Beyond the River Bank: Toad's Secret Arcadia in The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame's children's novel The Wind in the Willows (1908) is centered around the River Bank, the bucolic Arcadia where his animals expect protection from the social, cultural, and technological unpredictabilities of the Wide World. This is achieved by the author's careful creation of parameters which secure the River Bank through fellowship, animal instinct, and the supernatural powers of the god Pan. In his rejection of these forces (dubbed "The Call of the River Bank"), Toad explodes this Arcadia by seeking his own beyond the neighborhood. This article argues that Grahame's novel features multiple Arcadias, rather than the singular entity of the River Bank, and that Toad is called to reject this entity by the Call of the Beyond. In narrating the conflict between Toad's Arcadia and the River Bank Arcadia, Grahame forecasts the collapse of the Edwardian status quo and pessimistically confronts the realities of his social status.