A Christ-figure in Watership Down, by Richard Adams?

I have previously posted a few times on Watership Down, by Richard Adams. (See here for the last of these posts.)

I have also considered the question of what makes a novel a Christian novel, and considered the question of whether or not several works of fantastic literature are, indeed, Christian. That post is here, and has links to posts which examine various pieces of literature. Although it is one of my favorite books, I have never done this sort of analysis on Watership Down.

If you are not familiar with the book, the plot is summarized in the Wikipedia article on the book.

I have recently re-read the book, and believe that, in some ways, El-ahriarah, the rabbit's mythical hero, is a Christ-figure. Why do I say that?

I say that because of the following passage:
"The Black Rabbit spoke with the voice of water that falls into pools in echoing places in the dark.
"'El-ahrairah, why have you come here?'
"'I have come for my people,' whispered El-ahrairah. - Richard Adams, Watership Down. New York: Avon Books, 1972. p. 283.
From the chapter, "El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé," which chapter is named for its content, which is a story that Dandelion, the rabbit story-teller, tells, on request from Bigwig. (Bigwig is, himself, about to enter into a dangerous mission, which could well cost him his life.) In the story, El-ahrairah has come for his people, who are oppressed by an enemy, King Darzin. They can scarcely leave their burrows. Rabbits go to the Black Rabbit when they are about to die. El-ahrairah tries to beat the Black Rabbit in various contests of skill and wit, but can't. He wagers his ears, his whiskers, and his tail, and loses all of these. He gets Rabscuttle, his constant companion, to get dock leaves to stick on his head in the place of ears. Finally, in desperation, he rushes into the pit of rabbit diseases, hoping to catch the white blindness, so as to infect the animals that are oppressing the rabbits. He knows that, if he gets this disease, he will die soon.

El-ahrairah's attempted self-sacrifice doesn't work, because the white blindness is carried by fleas in rabbits ears, and he has no ears, and no fleas. But the Black Rabbit says that he, himself, will rescue El-ahrairah's people, and he does. When El-ahrairah returns, he discovers that a few years have passed since he left. No one remembers him. Lord Frith, the sun-god of the rabbits, appears to El-ahrairah, and gives him new ears, with starlight in them, and a new body to match.

At the end of the book, Hazel, the leader of the rabbits of Watership Down, dies, but as he does, El-ahrairah appears to him, indicating that El-ahrairah has become immortal.

El-ahrairah, then, attempts to give his own life for the lives of others, and is resurrected as an eternal hero-figure. That certainly parallels Christ.

I would not say that Watership Down is a Christian novel, in spite of having a figure in it that is like Christ in some ways. As I said above, there is a sun-god in it, for one thing. It's really, I guess, a pagan novel. (See here for a little of what C. S. Lewis had to say about the relationship between paganism and Christianity.)

Thanks for reading. Read Watership Down.

Frodo, Ged and Hazel: Flowers and Plants

As mentioned in previous posts, The Ring trilogy by Tolkien, the Earthsea books by Le Guin, and Watership Down by Richard Adams are my favorite works of fantastic literature. I pointed out that all three authors present amazing details in their sub-creations. In this post, I discuss some of what they do with flowering plants.

Tolkien wrote this, probably his most flower-strewn passage (but not the only one):

When his eyes were in turn uncovered, Frodo looked up and caught his breath. They were standing in an open space. To the left stood a great mound, covered with a sward of grass as green as Spring-time in the Elder days. Upon it, as a double crown, grew two circles of trees: the outer had bark of snowy white, and were leafless but beautiful in their shapely nakedness; the inner were mallorn-trees of great height, still arrayed in pale gold. . . . At the feet of the trees, and all about the green hillsides the grass was studded with small golden flowers shaped like stars. Among them, nodding on slender stalks, were other flowers, white and palest green: they glimmered as a mist amid the rich hue of the grass. Over all the sky was blue, and the sun of afternoon glowed upon the hill and cast long green shadows beneath the trees.

'Behold! You are come to Cerin Amroth,' said Haldir, 'For this is the heart of the ancient realm as it was long ago, and here is the mound of Amroth, where in happier days his high house was built. Here ever bloom the winter flowers in the unfading grass: the yellow elanor, and the pale niphredil. - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963, pp. 364-5. The remaining eight members of the Fellowship have come to the realm of Galadriel, after the fall of Gandalf in Moria, and are being escorted by Haldir, an elf in her service.

