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Watership Down
From Lostpedia
Watership Down is a novel by Richard Adams and first published in 1972. It is often seen as a social commentary done using a group of rabbits as the main characters, and chronicling their search for a new place to live after they narrowly escape the poisioning and excavation of their warren by men.
In the course of their search for a new warren, they encounter a supposed utopia, where the rabbits are nurtured and fed into apathy by the local farmer. However the newcomers come to realise that this strange warren is a trap, as the farmer has set snares all around the area.
Later in the book the group finds a suitable place to settle down, but require does (female rabbits) to continue their society. They approach Efrafra, a nearby warren run under the iron fist of a Chief Rabbit, and after capture and a protacted battle, survive to start their own warren.
In Lost
- Watership Down originally belonged to Boone, as he had it checked with his luggage on Flight 815. ("Confidence Man")
- Kate finds the book by the beach with Sawyer's belongings, and he tells her, "Hell of a book. It's about bunnies." ("Confidence Man")
- Boone finds the book in Sawyer's luggage, leading him to believe that Sawyer has the rest of his luggage, including Shannon's asthma inhalers. ("Confidence Man")
- Sawyer is seen reading the book. ("Left Behind")
Similarities and shared themes
- The protagonists of the book are rabbits, which have become a recurring theme on the show.
- Just as the Tempest was used to poison the entire island, at the beginning of the book the rabbits are poisoned and only a few remain to escape.
- Establishment of a utopian social community (the protagonist rabbits are reevaluating the rules by which they will choose to run their society).
- Kidnapping/rescuing members of one community in order to fill ranks of a second community (the protagonist all-male rabbits must liberate some does from a neighboring, fascist warren).
- Psychic abilities (one of the rabbit protagonists has a vision of the doom of their warren, which later comes true).
- The theme of feeling uprooted from "home", and ongoing search for a new place (physical and metaphorical) to replant themselves in a distant land.
- One of the chapters in the book is also named "Dea Ex Machina" (much like "Deus Ex Machina"), after the literary device used to unexpectedly untangle plot situations. In this case, Dea is the feminine counterpart of the masculine Deus.
- "The remedy is worse than the disease", one of several possible translations of the Latin phrase "Aegrescit medendo", which is written on the blast door map, is a direct quote from Watership Down. It is spoken by the Chief Rabbit in the chapter "For El-Ahrairah to Cry", in Part Two. He means that it would be easier for the community to stay where they are and hope to survive the catastrophe that threatens them, rather than evacuate.
- In the 1978 animated movie of Watership Down, the opening scene focuses on a close-up of the lead character's eye, just as in the TV series.
- In the novel, a doe knows she is dying and leaves the group to do it away from them. This mirrors the "live together, die alone" concept.
- In the story, the concept of death is symbolically represented by a black cloud in the form of a rabbit. The presence of the Monster on the Island could be seen as a tribute to this idea.
See also
