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An Adolescent's Best Friend: The Roles of Animals in Lynn Hall's Fiction
Animals often play an important role in adolescent lives, so it is not surprising that they appear in many young adult novels. However, littlehas been written about the YA fiction usually categorized as "animal stories";with a few exceptions, such discussion is typically brief, emphasizing thepositive consequences of a loyal and devoted relationship between a youngperson and an animal without considering the variations and implications ofthese alliances.
No author of YA fiction writes about animals more than Lynn Hall; she hasincluded them in over half of her eighty-some books. Although this scope alonejustifies taking a closer look at how Hall uses animals in her fiction, such anexploration can serve not only to yield insights into the work of a prolificand popular YA writer but also to provide a lens through which to view other YAanimal stories. Many of Hall's animal stories are intended for younger readers.This article discusses only her animal fiction for young adults.
As Hall's autobiographical books Lynn Hall's Dog Stories and Tazo andMe indicate, much of her own life centers on horses and dogs; and bothappear regularly in her fiction, almost always to the exclusion of other kindsof animals, either domestic or wild. However, these horses and dogs function indiverse ways: they may serve as no more than a convenient plot complication andno less than the story's shaping force. Where they are central to the story,their relationship with the protagonist ranges widely in nature and complexityfrom closest companion to most intractable opponent.
Animals as Background
The least complex relationships between Hall's adolescent protagonistsand her fictional horses and dogs occur when the animal plays a peripheral rolein the novel, providing only a plot device or background color. In these cases,the story's complications and resolution develop out of the protagonist'sinteractions with people instead of animals. For example, in Dennison'sDaughter Sandy loves her horse Charlie, but Charlie provides little in thestory except an alibi for Sandy's trysts with Lonnie, a married man. The focushere is upon Sandy's bridging the gap between herself and her inarticulatefather and upon Sandy's learning to distinguish between love and sexualattraction.
The horses in Flowers of Anger help to cement a friendship between Careyand Ann. When Ann's horse is killed by a malicious neighbor, however, Annbecomes embittered and spiteful, and Carey finds that she must distance herselffrom Ann. Flowers of Anger explores not a relationship between anadolescent and a horse but the meaning and fragility of friendship.
When an animal remains on the margins of Hall's novels, the protagonist usuallylives in a world where people rather than an animal provide a listening ear andemotional nurture. The young person resolves his or her problems with the helpof a family member or friend, and the animals do not significantly affect theoutcome of the story. Other examples of Hall's use of animals in this wayinclude Flying Changes, Half the Battle, Letting Go,Murder at the Spaniel Show, and The Secret of Stonehouse.
Adventure
In novels such as Riff, Remember, To Catch a Tartar, andStray, the animals move from the periphery of events to the very center,with their adventures comprising the main plot. As they roam or are passed fromowner to owner, their fate is what moves the story forward. In each case, ahorse or dog in dangerous circumstances is befriended by a young human being,but the human being's relationship with the animal is not a key element in theplot. Even when an animal helps to redeem a troubled adolescent, as in ToCatch a Tartar, the story's main tension relies on the animal's adventures,not the young person's development.
Adventure/Accomplishment Romances
Other Hall animal novels follow the archetypal romance pattern thatNorthrup Frye has described in Anatomy of Criticism (pp. 186-206),stories in which the protagonist undertakes a quest and emerges a stronger andhappier person. Many of Hall's animal "romances" fit the category described byDonelson and Nilsen as "adventure/accomplishment" stories:
First, the young and innocent person is separated from the nurturing love offamily and friends . . . during a test of courage and stamina. In the finalstage the young person is reunited with former friends and family in a new roleof increased status. (p. 127)
Hall's "accomplishment" romances vary this formula in two ways: a horse or dogis at the heart of the test, and her adolescent protagonists are not so muchseparated from the love of family and friends as lacking it at the outset,adrift in a forlorn and bleakly difficult world. They are loners and lonely,rarely allowed the innocence and security ideally associated with youth. Theirparents (commonly separated or divorced) are often negligent and insensitive,sometimes even harsh or abusive. Most of the boys struggle with agonizingdoubts about their masculinity; the girls, about their ability to attract boys.Their interactions with peers serve only to deepen their isolation: the boysare taunted by brasher males about their lack of daring-do, and the girls arecaught up in endless competition with other girls for social status.
