“There’s Kanga : she isn’t Clever, Kanga isn’t, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a good thing to do without thinking about it.” : heteronormativity and gender roles in A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

Abstract

This thesis examines the heteronormativity and gender roles in A. A. Milne’s popular children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). The research question is “To what extent is A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) portraying heterosexuality as norm?” Winnie-the-Pooh (Milne, 1926) was used as a data corpus and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) model of thematic analysis. One of the main themes examined was masculinity, which was further divided into themes such as social hierarchy and active boys. Another main theme was femininity, which examines Winnie-the-Pooh’s (Milne, 1926) only female character Kanga as a mother and as a passive and less intelligent character. The findings of this thesis suggest that A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) portrays heterosexuality as norm for most part of the data corpus.