Richard Adams Use Of Ethos In Rabbit Culture

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“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed" (Adams 43). In the creation of the secondary world of the novel, Richard Adams utilizes mythos to enrich the rabbit culture. Through these stories, the rabbits learn how to make up for their shortcomings by taking advantage of their assets. The series of myths in the novel discuss the rabbits’ reliance on trickery, emphasis on selflessness, and views on mortality and enhances the novel by providing a set of underlying morals that aids in understand rabbit behavior. …show more content…

For example, in the story of the King’s Lettuce, El-ahrairah deceive King Darzin when he sets “to work to disguise himself” as a doctor sent to discover the issues concerning Darzin’s lettuce (110). By tricking King Darzin, El-ahrairah is able to get his people out of Kelfazin and display the advantages associated with trickery to all of the rabbits listening to the story. This shows that in order to get out of trouble, the first method rabbits should turn to is trickery. In the Story of the Trial of El-ahrairah, Hufsa is sent to spy on El-ahrairah because of his tendency to trick and steal. El-ahrairah is able to deceive him by recruiting other animals to perform unusual actions, causing Hufsa to give a nearly unbelievable account to the jury of animals. By doing this, El-ahrairah saves his own life and is thus able to escape danger through use of wit. In this way, Adams depicts deception as an innate rabbit virtue that gets them both into and out of …show more content…

Through the stories of El-ahrairah, selflessness is portrayed as being an admirable trait in a chief rabbit. Rabbits are relatively weak creatures, and they need to utilize the strengths of each member of the group in order to thrive. For example, he risks his life (along with Rabscuttle’s) by conducting a raid on King Darzin’s garden, a very dangerous garden in the second world of the novel. His motivation to save his people is meant to be conveyed to the rabbits listening to the story. It is through his selflessness that his people are saved, thus making it evident that the wellbeing of the warren depends on the selflessness of the chief

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