Summary Of War Horse

The horse is used as a recurring idea throughout the whole story to describe and compare what Chris as a character shows in his emotions. The meaning becomes seems to have the same idea of Chris and him trying to escape reality into his own dimension. The first motif is the saddle that Chris makes for Vanessa’s birthday, with criss-cross lines. The saddle’s criss-cross is the brand name of the ranch in Shallow Creek, and also a reference to his own name. The criss-cross ranch is in his own imagination, which is why the saddle is a symbol of his imagination and escaping reality. Even later, when he describes the imaginary horses, Duchess and Firefly, although they are not real, he seems happy about talking about the ranch and the horses, suggesting that at this point, Chris is relatively happy in seeking refuge in the imaginary world. When Chris later introduces the real horses, Floss and Trooper, these horses are …show more content…
Unfortunately, they would soon find out that one cannot escape from their problems. The last time the horses are mentioned is when Vanessa is grown up and understands Chris’ condition. She compares his imaginary horses and ranch to a line in a poem, “Slowly, slowly, horses of the night-” (p. 24) as an allusion. She realizes that just like horses that travel in the night, their path is unknown and fearful, which is why the horses would slowly travel. However, eventually, the night that symbolizes his depression would only get darker and the horses, represented by Chris escaping reality would only become increasingly scared of the reality and try to sink into the night further. Ultimately, the horse motif seems to apply mostly to show the way Chris tries to shy away from the real world, and how severe it becomes, but how no matter how much he tries, he cannot get