Nor is there solace to be gained through relationships between the sexes, whichare often described in terms of pursuit, with the women in particular doing the"hunting" -- although both men and women are captured as "prizes." Rigid socialcodes govern who can pair up with whom: "Any new boy was interesting, until heturned out to be too young or too old, or in a higher social level, out of . .. reach" (The Shy Ones, p. 83). And once "caught," the men usuallybetray the women, exploiting them before moving on to the next chase. Only oneof Hall's animal novels, The Shy Ones, depicts an unequivocallysatisfying outcome for an adolescent male-female courtship.
March Halsey in Halsey's Pride is typical of Hall's unhappyprotagonists:
Inside me was a pool of love that I carried always, feeling the weight of itand needing to pour it out on someone or something who would want it, someonewho would long to have it as much as I long to give it. (p. 20)
In Hall's animal romances, the recipient of this aching "weight" is a horse ordog, not a human. The story line is fairly consistent from novel to novel: alonely adolescent befriends an animal in dire straits whose care demandsextraordinary emotional and physical resources. The quest (or test) centers onthe adolescent's attempt to achieve some sort of victory involving theanimal.
Usually the protagonist is successful, and the relationship between theadolescent and the horse or dog ends on a note of triumph, with acclaim for theanimal and recognition for the adolescent, who, emotionally stronger now, isable to solve a host of personal problems. However, this positive resolutiondoes not extend to those animals unwilling to submit to human mastery;insubordinate horses and dogs are not allowed to thrive by the final pages.
It is as though in a world where young people are so powerless, where theycount so little in the adult scheme of things, there must be an animal overwhom complete dominance is possible. Thus, more rarely, as in Danger Dogand Ride a Wild Dream, a relationship between adolescent and animalmaterializes towards the end of the story, a reward for the protagonist'sstruggle.
In some cases a literal quest ensues when the protagonist tries to ascertain ananimal's true identity, ultimately discovering it to be a prize-winningchampion or the descendent of one. Often, there is a variation of theCinderella story when an initially ugly and apparently worthless animal emergesas the beautiful and valuable prize-winner. In stories with femaleprotagonists, the Cinderella tale is sometimes two-fold, with the heroine alsobecoming more attractive and even acquiring a boyfriend through her involvementwith a horse or dog.
Although the animals meet the protagonists' emotional needs in virtually all ofHall's animal romances, the emphasis of the stories varies. Some novels aremore focused than others on the suspense of the quest itself. Although thenarration may include many references to the protagonist's personal problems,character development is not the main concern. The problems are either quicklyresolved at the end or receive only scant attention: when the adventure isover, the story ends.
To build and sustain the suspense that is the driving force of these stories,the protagonist must be able to rise quickly to the occasion, transcending hisor her own problems without delay to save a threatened animal. Thus, Hall'sstory lines often require protagonists whose lives are not so complicated orchaotic that they are rendered helpless, mired in their own unhappiness. Mostof the protagonists in these suspense stories are young men whose main concernseems to be with their identity as males. These protagonists, who are oftenfond of music and literature, are more sensitive than the other males in thestory, and often they harbor what they perceive to be an almost shamefuldistaste for brutality and roughhousing. The success of the quest confirmstheir masculinity.
In The Tormentors, Sox, a member of a large Hispanic family, compareshimself unfavorably to his daring older brothers. However, although he suspectsthat he is "chicken," he unhesitatingly, and at great risk to himself, tracksdown the men who have kidnapped his cherished German shepherd Heidi. By the endof the story, he has established himself as a hero in the eyes of his brothersand parents. But it is the excitement of his adventure and the dog's narrowescape that rivets our attention, not his love for Heidi or how therelationship between dog and boy helps Sox find his place in his family andpeer group -- even though it does.
More problematic is the outcome of The Something Special Horse. Chrisresents his father, who buys horses only to sell them at a profit to a "killbuyer." Despite his father's insensitivity to Chris' feelings, the storydemonstrates that his parents do care about his well-being, and the readermight reasonably expect some resolution of the troubled relationship betweenfather and son. Instead, the novel concentrates on Chris' harrowing adventurewhen he steals one of his father's newly purchased horses whom he believes tobe "something special" and rides her through long, dangerous nights to safety.The book ends abruptly when Chris telephones his whereabouts to his father, whohas been searching for him along the highways.
