Survival In Richard Adams Watership Down

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The need to adapt as a mean of survival is the focus of Richard Adams’, Watership Down. A warren of rabbits is forced to leave their home when their natural habitat is destroyed by mankind. Finding themselves helpless as well as homeless, the rabbits must work together to overcome their circumstances. The peril of the journey forces them to use behaviors and skills that they have never had to use before. Adams’ work makes the point that everything must adapt to changes, Without adaptation, there is no way to survive. The first of many of their problems comes when they leave their home warren Sandleford. Fiver’s instincts are set off by a man's cigarette end, which causes him to have a vision where he see the rabbits home with blood all over…show more content…
They run into many different types of predators along the way. Far too often, bunnies have to fight to get through everyday living, which is due to the people who create most of the problems in the rabbits’ lives ( “Watership Down” 347). The rabbits know people are there from what they see and smell (“Watership Down” 343). The rabbits see people come up as unexplainable acts of nature (Meyer Masterplots). Acts that they can’t stop or see where they come from. They see people as not part of nature's plan, because they go against it. Rabbits believe that, due to humans, animals are dying. People are unreasonable and do not speak the same as rabbits: they murder with no hesitation while other animals slay solely to exist. Humans keep going through life, blind to what they make happen all around them (“Watership Down” 346). The humans in the book just do not see the struggle for survival everywhere (Potter). The bunnies sole challenge to survive lies in not being around people (“Watership Down” 344). On the other hand, humans do get along with other animals that bunnies do not like, cats and dogs, the bitterest creatures in the minds of bunnies (“Watership Down” 343). Bunnies struggle between actual threats and imaginary threats because these threats are in multiple areas of Watership Down: disease, pets, traps, people, developments, other bunnies, humans with guns, and other animals. Not thinking threats are there, but most threats come from nature (Meyer “Power” 36). Each challenge brings with it problems, enemies, dangerous places, and panic (Winters

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