In case anyone needs reminding, grass and most trees are flowering plants.

Adams can be flowery, too. Here's an example:

June was moving toward July and high summer. Hedgerows and verges were at their rankest and thickest. The rabbits sheltered in dim green sun-flecked caves of grass, flowering marjoram and cow parsley; peered round spotted hairy-stemmed clumps of viper's bugloss, blooming red and bllue above their heads; pushed between towering stalks of yellow mullein. Sometimes they scuttled along open turf, colored like a tapestry meadow with self-heal, centaury and tormentil. . . .

Some time before ni-Frith, in the heat of the day, Silver paused in a little patch of thorn. There was no breeze and the air was full of the sweet, chrysanthemum-like smell of the flowering composite of dry uplands--corn chamomile, yarrow and tansy. -Richard Adams, Watership Down. New York: Avon Books, 1972. p. 273.

Le Guin's prose is less flowery, in the usual sense of that word, but she does, indeed, pay attention to plants:

He came to the path that led to the Immanent Grove, a path that led always straight and direct no matter how time and the world bent awry about it, and following it came soon into the shadow of the trees.

The trunks of some of these were vast. Seeing them one could believe at last that the Grove never moved; they were like immemorial towers grey with years; their roots were like the roots of mountains. Yet these, the most ancient, were some of them thin of leaf, with branches that had died. They were not immortal. Among the giants grew sapling trees, tall and vigorous with bright crowns of foliage, and seedlings, slight leafy wands no taller than a girl.

The ground beneath the trees was soft, rich with the rotten leaves of all the years. Ferns and small woodland plants grew in it, but there was no kind of tree but the one, which had no name in the Hardic tongue of Earthsea. Under the branches the air smelled earthy and fresh, and had a taste in the mouth like live spring water.

In a glade which had been made years before by the falling of an enormous tree, Ged met the Master Patterner, who lived within the Grove and seldom or never came forth from it. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore, New York: Bantam Books, 1972, p. 10.

At the edge of the Grove, where the leaves of the great trees reached out over ordinary ground, he sat with his back against a mighty root, his staff across his knees. He shut his eyes as if resting, and sent a sending of his spirit over the hills and fields of Roke, northward, to the sea-assaulted cape where the Isolate Tower stands.

"Kurremkarmerruk," he said in spirit, and the Master Namer looked up from the thick book of names of roots and herbs and leaves and seeds and petals that he was reading to his pupils and said, "I am here, my lord."

Then he listened, a big thin old man, white-haired under his dark hood; and the students at their writing-tables in the tower room looked up at him and glanced at one another.

"I will come," Kurremkarmerruk said, and bent his head to his book again, saying, "Now the petal of the flower of moly hath a name, which is iebera, and so also the sepal, which is partonath; and the stem and leaf and root hath each his name . . ."

But under his tree the Archmage Ged, who knew all the names of moly, withdrew his sending and, stretching out his legs more comfortably and keeping his eyes shut, presently fell asleep in the leaf-spotted sunlight. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore, New York: Bantam Books, 1972, p. 12.

Tolkien and Le Guin not only mention flowering plants, but each makes a specific area, remarkable for its plants, to be in some sense the center of their fantastic sub-creation. The hill of Cerin Amroth is the heart of elvendom. It was there that Aragorn first saw Arwen. It will be there that Arwen lies down alone when Aragorn has passed away. The Immanent Grove is the center of Roke Island, which is, in turn, the center of meaning of Earthsea.

Previous posts in this series were on April 11th and 18th, 2005, and also on May 2nd.

Thanks for reading!

Frodo, Ged and Hazel: sub-creations

Tolkien called good writing of fantastic literature, or "Fairy-stories," sub-creation. He meant that there is a real creation, but that writers also have the power to create within that creation, in their imagination, and that of their readers. Here is a good short introduction to Tolkien's ideas, and to the themes I touch on in this post.

The three works I am considering in this series (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by Tolkien, The Earthsea trilogy, by Le Guin, and Watership Down, by Adams --see here and here for previous posts) are all works of sub-creation. Why do I say so? All three have a plot, and characters, like most books. They also have a setting. The setting of all three is deep. Tolkien's was the product of decades of imagining, and writing. His son, Christopher, edited several books worth of material, much of it setting for the Rings trilogy. Le Guin's setting includes references to legends, or maybe history, of Earthsea from long before the time of Ged. Adam's setting includes legends of El-ahrairah, the trickster rabbit. All three works include maps, and they are almost required, for a good understanding of the plot.