Chris believes that he is changing for the better through his adventure:
The real Chris Eklund would never have defied his daddy, snuck off withsomething his daddy owned, dodged his mom, and got his brother to cover up forhim . . . . He kind of liked this guy who was riding through the night to tryto save a horse. (p. 57)
By implying here that Chris' rescuing the horse is more commendable than hisdeveloping a healthy relationship with his family, Hall seems to beestablishing a world in which the fate of animals takes precedence over humaninteractions. What finally matters is the horse's survival, not what happensbetween the father and son whose tensions have served only to launch theadventure and will certainly be exacerbated by it. One might argue that themany negative portrayals of adults in Hall's animal romances serve to justifysuch a value system.
Other romances involving animal characters are concerned mainly with theprotagonist's psychological development. With little control over their owndisrupted lives, these adolescents face problems so severe that the question oftheir emotional survival rather than the suspense of their adventuresnecessarily remains in the foreground.
In Danza! Paulo lives in Puerto Rico with his grandfather Diego whilehis father works in California. Diego berates Paulo for being a "baby" whoprefers to ride mares instead of stallions: "A man was less than a man if hismount was less than a stallion" (p. 4). Hungry for affection and acceptance,Paulo feels estranged from the family even when his father comes to visit. Thedistance between father and son, both emotional and physical, is conveyed byPaulo's brusque description of his father:
He was a narrow-faced, handsome man, but some quality in him made Paulonervous. It was as though the man were making polite conversation with astranger because it was expected of him. (p. 22)
In Halsey's Pride, March has also been separated from a parent, in thiscase her divorced mother who dumps March on her incompetent father in order toreturn to school and reserve more time for studying. When March speaks of hermother, the flat language again indicates the ruptured bond between parent andchild:
Mom was narrowly built, with kinky red hair and prominent bones. You could lookat her arms and see her as an entire skeleton. She was pretty in a high-strungway. (p. 11)
These distanced observations contrast sharply with the young people's intensereactions to the animals that enter their respective lives. When Paulo firstmounts his grandfather's horse Danza, he "was washed by a feeling ofcompleteness, as though his other half was rejoined to him" (Danza!, p.61). When he nurses Danza back to health after his own carelessness has nearlykilled the horse, Danza becomes an alter ego to the boy. The two exist almostas a single entity:
Sometimes it seemed to Paulo that their very breathing was in unison. Paulofound that he was able to sleep deeply only at times when Danza slept andDanza's waking, silent though it was, woke Paulo in the same instant. (p.103)
Other alienated Hall protagonists share this same powerful identification withan animal. When Tuck, a runaway ward of the state in Tin Can Tucker,meets the mare Indigo, she experiences a "small, electric shock, . . . . arecognition of some sort, like meeting her own eyes in the mirror" (p. 12). Asshe later says, the horse "is family to me . . . . I just have this strongfeeling that from now, well, it's the two of us against the world" (p. 58).
The characters describe their horses and dogs in raptly sensory language thatreflects their intense involvement. Paulo sees Danza as
a study in balance, in fine breeding, and in glowing intelligence. The neck, onthe side not hidden by the luxurious new mane, was clean and fine at thethroatlatch but swelling now with the muscled crest of a mature stallion. Thecopper-colored body was sleek, dappled . . . with a smoother finish of musclingover the croup. His legs were clean and straight, his pastern long. The tailthat completed the picture was a black cascade. (Danza!, pp. 170-171).
In Danger Dog, David's first glimpse of Max, a Doberman pinscher trainedas a dangerous attack dog, echoes Paulo's enthrallment about Danza and uses, infact, similar details:
The dog was beautiful. He was as cleanly carved as a racehorse: long, narrow,elegant head, ears chopped off to form erect points, powerful chest, and legsmade of long ridges of muscle and sinew. His tail was an almost invisible stub.The coat was short and hard and a brilliant polished black, set off by red-goldmarking on his legs and beneath his tail. Twin tan spots showed over his eyes.(p. 9)
By the final chapter of Hall's accomplishment romances, the protagonist issecurely moored in a loving "family." Whether or not the unit includes anactual parent, the lesson is clear: by forming a close relationship with ananimal and caring for it, the adolescent has moved beyond his or her own needsand, more for having survived the quest, is now able to enjoy fulfillingrelationships with other people. Other Hall novels in this category includeThe Soul of the Silver Dog and Troublemaker.
