The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Research other re-imaginings of Hamlet, including The Lion King and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. How does this novel use the elements of the tragedy? Can a reader appreciate this novel without knowing Hamlet?

What do dogs mean to the Sawtelle family? Does it add to or detract from the novel that chapters endow dogs with the ability to think and respond to events? Can dogs “decide”? Use the correspondence between John Sawtelle and the New Jersey dog breeder as evidence of the Sawtelle vision. Is Almondine a character?

Along with Hamlet, the novel is influenced by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and specifically its investigation into the boundary between civilization and wildness. Using the lengthy passage Edgar reads, apply the novel’s argument to the Sawtelle family and Edgar’s journey into the Chequamegon forest.

Perhaps the most intriguing secondary character is Henry Lamb. Analyze his argument about being ordinary. The interlude Edgar spends with Henry changes Edgar’s perception of himself and his family. Look into Henry’s character and compare and contrast him with Edgar’s own two adult male mentors: his father and his uncle.

One of the novel’s great mysteries is Claude’s motivation, and why he holds such a profound grudge against his brother. Is he simply a villain, a sociopath who does not need a motive only an opportunity, or can you trace a logic to his actions, despicable that they are? Why does Claude negotiate for the poison in the Prologue? Why does that scene start the novel?

Assess the novel’s supernatural elements—the ghostly visitations, the premonitions, the animals gifted with thinking, and the dream sequences. Are these to be taken literally or symbolically? Do they enhance Edgar’s maturation into adulthood? How might the story be different without those elements?

The novel could easily have ended with the barn fire, the deaths of both Edgar and Claude, and Trudy left in the ruins of the family’s lost empire. Assess what is gained by the novel’s closing chapter in which one of Edgar’s dogs, Essay, leads the kennel dogs to freedom. Is this a happy ending? Does it certify that John Sawtelle’s vision of a superior dog able to think and make choices was realized?

Place or setting acts as theme. Take the farm, the Chequamegon forest, Henry’s cabin, and/or Canada. How does each locale emerge as a metaphor for an emotional condition critical to Edgar’s growth?