Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Peter, the novel’s quintessential scrappy hero, is a literary archetype. Like fellow literary orphans Oliver Twist, Heidi, Jane Eyre, and Harry Potter, to name but a few, Peter must learn quickly or die. Raised with nearly every disadvantage imaginable by the abusive Mr. Seamus, Peter survives by his wits and his acute senses. Peter becomes the most skilled thief, lock pick, and escape artist the port town has ever seen; his skills then launch him into fantastical adventures and eventually save his life. Auxier paints the port town in which Peter grows up in Dickensian harshness: Not a single resident offers to care for a blind baby found adrift in the sea; named by town magistrates, “he was sent off to make his way in the world” (4); after the tavern owner discovers Peter and the she-cat living underneath his establishment, ties them in a bag and throws them into the harbor. For Peter, survival is literally sink or swim, but early hardships toughen him for the trials to come.

Children’s fantasy literary loves orphans, who often act as proxies for the youthful desire for adventure, independence, and the right to control one’s own destiny. This archetype also touches on something more profound: “That Orphans turn up in children’s literature with regularity may speak to the loneliness that many children feel trying to navigate the world.