All three works include an invented language. Tolkien includes parts of several such. The most obvious example is the inscription on the ring. A linguist, he had worked out many details of these languages. Earthsea had a "language of the making," spoken by dragons and wizards. Wizards in training learned the names of all sorts of plants, and their parts, and of many other things, in this language. A few fragments occur in the books. There are also suggestions of at least two languages spoken by humans. Rabbits speak lapine, and there are some fragments. Apparently each animal species has its own language, but there is a common lingua franca, as Adams calls it, so that seagulls and rats have some communication with rabbits.

All three works have a natural history. There are stars, and trees, and flowers, and healing plants, in Tolkien's world. There are rivers. In Earthsea, there are stars and named constellations (see below). There is the otak, a small mammal. There are birds and domestic animals. There are trees. The Immanent Grove is, in a sense, the heart of Earthsea, and it is a place where you can watch a spider spin a web. Adam's world has, especially, plants. Most of the rabbits are named for some plant. Adams frequently describes the rabbits' surroundings, with special attention paid to the plants and the birds.

All three sub-creations have some sort of spirit world, parallel to the world the characters usually inhabit. In Tolkien, the ringwraiths inhabit this spirit world. So does Gandalf. So does Glorfindel. So does Sauron. Frodo himself, and Sam, enter that world when they put on the Ring. In Earthsea, there is a world of the dead, but the wizards, including Ged, can go there, while still alive, and return.

He lay dying. But the death of a great mage, who has many times in his life walked on the dry steep hillsides of death's kingdom, is a strange matter: for the dying man goes not blindly, but surely, knowing the way. When Nemmerle looked up through the leaves of the tree, those with him did not know if he watched the stars of summer fading in daybreak, or those other stars, which never set above the hills that see no dawn. (A Wizard of Earthsea, New York: Ace, 1968, p. 78)

Ged, himself, goes to the world of the dead, early in his life as a wizard:

Summoning his power all at once and with no thought for himself, he sent his spirit out after the child's spirit, to bring it back home. . . . Then he saw the little boy running fast and far ahead of him down a dark slope, the side of some vast hill. There was no sound. The stars above the hill were no stars his eyes had ever seen. Yet he know the constellations by name: the Sheaf, the Door, the One Who Turns, the Tree. They were those stars that do not set, that are not paled by the coming of any day. He had followed the dying child too far. (A Wizard of Earthsea, New York: Ace, 1968, p. 96)

In the final book, Ged has to enter the world of the dead, with a young companion, to heal a breach in the fabric of the world. They succeed, and come back to the world of the living, where their bodies have remained.

In Watership Down, Fiver enters an alternate world, and returns with guidance for Hazel, his brother, and their companions:

"Hrairoo," said Hazel one evening, "what would we have done without you? We'd none of us be here, would we?"
"You're sure we are here?" answered Fiver.
"That's too mysterious for me," replied Hazel. "What do you mean?"
"Well, there's another place--another country, isn't there? We go there when we sleep; at other times, too; and when we die. El-ahrairah comes and goes between the two as he wants, I suppose, but I could never quite make that out, from the tales. Some rabbits will tell you it's all easy there, compared with the waking dangers that they understand. But I think that only shows they don't know much about it. It's a wild place, and very unsafe. And where are we really--there or here?"
"Our bodies stay here--that's good enough for me. . . "
-Richard Adams, Watership Down. New York: Avon Books, 1972. pp. 258-9

As C. S. Lewis once said, there is good death in the Ring books. Boromir dies, trying to protect Merry and Pippin, and having repented of his lust for the Ring. Théoden dies, having restored the honor of his house by destroying the Lord of the Nazgûl. Gandalf dies, so that the Fellowship can escape Moria (He returns again). In Earthsea, death is not exactly good, but it is a necessary part of life. The plot of the third book revolves around rejection of death, which, in Earthsea, leads to a life of less than wholeness. In Watership Down, Hazel dies a good death, after leading his followers to safety, and living a long life.

The rich settings of these works by Tolkien, Le Guin and Adams add much to the appeal of the stories. They are not just a narrative. They are narratives set in complex and wonderful sub-creations.

This is the fourth, and last, post in the series. The first post is here, and the second is here.

