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Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
In early May, a man comes from Squire Gordon’s to take the narrator to the Hall. Squire Gordon’s Park is on the edge of Birtwick and is peppered with stands of trees, a few houses, and the main house and gardens. There are several stables. The one where the narrator lives has four stalls and is bright and airy. He’s put into the first one, where he doesn’t have to be tied and can move as he pleases. (The other stalls are the kind that horses are tied in.) The narrator eats the oats in his manger and then introduces himself to the fat gray pony in the next stall. The pony introduces himself as Merrylegs; he carries the young ladies and pulls a small cart. Merrylegs asks if the narrator bites—he doesn’t want to live next to a biter. The narrator says he doesn’t bite.
Already, Squire Gordon’s estate seems like a great place for the narrator to live: the barns sound pleasant and well-appointed, the narrator’s stall in particular. Noting that the oats are waiting for him also suggests that Squire Gordon cares for his horses’ comfort and will ensure they’re properly fed. And Merrylegs, at least, seems to echo Duchess in his belief that horses that bite and kick aren’t as good as those that are perfectly behaved—he doesn’t want to live next to a badly behaved horse.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
At this, a chestnut mare pops her head over the wall of the stall next to Merrylegs. She spits that the narrator has evicted her from her stall. The narrator apologizes—he didn’t mean to turn her out, and he just wants to be peaceful. When the mare is out of the barn later that afternoon, Merrylegs explains that the mare, Ginger, bites. When she inhabited the narrator’s stall, she once bit James, the groom, so hard he bled. After that, the ladies, Miss Jessie and Miss Flora, were too afraid to enter the barn past Ginger’s stall. Hopefully, Merrylegs says, the girls will come back now—if the narrator is gentle.
Between Ginger’s introduction of herself and Merrylegs’s explanation, Ginger gives the impression that she’s an unpleasant and potentially dangerous horse to be around. At this point, Merrylegs doesn’t give any sense of why Ginger is so mean. But notice Merrylegs’s tone as he talks about Ginger: he clearly disapproves of her behavior. And especially when he talks about the ladies being afraid to enter the barn, he suggests his loyalty is to his young riders, not to other horses.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
The narrator assures Merrylegs he only bites food, and he notes that he has no idea why Ginger likes biting. Merrylegs says she doesn’t—it’s just a bad habit. She was abused before she came here, and hopefully after some good treatment, she’ll come around and stop biting. Merrylegs says he’s 12, and he’s therefore old and wise. This place, he says, is the best place for a horse. John is an excellent groom and James is extremely kind. It’s Ginger’s own fault, he insists, that she didn’t get to keep her original stall.
