50 pages • 1-hour read
Raising Hare
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Symbols & Motifs
The COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of this book’s primary motifs. It looms large in the background of the narrative, especially during the first section. The pandemic disrupts Chloe’s life and throws both her work and travel schedules into upheaval. Escaping London’s strict lockdown, she retreats to her country house in order to have more space and freedom of movement. Although she is grateful for the opportunity to leave the city, Chloe is a self-avowed urbanite and initially struggles with the slower pace of rural life. She enjoys her far-flung travel and London’s bustling atmosphere. Additionally, the pandemic itself is a source of constant stress, bringing fear and uncertainty both to her life and to society as a whole. She has no idea when she will be able to return to her normal life and initially feels that she cannot make a full commitment to the leveret because she hopes that her country sojourn will be brief. Eventually, however, she finds that slowing down provides a surprising set of benefits. Spending time in nature is soothing to her, and she begins to relax. She no longer feels the need to finish her work projects as quickly as possible. She realizes that there is more to her identity than her job. She feels a newfound sense of freedom and is grateful to have had the opportunity to reconnect with nature. Although the COVID-19 pandemic begins as a source of extreme stress, it ultimately becomes a catalyst for Chloe to explore The Therapeutic Effects of Nature. Now that she is more open to defining herself outside of her role as a political analyst, she finds that she is increasingly attuned to the sights and sounds of the natural world surrounding her country house. She does her best to learn about the flora and fauna of her area, and her new knowledge deepens her sense of intimacy with the landscape. She spends an increasing amount of time outside and even leaves the doors and windows open when she is in her house. She feels better integrated into the environment. Ultimately, she chooses not to return to the city full time. The pandemic, despite its terrible costs, brought unexpected gifts into her life.
Cultural Histories of Hares
Chloe dedicates much of her memoir to the various cultural histories she reads about hares, and those cultural histories become an important motif. Initially her inquiry into hares is part of an attempt to learn how to care for the creatures. Because hares were never domesticated and few people have experience caring for them, she mostly finds accounts of how to cook or hunt hares. When she digs deeper, however, she finds a wealth of material written by people who are fascinated by the species. An intellectual and researcher by trade, Chloe immerses herself in these histories. She finds that there are conflicting views of hares across cultures, and that there is much misunderstanding and misinformation. She also learns more about the way that humans have impacted hare populations and begins to think more critically about human-animal interactions more broadly. Chloe’s research into the cultural history of hares helps her to engage with Humanity’s Changing Relationship With Nature. The reading that she does leads her to the conclusion that humans harm hare populations in part because of a lack of real, meaningful knowledge about them. She argues that people would better understand hares and damage their habitats less if they truly understood them. The same claim can be extended to many animal species. Chloe’s conservation ethic is ultimately rooted in understanding and appreciation, and she develops an appreciation for hares as well as a desire to understand them in part through the reading she does into their history in Eurasia.
Industrialized Agricultural Equipment
Industrialized equipment, in particular the potato harvester, becomes a symbol of the damage that humans have done not only to hare populations but also to other wild species. As such, the symbol helps Chloe to explore Humanity’s Changing Relationship With Nature. As part of her research, Chloe learns that hare populations have declined more sharply since the advent of industrialized agriculture than at any other point in history. Although humans have always hunted hares and in some places even hunted them to the brink of local extinction, hares were able to bounce back. Agriculture threatens hares because it encroaches onto their habitat, but also because industrialized agricultural equipment is able to plow fields at a fast pace. Machines like harvesters mow down everything in their path, even animals. Chloe sees first-hand the damage that these machines cause after the potato harvest. Walking through the fields after the harvester has cut them, she finds countless dead hares and other small creatures. She reflects that conservation efforts tend to focus on large, charismatic animals but ignore small species like the hare. Seeing the death and destruction in the fields near her home, she comes to the conclusion that conservation should also focus on species that come into greater contact with humans, the species that still live near human farms and settlements after humans have partially moved into their territories. Although Chloe spends much of the memoir ruminating on the way that humans have impacted hares across the centuries, it is during her walk after the harvest, in the penultimate chapter, that her conservation ethic truly takes shape.
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