Rabbits

Cute, furry, and totally harmless… If that's what you're thinking when you think rabbits, then you're right on the money.

Think of rabbits in M.C. Higgins, the Great as the symbol for innocence. So, for instance, when Lurhetta she sees one of M.C.'s trapped rabbits, she tells him to "Let it go" (11.85) and that he's "hurting it" (11.87). So when he goes and kills the rabbit, it's no wonder Lurhetta feels like the whole ordeal is "awful" (11.93). Can't say she didn't kind of warn him.

But even so, Lurhetta can't stop looking at M.C. when he kills the rabbit. Which brings up another point: The innocence of the rabbits highlights the violence and gore of hunting, and in doing so, raises a key question in this book: Is the killing of animals okay?

See, animal killing is a key differentiator between the Killburns and the Higgins. Lurhetta and M.C. learn that the Killburns do not kill animals unless absolutely necessary, and even then, Mr. Killburn points out that they "don't eat them" (12.148). The Higgins? Yeah, not so much. They actively trap and kill animals to eat, ain't no thang.

Just because M.C. isn't vegetarian doesn't mean he doesn't have an ethical approach to a dead animal, though. To him, you also only kill an animal if you need to; it's just that for him, hunger for meat is a type of human need.

So even M.C., who loves his rabbit stew, views his trapped rabbits as animals to be treated with care and respect. Which is why it freaks him out and disgusts him when he returns to pick up the rabbit he had killed earlier with Lurhetta and notices that the feet of the rabbit have been cut off.

M.C. curses the people who cut the rabbit's feet off as "Dirty devils" (he thinks, by the way, it's the Killburns though he has no proof of this), "ben[ds] down again and tenderly cradle[s] the rabbit. He carrie[s] it that way all the way home" (12.203-204). There is a right and a wrong way to take a life, and this poor (ahem, innocent) rabbit has lost his the wrong way.

To M.C., the only way to honor the fallen rabbit is to "[m]ake a stew out of [it] like [Lurhetta's] never tasted" (12.205). From this angle, cooking the rabbit can be understood as making sure it didn't die in vain—that its innocence wasn't lost for nothing.

So is it wrong to kill the rabbit? That's a question we'll leave up to you, Shmoopers.