Pinkney, Jerry. The Ugly Duckling. Morrow Junior Books, 1999.

Jerry Pinkney employs the notion of perceptual weight, asymmetrical composition, and diagonal line to demonstrate the woebegone position of the titular character in The Ugly Duckling.

As Doonan instructs, "[perceptual] weight is a factor that determines balance" of the elements of a picture (28). This balance establishes the mood of an illustration, and, here, the reader is likely to respond in fear of the pouncing hunting dog and with sympathy and concern for the vulnerable duckling. According to Moebius, "whether the main character is depicted as high or low on the page, in the centre or on the fringe, on the lefthand side or the right” is meaningful (139). He writes, "[b]eing low on the page is often ... a signal of low spirits, ‘the pits,’ or of unfavorable social status” (139), and, here, the duckling quivers low on the page, at the very corner of the double-page spread. In contrast, the hunting dog looms large, high above the duckling, filling most of the space on the recto, or right side of the spread.

The heaviness the reader feels–the sense of danger, the feeling of doom and gloom–is exacerbated by the asymmetrical composition of the illustration. Shulevitz describes asymmetrical pictures (those that are divided unequally) as dynamic, compared to "stable but static" symmetrical illustrations (those that are evenly arranged) (178). Here, the movement and action of the spread transpires entirely on the recto. Too, the hunting dog captured in motion creates an invisible diagonal line from the upper left to the bottom right of the recto, or, from the top of the dog's haunches to the tip of the duckling's beak. As Doonan points out, diagonal lines are reliably “associated with off-balance" and suggests an emphasis from upper to lower "is felt as falling, literally and metaphorically” (27). As the text on the verso reveals, "[t]he duckling grew cold with terror and tried to hid his head beneath his little wings" as the "frightful dog" whose "eyes glared wickedly ... opened his great chasm of a mouth" and "showed his sharp teeth" as he descends to capture the duckling.

In the end, the hunting dog moves on without harming the duckling, and the duckling's inferior status remains. The lucky duck laments, "I am too ugly even for a dog to eat."

Works Cited

Doonan, Jane. Looking at Pictures in Picture Books. Thimble, 1993.

Moebius, William. “Introduction to Picturebook Codes.” Children’s Literature: The Development of Its Criticism, edited by Peter Hunt. Routledge, 1990, pp. 131-147.

Pinkney, Jerry. The Ugly Duckling. Morrow Junior Books, 1999.

Shulevitz, Uri. Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. Watson Guptill, 1985.