of its instructive features. His Rat has none of the "characteristics" most of us associate with such a beast. He shows no slithery affinity for dark corners, no sneaky desire to invade our private spaces. Instead, Rat is a bluff and hearty English gentleman of the old school--friendly, outgoing, generous. And Toad, far from exhibiting an amphibian's cold-bloodedness and torpor, is a dynamo of fierce emotions and passionate attachments. By thus upsetting our expectations, the author infuses the work with a message of open-mindedness: namely that we shouldn't judge books by their covers, nor should we assign character on the basis of mere appearance. Instead we should wait and see what sort of person actually lies within the figure we see before us. By their actions, not by their looks, shall you judge them.

Further instruction is to be gleaned from the contrast between Mole and Toad. Surely Grahame was hoping his wayward son would see the difference. Mole, though he has his foolish moments, is open to change and amendment. After capsizing Rat's boat, he learns the ways of the river. After blundering into the Wild Wood, he learns the cost of rashness. Toad, however, never learns. He simply plunges from excess to excess in a blur of madness. There is only the present moment for Toad, only the instant of immediate gratification. He represents the antithesis of deferral, of moderation, of prudence, of all the quiet virtues that mark the English countryside. So, of course, we should recoil from him with moral disapproval.

But, in fact, we do not. On the contrary, Toad is the star of the show, an unfillable gullet of appetite, an unstoppable dynamo of impulse, in short, an outsized comic hero. We don't recoil from Toad; we envy his conscience-free indulgence of his boundless desires. Alas, it seems Toad also failed to work as a moral warning to Grahame's son.

VI. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What do you expect a rat to be like? Is the character, Rat, like that?

2. What about a toad, a mole, or a badger?

3. Why does Toad love automobiles so much?

4. Do you like stories in which animals behave like humans? Why? Why not? What are some examples of such stories?

5. What does the word "character" mean?

6. What do you mean when you call somebody a "character?" Is it different from your answer to #5?

7. Are Toad and Mole similar in any ways? Different? How?

8. What about Badger and Rat?

9. Why are the characters uninterested in the Wide World?

10. What is the meaning of the title?