The Theme of Prose "The Life and Death of Cholomondeley"

Describe the theme of Prose "The Life and Death of Cholomondeley".

Answer

Gerald Durrel takes cruelty to animals as the theme of the prose. He uses an animal known as Chumley to give the theme in a vivid manner. When we study Chumley's life we can understand the pains and sufferings he had to undergo. Mainly his freedom is disturbed by limiting his life to a cerden area. Sending animals to zoo use him mental and physical tortures. It is because he was given a limited area to live. It really is a harassment. It shows how cruel people are to put them in a cage and let them suffer. Not only that a chain was attached to his body.

          "Chumley's crate was placed about Fifty yards from the hut(next a great gnarled tree stump to which I attached his chain)"

Using a chain to tie an animal is completely the cruel act.

Yet people do it and train them to satisfy the human needs. We come to understand what people need animals to do is to make them happy by earning money. But they are not properly looked after. As far as the animal is useful to them, people treat them with care. When they become useless they do not attend to their needs. How cruel the man is. In this prose too we see the heart lack of Chumley. People finally grandly as not safe. The fact is that Chumley becomes an uncontrollable animal. People are not intelligent enough to understand the need of animals. What the animal needs to engage in his favourite sport, the lorry ride the people's lack of this understanding can we understood in following lines.

"But the foolish humans misunderstood his action there he was asking for a lift, and all they could do was to wind up their windows and yell for help"

Later people decided to destroy his life in order to safeguard people, without realizing the animal's needs. Therefore when we study the prose like this we come to understand how cruel people are, which really is the theme of the prose.