SOURCE: "Reality and Illusion in Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn," in Critique, Vol. XIX, No. 2, 1977, pp. 93-104.

In the following essay, Norford discusses the symbolism of the characters in The Last Unicorn.

A cheeky and didactic squirrel in Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place (1960) tells the cynical raven that "there is poetry in the meanest of lives, and if we leave it unsought we leave ourselves unrealized. A life without food, without shelter, without love, a life lived in the rain—this is nothing beside a life without poetry." He is so preachy that one sympathizes with the weary raven: "If I was a hawk, I'd eat you in two bites." Beagle is much more subtle and complex in The Last Unicorn (1968), but the theme is the same: "the main message of the allegory is that there is magic in being human." The symbol of the...