Richard Adams' classic novel Watership Down isn't simply a book about rabbits. Adams tackles profound ideas, such as the importance of storytelling in society, the essentiality of community, and the values of a brave heart in a dangerous world with his timeless epic, which has been compared even to Virgil's Aeneid and the Odyssey.
Adams places great focus on story. Legends permeate Watership Down. When continuing on seems aimless, and our travelers need reassuring, their own storyteller, Dandelion, tells myriad tales of El-Ahrairah, “Prince with a Thousand Enemies.” Not only do they have stories concerning the mythical El-ahrairah, but, by the end of the journey, it is clear that the adventures of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and Dandelion are already in the course of becoming legends that rabbit parents will tell their kittens, and that will become part of rabbit lore for future generations. The chief villain of Watership Down, a very violent rabbit by the name of General Woundwort, himself becomes a figure of folklore--a bogey rabbit whom parents use to keep their kits from misbehaving.
“Mother rabbits would tell their kittens that if they did not do as they were told, the General would get them—the General who was first cousin to the Black Rabbit himself.”
Hearing a description of the story of Watership Down, you might rightly imagine that it is a children’s story, a fable about talking animals reminiscent of Beatrix Potter. This isn’t entirely untrue, as Adams derived these characters and settings for this book from stories he would tell his children on long drives through the countryside. What sets Watership Down apart from comparable children’s literature is its length--in paperback it is 481 pages--and its prose, wh...
... middle of paper ...
...sses in others, Bigwig has learned to see them in himself.
“My Chief Rabbit has told me to stay and defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here.”
One of the miracles of Watership Down is the viewpoint with which Adams illustrates his universe: he does not impose a man’s point-of-view onto the rabbit’s lives, but instead imposes a rabbit’s point-of-view onto the world we know. Humans have a very minimal presence, only a few fleeting moments, seen at a distance. These interactions are all negative, and the men are always trying to find a way to exterminate these rabbits because they are on the mens' land. In the action-packed climax, Lucy, a young human child, offers us a glimmer of hope to the possibility of what humans can help to accomplish if we exercise something we have been given the unique capacity to possess in affluence: compassion.
Books: a group of blank white pages where authors record memories, reveal what they imagined, and take us along on a ride through their minds. These past few weeks, I had been reading two popular novels that did in fact take me on that journey: The Outsiders written by S.E. Hinton, and Miracle’s Boys by Jacqueline Woodson. In no uncertain terms, I did notice that these two books could be compared to one another. Although these are two separate books, written by two different authors with separate journeys, they actually have great similarities and differences in the characters and plot.
The story Watership Down by novelist Richard Adams details a small band of rabbits trying to find a new home. Fiver, a clairvoyant rabbit, convinced his brother, Hazel, and other rabbits to leave their current home and find a new one, due to a danger Fiver sees in his visions. American writer Joseph Campbell, known for his work in comparative literature, created the monomyth; a pattern of narrative found in many adventure stories. One of the many stages in the monomyth is Crossing the Threshold: the point where the hero leaves the mundane world and enters the world of adventure. In Watership Down, Crossing the Threshold appears when Hazel and his company arrive in the unfamiliar woods, just outside of their warren. After they enter the
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” At some point in life one is faced with a decision which will define the future, but only time will tell whether or not the choice was right or wrong. The Boat by Alistair MacLeod demonstrates that an individual should make their own decisions in life, be open to new experiences and changes, and that there is no way to obtain something, without sacrificing something else.
"Oh Hazel! This is where it comes from! I know now—something very bad! Some terrible thing—coming closer and closer" (Adams, 1975, p. 21). This quote at the beginning of Watership Down is the first of Fiver's amazing forewarnings, that helps him to demonstrate both of the themes of "trust" and "survival" in the rabbit world. Trust and survival are two key components to the rabbits lives, and they cannot live without either. Because of his ability to sense danger around him, Fiver exemplifies the related themes of trust and survival in Watership Down.
In his 1984 novel Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins presents a narrative that rivals the often fantastical tales told in myth. Using classical mythology as a foundation, and, in particular, providing a loose adaptation of The Odyssey by Homer, Robbins updates and modifies characters and concepts in an effort to reinforce the importance of the journey of life and the discovery of self. Like the ancient myth-makers, Robbins commands the reader’s attention with outrageous situations and events while at the same time providing characters that the reader can relate to and learn from.
