The primary theme in Herriot's All Creatures
Great and Small is that of survival in life's harsh
conditions. The setting is the Dales that are tucked in at the feet of the
fells that rise high above the Dales. The setting is a metaphor for
and a symbol of the hard lives the farmers live in the Dales. They daily experience the
cycle of life and death and of illness and struggle, which regularly phases into death.
The people of the Dales are desperate to keep their animals alive even when stricken
with disease, yet they don't trust the vets who might be the best able to help their
animals, which adds to the struggles.
The farmer, Mr Dinsdale, was a long, sad, silent
man of few words who always seemed to be expecting the worst to happen. He had a long,
sad, silent son with him and the two of them had watched my efforts [with the calving]
with deepening
gloom.
Sophisticated people
living in cities who read Herriot's books found (and find) in them a return to the
struggles that the comfort and abundance of city life stand in stark contrast to life in
the Dales. Even though separated from the struggle with the land and life, readers
nonetheless felt (and feel) a sympathetic pull to the essential nature of a life pitting
human against nature. As a consequence, this theme of life's
hardships has a universal appeal and makes Herriot's vets universal
characters who help to live out the theme with the farmers in the
Dales.
No,
there wasn't a word in the books about ... the slow numbing if the arms, the creeping
paralysis of the muscles as the fingers tried to work ... no mention anywhere of the
gradual exhaustion, the feeling of futility
....
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