In Watership Down, home isn't just where you keep your stuff and park your car—home is about where you belong. Warren life for rabbits involves family and friends, as they build community through working together. In this book, this is literally true for Hazel's rabbits, who work together to dig Watership Down Warren. In that sense, they're not just finding a home, but creating one. For Hazel's rabbits, creating a home will take a lot of work and a fair bit of sacrifice, but it's worth it because it will be their own.
Questions About The Home
- What does a warren need to be a home? Could Cowslip's warren or Efrafa ever really be home for Hazel's rabbits? Are those warrens truly home to the rabbits who live there?
- What do we learn about the different rabbits from their different warrens?
- How do team-switching rabbits—like Strawberry and Blackavar—change their home? Do most rabbits change their home because they choose to do so or because they have to?
- How does Watership Down deal with home for humans or other animals?
Chew on This
In Watership Down, home is all about self-sacrifice, whereas the bad warrens are all about sacrificing others.
The ultimate image of home in Watership Down is at the end, when Hazel feels his power entering the new generations of rabbits—because home is about permanence and continuation.