The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit moralizing and stiff illustrations. Most damaging to the book's success are the two rabbits. Both lack the adorable cuteness of Peter Rabbit and his kin. "A Fierce Bad Rabbit" focuses on a traditional rather than a creative approach to storytelling and reflects Potter's inexperience with babies and very young children. She appears to be more interested in naming and designating this or that rather than developing plot and exploring character. She names and directs the child's attention to the rabbit's tail, whiskers, and claws, for example, rather than to the animal's facial expression. When the hunter appears, he is blandly
Rabbit folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies. The rabbit as trickster is a part of American popular culture, as Br'er Rabbit (from African-American folktales and, later, Disney animation) and Bugs Bunny (the cartoon character from Warner Bros.), for example. Anthropomorphized rabbits have appeared in film and literature, in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (the White Rabbit and the March Hare characters), in "Watership Down" (including the film and television adaptations), in "Rabbit Hill" (by Robert Lawson), and in the "Peter Rabbit" stories (by Beatrix Potter). In the 1920s, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", was a