Bless The Beasts And Children

The novel, Bless the Beasts and Children, by Glendon Swarthout has a theme of the progression of the Bedwetters. These are kids who are ostracized because of their lack of physical abilities. Their individualistic actions are eliminated as the novel progresses. Before the group changed to a fully functional group one could find clues of these individualistic acts such as when the Bedwetters attempt to steal the buffalo head from one of the other cabins. John Cotton’s, the leader of the Bedwetters, at first refuses to compromise and allow the group to get food. When he does compromise, the Bedwetters begin their progression. Finally the event in which the Bedwetters free the buffalo shows them as a fully functional group. The group’s individualism is shown when they attempt to steal the buffalo head from the Apaches. “They botched it”(pg. 60) describes the Bedwetters’ attempt. Goodenow and Lally 2 set the group off on the wrong foot after one has giggled and the other trips on a root. Teft

The event in which the Bedwetters free the buffalo from the preserve show them as a fully functional group. Cotton, instructs Teft to continue driving and forget about them. The plan worked but Cotton wound up dying, living up to what he had said earlier. If their actions had properly been planned and the six of them worked together, the Bedwetters would have been successful. Literature is a good teacher, students find out from this book that no one succeeds who does not have a clear plan and work in a unified group to achieve its goal. Glendon Swarthout must have started with this idea as his theme, it worked well for this novel. The Bedwetters are tied to a tree and the Apaches urinate in their chamber pot. When the rest catch up, Cotton says "Okay, everybody is probably hungry and would operate better after some food. "They never had a real plan, only a simple objective: no matter who, no matter what, to free from the pens the thirty animals doomed to die in the morning". Once, successfully having entered the cabin, Shecker being "clumsier than a cub bear" catches the power switch to his radio on a piece of elastic. Cotton at first is stern and won"tmt allow a stop leaving the rest of the Bedwetters, except for Teft, no choice but to leave the truck. and Shecker, being the strongest, were the ones to enter the Apaches"tm cabin and take the trophy down. The Bedwetters learn from this event in which they are greatly humiliated. This causes all the campers to wake up and tackle the Bedwetters.