Greed, Arrogance, and Social Class Theme Analysis

Much of The Wind in the Willows focuses on Badger, Rat, and Mole’s intervention to change Toad’s rude and arrogant behavior. Toad is extremely wealthy and lives off his father’s money, in a grand (and, in his opinion, the best) estate on the river. He pursues expensive hobbies until he gets tired of them, and he constantly boasts about his wealth and insults those of lower classes. And while it’s implied that Badger, Rat, and Mole are all fairly well-off, they’re far humbler than he is about their wealth and privilege, something the novel suggests makes them morally superior animals. Through Toad, then, The Wind in the Willows shows how wealth and privilege, if left unchecked, can make people greedy and morally corrupt. But through Badger, Rat, and Mole, the novel suggests that people can also choose to use their wealth and status to help others rather than mistreat them.

Toad as an extreme example of how unchecked wealth and privilege can make people arrogant, cruel, and reckless. For Toad’s friends who live similar but slightly less privileged lives of luxury, Toad’s greed and wealth is mostly just an annoyance. Toad’s friends find it rude when he flaunts his wealth and boasts about all he owns in front of them, and they’re annoyed when he insists that they stay with him on his houseboat or accompany him cross-country in his caravan. But Toad’s greed and arrogance prove to be self-destructive and eventually bring about his undoing. From the moment Toad discovers cars, he turns into a selfish menace, getting into accidents, threatening to run down passersby, and being rude to policemen when they try to reprimand him for his terrible driving. But none of this stops Toad from buying (and promptly crashing) seven cars—and then stealing one, which lands him in prison. Toad is conceited and thinks only of himself, so it doesn’t bother him to know he’s endangering people or stealing their prized possessions. He believes that he’s entitled to whatever he wants, even if what he wants poses a risk to others.

Toad’s unchecked wealth and privilege also make him feel like he has the right to talk down to and otherwise abuse people and animals of lower classes. The various lower-class people he meets during his escape from jail are, on the whole, kind and helpful to Toad—the gaoler’s daughter helps him break out of prison, the barge woman gives Toad a lift down the river, and the “gipsy” man gives Toad breakfast and some cash in exchange for a horse. But despite the kindness these people show Toad, Toad never treats them with respect. Toad laments that the gaoler’s daughter isn’t of a higher class and believes she’s falling in love with him, despite no evidence of this—reflecting Toad’s classist, conceited nature. When the woman discovers that Toad has tricked her into helping him, Toad insults her weight and “mottled” skin (a sign that she’s lower class and has to work in the sun) and eventually steals her horse to punish her for the transgression of laughing at him. And when Toad encounters the “gipsy” man, his first thought is to try to overpower the man and take the man’s stew by force—again, something that doesn’t acknowledge the man’s humanity or dignity. In addition, Toad imperiously talks down to animals coded as lower-class (such as the weasels) and makes them perform tasks for him while refusing to give a straight answer as to whether he’ll pay them. Toad’s wealth and status make him arrogant, and so he feels justified in abusing others, lording his wealth over them, and demanding respect—even when he doesn’t respect others in return.

By contrast, Badger, Mole, and Rat, are much humbler and use their wealth and status to help lower-class animals. Badger is something of a grand old gentleman who lives a more remote life than his friends. The novel implies that Badger is wealthy by taking readers on a tour of his extensive country home stocked with all manner of foodstuffs and other goodies, and by noting that he was a friend of Toad’s father (from whom Toad inherited a fortune). But unlike Toad, who abuses his power, Badger uses his power to help others. The young hedgehogs who join Rat and Mole in Badger’s kitchen one snowy morning note that everyone knows Badger is a kind, generous gentleman—if one needs shelter or a meal, he’s the person to go to. He even sends the hedgehogs home with pocket money, seemingly for no reason other than to be kind. Rat and Mole also use their wealth to help other animals, some who are better off than they are (such as Toad) and some who aren’t (such as the cold and hungry caroling fieldmice, or even Portly and Otter when young Portly goes missing). And importantly, they never abuse the power they have as wealthy gentlemen: after the four friends take back Toad Hall, when Mole is tasked with overseeing weasels while they make up bedrooms for them, Badger gives Mole permission to whip the weasels if they do a poor job. But instead of whipping them, Mole sends the weasels on their way with food for the road, a mark of his kindness and compassion. With this, the novel suggests that money and status don’t inevitably corrupt—beings can choose to treat one another with kindness.

The novel’s exploration of class is complicated by the fact that the main characters are all wealthy, landowning gentlemen—and while lower-class people and animals exist in the novel, they mainly exist as an unseen presence in the background that enables the four friends to adventure instead of attending to domestic tasks. Rat and Toad, for instance, clearly employ kitchen staff, but the only indication that those employees exist is the fact that dinner bells ring to signal that a complex banquet is ready. And indeed, this reflects some of the contentious class relations of the Edwardian era (when the novel was written), a time when the wealth gap was widening in author Kenneth Grahame’s home country of England and elsewhere. Still, the novel’s message remains clear: people with wealth and privilege have a choice in how they treat others. Money, in other words, isn’t an excuse to be selfish, condescending, or abusive.