Updike, John. "A&P." Thinking and Writing About Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 981-86. Print.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is not a book with a particular message, rather a simple and pure adventurous tale of a young man seeking treasure and himself. In Themes in Treasure Island by Gary Carey, he explains that folktales are of young men or women who leave their lives behind to seek fortune, such as “the myth of Jason embarking to bring home the dragon-guarded Golden Fleece, Odysseus on his hazardous journey back to Ithaca from Troy, and the medieval romance of Perceval seeking the Grail.” Carey believes all these stories, myths, and tales have one central theme -- it is an adventurous quest. Within this quest comes the rituals, the guardians, and the struggles that test even the bravest in the search of himself. There are many tests that the protagonist must face to succeed in his goal to obtain the lost treasure. The final tests and guardians that Jim Hawkins, the protagonist, encounters determines his true goal of the quest he accepted. I agree that within each quest tale there is a portrayal of an adventure and inner soul-searching of some sort, yet what Carey fails to mention is that the quest serves as a plot symbol. Behind each quest is a story of the protagonist's struggle to find himself, but the symbol represents the human struggle as well. A person may struggle trying find himself in the world today, not knowing who is he or what his life’s purpose is yet. Many readers are able to relate to Treasure Island because not only is the protagonist trying to find himself, but some readers also long for the quest of their life (Cliff Notes).
The fall of Icarus often comes as a cautionary tale about pride and ambition. However, W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams took inspiration from Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus in their respective poems Musee des Beaux Arts and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus to tell a new tale. The poems use imagery, form, repetition, and alliteration to convey the apathy of the world in the face of personal tragedy.
When people think of Dr. Seuss, they think; “Oh, the cat with the spontaneous black and white hat” or the author who wrote books about moral values and created art pieces that expressed politics. Dr. Seuss wrote children’s books not only to open up a child’s imagination about a fantastical world full of new words, creatures, and experiences, but also about eye opening issues. He promoted the importance of racial equality and other political issues, as well as the enduring hardships of life through his literature. Books like The Sneetches, The Lorax, I had trouble in getting to solla sollew and Oh, The Places You’ll Go! , are just a few of the many books Dr. Seuss wrote, but each of these books had a hidden moral message that could change the way people think. Seuss incorporated valuable lessons about everyday struggles in his books, and in doing so allowed readers to think and reevaluate their beliefs and make better choices about their lives.
In Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman revisits Sussex, England and explores his childhood through the eyes of a fictitious little boy. The little boy, who is also the narrator, has an imagination far beyond the imagination of any adult and often faces a difficult time connecting with other people. He does not relate with many people, except for the Hempstock women. The Hempstocks are three-generations of women with super powers, who live together on a farm. They have lived on this farm for hundreds of years without any outside help from other men. Lettie’s a third-generation Hempstock, and the narrator’s greatest friend. Lettie’s imagination is as big as the narrators, and this leads to a great understanding between the two. Mrs. Hempstock, Lettie’s mother, is mostly concerned with feeding the narrator and reporting to the narrator’s father. Old Mrs. Hempstock, Lettie’s grandmother, is
Children literature is a term that refers to the texts written for children. The artist uses creative ways to ensure that children are provided with educational books, touching on a variety of themes. This paper will include comparison of two characters from the two texts, “Hana's Suitcase: A True Story,” authored by Karen Levine and “Charlotte’s Web,” written by E.B. White, with the aim of understanding ways in which problems are solvable as indicated by selected characters.
Laura Ingalls Wilder may be viewed as one of the greatest children’s authors of the twentieth century. Her works may be directed towards a younger crowd but people of all ages enjoy her literary contributions. The way that Wilder’s books are written guarantees that they have a place among classics of American literature (“So many…” 1). Laura Ingalls Wilder’s form of writing portrays an American family’s interworking in a journey through childhood.
Potter’s book is, beneath its didactic Victorian narrative, remarkably subtle and subversive in its attitudes towards childhood, and its message to its child readers. Browne’s Voices in the Park, on the other hand, dispenses with any textual narrative; by his use of the devices of postmodernism, visual intertextuality and metaphor, he creates a work of infinite interpretation, in which the active involvement of the reader is key. Although The Tale of Peter Rabbit is not a ‘modern’ picturebook, and was written to a different concept of childhood than Voices in the Park, it certainly falls within Bader’s description.... ... middle of paper ...
The Narnia Chronicles have already established themselves as timeless works of literature. They appeal to both the atheists and the God-fearing, to both the uneducated and to scholars; to children and adults. An understanding of the Biblical allegory in these books is not essential to their appreciation. A critical analysis of these works, however, does allow the reader to more fully appreciate Lewis' unique gift to simplify complex narratives and craft beautiful children's fantasies. This, in turn, allows the reader to gain both a deeper understanding of Lewis as a skilled creative writer, and a deeper satisfaction of his art. To be able to appreciate C.S. Lewis as such an artisan can only add to one's enjoyment of his works.
The construction of children’s literature was a gradual process. For a long period of time children’s books were frowned upon. The stories were said to be vulgar and frightening. Adults censored children’s ears to stories of daily life, tales with improbable endings were not to be heard. It was not until the mid 1800s that stories of fairies and princesses began to be recognized. Although children’s literature was accepted, the books were not available for all children. With limited access to education, few public libraries, and the books’ costs, these texts were only available to the middle and high- class. As public education and libraries grew so did the accessibility of books and their popularity. They no longer were considered offensive, but rather cherished and loved by many children. Children’s literature became orthodox and a revolution began, changing literature as it was known.