The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Carole Scott, a literary scholar and critic, wrote in her essay “An Unusual Hero: Perspective and Point of View in The Tale of Peter Rabbit” (2002) that she thought Potter's story was about a naughty hero with a proper moral at the end. However, she remarked that Potter used many different ways to make the reader feel sympathetic for Peter. Though he made his mother unhappy by disobeying her, stole, escaped from authority (Mr. McGregor), and did not get any punishment except a stomach-ache, Potter makes us feel sorry for him. She thought the greatest conflict in the tale was between the order of society and the forces that tried to go against it—between those who have things and those who want things, and between humans and animal nature. She felt that Peter was a symbol of “rebellion”.