Love-Romance Stories
A few Hall novels qualify as love-romances, despite the absence of atraditional love story. As Donelson and Nilsen point out, the love-romance hasmany characteristics in common with the accomplishment-romance, but the focusshifts to the "pairing of a likable young couple." In YA fiction, they explain,the plot usually reverses the old boy-meets/loses/gets-girl formula to tell thestory from the girl's point of view: "She is the one who meets, loses, andfinally wins a boy" (p. 138). Hall's animal stories that fall into thelove-romance category, all told from a female point of view, adhere to thisformula with one significant change: it is not a knight on a white horse butthe horse itself that captures the girl's imagination.
The lives of these young women are almost more chaotic than the lives of theprotagonists in Hall's other animal romances. Only one, Rowan in TheWhispered Horse, has a father, and her mother has been murdered. In TheHorse Trader, Karen lives uneasily with the certainty that her unmarriedmother does not love her. And in Mrs. Portree's Pony, Addie has beengiven to a foster family by a mother too occupied with her own affairs to carefor the child. All want to be loved, as Addie says, "in that easy generous waythat people love children" (p. 1).
In each case, the protagonist allies herself with a horse that fills her daysand heart, an infatuation that Addie calls "horse-love" (Mrs. Portree'sPony, p. 12) and that seems to approximate the romantic longings for aboyfriend that absorbs other Hall female protagonists. Hall describes"horse-love" in a note to the reader that opens Tazo and Me:
I know you. You ride horses in your dreams and draw horses on your schoolnotebook paper. Model horses and poster horses clutter your room, and your starwish is always for a horse of your own. The ache of horse hunger is long anddeep . . . . (p. 1)
The relationship between the girls and their horses is symbiotic: bothoutcasts, they depend upon each other for survival. Just as other Hall heroinesare drawn to boys whose features are flawed, the imperfections ensuring thatthe boy is not "out of reach," these girls gravitate to horses that are old,sick, or unsightly. In true romance fashion, girl and horse prevail together.
Kate Kruschwitz has noted the "erotic" overtones in relationships between womenand horses, and the girls in these stories respond with a high degree ofsensuality to the horses they love. In fact, their passions far outstrip theresponses of other Hall heroines to sexual attraction between males andfemales.
For example, in Flying Changes, Denny purports to be in love with Tylerwith whom she has had her first sexual relationship. However, when she thinksback on their love-making, it is with more terseness than ardor. She might aswell be talking about vying for first place at a horse show: "This was me,giving something [virginity] I held dear and precious for the first time ever.It meant something to me. It meant a whole hell of a lot to me" (p. 22). Andlater, "Last night we made love in his bed in the guest room, me puttingeverything I had into it, hoping to pull the love words out of him" (p. 24).
In contrast, when Addie loses her heart to Mrs. Portree's Pony in theirfirst meeting, she is deeply moved:
[H]er fingertips were close . . . enough to feel the warm, damp puffs from hisnostrils, and with an almost physical pain the crust in Addie began to crack.Love came up in her as hot and forceful as molten lava rising in an oldvolcano.
She moved closer but left the first touching up to him. Whiskers brushed herpalm, then suede-soft, rubbery lips. She shivered . . . . She breathed in hisair; he breathed in hers . . . . He was hers then. They both knew it . . . .
She felt her arm across his back and knew it must be her legs that gripped hissides . . . . He must have the power of his greater strength over her and yetdo her bidding. He must have the power to hurt her but choose not to. Then shewould be loved. (pp. 13-14)
One can only speculate about readers' reactions had thirteen-year-old Addielavished such passion on a young man! Yet this is not an isolated instance inHall's fiction. In The Horse Trader, when Karen first mounts Lady Bay,she is similarly stirred:
Incredible elation filled Karen as she absorbed the feel of her horse. Shestroked the mane, the neck, the warm place under the mane. She reveled in thecurve of the barrel against her legs. After a while she carefully maneuveredherself until she was sitting backward, then she lay down, tenderly, with hercheek against the horse's croup, her arms lovingly encircling the hips. Thefragrance of horse was strong, this close, and Karen closed her eyes to savorit. (p. 66)
And here is Rowan with the horse Bannet in The Whispered Horse:
She explored him like a lover. She learned the freckled skin inside hisnostrils and the fuzz inside his ears and the pattern of the dappled rings onhis flanks. She studied the soles of his hooves and the lashes of his eyes. (p.60)
As the above passages strongly suggest, the girls here have sublimated theiryouthful sexual awakenings to an infatuation with horses. Hall's repeatedportrayal of the risky, unsatisfactory relationships between the sexes helps toaccount for this development. Not surprisingly, this all-encompassing love fora horse leads the young women to experience what might be sexual jealousy in atraditional boy-girl romance. When Addie thinks about the pony's real owner,
the thought rankled. Addie hated it . . . . He was hers. She needed him to behers legally, openly, in every way. (p. 18)
Her feelings intensify when she meets the pony's real owner and watches as thepony "leaned his head against the woman to rub his itchy face against herblouse. Jealousy shot through Addie" (p. 22).
