Fear and Alienation Theme Analysis

Even before the arrival of the “nightmarish” black horse, the protagonist of “The Rain Horse” is alienated and afraid. Having returned to the countryside where he grew up after 12 years away, the man fears how empty, incompetent, and weak this place now makes him feel. It’s because of this that he immediately and desperately wants to flee—but he refuses to take the easiest path because it passes by a nearby farm and he’s afraid that the farmer will either remember him or mistake him as a trespasser. The man’s fear of being an outsider in his own homeland is also reflected in his terrifying, violent encounter with the strange horse. The animal’s repeated charges make it all the more obvious that the man no longer belongs in his “home-country.” As the story progresses, the man’s rising fear influences his perception of his surroundings, causing him to lose his grip on reality and control over his mind and body. This is true even when he consciously tries to rationalize what he is experiencing. Through the man’s harrowing journey through the hills and woods where he grew up, the story shows that fear—especially when compounded by alienation—can be an all-consuming emotion that shapes people’s view of the world around them and influences their behavior, making them think and act in ways they would otherwise consider irrational.

When the man fails to recapture the nostalgic feelings of his youth while walking over the hill, he feels alienated and unsettled—and these emotions quickly turn into anxiety and fear. Although he claims he wasn’t expecting a “very transfiguring experience” in returning to the area, he clearly looked forward to something. He feels alienated by his inability to conjure up “the right feelings,” and this failure forces him to confront his sense that “the land no longer recognize[s] him.” The place makes him feel “so outcast, so old and stiff and stupid” that he immediately wants to flee. Clearly, he is anxious about accepting that he no longer belongs in this place. In this emotionally heightened state, the man first catches sight of the unsettling horse. Immediately, his “senses [startle] alert.” Even before he fully registers the horse’s unnatural and “ghostly” appearance, his reaction is instinctively fearful. In this way, the man’s alienation exacerbates his anxiety and makes him more likely to react fearfully, given that he already feels isolated and vulnerable.

The longer the man remains mired in the muddy fields, the more disoriented and irrational he becomes, and his sense of alienation and rising fear color nearly everything he hears or sees. The harder the rain falls, the more it obscures the landscape, narrows the man’s perspective, and hides landmarks. Sitting in the woods, he watches the “blue shoal of the town” rising and falling as if floating on stormy waves, reflecting how he feels unmoored, like a ship in a storm at sea. Once, when the horse charges at him, he feels as if “[i]ts whinnying snort and the spattering whack of its hooves” are “actually inside his head.” His fearful overreaction demonstrates how the horse’s antagonism (which represents the man’s unbelonging in this place) is as much in the man’s mind as in the horse’s actions.

Then, the man’s fear of the horse drives him to think and behave in increasingly irrational ways, to the point that he seems to be losing control of his own mind and body. The horse begins to follow the man and repeatedly tries to attack him, though he can’t discern its motivations. This further illustrates the man’s alienation: it seems as if the horse is trying to drive him out of a territory that no longer recognizes him as a citizen. Every attempt to shelter, cross the field, or return over the hill, causes the horse to threaten the man. Yet the idea that it would be intentionally antagonizing him is so strange that he initially rejects it. As soon as the horse disappears farther into the woods, he thinks it “incredible that the horse could have mean to attack him.” His explanations are increasingly tenuous as the encounter unfolds: he wonders whether the animal has “an abscess on its brain,” or whether it is “clairvoyant.” His “rational” explanations have become more outlandish than the simple explanation that the horse doesn’t want him here. And his instinct to sneak away and avoid attacks belies his attempts at rationality; his behavior continues to be directed by his fear, even as he tries to convince himself that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

After the man eventually grows angry, fights back, and escapes the horse, he retreats to the safety of a nearby farm where he spent time as a child. As he takes in the familiar smells and sights, he already feels the episode with the horse slipping away, feeling less and less real. Yet the “fright and shame” of the experience remain, having only been covered briefly by his rage at the horse. He continues to behave irrationally, stripping his ruined suit off in the midst of the cold, driving rain. He feels “as if some important part had been cut out of his brain,” and although the meaning of this is ambiguous, it’s clear that the terrifying experience with the horse has left him empty and broken rather than triumphant. In the end, the man has survived the experience with the horse, but at the cost of his dignity and his rationality.