Pippi Longstocking

Content Warning: This section contains references to racial stereotypes contained within the novel.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll always come out on top.”

Pippi has experienced immense misfortune in losing both of her parents, but she remains ever optimistic, demonstrating great Strength of Body and Mind. As she thinks about her mother, who she believes is in heaven watching over her, she tells her not to worry. Pippi frequently uses cliches like this in her speech, and it becomes a part of her character.

“Then they all went in through Villa Villekulla’s tumbledown garden gate, along the gravel path, bordered with old moss-covered trees—really good climbing trees they seemed to be—up to the house, and onto the porch. There stood the horse, munching oats out of a soup bowl.”

Villa Villekulla is a central motif in the novel. It is Pippi’s home and where she is allowed to fully experience being a child and use her Imagination and Ingenuity. It is also the site of many of her adventures with Tommy and Annika. This quote illustrates the unusual but beautiful imagery of Pippi’s home. The way the quote is written makes it feel as though it is seeing directly into what Tommy and Annika are thinking about Pippi’s land.

“Suppose you go home now, so that you can come back tomorrow. Because if you don’t go home, you can’t come back, and that would be a shame.”

Pippi has a unique way of stating the obvious in a clever and humorous way. Her matter-of-fact nature is something that transfers into most areas of her life. She takes things literally and directly and doesn’t understand things like arithmetic, for example.