How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It may seem incredible that the rabbits had given no thought to so vital a matter. But men have made the same mistake more than once—left the whole business out of account, or been content to trust to luck and the fortune of war. Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else. But now, in the evening sunshine on the friendly, empty down, with a good burrow at his back and the grass turning to pellets in his belly, Hazel knew that he was lonely for a doe. (23.107)
Sure, if you're not being attacked, you get on with life. But we could categorize most of the rabbits' adventures getting to Watership Down as "getting attacked." Now they've escaped Sandleford and Cowslip's warren and are in a landscape without too many predators—so now Hazel can put aside violence for a moment, and start thinking about babies.
Quote #5
All were subdued and doubtful at heart. Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deep shock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life, that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he may well fail to comprehend it and later ask—perhaps more than once—where the dead person is and when he is coming back. When Pipkin had planted in himself, like some somber tree, the knowledge that Hazel would never return, his bewilderment exceeded his grief: and this bewilderment he saw on every side among his companions. (27.1)
Now wait just a minute. We've read that rabbits don't get obsessed and upset over sad stories. But now that they have two pieces of bad news, suddenly the rabbits are all sad and subdued. Do these two statements make sense together—or is the narrator playing a little loose so that the readers can identify with the down-in-the-dumps, confused rabbits?
Quote #6
"'Bargains, bargains, El-ahrairah,' he said. 'There is not a day or a night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit's. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here what is is what must be.' (31.25)
Here's the Black Rabbit of Inlé explaining to El-ahrairah that he doesn't make deals about dying (even though he kind of does make a deal at the end of this story and saves El-ahrairah's warren). We like this quote because it seems to capture the rabbit attitude towards death: You can fight and fight and fight, but when it happens, it's time to move on. Or maybe, since El-ahrairah fights this attitude, we good rabbits are supposed to fight it.