The Circle of Life and Coming of Age Theme Analysis

In Where the Red Fern Grows, the harsh realities of the world are never too far off: over the course of the novel, Billy Colman has both experiences and witnesses violence, cruelty, and death to varying degrees—both in the animal world an in the human one. Throughout the book, Wilson Rawls uses instances of violence and death, which are both necessary but often ugly or frightening parts of the circle of life, and Billy Colman’s reaction to witnessing or participating in acts of violence to ultimately argue that coming of age and growing up requires one to reckon with the darker parts of life.

Throughout Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls uses several major instances of violence, loss, and death to illustrate how as Billy Colman learns more about nature and the circle of life—including its hardest, darkest realities—he finds himself growing up, coming into his own, and becoming more capable. The first instance of violence Wilson Rawls uses to demonstrate the circle of life—and thus Billy’s slow but steady coming of age—takes place when two local brothers, Rubin and Rainie Pritchard, challenge Billy to a bet that his dogs can’t catch a large old raccoon they call the “ghost coon.” Billy reluctantly accepts the bet at his grandfather’s behest, but the hunt takes a bloody and deadly turn that irrevocably changes Billy’s understanding of the circle of life and marks an important milestone in his coming-of-age journey. After Rubin and Rainie turn against Billy and threaten to beat him once his dogs successfully “tree” the “ghost coon,” or chase it up into a tree so that it can be caught—they’d assumed Billy would lose the bet and so they are humiliated when Billy wins—Old Dan and the Pritchard brothers’ blue tick hound begin fighting. Little Ann joins the fray, and soon it seems as if Billy’s dogs will kill the Prichard boys’ hound. Rubin stops beating Billy, picks up Billy’s ax, and heads for the dogs with it—but he trips over a stick, impaling himself on the ax’s sharp blade. Rainie runs away in horror, but Billy stays with Rubin until he dies and he even (at Rubin’s request) pulls the ax from his abdomen. Rubin’s dog lives, but Rubin is dead, and Billy, having witnessed his first human death, trudges home to tell his parents what has happened. Billy’s reaction to this horrific incident shows that the experience has aged him. Though Billy’s mother laments that her “poor little boy” has seen such violence, Billy is no longer a “little boy” after the accident. While he wishes he could forget what he saw on the mountain, he knows that the warning his grandfather gives him just days after the incident—that Billy will carry what he witnessed “all through [his] life”—is correct.

The second major instance of violence that Wilson Rawls invokes in order to show how Billy’s experiences with death and violence mark milestones in his coming-of-age journey comes at the novel’s climax as Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann face off against a fearsome mountain lion. The fight is an unbelievably bloody one—and the injuries Old Dan sustains from fighting off the cougar are fatal. Shortly after Old Dan succumbs to his injuries, Little Ann loses the will to live and she dies of self-inflicted starvation. Billy is devastated by the loss of his dogs—but as the months go by and he gets some distance from their deaths, he comes to see that Little Ann and Old Dan had their own places in the great circle of life.

Billy’s eventual acceptance of his dogs’ deaths represents another major milestone in his coming-of-age tale. After learning all his dogs have taught him—and after grieving their loss—Billy is no longer a boy, but a young man who understands that loss and death must touch every life. In the wake of his dogs’ deaths, Billy struggles to understand the “reason” why they died. He insists that neither he nor the dogs did anything wrong—there is no earthly justification, he feels, for their passing, and no balm that will ever take away the pain and injustice of that fact. However, in the novel’s final chapter, set nearly a year after the dogs’ deaths, Rawls introduces readers to a version of Billy who is very different despite only being about six months older. Billy is no longer angry about his dogs’ deaths—and when he spots a sacred red fern sprouting from the ground between their graves, he becomes even more sage and accepting of the tragedy of their loss. As Billy and his family prepare to leave the Ozarks to go live in town, Billy looks at the “sad and lonely” house where he was born—it is no longer his home, and he feels little regret or remorse when their wagon pulls away from the land on which he grew up. This moment symbolizes that Billy has at last come of age and acquired a grave new understanding of the world through a combination of suffering, grace, and acceptance. 

Billy Colman’s coming-of-age tale is one suffused with darkness, violence, and death—but also with the joy of love and the beauty of nature. Ultimately, Wilson Rawls argues that no one can come of age and begin the process of growing up without bearing witness to the darker parts of the circle of life and understanding that just as all things bloom and grow, all things must meet death at some point.