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Chapter 10
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
Black Beauty becomes prouder and happier at Birtwick the longer he lives there. Squire Gordon and Mrs. Gordon are respected and well-loved; they speak out against anyone who mistreats animals or people. Squire Gordon and Farmer Grey have spent 20 years advocating against the use of bearing reins on carthorses, and Mrs. Gordon regularly tries to get drivers using bearing reins to see how cruel they are.
Squire and Mrs. Gordon, as well as Farmer Grey, use their power and prestige to advocate for change in their community. This, the novel suggests, is something that marks them as good, because in addition to treating horses well themselves, they also stand up for other horses that are being mistreated.
Themes
Once, even Squire Gordon loses it with a man who yanks on his pony’s mouth hard enough to make it bleed. The man insists the pony was misbehaving—but Squire Gordon argues otherwise. Another time, Squire Gordon tries to convince a captain to stop using bearing reins on a pair of horses—soldiers, he says, can’t be expected to do their best if they’re forced to hold their heads up, and horses are the same. The captain promises to think about it.
