The Wars: Animal Imagery
... counterparts. After enlisting in the army, Robert takes a run out on the prairie, where he encounters a coyote. He instinctively begins to follow the creature, and it leads him to a valley where it stops to drink at a small pond. As it drinks, "the sound . . . [crosses] the distance between them and . . . [seems] to satisfy his own thirst" (The Wars 28). Before the coyote leaves, it turns and "[looks] directly at him . . . and [barks] . . .The coyote had known he was there the whole time: maybe the whole of the run across the prairie. Now it was telling Robert that the valley was vacant: safe-and Robert could proceed to the water's edge and drink" (28). Later that night, as he sits alone, Robert finds himself "wishing that someone would howl" (28). Robert also seems to have a special bond with birds, which often appear in the novel, frequently at times of crisis for Robert. After unwittingly leading his men through the fog onto a collapsing dike, the air is suddenly "filled with the shock waves of wings . . . [and] the sound of their motion [sends] a shiver down Robert's back" (81). Subsequently, Robert steps into the sinking mud and is nearly sucked down to his death beneath the earth. Later in the novel, Robert again encounters a bird, and it is at the same moment that he sees "a German soldier with a pair of binoculars staring right at him" (142). Then again, while on the way to the dugout, where Robert is later shelled, he notices that "the sky [is] breached by a wavering arm of wings. The crows [are] following" (89). Finally, only shortly preceding arguably the most cataclysmic event in the novel, Robert looks up to the sky and finds himself thinking that there "should have been birds" (197). By acting as omens of danger for Robert, the birds in this novel reinforce Robert's connection with animals. Robert finds it easier to relate to animals than to humans. Any of the human characters in the novel for which Robert feels significant affection are also people with strong kinship to animals. His beloved sister, Rowena, was closely attached to her pet rabbits. His friend Rodwell keeps injured animals under his bunk and nurses them back to health. Harris, another friend of Robert's, says that "[everyone] who's born has come from the sea. [The] womb is just a sea in small. And birds come from seas in eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they're born. The placenta is the sea. And your blood is the sea continued in your veins" (117). Robert also acknowledges our animal heritage when he notes that to sleep invariably puts you in danger, and it was the "animal memory in you that knew that" (101). In the end of the novel, Robert loses his life in an attempt to save those of innocent horses. Findley uses Robert's connection with the animals to illustrate the similarity between humans and animals. Findley attests that there "are so many fascinating things the human race doesn't want to know about itself" (Inside Memory 155). One is that, although humans esteem themselves above animals and consider the creatures to be wild and savage, it is truly the human race that is savage. Although Findley strongly believes that humans and animals are equal, he also vehemently alleges that only humankind is capable of the destruction and horror of senseless violence. During Robert's run with the coyote, Robert watches as the coyote spies two gophers and notes that the animal "didn't even come down off it's toes. And when it came to the place where the gophers had been sitting, neither did it pause to scuffle the burrows or even sniff them" (The Wars 26). This event is important because it emphasizes that as hunters, animals kill only for necessity and survival. Human beings, on the other hand, are capable of murder without reason. Later in the novel, a young German soldier gives Robert an unexpected chance to escape certain death. Robert is cautious, but seizes the opportunity. However, when the German makes a sudden move, Robert panics and shoots him. Too late, Robert understands that h...