Glendon Swarthout's Bless the Beasts and Children is a story of transformation and rebirth for two seemingly doomed groups: a pen full of buffalo, doomed to be brutally slaughtered, and a cabin full of deeply troubled teenaged boys at a western summer camp, doomed to lives of loneliness and rejection. The fates of these groups become entwined when the boys witness the horrific killing of several buffalo in a pen while on their way back to their camp after a field trip. Almost by accident, the boysset out in the middle of the night to free the remaining buffalo, all scheduled to die the next morning. They struggle with their own neuroses and ignorance, but still they move, painfully and inexorably, toward their goal.

  Glendon Swarthout’s Bless the Beasts and Children is a story of transformation and rebirth for two seemingly doomed groups: a pen full of buffalo, doomed to be brutally slaughtered, and a cabin full of deeply troubled teenaged boys at a western summer camp, doomed to lives of loneliness and rejection. The fates of these groups become entwined when the boys witness the horrific killing of several buffalo in a pen while on their way back to their camp after a field trip. Almost by accident, the boysset out in the middle of the night to free the remaining buffalo, all scheduled to die the next morning. They struggle with their own neuroses and ignorance, but still they move, painfully and inexorably, toward their goal.

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY OF GLENDON SWARTHOUT"S

LIFE AND WORK

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Bless the Beasts and Children

BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN

NOTES

INTERPRETIVE NOTES

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER