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Analysis of Richard Adams' Watership Down Essay

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Analysis of Richard Adams' Watership Down

Richard Adams novel, Watership Down, is the account of a group of rabbits trip to search out a new location to inhabit. After escaping the Sandleford Warren because of one rabbit’s instincts, nearly a dozen rabbits cross virgin country. Along the way, they run across a few other warrens. These places exhibit a completely different way of living to the fleeing group. What they learn is vital when they develop their own warren. From these places they manage to collect some rabbits to increase their size once they reach a resting point at their final destination. Each of the places they encounter is set up differently. These warrens contain a distinct and unique social system, belief and …show more content…

The warren of snares could be considered socialist because all the rabbits there are equal and no one has anything more than anyone else.
Efrafa can only be explained as a totalitarian warren with General Woundwort clearly being the dictator. His military regime leaves the majority of his subjects unhappy. The entire warren “is organized to conceal its existence . . . the Owsla have every rabbit in the place under orders. You can’t call your life your own: and in return you have safety- if it’s worth having at the price you pay” (Adams 238-9). All dwellers of the warren have a marking that distinguishes them from other groups, controlling their time above ground. They also must defecate in a specific area and then conceal it. There are more rabbits than the warren can hold, with the majority of females unable to reproduce because of the overcrowding. All rabbits aspire to be in the Owsla and the Council because of the privileges and they have the best of everything (Adams 240). Woundwort maintains his power over the warren through fear and force, which, in the end, causes his great downfall.
The rabbits reach the Watership Down early on in the story, where they decide to remain and set up a government with the will of the people being the deciding factor in regulations. After discovering they are doeless, Bigwig convinces the does of Efrafa on the wonders of Watership Down, telling them “ . . .we mate with whom we chose and dig our own

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