The Significance Of The Rabbit Motifs In The River King

In Hoffman’s The River King, the rabbit motif accentuates the idea that the passiveness of innocence corrupted in communities is a direct result of dominant figures holding power over the vulnerable individual.
Gus and the Chalk House boys are a prime display of the relationship between dominant figures and the ones they take power over, and the torment of Gus and the rabbits portrays the innocence of the underclassmen being beaten down. The Chalk House boys are shown to be consistently injuring rabbits, and it’s seen as a very frequent and passive event for them—they exert their dominance by “suggest[ing] to the new boys that they look for one of the rabbits found in the meadows and the woods. These small, shy creatures were easily caught

It serves as another path where the boys can, in a dominant position, harm something innocent and unmalicious. The initiation being so frequent, stating that multiple boys have been doing this over the duration of the club, emphasizes the passiveness of the ordeal. The boys themselves don’t take brutalling a rabbit as a heinous act; rather, they do it so frequently it’s regarded as an initiation. This passiveness and frequency of the act makes evident that purity is becoming corroded and corrupted amongst the Chalk boys; being able to so easily kill and mutilate the rabbits shows that they’ve lost their innocence. The process of forcing the new boys to commit this act of gore further drives the point that the Chalk boys in the Magician’s Club, that hold dominance over new recruits, are able to corrupt virtuousness amongst them—they push the new, younger members into the same initiation cycle that defiles the rest of them of their innocence, too. Another example tying to the Chalk boys’ position of power is their hazing of Gus; Gus goes through a number of vicious acts under the guise of “hazing” by his upperclassmen, such as “stumbl[ing] over the gift his brothers had left him… A bloody

The constant brutality towards Gus is a model example of the corruption of innocence within a community, or the Chalk House. Gus’ fraternity with the other Chalk House boys and his experience at the house itself is the “innocence” in the situation, something that should be tight-knit and supportive, but is rather crude and made up of power hierarchies. The Chalk boys constantly harass Gus, similar to the manner in which the initiation for the Magician’s Club had frequent instances of violence; the passiveness in their abuse so common that it becomes “accepted” to treat Gus in an offensive manner. The mistreatment of Gus also demonstrates the power dynamic between Gus and the rest of the Chalk boys—the rabbit’s foot being still warm to the touch is a gorey occurrence, highlighting the true extremity of the Chalk boys’ cruelty. The only reason they’re capable of this cruelty is because of their position “above” Gus; anyone “underneath” him in a system of house hierarchy wouldn’t be able to mistreat him, as they’d be bashed by the rest of the Chalk boys. Gus is beneath almost the entirety of the Chalk House boys, so the entirety of the house is able to treat him badly, being in a