Watership Down Themes And Author

& # 8217 ; s Life Essay, Research Paper

Watership Down

Watership Down, by Richard Adams, is a narrative of escapade and sorrow through the eyes of coneies as they seek their ain topographic point in the carnal universe. The Sandleford Warren coneies used their natural inherent aptitude and fled the invasion of adult male and devastation. This determination takes them through the balance of the book, which enriched by Adams s vivid imaginativeness, Tells of their unsafe travels over the green Fieldss and hayfields of early England. The group hardly survives barbarous marauders and other hostile Warrens. Yet, in

the terminal, as the animate beings inherent aptitudes kick in, they settle down in a topographic point known as Watership Down, merely desiring to make the perfect Warren.

The writer of this book, Richard George Adams was born in 1920 in Berkshire, England. Married to Elizabeth Adams, and touting a grade in modern history, he is known for his poetry and fiction for kids. Most of his books are set in the universe of animate beings, such as coneies or Canis familiariss. Watership Down was his first kids s novel, but it became an instant best seller when grownup and adolescent audiences all across the universe fell in love with it. Some of his other novels include Shardik, which is about a adult male s belief in a supernatural bear- God, The Plague Dogs, which is about two severely injured who escape

from an carnal experimentation research lab, The Girl in a Swing, which is about the matrimony of a quiet English adult male to a cryptic and beautiful German adult females, and, Maia, which is about the heroic escapades of a hapless miss sold to a rich Lord. His autobiography, Day Gone By, is presently out of print.

Watership Down was originally developed from narratives Adams told to divert his two girls on long route trips. At this point, he was working as a civil retainer in Great Britain s Department of Environment, but, at their insisting, he began to compose the novel that was finished two old ages subsequently. After many rejections, he eventually found a publishing house who agreed to publish a little figure of transcripts. The book became an immediate success with juvenile and grownup audiences when it was foremost printed in 1972, by Rex Collings Ltd. , with

many subsequent publications. The first American publication was in 1975 by Avon Books in New York. This book was reviewed good and it received the Guardian Award and Carnegie Medal for Watership Down. Critics praised him because he successfully entered the universe of coneies without destructing the coney manner of life ; Adams had recreated the coneies linguistic communication, civilization, and mythology. One critic, Janet Smith, praised Adams for the action of the novel and doing it non merely the journey of a group of coneies but a motion of animals who are no less portion of nature than we are, and whose low

catastrophes and migrations have a claim to the attending of work forces, for all the greater graduated table of theirs ( Smith in Lesniak, p. 3 ) .

R.M. Lockley s The Private Life of the Rabbit was Adams s primary beginning in composing Watership Down. This nonfiction book provided such things as information about coney illnesss, their leisure activities, and the assorted actions of the does in the Warren. Adams modeled his characters upon the elaborate descriptions given

in Lockley s book. Some of the traits and interactions between the coneies in the novel seem to hold been drawn from the behaviour that Lockley observed in his coney trial topics. Some illustrations to back up this would be the confrontation between Threarah and General Woundwort. This type of force between two leaders was clearly expressed in Lockley s survey. His research besides said that the stronger male would acquire more nutrient and the bulk of the does, while the weaker male coneies could non roll up nutrient or obtain does easy. However, one major difference between Watership Down and Lockley s book is that in Watership Down, the male rabbits that left the Sandleford Warren were able to coexist peacefully with one another throughout the journey and even throughout the constitution of the Watership Warren. This is contradictory to Lockley s survey because,

in world, a big group of male coneies would non populate together for such a long period of clip without occasional quarreling. Apart from this, Adams s portraiture of the coneies is consistent with Lockley s descriptions of the basic behaviours of coneies.

Adams besides drew on much of his personal experience that he gained through his occupation with Great Britain s Department of Environment. Rabbits, which have ever been legion in England, are believed to hold arrived in England in the 11th century when the Normans brought them. Richard Adams mentioned assorted topographic points in the novel that are all existent and still be today. The Hampshire/ Berkenshire part is located a spot

West of London and North of Southampton. This land is owned by Andrew Lloyd

Webber, who has become celebrated for the musical Cats and Phantom of the Opera.

All in all, Watership Down, by Richard George Adams, was an highly affecting narrative of coneies that risked endurance in order to listen to their natural inherent aptitudes, which finally saved them from the immoralities of world. It clearly shows how destructive adult male and society can be upon nature. Richard Adams was besides an first-class author who exhaustively researched and knew his topic of coneies. This made Watership Down wholly the more gratifying to read, and the coevalss to come will besides read and reread this book

many times before go throughing in on one time once more.

Bibliography

1. Adams, Richard. Narratives from Watership Down. New York: Avon, 1996.

2. Adams, Richard. Watership Down. New York: Avon, 1972.

3. Bowker, R.R. The Young Reader s Companion. New Providence: Reed Reference

Printing Company, 1993.

4. Geren, Wendy. Home, Sweet Hutch. Christian Science Monitor 21 May 1999: 22

5. Lesniak, James G. Contemporary Authors New Revision Series. Vol. 35. Detroit: Gale

Research, 1992.

6. Lockley, R.M. The Private Life of the Rabbit. New York: October House, 1966.

7. Sinha, Gunjan and Stover, Dawn. Pump it Up. Popular Science Vol 253. New York. 18

Oct. 1999.

8. Watership Down. Detroit: The Gale Group, 1999. EBSCO. Online. PDQ. 17 Oct.1999.

9. A Nerve-racking Life in the Rabbit Warren. New Scientist. Volume 136. New York. PDQ.

17 Oct.1999.