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Bless the Beasts and Children

 Glendon Swarthout
 

Key Facts

 
full title ·  Bless the Beasts and Children
 
author ·  Glendon Swarthout
 
type of work ·  Novel
 
genre ·  Coming-of-age novel; Western novel; animal rights novel; didactic novel
 
language ·  English
 
time and place written ·  United States, late 1960s
 
date of first publication ·  1970
 
publisher ·  Doubleday
 
narrator ·  Anonymous
 
point of view ·  Third-person omniscient
 
tone ·  Alternately grandiose, reverent, humorous, tragic
 
tense ·  Past
 
setting (time) ·  Late 1960s
 
setting (place) ·  Prescott, Arizona and its environs; Flagstaff, Arizona and its environs
 
protagonist ·  John Cotton
 
major conflict ·  A group of misfit campers sets out on a mission to rescue a herd of buffalo from their deaths in a brutal, state-sponsored shooting; the campers seek to define themselves as individuals and as men.
 
rising action ·  The boys witness the buffalo shooting at the preserve; the boys decide to escape from camp in an effort to rescue the buffalo
 
climax ·  The Bedwetters succeed in freeing the buffalo
 
falling action ·  Cotton's death and the Bedwetters' consequent mixed emotions of grief and joy
 
themes ·  Society's treatment of the powerless; the definition of a man; heroism
 
motifs ·  Religious imagery; popular culture; sense of place; tragedy and comedy
 
symbols ·  Hats, radios, and flashlights; Box Canyon Boys Camp; the buffalo
 
foreshadowing ·  Cotton pretends to vote to return home and abort the mission, testing the Bedwetters' sense of initiative and independence; Cotton appears as if he is "chewing on the idea of eternity"
 
 
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