War Horse Essay Questions

What do Joey's experiences throughout the novel suggest about the nature of war?

Joey's experiences are remarkably similar whether he is with the British army or the German army. Both armies treat him as a valuable member of the battalion and do not treat him as having any particular nationality. When he is trapped in No Man's Land between lines of barbed wire, soldiers from the opposing armies work together to free him and agree to decide his ownership by tossing a coin. This element of the narrative tells us that the soldiers on either side are very similar and bear no especially personal ill will toward the soldiers on the opposing side—soldiers whom they are nonetheless trying to kill. War Horse also shows that war has a tendency to depersonalize people—and that the soldiers on the ground are not the people with the differences that instigated the war in the first place.

Why did Emilie's grandfather allow Albert to buy Joey from him? What does this act show the reader about Emilie's grandfather's character, and about his relationship with his granddaughter?

Emilie's grandfather wanted to honor Emilie's memory and keep it alive by bringing "her" horses home; however, seeing Albert and Joey's love for each other made him realize that he could honor the spirit of Emilie with an act of pure love, which was allowing Joey to go home with his friend and master. In addition, by telling Albert about Emilie, the grandfather was keeping her memory alive for generations to come. Albert could tell people about her and her love for the horses; if Joey were to stay in France with her grandfather, her memory would die with him.

How the author's choice to use an animal as the novel's main character teach readers about the real history of World War I?

Morpurgo manages to teach the reader about World War I by portraying it through the eyes of a character with which it is easy to identify on account of strong, straightforward emotions. It is harrowing to read of Joey's fear as the battlefield is seen almost in a neutral way, not from one side or the other. From the start of the novel, we learn how the Army obtained its horses and how they were trained. We learn about the geography of the War and also about the brutal trenches and fighting positions. We also learn about war away from the battlefield when Joey and Topthorn become ambulance horses. By using Joey as the storyteller, Morpurgo is able to teach the reader important historical details because each detail constitutes a part of Joey's experience.

None of the important characters in War Horse emerges as entirely unlikable or unsympathetic. Is such a positive approach to characterization a strength or a weakness of the novel? Why?

War Horse is in many ways a novel that takes an optimistic view of human nature: even in the midst of the worst possible hostilities, combatants can be moved to moments of generosity and compassion. By giving almost every prominent character—including initially dislikable figures such as Albert's father—some positive traits, Morpurgo emphasizes this message of innate goodness in a variety of contexts, both on the battlefield and off. It is possible, though, that the sympathetic outlook of the novel is not the best fit for its material. Morpurgo's chosen topic is a war that, at its time, was unprecedented in its carnage and its totality. His few fully negative characters (the Germans who take Joey and Topthorn from Emilie, the butcher who tries to buy Joey) are glimpsed only in passing, and they do not appear to give War Horse much of a basis for examining the more negative side of human nature that initiated and sustained the First World War.

How might the use of third-person narration, as opposed to Joey's first-person perspective, have changed War Horse?

In a third-person format, Morpurgo's novel may well have lost a few of its clear assets, from the immediacy of Joey's perceptions to the sense of simplicity and candor that is essential to Joey's understanding of the world. But beyond losing these traits, a third-person War Horse would have sacrificed a setup designed to win over younger readers: the fantastical sense of inhabiting the mind of a horse, rather than seeing World War I in dry, documentary fashion. It is nonetheless possible that a sweeping third-person narration would have given more definition the human characters around Joey, or would have facilitated commentary on the nature of the First World War and the societies that it disrupted. Such descriptions and commentaries are already embedded in the narrative. However, they are parts of Joey's unique experience, not of the more detached portrayal that an omniscient or perspective-shifting third person narration would have enabled.