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Chapter 29
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
Mr. Barry is a businessman in Bath, whose doctor wants him to ride horses for exercise. He boards Black Beauty at a stable and hires a man named Filcher as a groom. Mr. Barry doesn’t know much about horses, but he’s kind and orders large amounts of the best horse food. Filcher knows his business; he used to be an ostler. But soon, Black Beauty finds he’s not getting enough oats. He has no way to tell Mr. Barry why he’s no longer energetic. This goes on for two months, until Mr. Barry rides Black Beauty to visit a friend who’s knowledgeable about horses. When he asks about Black Beauty’s poor condition, Mr. Barry says Filcher insists horses are just weak in the autumn. The friend says that’s nonsense and suggests that someone “wicked” is “rob[bing] a dumb beast” of his oats.
Mr. Barry is inexperienced when it comes to horses, but he has good intentions—a combination that, by this point, the novel has encouraged readers to be suspicious of. And sure enough, Mr. Barry’s lack of knowledge means that he doesn’t realize Black Beauty isn’t getting enough to eat until Black Beauty is thin and weak. Then, the gentleman drives home how powerless Black Beauty is by referring to him as a “dumb beast.” In this context, this just means that Black Beauty doesn’t have human speech and can’t advocate for himself, and it highlights how powerless he is.
Themes
Black Beauty resents being called a “dumb beast,” but he knows where the oats are going: Filcher’s son always visits with his father in the morning, and he takes oats with him. A week after the visit to Mr. Barry’s friend, the police enter the stable with the boy and ask to see where Mr. Filcher keeps his rabbits’ food. The frightened boy shows them Black Beauty’s feed bin. Filcher is imprisoned, though the boy isn’t found guilty.
Filcher’s situation is complex. He reads as somewhat poor if he’s having to steal to feed his rabbits—but by the novel’s logic, he’s also not a good person since he’s stealing from a powerless horse. So this offers another angle to look at how wealth and virtue intersect, and how being poor can cause a person to do things considered cruel.
Themes
Literary Devices
