The Maze - Softcover

David Allan Evans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1645756475 ISBN 13: 9781645756477

Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers, 2020

Synopsis

Like Aesops Fables and Orwells Animal Farm, The Maze is populated with animal characters who, in their words and actions, reveal truths about human nature. In The Woods, a very popular, clever, and ambitious rat named Sniffwho commands a pack of deputy rats known as The Fiveintends to replace the aging leader, Owl, when he retires on election day in two weeks. As a famous athlete of the air in his youth, Owl has established The Tradition of Wings. In his speeches to the animals, Sniffan assistant to Owl but already acting as if hes the leaderpromises to establish what he calls The Kingdom of Sharing, in which rats will be leaders and all other animals will be followers. Opposing Sniffs rise to power are two winged animalsa well-known poet hawk, Wing, and his studious friend, Butterflyand Claws, a young, robust, and competitive squirrel. The central image of the story is a maze. Sniff has one built ostensibly for community recreation but actually to make money and to display rats superiority as maze-runners. Other characters in this sometimes-humorous story include Spider, an architect; Snake, a shady character; Stub, a mole who assists Sniff; and Frog, an instructor of bug-catching. The Maze is not only about human nature but about animal life in general. It explores necessities of survival such as status and power, altruism and self-interest, the defense of territory, and the conquering of enemies through group cooperation.

About this title

About the Author

David Allan Evans grew up in Sioux City, Iowa. He began college on a football scholarship, and by the time he graduatedmajoring in English and minoring in Biologyhe was writing poetry and fiction. His interest in literature and natural history began in his teens when his self-educated father recited Shakespeare and spoke often of Darwin and other great observers of animals. The author of nine collections of poems, he was a professor of English and writer in residence at South Dakota State University for many years, as well as a Fulbright Scholar, twice in China, and poet laureate of South Dakota for 14 years.

Edition details

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1645756475
• ISBN 13: 9781645756477
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200