by Chris Alexion, Copyright September 30, 2006, all rights reserved. 671 views
Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows is a master work of modern fantasy, introducing characters who shine with amazing lifelikeness and reveal concrete human foibles. Within this framework, every action the characters take illustrates a particular value or mocks folly. When Toad goes to trial after recklessly driving his motor-car, the reader laughs with the spectators. When Badger leads the band of friends to take back Toad Hall from the weasels, we admire his courage.
The "humanness" of the animal characters helps make Grahame's tale believable. Grahame places fanciful inhabitants–talking, clothed animals–into a realistic world also inhabited by people. But while the characters are fanciful, they're also extremely realistic. Toad is a vain fop; he represents the same view of the English nobility as taken by satirists like W. S. Gilbert or John Cleese. Rat is a poet with liveliness and imagination. Mole is the common Englishman, humble and somewhat timid, but full of yeomanly courage deep in what C. S. Lewis called "the chest." Grahame's animals speak in everyday language that adds to the homeliness of the story; their speech is undoubtedly "English."
Grahame pays close attention to detail in describing his world. When the Rat tells the Mole about the good times he has on the River, he mentions "when the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink that's no good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the channels, and I can potter about dry-shod over most of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped out of boats!"
Grahame encourages readers to suspend their disbelief by developing a unified point of view. Grahame employs a third-person narrator who has access to some of the feelings and thoughts of the characters, but does not favor any one character especially. Grahame chose to tell the story from the animals' perspective, which helps the reader identify with and believe in the characters. Too, the idyllic English setting helps children want the story to be true; they wish they could boat down a river with Rat and Mole or find the secret entrance to Badger's house.
The story's moral themes, especially how Grahame thinks one ought to interact with society, are subtle but rich. Toad, under the tutelage of the stern Badger, eventually learns to define himself by relationships with others instead of with possessions. Badger himself learns to be more concerned with others, and all of Toad's friends pull through for their comrade even though he's a difficult and not always deserving mate–pointing to deeper themes of friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice.
No comments yet.