WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Book Club: Animal Farm But With Rabbits

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to Book Club on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Sigaritau, and this week we'll be discussing chapters 30 through 38 of Watership Down. Welcome to Book Club. I'm not going to lie. I did not expect to run into such major political themes in Watership Down, a cute little book about rabbits, yet here we are in F. Raffa. I guess all great books to an extent touch on political themes such as this, and I can't say that I mind. One of my favorite book series ever is the Hunger Games, and I just love the political turmoil that takes place over the course of the series. So honestly, I got really, really excited when Bigwig started spying on Woundwort. I've also read Animal Farm a couple of times when I was younger, even though I couldn't really describe the plot to you today. But there is something about using animals to illustrate, dictate. I think it makes the cruelty and oppression so much more evident because obviously there is hierarchy in the animal kingdom, but also we see such wonderful harmony and teamwork between members of the same species or members of similar species.

Starting point is 00:01:22 This isn't the case for all animals, but especially with smaller animals, such as rabbits and birds, we tend to think of them in partnership and harmony as they work together to stay safe from. predators. I mean, you see birds flying in a flock in V formation. They're working together. Rabbits stick together and take turns, watching guard, and being alert because obviously it is very taxing on them. In Afraffa, Wounder ultimately takes up his position because of his success with fighting against animals that are typically predatory to rabbits. His strength and brute force puts him in charge and keeps him in charge. As we know, from experience and the rest of the book, rabbits by nature are skittish and fearful. So Woundworth and even

Starting point is 00:02:12 Big Wig are outliers in the sense of being fighters. We saw Bigwig fight against a cat. That's crazy for a rabbit to kick a cat and stand its ground and win. Because there are so few rabbits with dominating personality traits, it makes sense that Woundwirt ended up in charge of this Warren. But his ways of ruling and his oppression over the rest of the rabbits is really sad to see. So it is very impressive when Bigwig is able to deceive him and start spying on the F. Raffa Warren. I think in this section of the book, Woundworth and Bigwig play excellent parallels to each other. As I mentioned beforehand, both rabbits are strong. They have pure physical strength and they're able to use that to help keep other rabbits safe. And both rabbits are also very intelligent. Bigwig and

Starting point is 00:03:10 Woundworth think very quickly on their feet. I mean, Bigwig has to change his escape plan several times in order to successfully get away. And Wounder is able to quickly adapt to that. So overall, these rabbits are very similar in their strength and their intelligence, but the key difference, obviously, is that Woundwirt does not care about the damage to his own Warren and any personal damage as well, whereas Bigwig and the rest of the rabbits are very concerned about the damage and losses that they may experience. I mean, they left their home Warren to avoid whatever danger there might be. So they have the instinct of self-preservation and trying to keep themselves and their close friends safe. Once more, Adams has developed very,

Starting point is 00:04:00 distinct characteristics for these rabbits. I personally find it very impressive because I think from an external perspective, all rabbits look the same. And obviously, just like people, that's not the case. Thank you for joining me this week for Book Club. Next week, we will be discussing part four, Hazelrah, chapters 39 to the end of the book. Happy reading, and I'll talk with you soon on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I

WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Book Club: Animal Farm But With Rabbits

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