Bears and Belonging: Environmental Change and Identity in Pooh and Paddington
Presenter Bio
Brittani Allen is a PhD student at Cardiff University. She specialises in Victorian studies and children's literature. Focused on environmental literature for children, her thesis analyses nineteenth century works depicting fantasy worlds. It explores how characters promote sustainability and cohabitation between humans and nonhumans, thus advocating for a harmonious future.
Session
Social and Emotional Support Characters
Start Date
12-7-2026 1:45 PM
End Date
12-7-2026 3:00 PM
Abstract
My paper examines how changes in one’s environment shapes identity behaviour, which requires one to adapt to the new environment in Winnie-the-Pooh and A Bear Called Paddington. Both texts begin with their main characters, bears, in one environment before relocating them to another, forcing them to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings. In Winnie-the-Pooh, the implied movement from the controlled environment of the London Zoo to the freedom of the Hundred Acre Wood represents a shift away from human authority toward a community governed by its own internal logic. Pooh’s challenges centre on friendship, cooperation, and social harmony, suggesting that adaptation depends on emotional intelligence and communal coexistence.
Whereas, Paddington’s journey from “deepest darkest Peru” to London places him in a structured domestic society shaped by strict social expectations. As an outsider, he must learn etiquette and cultural practices in order to gain acceptance, creating humour and tension. Whilst Pooh adapts to nature-oriented community life, Paddington adapts to urban domesticity. These texts demonstrate how children’s literature uses environmental displacement to explore identity, belonging, and personal growth. Ultimately, I chose to pair these two texts, because they promote the idea that while environments impose certain ideas regarding animals and bears, they also provide opportunities for the redefinition of the self, as well as growth and connection to nature and one’s place in the environment, whether that environment is natural or retreating from nature to a domestic space.
Bears and Belonging: Environmental Change and Identity in Pooh and Paddington
My paper examines how changes in one’s environment shapes identity behaviour, which requires one to adapt to the new environment in Winnie-the-Pooh and A Bear Called Paddington. Both texts begin with their main characters, bears, in one environment before relocating them to another, forcing them to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings. In Winnie-the-Pooh, the implied movement from the controlled environment of the London Zoo to the freedom of the Hundred Acre Wood represents a shift away from human authority toward a community governed by its own internal logic. Pooh’s challenges centre on friendship, cooperation, and social harmony, suggesting that adaptation depends on emotional intelligence and communal coexistence.
Whereas, Paddington’s journey from “deepest darkest Peru” to London places him in a structured domestic society shaped by strict social expectations. As an outsider, he must learn etiquette and cultural practices in order to gain acceptance, creating humour and tension. Whilst Pooh adapts to nature-oriented community life, Paddington adapts to urban domesticity. These texts demonstrate how children’s literature uses environmental displacement to explore identity, belonging, and personal growth. Ultimately, I chose to pair these two texts, because they promote the idea that while environments impose certain ideas regarding animals and bears, they also provide opportunities for the redefinition of the self, as well as growth and connection to nature and one’s place in the environment, whether that environment is natural or retreating from nature to a domestic space.