45 pages • 1 hour read
Walter FarleyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Farley began what became The Black Stallion in the early 1930s while he was still in high school. The completed manuscript describes extensive travel across the Indian Sea, the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, up the coast of Europe, and twice over the Atlantic Ocean. When the book first became available in 1941, the European continent had been embroiled in war for more than two years. Citizens of the U.S. watched the developments taking place overseas warily, having been drawn into World War I in a similar way less than 25 years before. While travel by ship, as Farley describes it, was not impossible, the overriding concern of any ocean-going vessel would have been military attack, a concern Farley never addresses.
That the political turbulence—the historical context—of the age does not appear in Farley’s story likely contributed to its popularity. Readers would have recognized that he was writing about an earlier time of relative peace, about a time when the nations of the world were emerging from the Great Depression. Readers escaped into this simple, triumphant story of a good kid engaging an exotic, mysterious power and embodying adventure and success.
The second section of The Black Stallion contains a subtle tribute to an entertainment milestone of the 1930s: the motion picture King Kong. Like the fierce and intimidating Kong, the Black fights against other intimidating animals and answers only to one human in Alec. Similarly, both Kong and the Black are held against their wills, placed in the hold of ships, and delivered to New York City. Kong and the Black’s stories continue to parallel as both escape in New York. Furthermore, while Kong climbs the highest building and battles airplanes, the Black is also troubled by an airplane and leaps over the highest fence.
Unlike Kong, who was unable to prevail in the US, the Black becomes revered and popular within the horseracing circuits in the country. King Kong was release in 1933 when Farley was 18 years old. As the storyline expanded, Farley incorporated these elements of Kong, granting the horse a much happier ending.
The final section reworks a historical horserace, giving it a different ending suited to the narrative. In 1938, New York thoroughbred War Admiral and California thoroughbred Seabiscuit met in a match race at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland. The build-up to the race matches the description Farley uses for the race between his two fictional champions. War Admiral, the favored horse, was nationally considered the champion of the east coast. Seabiscuit, the winner of the race, was the champion of the west coast. Their owners, hounded by public outcry, agreed to come to a neutral third site and hold a match race. There are several distinctions between the actual horses and Cyclone (War Admiral) and Sun Raider (Seabiscuit). War Admiral was a very large, pure black horse who would have looked more like the Black than any of the other horses in the book. Seabiscuit was a much smaller horse. Readers of Farley’s time would recognize the race’s format with that of the well-known match between Seabiscuit and War Admiral and acknowledge the nod to the race that was a sensation for the country before the second World War.
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