52 pages • 1 hour read
C. S. ForesterRifleman Dodd
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1932A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Torres Vedras
The rampart of Torres Vedras, a 22-mile-long escarpment fortified by the British and Portuguese, protects the approaches to Lisbon. Impregnable, it forms a massive defense that prevents the French army from reaching the capital, Lisbon. The invaders skirt it and march south, searching for access elsewhere but find they’ve been funneled into a trap and pinned against the Tagus river.
Torres Vedras symbolizes the competence of the British army under Wellington, a force seen only in brief moments in the story but whose presence looms over the tale. The rampart serves as a reminder that allied regiments stand ready, watching and waiting as the French flounder on the plains below.
Forester, an Englishman and a fan of Wellington, wants to drive home the difference between British capability and the arrogant overreach of the French. The Torres Vedras rampart says to the invaders, “This far, and no further.”
The River and the Bridge
Dodd’s first goal is to reach the Tejo, or Tagus, a river running southwest across central Portugal. He can follow the river to Lisbon and his regiment. French invaders, meanwhile, find themselves trapped on the northern bank of the mile-wide river. For Dodd, the river is an opportunity; for the French, it’s a blockade.
The French become obsessed with the idea of building a bridge across the river. On the other side lies the weaker British force, which the French might rout, if only they can get to them; beyond the far shore also lies more food and a reunion with the southern army. Desperately, obsessively, the French construct a floating bridge and transport it to the best spot on the river, hoping for a miracle. The battalions involved overlook hunger, constant rain, attacks by partisans, and the likelihood that the British will simply destroy the bridge with cannon fire as soon as it’s floated.
Doubts arise among the men, many of whom suspect that this project is a waste of time and resources, but the army tosses aside those objections. The river is the obstacle, and the bridge is the solution. The bridge signals the unwillingness of the French to accept that their Grand Army faces defeat.
Rain and Hunger
Rain falls relentlessly throughout the story. The rain nags the French army, slowing its progress and making its soldiers miserable. In the book, it represents the slow and persistent draining away of resources—food, equipment, resolve—that the French forces need for victory. The constant pounding of raindrops on the soldiers, their tents, and their equipment is a drumbeat of approaching doom.
Continual hunger also haunts the French army, etching away at its strength. Like the rain, hunger acts as a timer, a countdown to failure, an hourglass whose every grain is another soldier dead of starvation. Each day, hunger causes more men to drop; at a certain point, time is up and the remaining army must retreat or die.
The Rifle
A rifle musket in 1810 is a high-tech weapon; only the most able soldiers can use them. Early in the story, Dodd carefully checks and reloads his rifle, undertaking the many processes and safety procedures involved. This speaks directly to his competence, reliability, and steadfastness. At the end of the story, despite battles and bad weather, the rifle remains pristine. The gun thus represents Dodd as a person of excellence.
Characters as Countries
Though the Peninsular War was fought between France and a British-Portuguese-Spanish coalition, in Rifleman Dodd the coalition is largely absent: The British have retreated, the Portuguese are evacuated, and Spanish troops hunker down behind the Torres Vedras rampart. Standing in for the Portuguese are three characters, each with a description that befits the Portuguese situation at the time. Other characters are totems of the English and French.
First is the orphaned boy who Dodd meets by chance as he treks across the scorched landscape decimated by the retreating British and Portuguese. The boy symbolizes the shattered remains of that land and the few citizens left behind who still struggle to live. His presence in the story is meant to elicit sympathy for the ruined land and its people. The boy’s cheerful willingness to suffer any hardship alongside Dodd represents Portugal’s willingness to endure the scorched-earth policy against the enemy. The boy’s dying words are “Death to the French,” a sign of his and the Portuguese resolve to do anything for freedom.
Dodd later meets “the stunted man,” a quiet Portuguese irregular whose father dies of wartime starvation and who fights loyally at Dodd’s side even as he continues to mourn the death and destruction all around him. The stunted man represents the Portuguese, damaged and bowed, as they slowly pick themselves up after the shock of invasion and begin to fight back. The stunted man’s father succumbs to disease brought about by starvation. The father’s death stands in for the death of the old Portugal; his son’s mourning is the sadness of the Portuguese over the ending of their previous way of life.
Finally, Sergeant Godinot signifies the tired arrogance of the French invaders. Though he cares about his men, his otherwise cynical, opportunistic, and cowardly persona represents the wrong-headed ambitions of French expansionism. Contrasted against Dodd’s fierce loyalty, quiet competence, and unbending determination, Godinot comes across as morally bankrupt—and, through him, so do the French invaders.
