“Anyway, What’s a Doe More or Less?” Androcentrism in Watership Down (1972) and Tales from Watership Down) (1996) by Richard Adams

Abstract

When Adams's Watership Down reached the US market, it came under strong criticism for "its anti-feminist bias" (Resh Thomas 1974: 311). Several years later, Le Guin reiterated the censure of its "egregious sexism" (2009: 82), taxing the novel with falsifying animal behaviour. However, through the comparison of Lockley's The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964) and Adams' text, it is possible to prove that the latter's representation of rabbits' society is actually strongly indebted to his source text for its blatant androcentrism. The sequel, Tales from Watership Down, published in 1996, ostensibly tries to give the does more "floodlight" (Adams in Monaghan 2011: 14) and make amends for some of the accusations received. However, as the paper highlights, while the novel undeniably conveys a strong ecological message, its point of view remains strenuously patriarchal.