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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in War Horse, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dignity and Humanity
Hope and Loss
Love and Loyalty
The Horrors of War
Summary
Analysis
Friedrich rides Topthorn on the day they all return to the war. At noon, the gun troop stops in a wood full of German soldiers to rest. A crowd quickly forms around the two golden Halflingers, but one young soldier (Rudi) pulls his friend (Karl) over to admire Topthorn. Karl doesn’t see anything special about Topthorn, but Rudi loves horses—he thinks they’re the best creatures God created. And finding a beautiful one in the midst of the war’s horrors is like finding a butterfly on a dung heap. Joey looks carefully at Rudi, who looks barely older than Albert was when Joey saw him last. All the soldiers seem to be getting younger, looking more like boys playing dress up than men.
Rudi and Karl offer another reminder that it’s important to have respect for all living creatures, not just a human-centric worldview. As Joey looks at the young men, they also remind him of the terrible costs of this war, which maims and kills so many soldiers on both sides yet still demands fresh blood. And the boy-soldiers’ youthful exuberance offers a powerful reminder that the value of a person’s life lies in their existence—not their side in a war, their political affiliation, or their nationality.
Themes
Friedrich leads Joey and Topthorn down to the river for a drink, and Topthorn tosses his head in the water, showering himself and Joey with cool, refreshing drops. After they’re done resting, they resume hauling the artillery gun up the steep and rutty hill. Topthorn stumbles once or twice, and Joey gradually becomes aware of how hard his friend struggles to get up the hill. Then, Topthorn falls to his knees and cannot rise. Joey pauses, waiting for Topthorn to regather his strength, but instead his friend falls over, dead. Joey frantically tries to rouse Topthorn as Friedrich falls to his knees and places his ear to the horse’s chest. In his despair over the horse’s death, Friedrich begins to wail about how the war destroys everything good and beautiful, while Rudi tries gently to pull him away from the fallen animal.
Even as his health and vitality fail, Topthorn remains attentive to Joey and his needs. The love and loyalty they feel for each other model the type of relationship that makes life good. Nevertheless, the artillery unit makes demands of the horses that are more appropriate for inanimate machines than dignified living creatures, and Topthorn pays for this disregard with his life. Importantly, the loss of Topthorn seems to have utterly deprived Friedrich of hope for himself or humanity.
Themes
Within a moment, the field veterinarian arrives and pronounces Topthorn dead as other soldiers gather to look on. He worried this would happen to Topthorn when he fell ill during the winter. Short rations, hard work, and continual exposure can kill the strongest horses; the veterinarian mutters to himself that the German Army treats machines better than its animals. As the soldiers bow their heads in a spontaneous moment of silent respect, Friedrich says, “He was my friend,” and removes Topthorn’s collar.
The field veterinarian and Friedrich both emphasize the unnecessary waste of Topthorn’s life; his predictable death could have been prevented if only Herr Major had treated him with dignity and respect rather than considering him a piece of equipment to be used to the breaking point. The veterinarian directly criticizes those humans who treat their animals worse than their machines, reminding readers that the way a person treats animals is a measure of their dignity. In contrast, Friedrich considers the horse his friend, even though it belongs to a different species.
Themes
The sound of a shell whistling overhead breaks the silence, and when it explodes in the river, the area plunges into a chaos of screaming, running soldiers. Joey wants to flee too, but he cannot bring himself to abandon Topthorn. Friedrich tries to pull him away but cannot move the obstinate animal. Finally, Friedrich throws down Joey’s reigns and tries to flee toward the rest of the retreating soldiers. But he waited too long, and he cannot run swiftly enough. A bullet strikes him just a few paces away. His dead body rolls back down the hill and comes to rest next to Topthorn. Joey sees the manes of the golden Halflingers flying as they struggle to pull their gun to the relative protection at the top of the hill, then he loses sight of the team forever.
Joey and Friedrich both demonstrate their loyalty to Topthorn by staying with his dead body, even at risk to themselves. Crucially, however, although he fears how difficult his life will be without his friend, Joey holds out hope for the future—he can still imagine himself living past his friend’s death, even though he knows he will be lonely. In contrast, Friedrich seems to have lost hope when he lost Topthorn. Unwilling to think about life without the great black horse, he stays still for too long and loses his life, becoming yet another casualty of war’s pointless and excessive cruelty and violence.
Themes
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