Shardik's point of view is narrated to the reader in the first chapter only, as a confused sequence of action in which he flees a forest fire this act is interpreted by the Ortelgans as Shardik seeking them out as prophesied, yet could easily result from animalistic instinct in an animal remarkable only for its size. The central animal character, 'Shardik', is an enormous and savage bear, and quite different from the group of sympathetic characters from the previous novel.Īdams, famous for writing stories from animals' point of view ( Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, and Traveller), here creates a story in which the animal, Shardik the Great Bear, is an antagonistic force that generates the entire plot and yet whose status remains ambiguous. The Beklan Empire where Shardik takes place is a tropical region of jungle and savannah in comparison with the rural England of Watership Down. Shardik stands in sharp contrast to Adams's first book Watership Down. Adams's second novel Shardik concerns a lonely hunter, Kelderek, who pursues Shardik, a giant bear he believes to embody the Power of God both of them become unwillingly drawn into the politics of an imaginary region called the Beklan Empire.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |