'Basil Brush': The Personification Of Mr Fox

The writer uses many literary techniques to turn the reader against foxes, the most obvious of which being personification of the fox into a ‘Mr Fox’ , representing all foxes as a single person, making it easier to demonise the foxes. It is also useful for the writer to personify the foxes into a single person, so the reader sees the foxes as more human, and more accountable for their actions. The writer also describes foxes as ‘blessed’ and their reputation as ‘burnished’ in the opening paragraph of the article. However, the writer describes a fall from grace for ‘Mr Fox’, stating that he has ‘[Casually] chucked away his burnished image.’. The use of the word ‘chucked’ suggests that ‘Mr Fox’ did not care about his ‘image’ in the first place,

The writer then uses ‘Basil Brush’ to further demonise the fox. ‘Basil Brush’ is a television classic, and one that most british people would be familiar with, from their childhood. The author then shatters this rose-tinted view of the fox, stating how ‘[Basil Brush] has a beastly side.’ The author then returns to his idea that the fox is uncultured, describing ‘Mr Fox’ as a ‘feral chav’ and as ‘breeding indiscriminately’ which is to convince the author, if ‘Mr Fox’ is not stopped, there will be more ‘Mr Foxes’ to stop in future. The author then goes on to say that ‘Mr Fox’ ‘[is] feeding off discarded buckets of KFC’ , the use of a fast food chain gives the idea that the fox is greasy, unclean, and simply only existing by subsisting on other , more civilised animals' waste. The language used is also very negative, using extreme, violent language, such as 'mauled' and 'killed', and these extreme words give the reader a sense of danger towards the fox. The tone used against the fox is quite aggressive, yet also factual, using statistics and examples to assist in creating this tone throughout the