Black Beauty Literary Qualities

This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Black Beauty.

Black Beauty Literary Qualities

This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Black Beauty.
This section contains 250 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Black Beauty Study Guide

Black Beauty's literary qualities are best understood in the light of the tradition from which the novel came: the tradition of the nineteenth-century improving book. Black Beauty is very much in the tradition of the moralistic ballads and books of its time, especially those that present self-improvement and social justice lessons in a story written in simple language to suit the reading levels of their intended audiences—children and working class adults with limited education. Sewell's mother, Mary, wrote several popular improving books, which Sewell read and helped to edit. Of Mary Sewell's works, Black Beauty most closely resembles Patience Hart's First Experience in Service, Mary and Anna Sewell both use the literary device of giving some characters names that comment on their personalities. The main character in Mary's book on housemaids is Patience Hart, who is a girl with a patient heart.

Similarly, in Black...

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This section contains 250 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Black Beauty Study Guide
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Black Beauty from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.