“The Hundredth Dove” Response, Literary Analysis

“The Hundredth Dove” Response, Literary Analysis

By Jane Yolen

What would you do if you had to catch a hundred of your favorite birds for a king’s wedding, but it’s what you were born to do? Would you catch them? Or would you let them go and quit your job? This is Hugh’s major conflict. He has to catch a hundred birds and bring them to a wedding but one special bird always gets out. He then gets very aggressive. The short story, The Hundredth Dove by Jane Yolen obviously fits right in with the tragedy mode of literature.

To begin with, “The Hundredth Dove” clearly fits in with the tragedy plotline. The story first starts out with the fowler, which is Hugh, is given a task from the king to catch 100 birds for the king’s wedding. Hugh finds this easy but then there is a conflict. Every time Hugh tries to capture the birds there is always one white dove that always slips out. The next day, though, there was a rise to power for Hugh. He catches the white dove! However, the bird reminded him of the beautiful queen. He loved her and she loved him but she did not want him to kill this bird. This was his tragic flaw (human weakness). He then kills the bird not listening to his head and returns 99 live birds and one dead one to the king for his wedding. However, the wedding never did happen. The fowler then, just lived off berries and fruit the rest of his life and never saw another dove again. Cleary, this story ended with death symbolism.

While the plotline of “The Hundredth Dove” is significant, so are the symbolism and characteristics.  To start with, the characteristics of “the Hundredth Dove” fits right in with the tragedy characteristics. It is realistic because people can be put to a job they feel uncomfortable doing. It is also realistic because birds and other animals can cause a lot of conflicts for people (especially for real kings’ fowlers). Another characteristic of the tragedy mode of literature is the main character is in control. Hugh (who is the main character) is mostly in control throughout the story except when he is trying to catch that one sneaky white dove.  But, now to move on to the symbolism of the tragedy mode of literature.  One of the symbols of the tragedy mode of literature is animals. Obviously, there were tons of animals in this story, like all the doves. Another symbol in the tragedy mode of literature is nature. Clearly, there were tons of nature and green land in this story because when Hugh was trying to catch the doves, he would always be outside in a field or woods waiting to catch the doves.

As you can see, “The Hundredth Dove” clearly is part of the tragedy mode of literature. It fits in just right, all thanks to the plotline, characteristics, and symbolism. This story turned out to be just the right story to learn a moral lesson from and to learn from our or others mistakes. Overall, “The Hundredth Dove” turned out to be a pretty excellent story to which I could connect the tragedy mode of literature to!