Foxcraft Chapter 16 Analysis

An Unwelcome Return

Photo by Hoyoun Lee on Unsplash

Isla thankfully isn’t hit by the vehicle. But she practically knocks herself out hitting the ground on the other side of the road. Because of this, she can’t get away as the human takes her up and stuffs her into the van.

Again, the tragic mindset of a child knowing her family is dead returns to her. She’s had to deny the suspicion that they’re gone forever only to find out she was right. And through a betrayal no less. But what makes it even more tragic here is that as Isla is taken away by the human in the van, she feels ashamed to have let herself believe they were alive.

No one ever wants to accept that their loved ones are gone, especially a child. But there is no one here to tell her that she shouldn’t feel shame. She’s so dazed by her fall and so numb by what’s happened to her that she barely acknowledges that she’s in a van being taken away.

Something I thought was peculiar was how Siffrin reacted to her being taken away. He shrieks for her to run, even chasing after the van. He leaps at the human to let her go, nearly getting captured himself.

If Siffrin is with Karka’s skulk, or at least the overall group that wants Isla dead, why not let the human capture her? In fact, I’m still questioning Siffrin’s motives here. We can only guess if he’s going to rescue Isla before the story’s over. But what does he actually want? How much was he lying about?

Only when Isla feels Pirie reaching out to her does she perk back up, her initial excitement returning. But by the time she realizes how dire things are for her, it’s too late and she’s brought to a place similar to the beast dens from Chapter Two.

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I love how it’s set up here. She has a plan to lash out at the human only to find out that the wire she’s trapped in isn’t part of the van’s enclosure. So she’s just lifted inside a cage she had no idea she was trapped in.

Once she’s out, she’s met by panicked shrieks and howls, some of which come from a desperate vixen that asks continuously about her cubs. It’s a lot like a maddened person who can’t remember what’s happened to them mere minutes ago.

She reminds me a little bit of the elder vixen Isla confronted in Chapter Three. But instead of being deliberately fooled, she repeats over and over that her cubs had dark coats and that they were all males, begging others to tell her what happened to them.

Just to drive home how helpless this cub is, Isla even meets the elderly vixen again and she tells the young cub how the foxes have no hope of getting out. Even she couldn’t escape being captured and driven across town by humans.

“The old fox pushed her head closer to the wire of her cage. ‘What do you think? They round us up because we’re vermin to them. Yesterday, every cage in this room was full. Today…’” pg.213

Now, Isla is met with a new horror. Gradually, foxes in the room get taken through a yellow door and don’t return. The elder vixen gives us a comparison that’s very much like real life. Cats and dogs are kept in a separate room, sometimes taken out if they’re young. But they dispose of the old ones, like what the humans are doing with the older foxes.

Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash

What makes it worse is that even the newborns aren’t safe. Two foxes lost their cubs. So even if they're healthy, the old vixen is right. These foxes are nothing but vermin and the humans don’t even spare the ones that are just born. They’re not much different than the rats that are brought in, as those creatures are destroyed as soon as they’re captured.

This is probably a shelter that’s as bad as the beast dens from earlier. The animals were frantic, the wolf even lying in his cage in a terrible state. There’s no attempt to find other places for the animals. They’re simply done away with, potentially finding new homes if they might look healthy enough and if they’re a cat or a dog.

The elder leaves a bleak image for Isla, even telling the cub not to bother fighting. Isla will need to find a way out or be killed instantly. But soon, a new hand pulls her out of her cage.

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