The message that Astrid Lindgren brought to the world millions of times with this character in 1944 towards the end of the Second World War is easy to understand and right: to show that children do want to build their own concept of life based on their wishes and ideas. If you let them try it out – like with Pippi. As adults they are then able to build a better world, which was Lindgren’s brilliant idea.
But to do this Astrid Lindgren had to make her character Pippi an orphan. Perhaps because she knew that at that time and in some cases even today parents had little trust in the wishes and ideas of their children? The freedom of will that Immanuel Kant called for in the 18th century was only intended for adults. No wonder – Kant was famously childless. But how can children develop free will if it is not taught in childhood and parents do not support their offspring in this? So Pippi must be an orphan, unmolested by parents who could restrict her freedom. The problem is that if Pippi had wanted to pass on the wonderful feeling of freedom to the future – to her own children – she would have run into difficulties. Because Pippi would not have been able to activate enough ideas about family in herself. As an orphan, she was not imprinted with this. Without having been the daughter of a mother, she will find it difficult to be the mother of a daughter.
