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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
The first place the narrator can remember is a big meadow with a clear pond and shady trees. On one side of a hedge is a farmer’s field, and the master’s house is on the other. As a young colt, the narrator lives on his mother’s milk. But once he can eat grass, the narrator’s mother—Duchess—begins going to work during the day. The narrator lives with six other, bigger colts in the meadow. They like to play rough, with biting and kicking. But one day, Duchess calls the narrator over and tells him the other colts are carthorses. The narrator is well-bred, and she hopes he'll grow up to be gentle and to never kick or bite. The narrator has never forgotten this advice.
The narrator’s description of his early life is idyllic—he has a big field to run around in, fresh water, and shelter from the elements (in the form of the trees). He’s innocent, at this point, to the fact that he’s living a luxurious life; not all horses in the novel grow up in such ideal circumstances. Then, Duchess introduces the idea that class divisions exist among horses, just as among people. While the carthorses are coded as being working-class, the narrator is upper-class and should therefore behave better than his working-class counterparts.
Themes
Literary Devices
The horses’ master is a kind man and treats his horses like he treats his children. There’s a plowboy named Dick, though, who sometimes eats blackberries from a hedge near the colts’ field—and then throws rocks at the colts to make them gallop. The colts usually don’t mind, though sometimes a stone hits them. But one day, the master catches Dick doing this. He boxes Dick’s ears, scolds him, and fires him.
Dick throwing stones at the colts introduces the idea that not all people are as good and moral as the horses’ master is. It’s fun for Dick to cause the horses pain as he makes them run and entertain him. But the horses’ master puts a stop to this. He won’t stand for such cruelty and will use his power to stop Dick from ever hurting his horses like this again.
Themes
