Romantic Ideas in the Allegory Watership Down

A detailed Summary of Romantic Ideas in the Allegory Watership Down

Romantic Ideas in the Allegory Watership Down

The novel Watership Down by Richard Adams, like Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene, is an allegory. Watership Down also embodies many romantic ideas. Fiver, a rabbit who sees visions from Frith, represents the turn toward imagination that occurred in the Romantic period. The rabbits in the novel also value freedom and rebellion against tyranny, two important Romantic ideas. Many of the rabbits that left the Sandleford warren were unhappy with authority there, and the Watership Down warren helped the rebellion against Efrafa. Hyzenthlay, a doe in Efrafa, questions authority and longs for freedom from tyranny. She embodies the individualism valued in the Romantic period and, like Fiver, sees visions from Frith. The rabbits in the novel search for better ways to live- another important Romantic idea. Fiver leads the search. "I know what we ought to be looking for - a high, lonely place with dry soil, where rabbits can see and hear all round and men hardly ever come. Wouldn't that be worth a journey?" (Adams 48)

Watership Down is an allegory, "a story in which the characters, settings and events stand for abstract or moral concepts" (Sime 1189). The different warrens in Water

During the Romantic period, people "turned away from the... emphasis on reason and artifice. The Romantics embraced imagination and naturalness." (Sims 630). Fiver, a rabbit from the Sandleford warren, is an example of this Romantic philosophy in the novel. Fiver has an uncanny sense for danger- a psychic sense that the other rabbits do not possess. He speaks of one of his visions, "I know there's something unnatural and evil twisted all round this place. I don't know what it is, so no wonder I can't talk about it. I keep getting near it, though."(Adams 102). Fiver's sense of danger proves accurate. He predicted the destruction of the Sandleford warren, imagining "The field! It's covered with blood!" (Adams 21). This prophecy was later fulfilled when Holly and Bluebell came to Watership Down and told how the men destroyed the warren. Fiver embraces these visions, even in the face of other rabbits that tell him he is not thinking logically. Fiver values his individualism and visions.

Romantics were often looking for "better- that is, happier, fairer, and healthier- ways to live." (Sims 631). The rabbits were also looking for a better way to live. A few of the rabbits who left the Sandleford warren did so, not because of Fiver's warning, but because they were not happy with life at Sandleford. Bigwig leaves the Owsla by rebelling against the Threarah. "I told him that... a strong rabbit could always do just as well by leaving the warren.... Lettuce-stealing isn't my idea of a jolly life, nor sentry duty in the burrow." (Adam

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1044
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English