Toys have an overwhelming significance both for our society and the individual. Being culture specific and gender specific in most cases, such as the famous dolls-within-dolls of Russia and the infamous toy guns now available to boys, toys have great value in individual psychological and overall sociological development. The recent changes in thinking such as the rise of feminism and materialism have led to great changes in toys such as the recent manufacturing of more realistically created

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... ie dolls on the one hand and the rise of mechanized toys on the other. In literature, toys are represented in mostly children's literature and comic strips such as 'Peanuts' and 'Calvin and Hobbes'. Since Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson is a recent and popular comic strip this paper confines itself to analyzing the depiction of the toy in this strip which deals with the adventures of and the relationship between Calvin, a five year old boy, and the stuffed toy tiger Hobbes, who seems to embody both the law of the jungle and conventional human wisdom. The analysis of Hobbes also greatly explains why this cartoon has been able to become a valuable mirror to and sculptor of popular postmodern literary culture.