Literature: The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck is a children's book by Beatrix Potter.Jemima Puddle-Duck wants nothing more than to raise her own brood of ducklings; unfortunately, the humans running the farm where she lives always take her eggs away and give them to a hen to raise. Jemima hatches a plan to lay some eggs at a secret location away from the farm and receives assistance from a generous sandy-whiskered gentleman, who may not be quite as altruistic as he seems.
Provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Jemima's sandy-whiskered "friend" is unfailingly polite, even when implying that he'd like to eat Jemima's rival, the hen.
- An Aesop: Don't judge people by their superficial appearances, and if a stranger randomly offers you help, he might have a nefarious ulterior motive.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The sandy-whiskered man is a perfect gentleman who generously offers Jemima a place to lay her eggs and brings her food so that she doesn't have to leave her nest, because he wants to eat her and her eggs.
- Bittersweet Ending: The dogs rescue Jemima from the foxy gentleman, but they also eat all of her eggs. However, she gets to raise her next batch of eggs.
- The Cameo: The Fox here is very similar, to Mr. Tod. Heck, even his stick house is the same.
- Cunning Like a Fox: The sandy-whiskered gentleman, although he didn't have to try very hard given how ditzy Jemima is.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A charming secretly-evil gentleman befriends a naive trusting woman specifically because he wants to prey on her and her young children. The fox in this story comes across like an allegory for a sexual predator or a serial killer.
- Dramatic Irony: The whole story runs on this trope, since the audience is aware from the get-go that Jemima's gentleman friend is a fox. The biggest example is how the story never calls the villain a "fox," even though he clearly is one, because it's being told from Jemima's point-of-view.
- Evil Is Sexy: In-universe, Jemima notes that the sandy-whiskered gentleman is quite handsome.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Jemima. The narrator even pokes fun at her cluelessness towards the end: "Jemima was a simpleton; not even the mention of sage and onions made her suspicious."
- Law of Inverse Fertility: A variation: Jemima can have children, but she's not allowed to raise them.
- Maternally Challenged: The female ducks. Rebeccah bluntly tells Jemima that neither of them has the patience to sit on their eggs for 28 days. Even when Jemima finally gets to raise her own children, only four of them make it past egg-hood.
- Take Our Word for It: Jemima ends up locked inside the shed, and we overhear the final confrontation between the dogs and the fox from her limited point-of-view, which makes the scene seem more sinister.