Old Yeller Themes

Old Yeller explores how the world of animals and the world of people overlap. Travis Coates and his beloved dog, Old Yeller, have an intense bond—and their connection suggests that while many people see the animal world as separate from their own, that could not be further from the truth. People and animals, the novel suggests, are deeply interconnected.

Old Yeller’s sudden arrival into the Coates family illustrates how, even though people consider themselves…

At the beginning of Old Yeller, Travis Coates’s father leaves his family at their rural Texas homestead and goes off on a cattle drive to Kansas, hoping to make some money. As Papa departs, he urges Travis to “act like [a man]” in his absence. At only 14, Travis accepts his father’s challenge with grit—even as he holds back tears watching his father leave. Travis’s struggle to stand in as the man of…

Old Yeller is a classic coming-of-age novel: it tells the story of a young boy realizing what it takes to come into one’s own and emerge from youth as a mature, well-rounded individual. Each coming-of-age tale prioritizes different aspects of adult behavior as the true marker of maturity. Within the world of Old Yeller, responsibility, and the capacity to selflessly shoulder others’ burdens, are what define adulthood.

Travis’s coming-of-age journey begins when Papa…