Where the Red Fern Grows

“The country was new and sparsely settled. The land we lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to my mother because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins. It lay in a strip from the foothills of the mountains to the banks of the Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma.”

This passage gives some history and context to the setting. It also introduces the tension between the native ways and the ways of the white man and “progress.” Later, Papa reveals his disbelief in the old legends, although Old Dan and Little Ann ultimately help teach him respect for the land’s memory.

“I remembered a passage from the Bible my mother had read to us: ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ I thought of the words. I mulled them over in my mind. I decided I’d ask God to help me. There on the banks of the Illinois River, in the cool shade of the tall white sycamores, I asked God to help me get two hound pups. It wasn’t much of a prayer, but it did come right from the heart.”

Rawls introduces the prominent theme of divine intervention, praying, and faith. A key point is that although Billy repeatedly appeals to God, he always works hard to do anything he can to achieve his goals all by himself.

“In a mile-eating trot, I moved along. I had the wind of a deer, the muscles of a country boy, a heart full of dog love, and a strong determination. I wasn’t scared of the darkness, or the mountains, for I was raised in those mountains.”

This quote shows Billy’s deep connection to the wilderness. He sees himself as a part of the wild, rather than a dominating force trying to control it. Here, he uses a kind of personification, giving himself the “wind of a deer,” along with his knowledge of the mountains.

“I wanted so much to step over and pick them up. Several times I tried to move my feet, but they seemed to be nailed to the floor. I knew the pups were mine, all mine, yet I couldn’t move. My heart started acting like a drunk grasshopper. I tried to swallow and couldn’t. My Adam’s apple wouldn’t work.”

The moment Billy meets his hounds, he feels overcome with emotion. So much work, planning, and saving has led up to this scene. He hesitates on the doorstep of his destiny before diving into it. His emotional beginning with the dogs foreshadows their deepening connection.

“They were sitting side by side with their bodies stiff and rigid. Their beady little eyes bored into the darkness beyond the cave. The moist tips of their little black noses wiggled and twisted as if trying to catch a scent. What I saw in my pups gave me courage. My knees quit shaking and my heart stopped pounding.”

In this moment, Billy’s bond to his pups begins to deepen. A mountain lion is stalking them, one of Billy’s great fears, but the courage of the hounds taps into a deep courage within Billy. Billy’s relationship with his pups begins with a mountain lion and will later end with a mountain lion.

“There, carved in the white bark of the sycamore tree, was a large heart. In the center of the heart were two names, ‘Dan’ and ‘Ann.’ The name Dan was a little larger than Ann. It was wide and bold. The scar stood out more. The name Ann was small, neat, and even. I stared unbelieving—for there were my names. They were perfect.”

This quote supports the symbology of the names within the novel. Seemingly by divine design, Billy discovers the names for Old Dan and Little Ann. Interestingly, the way the names are written reflect the dogs’ personalities. “Dan,” the courageous and tenacious dog, is in “wide and bold” letters, while “Ann,” the more timid, intelligent dog is “neat and even.”

“I looked up again to the names carved in the tree. Yes, it was all there like a large puzzle. Piece by piece, each fit perfectly until the puzzle was complete. It could not have happened without the help of an unseen power.”

Again, God’s influence is Billy’s reasoning for how things happened so perfectly. Ironically, it is also the reasoning for how things fall apart in the end when the dogs die.

“It was wonderful indeed how I could have heart-to-heart talks with my dogs and they always seemed to understand. […] Sometimes I would see the answer in their eyes, and again it would be in the friendly wagging of their tails. Other times I could hear the answer in a low whine or feel it in the soft caress of a warm flicking tongue.”

Billy’s connection to his dogs is not purely anthropomorphic, as this excerpt shows. Billy is intuitive enough to understand how his dogs communicate, rather than trying to force his human ways of communicating onto them. The channels of relation between them go both ways. This appears again when Billy points to an escaping coon during the stormy competition and the dogs go after it. Billy’s action was instinctive, and so the dogs instinctively followed.

“…but I made a bargain with my dogs. I told them that if they would put one in a tree, I’d do the rest. Well, they fulfilled their part of the bargain. Now it’s up to me to do my part, and I’m going to, Papa. I’m going to cut it down. I don’t care if it takes me a year.”

This quote shows Billy’s tenacity and the agreement he made with his dogs. Billy is no hypocrite: when he asks his dogs to do something, he means to follow through on his end no matter what. This proves that Billy doesn’t see his dogs as animals, but as equals, solidifying their part in the novel as characters.

“In fact, I think it would be a good thing if all young boys had to cut down a big tree like that once in their life. It does something for them. It gives them determination and will power. That’s a good thing for a man to have. It goes a long way in his life. The American people have a lot of it. They have proved that, all down through history, but they could do with a lot more of it.”

This quote shows the common homesteader/colonialist mindset regarding a man coming of age by asserting his dominance over natural life. Early Americans living in the wilderness had to maintain dominance to survive. This mindset appears again when Billy wants to kill the mountain lion because it is a fierce predator, even though it isn’t threatening him personally.

“Before leaving for home, I stood and looked at the fallen sycamore. I should have felt proud over the job I had done, but for some reason I couldn’t. I knew I would miss the giant of the bottoms, for it had played a wonderful part in my life. I thought of the hours I had whiled away staring at its beauty and how hard it had been finding the right name for it.”

Here, Billy rejects Grandpa’s perspective. He empathizes with the tree, seeing it as a companion just like anyone else in his life. He mourns its passing and reflects on its place and importance in his story. He honors it, displaying his empathy for nature. This appears again when he shows mercy to ghost coon.