In The Horse Trader, Karen is equally possessive as she reflects on thegirl she believes to be her horse's former owner:
The thought of Cathy and Lady Bay together brought a stomach-tightening mixtureof emotions: jealousy that Lady Bay had loved another girl before her, a secretgladness that Cathy was dead and she was alive, shame at herself for being gladabout anyone's death. (p. 66)
Like the "accomplishment" romances discussed earlier, these "love" romances endhappily. However, the ending depends less upon the girls' proving their meritthrough a difficult experience or quest than it does on their simply sustaininga great love for and devotion to a horse, much as the young women intraditional romances find happiness through true love with a young man.
Conclusion
Where animals are central to Lynn Hall's YA novels, they fill two majorfunctions: they initiate an adventure, either for themselves or an adolescentwho befriends them, and/or they succor the emotional needs of a troubled youngperson. In general, the animals are drawn into the closest relationships withthose adolescents whose needs are most intense.
In the most intimate of these relationships, the animals serve as a humancounterpart -- alter ego, friend, family member, romantic interest -- foradolescents who have few other people upon whom to rely. Also, in thisfictional world where parents offer little nurture to children and wherechildren, therefore, seem no longer entitled to youthful innocence, the animalscould be said to take on the role of children, helpless and needing care. Inbefriending these vulnerable creatures, the adolescents gain maturity and earnthe respect and love of other people.
These patterns involving animals -- adventure, accomplishment, and maturation-- are not, of course, unique to Hall's fiction. From classics like LassieCome Home and National Velvet to more recent works such as Wherethe Red Fern Grows and A Day No Pigs Would Die, animals haveappeared regularly in fiction for young adults. Their continuing presencesignifies their importance to adolescent lives that unfold outside the coversof books as well as between them, and Hall's animal stories reflect andemphasize that significance.
References
Frye, Northrup. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton UP, 1973.
Hall, Lynn. Danger Dog. Scribner's, 1986.
______. Danza! Macmillan, 1989.
______. Denison's Daughter. Scribner's, 1983.
______. Flowers of Anger. Follett, 1976.
______. Flying Changes. Harcourt, 1991.
______. Half the Battle. Tempo, 1983.
______. Halsey's Pride. Scribner's, 1990.
______. The Horse Trader. Scribner's, 1981.
______. Letting Go. Scribner's, 1987.
______. Lynn Hall's Dog Stories. Follett, 1972.
______. Mrs. Portree's Pony. Scribner's, 1986.
______. Murder at the Spaniel Show. Scribner's, 1988.
______. Ride a Dark Horse. Morrow, 1987.
______. Ride a Wild Dream. Follett, 1969.
______. Riff, Remember. Follett, 1973.
______. The Secret of Stonehouse. Follett, 1968.
______. The Shy Ones. Avon, 1977.
______. The Solitary. Macmillan, 1989.
______. The Something Special Horse. Scribner, 1985.
______. The Soul of the Silver Dog. Harcourt, 1992.
______. Tazo and Me. Scribner's, 1985.
______. Tin Can Tucker. Scribner's, 1982.
______. To Catch a Tartar. Follett, 1973.
______. The Tormentors. Harcourt, 1990.
______. Troublemaker. Follett, 1974.
______. The Whispered Horse. Follett, 1979.
Kruschwitz, Kate. "Women and Horses," New Woman, March, 1993, pp.90-94.
An assistant professor of English at Drake University, where she teacheswriting and literature for adolescents, Joanne Brown has recently completed aterm as editor of The Iowa English Bulletin.
