Essay Questions

What is the thematic significance of the title?

The name of the fox is Pax so that is obviously the literal significance of the book’s title. Pax is also a Latin word meaning peace. It is in the specific connotation of that meaning in which the greater thematic meaning is located. While pax can mean simply a state of peace, it is generally applied to encompass a broader implication of long-term geopolitical stability. For instance, the historical term Pax Romana refers to a roughly two-century stretch of relative peace during the Roman Empire. Likewise, the term Pax Americana was coined to describe the period following the end of 1945 when American military supremacy was primarily responsible for the longest sustained period in modern history without a major military conflict erupting in erupting in western hemisphere. (Of course, this term conveniently overlooks America’s involvements in Asia and the Middle East. The connection between this specific definition of pax and the character named Pax lies, of course, in the war ravaging mostly in the background across the entirety of the narrative.

François is certainly not a major character in the tale, but his presence lends resonance to Peter’s story in what way?

François is a wild raccoon that Vola has sort of adopted in an informal way. In other words, he really doesn’t qualify as a pet per se, but he has made himself welcome in her space. Vola named the raccoon after a fifteen century poet who created memorable literature out of his experiences on the wrong side of the law. While Vola puts forward a crusty persona of having disengaged from the rest of society—and specifically from interacting with other people—her soft-heartedness is displayed in the way she welcomes François into her life even to the point of giving him a meaningful and unexpected name. As Peter himself comes to realize, he is the human equivalent of François and in the process becomes another mechanism revealing that Vola’s tough attitude toward the outside world is at least partially a façade.

Why do many refer to the structure of the book as circular?

The structure of the book is often described as being circular because that is a literary term used to illustrate how the ending of a work mirrors, links directly, or repeats something that takes place at the beginning. For instance, the final words heard at the end of Pink Floyd’s The Wall album begin a sentence that actually ends with the first words heard at the beginning of the album. The circularity of this novel is not quite that neat and precise. Chapter One includes imagery of Peter and Pax engaging in a favorite game of theirs in which the boy would hurl a toy soldier and wait for the fox to track it down and bring it back. The very last image in the book is of Peter throwing the toy soldier as far into the thicket of the woods as he can with the intention of getting Pax to understand he must leave the human world behind forever.