erika = eeyore

Disney's Character Biography - Eeyore

Gray and gloomy, with a bright pink bow as his only hint of colour. Eeyore is everyone's favourite delightfully dismal donkey. In fact, when one of Eeyore's friends does something nice for him, he morosely responds with a "thanks for noticing me" or a similarly despondent but sincere expression of apprciation.

Eeyore is always greatful even when Rabbit and the others build him a winter home that, according to him, is a dream home that could be a bit drafty and may leak some. Eeyore may not be very perky, but he has a good heart and would quickly sacrifice his own comfort and happiness to help out a friend in need.

This old donkey lives a sedate and often isolated life in the Gloomy Place. Of all the characters, he is the one who always expects the worst to happen, often predicting bad weather, especially when it would ruin social events.
Eeyore, the only character to refer to himself in the third person and the only one to speak overtly of death, is certain that the world is conspiring against him, as when he learns of his missing tail and assumes, not that it has been lost by accident, but that "Somebody must have taken it... How Like Them" (p. 43).

Such cynicism at times becomes an excuse for inertia. The slow-plodding donkey blames overwhelming and anonymous forces for his problems and does not even look for his own tail. Indeed, what appears to be simple self-pity or pessimism on Eeyore's part often serves as an effective means of manipulating others. In the hopes of alleviating his gloominess, characters frequently help Eeyore so that the donkey need not act himself. This is true, for example, when Pooh goes off to find the donkey's missing tail.

In fact, Eeyore maintains a good deal of control, particularly through his use of language. Eeyore's complaints and sarcastic comments allow him to manipulate others in a very effective way. His incessant sarcasm reveals a penetrating insight into events and a keen agility with language. Sarcasm is, after all, expression based on the juxtaposition of what is said with an underlying intent that is often left unstated. Such sarcasm is evident when Pooh visits Eeyore on his birthday and the donkey motions to the empty space before him, complaining wryly, "Look at all the presents I have had... Look at the birthday cake. Candles and pink sugar." When the literal Pooh tells him there are no presents, Eeyore agrees, "'Joke,' he explained. 'Ha ha!'" (p. 63). This "joke" motivates Pooh to celebrate Eeyore's birthday.
Eeyore is a character of some contradictions.

He is the glum philosopher who gazes at his own reflection in the stream and wonders such unanswerable questions as "'Why?'... 'Wherefore?' and sometimes... 'Inasmuch as which'", yet he does not even notice that his own tail is missing. And despite his incessant complaints, it would be a mistake to assume that he does not want a place within the community. Indeed, Eeyore frequently wants to be the center of attention. Although at the end of each book Pooh is recognized as the hero of the stories, it is Eeyore who wants center role in each event. In Winnie-the-Pooh he assumes the party is for him. Readers often associate Eeyore with unremitting gloominess, but there are a number of times when he is quite happy. When his tail is returned to him, and when he receives birthday presents from Pooh and Piglet, for example.

Eeyore is not simply self-involved, he does also care about others. When on his birthday he learns that Piglet had fallen with the balloon, his first question is not about the condition of his present but of his friend: "You didn't hurt yourself, Little Piglet?" (p. 69). Eeyore is also willing to lend assistance when Tigger needs breakfast, Small needs finding, Tigger and Roo need helping down from a tree, and when Roo is swept away in the stream. When him is told about the destruction of Owl's house, he immediately tries to find a new house for him. He finds this house but because of his past parochialism, he does not realize that it is Piglet's house.

In the end of The House at Pooh Corner, when they take leave of Christopher Robin, Eeyore, the cynical outsider, becomes even the one to speak for the others.

Description: An old grey donkey, 3 years old, about 45 centimetres tall and 70 centimetres long. Stuffed with sawdust.
More Description: Intelligent and quiet. Keeps to himself. Always depressed.
Favorite Food: Thistles.
Favorite Things: Being remembered on his birthday.
Things He Hates: Being bounced.
Biggest Problem: His tail keeps coming off.
Second Biggest Problem: His house keeps falling down