The Ogre Day 3

The first thing that I wanted to talk about was the animals that are in the book. There are a lot of animals in the Rominten and they all must represent something in the book. However, I am having trouble figuring out exactly what animals represent what characters. One of the most disturbing parts to me was when Abel was in charge of the slaughtering of the horses. I think this is foreshadowing the slaughtering of all the Jews. Clearly it bothers Abel too, but because he was given this task he completes it. It is his job to go get the feeble horses and bring them to a remote part of the forest to kill them, as if in secret. Also description of the horses was sad. They were described as being so weak and skinny, and if they were too sick along the road they were given a shot, just to get them to the final place. This mimics what the Germans did to the Jews, worked them till they were too skinny and weak and then killed them. This was done to make a perfect place for the boars, so they would not bother the humans anymore. It is possible that the boars represent the Nazis because they wanted a perfect place to live where there were no Jews. However, I think that the stags have a representation of the Nazi s because they are the animal that was most liked and powerful in the forest. I am not sure about that. All of the animals references confused me a little bit. I thought that the Goering was represented by the King Stag Candelabra and also the Lion which they bring in. Both because they are such strong animals and Goering seemed to be the most powerful person at Rominten.
The other thing I just wanted to mention was the repeated references to fecal matter, from all the animals. I know that it shows Abel’s obsession and the representation of Omega, but it just seems gross. There is a whole page devoted to what all the animal droppings look like. Gross. The only part that was interesting to me was how Abel decided that the horse was necessary to kill the stag because the Stag was Alpha and the Horse Omega. The killing of Alpha through Omega. This was strange but showed Abel’s obsession with eating and defecation.