Book:
Black Beauty
Author:
Anna Sewell
Theme Focus:
Kindness
Animal Cruelty
Greed
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell’s only published book amongst other themes concentrates on Kindness. The novel sees its main character, a Horse named Black Beauty go through the hands of kind human masters and some quite unkind ones (which breaks heart while reading).
Kindness
The focal theme unfolds from the early chapters when the animal protagonist, a foal named Black Beauty at the time is born to its horse-parents.
The reader is taken through waves of emotions, as the book further describes the care the initial owners of the foal and its parents are given.
With the setting of the book being in 1800s where the use for horses as transportation was predominant, the foal gradually grows amongst other horses to become an adult horse and learns his use to his masters.
The story progresses with every horse having a name, a safe home and kind human masters. This is evident as the horses tell each other how their masters show them love and kindness by visiting and grooming them as frequently as possible.
The horses live a colourful and healthy life, where they in turn work with their hearts because their masters are good people.
Using a rather delicate method, Anna Sewell focuses vividly on the theme Kindness using the Christian religion as a channel to champion the need to care for animals. (This will be further talked about later in this review.)
Kindness vs Animal Cruelty
Even as Anna Sewell’s focal theme is vivid enough, she uses an antagonist theme, thus, animal cruelty to display the sharp contrast between the two themes: Kindness vs Animal Cruelty.
To portray animal cruelty as another crucial theme in her book, the author relies on a different set of masters, thus, Mark and his allies.
Through every page, Anna works well every scene in the reader’s mind by arousing emotions, one of which is pain.
She does this by describing into detail, the agony, moan and neigh of the horse characters.
The contrast of themes kindness and animal cruelty again comes to light when the horse characters use flashback to discuss the previous good lives in the hands of their masters. They do not only discuss how well they were fed and groomed but also, about how even the children of the kind masters would kiss them each morning and gleefully speak to them, though they(horses) did not understand the human language.
At a point the protagonist horse, Black Beauty changes homes. He eventually plots an escape from the evil masters and Anna Sewell skilfully uses this to describe the harsh treatments the horses go through.
The show-don’t-just-tell technique adapted by the author allows the reader to judge for him/herself what animal cruelty is.
As the horses describe their pain from long hours of work without rest, getting sick with very little concern from their wicked owners and whipped for the least mistakes, with some eventually dying younger than they should, the reader is allowed to conclude on what kind of harsh treatments the horses went through.
Greed
However, as the story gradually grows to its rising action, another salient theme emerges- greed.
Again, the characters to carry out this theme are humans. The masters run a coach transport system business where the horses work tirelessly 7 days a week instead of 5-6 days. The motive of the cruel masters is to make more money off the horses- since the masters owned the horses and according to these very masters, the horses are just animals and deserved no special treatment.
As the cycle of making extra money by the cruel masters go on, they neglect the need to cater for the horses and soon, run at a loss because their horses get sick and cannot work anymore, with some dying as well.
However, before the horses plead with death to end their agony, they are made to work even as sick animals.
Lessons: Christianity & Litigation
Ann Sewell must be given credits for her work as she does not only tell and show her themes, but also, provide solutions to the antagonist theme; Animal Cruelty.
As already mentioned, the author chooses a sensitive area, Christianity, to raise awareness of how the Bible expects a Christian to act.
Anna uses an anecdote of the creation story in Genesis where Adam was put in charge of the other creatures in the garden. Adam was to care and not harm these creatures or better still, animals.
With the story of Black Beauty in a Christian society setting, the anecdote criticises the awful treatments meted out to these animals by same people who believe in the Bible.
Again, the author puts in efforts to give readers another solution to animal cruelty by introducing litigation to the story’s falling action.
Anna Sewell pronounces animal rights and brings in characters who play lawyers and are animal activists. What these characters are responsible for rather impressively brings the story of animal cruelty to an end as the wicked masters are sued eventually for their actions.
Travelling through every page, it is somewhat hard to come across an event that will attract criticism as Anna Sewell seem to have popped possible holes and fixed them in her own story.
After successfully finishing Black Beauty, an autobiography of a horse, the reader would have this as a take home- that the world now could really make use of some kindness to both humans and animals.
Animal cruelty is just as bad as human cruelty because animals too have the sense of pain. Owning animals does not give us humans the right to maltreatment them.
And that wherever we are, we need to spread some kindness to make this place we live in a beautiful world.
Credits
Author:
Anna Sewell
(1820 – 1878)
Work:
Black Beauty
(Novel)
