War Horse

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taking the lead (or the reins) is young actor Jeremy Irvine, who has earned his stripes with both the National Youth Theatre and the RSC. She asks Albert to “try to see the good in him” (19), but Albert wishes that Father would stop complaining about Joey all the time. His novel War Horse has been successfully adapted as a West End and Broadway theatre play and a major film by Steven Spielberg.

The farmer’s wife and his young son, Albert, visit Joey, and Albert and the horse are immediately drawn to one another. They are allowed stay for awhile, and become ploughing horses again, with Joey helping Topthorn get used to the life of a farm horse. As Albert and Albert's friend, David, clean the mud from Joey's legs, David tells Albert that this horse has the same perfectly equal white sock markings that Albert's farm horse had.

A man of his word, he sketches and paints Joey's portrait to send to Albert, making good on his promise to let him know how Joey is doing. Soon, the Germans move their hospital somewhere else, and Emilie and her grandfather are allowed to keep the horses, who they use for their farm. Over the course of the conflict, newer and more protective technologies, like armored tanks, replaced cavalry units. Emilie is a sickly child who lives with her grandfather on his farm, which has been taken over by the Germans for use as their base camp.

War Horse filters the horror, inhumanity, and cruelty of war through the experience of its equine protagonist, Joey. With his wife, Morpurgo had founded Farms for City Children, a charity where inner city children live and work on rural farms for a week. When Joey hears this, he “trot[s] easily over toward him and burie[s his] head in [Albert’s] shoulder” (130). Albert realizes that Joey is his old horse only after cleaning all the mud off him, and seeing how he responds to his whistle.

Albert's mother supplies the quiet strength that underpins the Narracott family, but her hands are tied by the rules and traditions of the time that prevented a woman from overriding the sway of her husband. Joey's tremendous courage touches soldiers of both armies; in turn, he experiences warmth and kindness amid the carnage of war, and homesickness for his old life on the farm. War Horse is widely considered to be a modern children's classic and has been made into both a movie and a stage play. During another charge, Topthorn and Joey carry Warren and Stewart into the enemy lines, and are the only two of many, but they are captured by the Germans. When Albert and Joey arrive home, Albert rides Joey into the village and they are welcomed as heroes.

The fighting is terrifying and confusing; Joey describes how he can feel Captain Nicholls riding him at one moment, while the next moment he cannot. Joey also enjoys the company of Nicholl's best friend, Captain Jamie Stewart, and his horse, Topthorn. It thus participates in a long tradition of social critique via animal stories in English literature that includes Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The book starts by describing a painting of Joey that Captain Nicholls made, which is hanging in the Iddesleigh town hall.Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century. He is an inexperienced rider who rocks in the saddle, but what he lacks in horsemanship he makes up for in the love and the attention he gives Joey, whom he adores.