Att tämja den vilda hästen

Didaktiska relationer i hästboken som äventyr och vardagsrealism: Walter Farleys Svarta hingstens son (1947) och Lisbeth Pahnkes Britta, Silver och Billy (1971)​

Abstract

In many horse/pony stories there is a recurring narrative figure, a trope: the taming of a wild horse. In the process of taming, the wild horse interacts with domesticated/domesticating humans, and this process is shaped by didactic relations, imbued with power and emotion. This text will explore, through comparative analysis and close reading, and by looking into the didactic discourse at play, how the process of taming the wild horse is represented in Walter Farley’s Son of the Black Stallion (1947) and Lisbeth Pahnke’s novel Britta, Silver och Billy (1971). How are human-animal didactic relations represented and depicted within these two differing examples of the horse/pony book genre? Also, what are the didactic aspects of the horse/pony book genre in relation to its readers? And, how are the qualities of being wild represented in these two novels, where Farley writes within the frames of the adventure story, more geared towards an audience of boys, and Pahnke’s narrative is closer to the everyday realism of the riding school and more appealing for girl readers? How are the didactic elements, implicit in the horse/pony book-genre as well as the riding practice, involved in the taming process? The results of the study display a presence of realistic didactic elements in Farley’s adventure story while aspects significant of the adventure story are found within the frame of the realistic novel by Pahnke, and these elements and aspects interact with the ways in which the didactic authority is presented in the  process of taming. This is also connected to how the legitimacy of the didactic position is achieved, related to gender, age and experience. The study also reveals a difference regarding the perception of wildness between the pony and the thoroughbred horse.