A Mother's Tale Analysis

Cows, for the most part, have been perceived as innocent creatures throughout the centuries. In various judicial systems, humans, too, are thought to be innocent until proven guilty. As history has shown on many occasions during times of war, innocent people are killed needlessly. In “A Mother’s Tale”, written by James Agee, a mother cow warns her cattle of the gruesome deeds inflicted upon cattle who travel out onto the range through the telling of the tale of the One Who Came Back. The One Who Came Back went through numerous trials, such as the denial of basic necessities and the sensation of being skinned alive, when he was chosen to ‘retire’ on the range. He returned to the farm in an attempt to heed others of the perils of man, but none …show more content…
Throughout the story, Agee uses “A Mother’s Tale” to explain that people can’t comprehend that the innocent were treated as animals by the Third Reich, because many believe that people are inherently good.
Agee uses “A Mother’s Tale” to symbolize how the prisoners of the Third Reich were treated as animals. Agee depicted in his story how during the journey that innocent prisoners of the Nazis were treated inhumanely when they were taken away to concentration and extermination camps. When the cattle in Agee’s story were being taken away to the slaughterhouse, they were packed onto trains tightly, so there wasn’t room for the cattle to budge or rest. Once the train had begun moving and much time had passed, the cattle started to realize that the train wouldn’t be stopping any time soon. During the duration of the train ride, the men entrusted with the cattle “never gave them food or water [...] [and the men] never even cleaned up under [the cattle, so they were forced] to stand in their manure and in the water they made” (Agee 122). Similarly, …show more content…
In many war treaties of the time era, such as the Geneva Convention, German prisoners of war were allowed more rights than citizens of Germany. And even with such treaties, many POWs still weren’t treated or herded as if they were animals. The citizens who were considered prisoners were given the same amount of dignity that a cattle would. The prisoners were herded together and placed on trains headed to camps where they would inevitably be killed and possibly butchered. This might be unbelievable to certain people, because many of the prisoners were children, and most likely could not have committed any act that warranted this treatment. Further on in the story, Agee also portrayed the slaughtering of prisoners of the Third Reich. After the cattle, including the One Who Came Back, arrived at the slaughterhouse, they were taken to a man called the Man with the Hammer, who then proceeded to pound the cattle’s head with a hammer to kill them. Like the One Who Came Back, there were some unlucky ones who