Monday 17 January 2011

Black Beauty: Theme


Theme in literature is defined as the idea or the gist of the story. There are main theme and sub-themes. Usually, the main theme is revealed during the climax of the story (refer to the first post)

Mistreatment of Animals
Evidences:
  • A man wretched a pony's head and whipped it with excuse that it did not want to follow his will - Chapter 11
  • A boy tried to force a pony to jump over a fence, mercilessly ignoring that it was incapable of doing so - Chapter 13
  • Many drivers think of horse as if it were a steam engine , expecting it to go far and fast with a large load - Chapter 29
  • Seedy Sam misused his cab horses, disregarding their well-being


Loyalty of a Horse to Its Master
Evidences:
  • Black Beauty left stable when James came for him during the fire. It is normally hard to get a horse to do so in such condition - Chapter 16 & 17
  • Black Beauty galloped as fast as he can to get to the doctor for his sick mistress. He also brought the doctor back as quickly as possible to the house even though he was already tired - Chapter 18
Love Between Animals
Evidence:
  • Black Beauty sympathized Ginger's shortcomings, being whipped, overworked and misused by her new driver - Chapter 40
Love Towards Animals
Evidences:
  • 1st master spoke as kindly to the horse as he did to his little children. A ploughboy, Dick, who threw sticks and stones at the horses were scolded by the master - Chapter 1
  • Joe Green tried to stop a cater from unmercifully shouting and flogging two horses - Chapter 20
  • Jerry took as much pains to see if the collar and bridle fitted comfortably. Jerry also gave horses rest on Sunday - Chapter 33

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