Watership Down is a book about a wandering group of rabbits that is set in England. Hazel and Fiver must leave their home and pioneer a new warren in a safer environment. I feel in love with the book and enjoyed watching them come together, combine their gifts, defend their warren, and succeed in building their new warren from the ground up. My ultimate favorite part of the book was Bigwig’s escape from Efrafa. He led a group of does and a buck away from the colony, which they had never been away from pages (350-365). They escaped from General Woundwort and some of his men by using a boat (page 369). They used Kehaar, a gull, to attack the General and as a stunt to help Dandelion on the boat (page 365). He showed great courage and maturity, …show more content…
executed Hazel and Blackberry’s plan, and used a made-up poem to alert Hazel and the others of his plan (page 345). My favorite character in the book is Fiver.
He is always giving the rabbits key information when they need it, if they just took his word on it every single time. In chapter two, Fiver and Hazel went to the chief rabbit of their warren to alert him that the whole community needs to flee from their whole current warren (page eleven). We find out through Captain Holly’s story about the tragedy of the warren (on pages 150-157) that Fiver was correct in his theory that some terrible danger was looming for the warren. That leads us to the parts that I hated. I strongly disliked when the rabbits realized that the men were tearing up the location of their warren and killing the rabbits, just because they were in the men’s ways. They blocked the rabbits’ escape routes, used a form of laughing gas to kill the rabbits and to make them disorientated, then, used a plow to turn up the dirt (pages 152-157). Another part I disliked was another place where the rabbits, or more so, Bigwig, didn’t believe Fiver that they were in danger. After traveling through the woods and thickets, they reached a field near a farm that looked healthy enough (page fifty-seven); however, lo and behold, the farmer had placed wires to trap the rabbits over the field and near their burrows (pages 115-117). When Fiver finally spilled his feelings to Bigwig and Hazel, Bigwig laughed and ran back to tell the others but became ensnared in one of the farmers’ rabbit traps (page
110). Watership Down was an enjoyable read, which I will definitely re-read many times. Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry, Dandelion, Acorn, Pipkin, Silver, and the others had to endure struggles while doing their best in a new place. They had to learn different methods of doing things, just like students have to do with new teachers and in a new school. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone searching for a good read with some action.
Part of the book that caught my interest was the maps included in the chapters. It was really helpful for readers who were unfamiliar with the territory Gump was discussing. As the areas changed over time it helped me follow how they changed and which territories belonged to whom. Gump uses the different maps to show the differences of each territory without having to look at the text and allowing readers to easily access the maps.
At several points in the book, he saves them from danger, or maybe even death. ' "If only he'd listened to you! Well, it can't be changed now, till acorns grow on thistles" ' (Adams, 1975, p. 160). Here, Holly said to Fiver that if the Threarah would have just listened to Fiver, then they would have all survived the Sandleford Warren disaster. Fiver's ability to see into the future allows the rabbits to survive, because without his abilities, none of them would have known about any of the potential dangers coming their way.
My overall opinion of this book is good I really liked it and recommend it to anyone. It is a good book to read and it keep you interested throughout the whole book.
In this story, Richard Adams' creates an interesting part of the story when eleven rabbits unite to form a group and flee from their warren, in hopes of avoiding a great tragedy. These rabbits leave their warren without knowledge of why they need to leave their homes. The one thing the rabbits have in common is their faith in Fiver's dreams and visions. Together these rabbits will have to put aside their differences in order to face the danger ahead of them.
Fiver is another main character in the story and is the brother of Hazel. Both Fiver and Hazel are know as “Outsiders”. An outsider is a rabbit that is not part of the royal guard or the
Throughout the book Watership Down there are many themes spanning the entire book, but three main themes stand out. These themes are home, leadership, and nature. The idea of home comes up again and again as the rabbits are trying to find a new home going place to place running from danger as well as finding what appeared to be a home only to find out its true horrors. Leadership is also another big theme as it shifts between the rabbits in the group as well as being stressed in the different warren they come across with varying levels of how it's enforced. Finally, there is a theme of nature. Throughout the book there is a constant battle of natural verses unnatural, the battle of prey and predator, and how rabbits should be in the
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.
The first myth told in Watership Down: “The Story of the Blessing of El-ahrairah” tell us about how rabbits came to be so fast and how they can sense danger as well. In the words of Frith: “Bottom, be strength and warning and speed forever and save the life of your master.” (pg. 26) This story was told to the rabbits when they had just left their warren and they were scared because they didn’t know where they were or where they were going. Not only did they not know where they were going, they encounter a dog and a river. The dog was behind them in the woods and the river was in front of them, they were forced to cross the river even though it was not common for rabbits to swim. With Blackberry’s cleverness and Big Wig’s strength, Hazel and the rabbits make it safely to the other side of the river. These are just two of the many challenges that Hazel and the rabbits go through to survive.
2. Provide a detailed plot summary: The story begins on a farm called The Manor. The farm is owned by a guy named Mr. Jones. He is a mean man who treats his animals cruelly, and uses them for profit. For example, he drowns old dogs when they are no longer of use and he slaughters anything thing that will make him money and buy him more whiskey. One night Old Major, a prize winning boar, who was respected by the other animals because he had lived so long called all the animals for a meeting in the barn. In this meeting, he shared
The most interesting part of the book was the last battle on the rocks. The
The story is about Wilbur, a runty farm yard pig, who is saved from death by Mr Arable's eight year old daughter, Fern. Fern cares for and loves Wilbur as if he is a pet but eventually has to ironically send him to suffer another fate of death on Mr. Zukerman's farm. Fern remains a main character who is considered to be a little bit crazy as she spends all her spare time sitting in the barn at Zukerman's and talking to the animals but, the main plot follows the exploits of Charlotte A. Cavatica, a large grey spider, to prevent Wilbur becoming Christmas dinner. Charlotte becomes Wilbur's best friend when Fern stops spending so much time at the barn and, through writing messages on her web manages to save his life too.
Bunbury, according to Algernon, was no trivial deception. It was more intricate than that. There were rules involved, which could not be explained because the conversation was cut short by the a...
An incident that I found interesting in the book was when he went to a Gray Hound race. He was the substitute vet. He was given the orders to take out any dog that did not look fit to run.
In my opinion, the best part of this story is the setting. It was the only thing that actually felt genuine. This was the one place where I could feel as though I was a part of the story, otherwise I just felt detached and like I was watching the whole thing through a television rather than living it like I normally do when reading.
I like how descriptive the author is, he paints a vivid picture especially with characters, and setting.