, the author sees the island of Kotick and his family as an international gathering point, and therefore a product of mass culture: "They [the seals] come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold grey sea; for Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any place in all the world" (4). Further developing a link to the culture of man, he grants his animalistic creations a strong sense of statutory justice, exemplified by Kotick's father, Sea Catch, a man who "...never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules of the Beach" (4). Likewise, at the foundations of the seals' society lies a strict class system, a hierarchy based on age, indeed very similar to the Hindu caste stratification, which formed the basis of Kipling's native Indian community. Kotick and the other young animals experience the manner in which their elders look down on them, when the three- and four-year-old seals bellow, "Out of the way, youngsters! The sea is deep, and you don't know all that's in it yet. Wait till you've rounded the Horn...." (9) Equally important, Sea Catch, not at all pleased with his son's escapades in search of a safer island, tries to explain to Kotick what life expects of a young man, thereby clearly illustrating the author's expectations of any male figure, animal or human: "What you must do, ...is to grow up and be a big seal like your father, and have a nursery on the beach, and then they will leave you alone. In another five years you ought to be able to fight for yourself" (13). Women, on the other h
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