Course: Watership Down

Watership Down

This allegorical story follows a warren of adventurous rabbits who are forces from their home by real estate development. In the course of their journey, they have to learn how to handle new experiences, develop new methods for handling crises, and avoid numerous enemies. Richard Adams originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two young daughters during long car trips. it took years to write, and when it was finally published, the book sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Watership Down is not a sweet fable about bunnies; it's a tale in which characters die or become injured, and these facts of life are not sugar-coated. Adams said of his writing style, "I derived early the idea that one must at all costs tell the truth to children, not so much about mere physical pain and fear, but about the really unanswerable things—what [writer] Thomas Hardy called 'the essential grimness of the human situation."

Literary Elements :
- Setting: the Hampshire district in central England, where the author still lives
- Protagonist: Hazel, leader of the rabbits who looks for a safe home
- Antagonist: enemies of the rabbits, including humans
- Conflict: overcoming differences and developing a sense of trust that will enable the rabbits to create a successful civilization.
- Themes touch upon loyalty, trust, friendship, courage, acceptance, brain vs. brawn, and the ideal society