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Watership Down

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For the hill named Watership Down, see Watership Down, Hampshire.
For the 1978 animated film see Watership Down (film).
For the television series see Watership Down (TV series).
Watership Down is the title of Richard Adams's first and most successful novel. The novel is about a group of rabbits and is named after a hill in the north of Hampshire, England. This is also the area where Adams grew up. Initially, the story was based on a collection of tales that Adams told to his young children on trips to the countryside. The book endured 13 rejections from publishers before finally being published in the United Kingdom by Rex Collings Ltd in 1972.

The rabbits in the story are significantly less anthropomorphized than typical fictional animals; they do not possess any technology or wear clothing, and have the physical attributes and instincts of their real-life wild counterparts. Nevertheless, they are depicted as sapient and capable of speaking to one another. Furthermore, the author has gone so far as to construct a culture for his rabbits, including a language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry and mythology. More than one chapter consists of pieces of rabbit lore.

Watership Down is often referred to as a classic example of xenofiction. Many editions also include an appendix of Lapine vocabulary. It can thus be considered not an animal fable like the works of Aesop but a genuine heroic fantasy.

Contents

Story

Watership Down tells the story of a group of rebellious rabbits who — against the wishes of their Chief Rabbit — escape from their threatened warren. The story follows their subsequent adventures. They find sanctuary in a warren on the down for which the book is titled, but the story continues after this.

Synopsis

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The book opens with the runt rabbit Fiver foreseeing the destruction of the warren. He and his brother, Hazel, try to warn the Chief Rabbit but are turned away. Hazel, who knows Fiver's sixth sense well, organizes a group of dissatisfied rabbits to leave the warren, including his friend Bigwig, who is castigated by the Chief Rabbit for believing Hazel. The dissatisfied group is confronted by the warren's military leader, Holly, but successfully fight him off. The rabbits wander dejected, but Hazel's leadership keeps the band alive and together.

Throughout their journey the rabbits encounter dangers created by humans, by the natural world, and by their own kind. At one point they stumble upon an apparently idyllic warren of beautiful, well-fed rabbits who invite Hazel's group to stay. The rabbits apparently lack the wild, scrabbling life of normal rabbits, and have been able to partake in arts and poetry, although in sharp contrast to wild rabbits they have turned from the teachings of El-ahrairah, the revered mythological rabbit prince. But Fiver sees the warren for what it is - a repressed society in which the rabbits live under the unspoken understanding that they are being harvested by the local farmer.

Eventually the rabbits reach a haven, Watership Down itself, an area of peaceful downland where they build and establish their own warren. As they learn upon their arrival, they left their old warren just in time; Holly and another survivor, Bluebell, catch up with them and tell them of the warren's horrible destruction at the hands of men.

Yet even then they must face the problem of furthering their own society, as the group of rabbits includes no does. And soon their greatest threat is the presence and investigations of a nearby warren, Efrafa, which is run on totalitarian lines and is heavily policed by a regime led by General Woundwort. In order to continue their own warren they must persuade others to join them, but only under the terrible risk of their own destruction by Efrafa.

Eventually, the rabbits manage to infiltrate and convince several does from Efrafa, which has become too large, crowded, and stressful for them to breed any more, to join their warren. General Woundwort, angered that his warren could have been infiltrated, leads an attack against the Watership Down warren. Bigwig, through superior strength and wit, manages to defeat Woundwort in combat, while Hazel leads a dog into the warren to destroy the rest of Efrafa's forces.

By the end of the book, Watership Down and Efrafa (under new leadership) have become friendly and build a new neighbouring warren together.

Spoilers end here.

One sequel to the book was written, entitled Tales From Watership Down. It takes place after the events in Watership Down, but does not continue the main plotline. Instead, it is a collection of short stories taking place after Watership Down and involving some of the same characters.

Characters

Most of the rabbits in the book have a distinct personality.

The original group that leaves the Sandleford warren, all bucks, consists of the following. (The names are the forms that most commonly appear in the book. These are mostly nicknames: where they have an original "Lapine" name, it is given in parentheses along with its meaning in that language.)

Hazel's rabbits

They are later joined by:

Non-rabbit allies

Enemies

Characters in rabbit lore

Interpretation and influence

Watership Down is notable as an ensemble story, with multiple protagonists who each serve a useful function under quietly competent leadership. Although Adams has always stated that the book was intended to be a children's story, many fans see the book as a political allegory attacking fascism and appeasement as Animal Farm attacked Stalinism. This opinion is supported by a plot involving visits to two other warrens whose political philosophies are depicted as antagonistic and repugnant. One of these is known only as Cowslip's Warren: the rabbits there grow fat on food left out for them by a local farmer, yet it is common knowledge (but never openly said) that the farmer has wire traps set out to catch the rabbits; these rabbits accept the risk of sudden death for the benefit of an easy life. The other is Efrafa, ruled with a merciless iron fist by the powerful and insane General Woundwort who becomes the story's principal antagonist.

Myxomatosis (or in Lapine terminology, "The white blindness"), a terrible and highly infectious rabbit disease, is referred to early in the book. It was a threat that could have destroyed the Sandleford warren if not for the tough but reasonable leadership of the chief rabbit, who cast out any rabbits showing signs of sickness. The original impetus for General Woundwort keeping the Efrafan warren under tight control is to guard it against the dreaded illness. However, his strict measures went over the top and the Efrafan rabbits found themselves living under a military dictatorship where they cannot even leave the burrows without presence of guards. The underlying message (as it is often interpreted) is that societies overrun with fear are more susceptible to accepting leadership that purports to offer safety in place of liberty.

Adams has gone so far as to state that the personalities of the two principal hero rabbits, Hazel and Bigwig, are based on fellow officers he knew while a paratrooper during World War II.

Adams' father makes a cameo appearance (as "Doctor Adams") near the end of the book, in a chapter entitled "Dea Ex Machina" after the deus ex machina literary technique.

Watership Down has become a modern classic and won the Carnegie Medal in 1972. In 1978 the book was adapted as an acclaimed animated film, directed by Martin Rosen. In 1999, an animated television series, Watership Down, was also coproduced by Martin Rosen.

Religious significance

The religious subtleties in the book may either parody or parallel Western religious concepts. Similarities between the Lapine folk hero El-ahrairah and the Trickster of folk mythology are apparent. The exaggeration of the heroic feats of El-ahrairah and the progressive attribution of new feats to his symbolic character, the recognition of the Sun as the god Frith in the absence of a scientific explanation of nature, and the attribution of random accidents to divine providence (such as the train death of the Efrafans on the railroad track) are notable in light of the cultural development of folk religion.

Cultural references

Editions

There have been over 300 editions of Watership Down in English - these are just a few of the ones known.

UK editions

US editions

Translations

External links

 

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