Created by Lorelei Heuer on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 11:30
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‘We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words. My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.’ -Anna Sewell
Anna Sewell's Black Beauty is a beloved story that has been appreciated since 1877 for its timeless significance and empathetic story telling. The story is from a first person perspective of the horse protagonist, Black Beauty and follows him as he is relocated multiple times due to changing circumstances.The qualities of the humans with power over Beauty and the other horses and the way they use or abuse this power reflects the theme of the children's novel. Those who are truly good are good to all of God's creations which means treating animals with compassion. Sewell places value on the morals of Christianity as we can see in the distinction between right and wrong. Like all didactics, goodness is praised and sinning is punished. Sewell says the purpose of her writing in the novel is "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses." The personification of Beauty emotionally connects children to the horse, allowing them to develop empathy for animals and understand why the mistreatment of animals is wrong.
Book Cover, . . .
Portrait of Anna Sewell (1820-1878), Wordsworth Editions.
The author of Black Beauty, Anna Sewell was born in 1820 in Yarmouth, England. At the age of fourteen she broke her ankle, which permanently disabled her and put her in bad health for the entirety of her life. Because of her mobility issues, she relied heavily on horses for transportation, developing her connection with them and sympathy for the mistreatment of the creatures. Later her health conditions worsened and she was bedridden, which motivated her to put her efforts into writing about a Victorian issue she was passionate about: the cruel treatment of horses and disregard for their well-being. Her work was incredibly influential in creating change in the working conditions of horses. Her writing describes the pain that horses experience in the ‘bearing rein’ which was used for fashion and just that. The blinker was also criticized by the horses in the book, as they agreed that blinkers cause more accidents because of the obstruction of their view. It is this understanding of the effect of the instruments used to control them that allows Sewell’s compassion to become contagious, and therefore Black Beauty is a transformative work that influenced owners to be more mindful of how they treat their horses.
Lucy Kemp-Welch, "My Mother and I," for Black Beauty (1877), by Anna Sewell, 1915 edition.
Beauty's story begins in a pasture with his mother as shown in the above illustration. The pastoral illustration is a pleasant memory of domestic bliss, which Sewell includes to show young readers the horse's joy in the freedom of the initial setting. Beauty is fond of his home, spending his days alongside his mother and playing with other colts in the field. When the colts play rough, kicking and biting, Beauty’s mother Duchess interjects with moral instruction. She reminds him that he is well-bred and should be well-mannered, gentle, and hardworking. With those favored qualities in Victorian children highlighted we can see the didactic influence immediately in the story.