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Chapter 45
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
An acquaintance of Jerry’s, a corn dealer and baker, purchases Black Beauty. The food is good, and the baker himself is a good man—but the foreman and Black Beauty’s carter, Jakes, regularly overload Black Beauty’s cart. Jakes also uses the bearing rein, so Black Beauty feels weak and sore after only a few months. One day, as he tries to pull a heavy load up a hill, Jakes whips Black Beauty. Black Beauty is doing his best, and he’s emotionally as well as physically hurt.
Just like at Earlshall, Black Beauty is cared for just fine in his stable, but the work itself is unbearable. He suggests that the damage done by the cab work is now compounding as he's forced to pull loads that are too heavy without the use of his neck. And he again reminds readers how important kindness is: he implies that he’d be way more willing to work if Jakes was sympathetic and kind, rather than whipping him.
Themes
Finally, a lady stops and asks Jakes to let Black Beauty rest. He says the heavy load isn’t his fault, but the lady says Black Beauty could do more without the bearing rein. Jakes obliges her and takes the bearing rein off. Black Beauty shakes his neck and then pulls the load the rest of the way up the hill. The lady pats him along the way and at the top, she asks if Jakes is going to stop using the bearing rein. Jakes acknowledges that not using it helped, but he can’t go without or the carters will laugh at him. Very seriously, the lady suggests Jakes set his own fashion. Her horses haven’t worn bearing reins in years—and anyway, people have no right to torment “God’s creatures.” The animals can’t advocate for themselves, but they don’t suffer less because they can’t speak.
The lady demonstrates and then synthesizes many of the novel’s big ideas about what makes a person good or evil. First, she stops to advocate for Black Beauty; her actions make her a good person, not what she thinks or whether she attends church services. Then, in her speech to Jakes, she echoes Sir Oliver that fashion is evil because it doesn’t take into account what’s comfortable for animals; it’s about people’s selfishness. Finally, she insists that one can measure a person’s goodness by how they treat those who are most vulnerable—such as animals who can’t advocate for themselves, and yet still feel pain.
Themes
After this, Jakes does take down the bearing rein going up hills, and he doesn’t hike Black Beauty’s head as high as he once did. But the loads remain too heavy, and Black Beauty can’t keep up. In addition, Black Beauty suffers from a poorly lit stable—it’s nearly dark, and it would’ve eventually caused him to go partially blind (and then made him dangerous) had he not been sold again, this time to a large cab owner.
Jakes may take the lady’s speech to heart, but it’s not enough when he still has to follow the foreman’s directions to overload the carts. Essentially, he’s limited in what he can do to help Black Beauty if he wants to keep his job. Things seem to take an ominous turn for the worse when Black Beauty shares that his next home is with a cab owner—that kind of situation killed Ginger and Seedy Sam.
Themes
