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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
Much of the suffering horses experience in London could be avoided with some common sense. Horses, Black Beauty notes, don’t mind hard work if they’re treated well—and he does believe that some horses with poor owners are happier than he was at Earlshall. Once, he sees a gray pony like Merrylegs trying to pull a heavy cart while a boy whips him. Merrylegs was never supposed to be sold, so it’s probably not him—but this pony could’ve had just as happy of a life as Merrylegs until he ended up in his current position.
What Black Beauty essentially proposes is that kindness from people is what’s most important to a horse’s health and wellbeing. So though he was cared for well in his stable at Earlshall, York’s unwillingness to oppose the bearing rein led to Black Beauty being unhappy. And while it’s impossible to tell if this gray pony is Merrylegs or not, Black Beauty’s anxiety about the possibility highlights how vulnerable horses are to people’s whims.
Themes
Butchers’ horses often go extremely fast, and Black Beauty learns why one day when he and Jerry wait near a butcher’s shop. A young boy drives a heaving and exhausted horse up quickly and stops, just as the butcher comes out of the shop. The butcher scolds the boy for driving the horse so hard. The boy, though, argues that he’s only doing as he’s told. The butcher tells him to hurry, and then all the customers order meat that they need in an hour or less, so he has no choice. If gentlemen would order ahead, the boy says, he wouldn’t have to run the horse so hard. The butcher agrees—but nobody cares about butchers, or their horses. He tells the boy to deliver orders on foot for the rest of the day.
Just like Seedy Sam, the butcher’s boy makes it clear that both he and the horse are victims in a society that prioritizes the whims of the wealthy over the wellbeing of the poor. The boy implies that in order to keep his job (and to keep the customers ordering from this butcher), he has no choice but to work the horse so hard. The butcher doesn’t have much more power than the boy does, but he does have the power to advocate for the horse and insist that the boy allow the horse the afternoon to rest.
Themes
Black Beauty does see some boys who treat their ponies very well. One boy sells greens and potatoes out of a cart drawn by a plucky old pony who clearly loves his master; the affection is mutual. Another old coal seller plods alongside his horse as they make their rounds, and the horse knows every stop and stops on his own.
These two horse-human pairs prove Black Beauty’s point that kindness and doing one’s best for a horse can make a horse’s difficult life bearable. This also shows that kindness isn’t just for wealthy or better-off gentlemen. The people Black Beauty describes seem extremely poor, and yet they care for their horses affectionately to the best of their abilities.
Themes
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