Riddley Walker Study Guide

Riddley Walker Plot Summary

Preview of Riddley Walker Summary:

Riddley Walker is set in a post-apocalyptic England (Inland). Nuclear war has devastated the country, and its people have been returned to a version of the Iron and Bronze Ages. Hunting and foraging as a means of existing remains but in a dwindling capacity beside the conveniences and relative safety of agriculture. "Hunting and foraging" does not simply mean tracking and killing living creatures, but also finding and extracting metals and machines left from pre-war times.

On his twelfth birthday, his naming day, Brooder Walker, Riddley Walker's father, is killed in an accident while foraging for iron. Riddley also kills what may be the last wild boar in Inland and the aging leader of a pack of wild dogs on this same day. This collection of coincidences casts a shadow of suspicion over Riddley that is emphasized by the speech of the tribe's wise-woman Lorna Elswint.

Subsequent to "Lorna's Tel"...
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