“I could scold them a little but I could no more have whipped one of them than I could have kissed a girl. After all a boy just doesn’t whip his dogs.”

This quote shows Billy’s place in his own maturity, as well as revealing his strength of character. Billy’s not a man yet (his sexual maturity is far off), and yet he shows a deep, mature commitment to goodness by revealing he would never whip his dogs.

“After the coon was killed, I saw that had made him so smart. His right front foot was twisted and shriveled. At one time he must have been caught in a trap and had pulled himself free. He was an old coon. His face was almost white. He was big and heavy and had beautiful fur.”

Billy again shows his compassion and empathy to the natural world, even when he’s killing it. Like with the big sycamore, he honors the old raccoon, respecting his longevity.

“I knew my whole family was out on the porch listening to the beautiful voices of my little red hounds. I felt as tall as the tallest sycamore on the riverbank. I yelled as loud as I could. Again I heard the squealing of my sisters and the shouts of my father.”

Here, the reader sees the full support of Billy’s family. Having a loving, stable home life has enabled Billy to experience the wilderness and his own inner emotional landscape with such joy and inspiration. This is a direct foil for the Pritchard boys’ situation.

“I also knew he was a silent witness to the horrible scene. Behind me lay the still body of a young boy. On my left a blue tick hound lay torn and bleeding. Even after all that had happened, I could feel no hatred for the ghost coon and was not sorry I had let him live.”

In a moment of pure trauma, Billy again finds empathy. He doesn’t succumb to despair or negativity. Though he feels guilt over Rubin’s demise in this passage, he wisely realizes that it isn’t the ghost coon’s fault. Later, he’ll visit Rubin’s grave, his empathy for the mean boy mirroring his empathy for the ghost coon.

“Walking along by the side of my father, I threw out my chest and tried hard to keep pace with his long strides. He noticed and laughed. ‘You’ll have to grow a little bit,’ he said, ‘before you can take steps that long.’”

This quote shows Billy’s eagerness to grow up and become a man. He unconsciously and consciously imitates Papa. By the end of the novel, Billy is providing for his family and loses the loves of his life, his two hounds. When he leaves the mountains and his hounds’ graves, it symbolizes the demise of his childhood.

“As graceful as any queen, with her head high in the air, and her long red tail arched in a perfect rainbow, my little dog walked down the table. With her warm gray eyes staring straight at me, on she came. Walking up to me, she laid her head on my shoulder. As I put my arms around her, the crowd exploded.”

This scene shows the emotional tenderness between Little Ann and Billy and informs the theme of connection. This quote also further develops Ann’s regal character, portraying her like an elegant woman.

“They seemed to understand and tugged at their collars. When I turned them loose, they started for the timber. Just as they reached the dark shadows, they stopped, turned around, and stared straight at me for an instant. The judge saw their strange actions. Laying a hand on my shoulder, he asked, ‘What did they say, son?’ I said, ‘Nothing that anyone could understand, but I can feel that they know this hunt is important. They know it just as well as you or I.’”

Here, Rawls illustrates Billy’s uncanny connection to his dogs. The adult men’s apprehension and appreciation of the connection validates it. This harkens back to Billy’s reflection that his dogs could “speak” to him through their body language.

“I don’t know how she did it. Straight into the face of the storm she led us. Time after time she would stop and turn her head this way and that. I knew she couldn’t scent or see anything. Instinct alone was guiding her. Over a winding and twisting trail, we followed.”

Little Ann’s otherworldly instincts appear in this excerpt, adding to the uncanniness of Billy’s little hounds. Ann, the more intelligent of the two hounds, seems to be Billy’s guide. He doesn’t believe a coon is treed until he hears Ann’s bawl, even if Old Dan is bawling. Billy’s reliance hints at Old Dan’s impetuousness that will get the pair killed.

“The only times I had ever heard my little dog bawl like that were when she was baying at a bright Ozark moon, or when someone played a French harp or a fiddle close to her ear. She didn’t stop until we reached her.”

Little Ann has her own language and her own connection to the wild, as this quote illustrates. Just as Billy has his understanding of the world, so does every life form. This passage also points to the dogs’ unique language that Billy understands.

“[P]eople have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they’ll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don’t. I may be wrong, but I call it love—the deepest kind of love.”

This quote bolsters the theme of a Billy’s connection to his dog, calling it “love.” This furthers the theory that Billy’s dogs were his first true loves, and their deaths were his first true tragedies. In this unique coming-of-age tale, Billy doesn’t have a high school sweetheart, but a pair of dogs.

“My numb brain started working. I thought of another time the ax had been covered with blood. I don’t know why I thought of Rubin Pritchard at that time, or why I thought of these words I had often heard: ‘There is a little good in all evil.’”

This quote importantly connects the death of the mountain lion to the death of Rubin. Billy has been oddly harsh on the mountain lions, uncharacteristically finding no empathy for them. In this moment, however, he orients himself to empathize with that which he fears. He draws on his religious roots to access this.

“Ever since my dogs were puppies, we’ve always been together—just us three. We hunted together and played together. We even went swimming together. Did you know, Mama, that Little Ann used to come every night and peek in my window just to see if I was all right? I guess that’s why I want to be by myself when I bury her.”

The bond between the dogs and Billy is evident in this tragic quote. As Billy reveals this information after the dogs have died, it implies there are more secrets between Billy and his dogs that even the reader doesn’t know.