Thanks for reading.

Frodo, Ged and Hazel: Movies & Gender

This is the second installment of a series on three works of fantastic literature. The first is here.

I was going to say something like "The fact that all three of these stories were made into movies proves their greatness," but, on reflection, it doesn't. Some pretty dumb stuff gets made into movies, and, unfortunately, some pretty good stuff gets made into dumb movies.

I don't think I have anything intelligent to add to all that has been said about the Lord of the Rings movies, directed by Peter Jackson.

The Earthsea trilogy was made into a miniseries for the SciFi TV Channel, which aired a few months ago. Ursula K. Le Guin, the author, complained about the treatment of race in this production, and about the production in general. I posted some gripes myself, after watching the series.

There have been cartoon treatments of of Watership Down. One was a movie feature. There was also a TV series. I saw the feature. It was about as well made as you would expect a cartoon about lots of rabbits would have been made. Not great, but OK. A web site, here, is supposed to have information on the movie, but there is something wrong with the URL currently. Since the page is dated April 18th, 2005, I'm guessing it will be repaired shortly.

I haven't read The Seven Basic Plots, by Christopher Booker, but a review explicitly puts The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down into one of the seven plots, namely The Quest.

All three of these characters are male. Hazel, at least, was almost required to be male, as Adams is attempting to portray animal behavior realistically (aside from the intelligence, and ability to communicate). In many species of mammals, females generally remain with the parental territory, but males emigrate. The same is not true of Frodo and Ged. With Tolkien, no doubt he was following most medieval literature--the heroes were male, and Tolkien was an expert in medieval literature, and, in a sense, was trying to create his own. Le Guin's choice of a gender for wizards, including Ged, was not so constrained, as she was writing fantasy not about animals with known behavior patterns, or in a genre already in existence, unless fantasy about other worlds is such. Le Guin certainly was no stranger to exploring gender. Perhaps her most influential work, besides the Earthsea books, is the Left Hand of Darkness. In that book, the humanoids on Gethen can take on either sex, more or less at random, each reproductive cycle, which, of course, has profound consequences, and makes for some interesting sentences, such as "The King was pregnant." In writings set in Earthsea, written after the trilogy, she does introduce a female wizard.

There are strong female characters in all three stories, especially Arha/Tenar in the second Earthsea book, where she is the main character, with Ged secondary to her.

The third installment in this series is here, and the final one is here.

Thanks for reading.

Frodo, Ged and Hazel, Introduction

For a couple of days, I have been mulling over posting on the 3 greatest works of fantastic literature. Greatest by what criterion, you may ask? My desire to read them. When I decided to take the plunge, and actually post, I discovered, as I typed, that the names of the main characters begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet.

Note that I didn't include the work of C. S. Lewis here. Anyone who has read more than about two posts on this blog knows that I appreciate his work. I suppose that, more than any other human author, he has influenced me (and a lot of other people) for the good. His Narnia books are great reads. If I could find my copy of Till We Have Faces, I would probably start over, and include Orual in the title of this series. However, I don't consider the Narnia books to have quite the depth of the items selected, perhaps because they were written for a younger audience.

I hope to comment on some of the things that J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, and Richard Adam's Watership Down have in common.

First, a thing they don't have in common--setting. Middle-Earth seems to be an alternate Western Europe, perhaps a long time ago. Earthsea is some world that's mostly water, with no indication of the time. Watership Down is set in a few square miles of England, apparently a real section of it, in the twentieth century. Second--characters. A hobbit, a young man growing up, and a rabbit. Third--world view. Tolkien was a Catholic Christian. Le Guin is a Taoist. I don't know enough about Adams to characterize him.

Now to plot summaries:
A hobbit reluctantly agrees to try to destroy the most powerful object in existence, and succeeds, against great odds.
A boy becomes a man, in the process bringing healing to himself, after a terrible choice almost ruins him; to his world, by repairing the most powerful object in it; and to his world, by closing a gap between the worlds of the dead and the living. (Against great odds, of course)
A rabbit leads other rabbits to found a warren based on freedom for all. (Against great odds, again. Would we really consider any book great if someone didn't strive against great odds? I doubt it.)

I know that all three of these authors have written more about their sub-created worlds, and, in Le Guin's case, about her central character, but will concentrate on the two trilogies, and the single book.

The second of these posts is here, the third is here, and the final post is here.

Thanks for reading.