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The Stoat
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Stoat, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fear, Flight, and Futility
The story opens with the narrator discovering a terrified rabbit that has been mortally wounded by a stoat (a weasel-like creature). He imagines that the rabbit ran from the stoat all night and then finally gave up, sitting down to allow the predator to kill it. The rabbit’s failed escape suggests the futility of running from what is frightening and implies that to flee is only to prolong one’s fear and suffering. This mirrors the…
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Relationships and Loneliness
The narrator of “The Stoat” is notably distant from his family members. He and his father seem to want a close relationship: his father seeks his son’s approval and asks him for advice, and although the narrator seems annoyed by his father, he’s deeply hurt when his father eventually abandons him at their vacation home. The father and son can’t close the emotional distance between them, and as a result, the narrator relies on his…
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Communication and Dishonesty
In “The Stoat,” the dialogue between the narrator and his father consists almost entirely of his father asking for his approval. However, because of the emotional distance between them, the narrator chooses to say what his father wants to hear rather than what he necessarily thinks. In this way, the narrator’s seeming approval of his father’s choices are actually lies by omission. For example, the narrator notes to himself that his father’s girlfriend, Miss McCabe…
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