black beauty

∗plot:

The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty’s life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell’s detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.

The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.

characters :

1.black beauty :

The narrator of the story, a handsome black horse. He begins his career as a carriage horse for wealthy people but when he “breaks his knees” (i.e. develops scars on the fronts of his wrist (carpal) joints after a bad fall) he is no longer considered presentable enough and is put to much harder work. He passes through the hands of a series of owners, some cruel, some kind. He always tries his best to serve humans despite the circumstances.

2.ginger :

A companion of Beauty’s at Birtwick Park, she is named for her chestnut colour and her habit of biting, which is often how the spice, ginger, is described. Ginger is a more aggressive horse due to her traumatic upbringing. After being ridden by Lord George in a steeplechase her back is strained. Beauty and Ginger meet for the last time as broken-down cab horses in London, and later a cart carrying a dead horse , passes by Beauty.

summary:

stall of a beautiful old barn. Black Beauty grows quickly with the assistance and guidance of his doting mother who teaches her son, as any human mother would, the things that he should and should not do, what to eat, who to interact with and the like. Black Beauty’s mother raises him to be a well-behaved young colt, but despite her best attempts to keep her son forever by her side, the horses’ human owners have different plans for the pair. The owners sell Beauty to a man named Squire Gordon who adds Black Beauty to his collection of three horses: Ginger, Merrylegs and Oliver. Ultimately, Gordon sells the stallion to Earlshall Park; life here is harsh, and Beauty suffers abuse. His next sale is to Jerry, a cab driver who cares for Beauty until he falls ill. Beauty ultimately changes hands of ownership several more times, ending up at a pasture owned by the Blomefield family, for whom his first owner, Joe Green, works. Green recognizes Beauty upon his arrival and cares for Beauty in his remaining days.

the message:

The message of Black Beauty is most definitely that horses (as well as all animals and also people) ought to be treated kindly, ethically and humanely.