The Spring Assessment.

            Do you ever wonder what’s it like to take orders from someone and listen to their every command? In the short story “The Hundredth Dove,” the king’s fowler named Hugh was a hunter. He hunted birds. Hugh used a bow for the larger bird and he used a silken net for smaller birds. There are two major themes you must think about after you read this short story. The two themes are Love and Magic. You may think at some a part of the story, Hugh is a bad man but really he is caring.

            The first theme is Love, in the beginning of “The Hundredth Dove,” the king summons Hugh to go capture 100 doves for the upcoming wedding. Lady Columbia, the new queen does not want this Action to happen but, the king says “I have spoken. Do not fail me.” At that part you can realize that Lady Columbia has a heart and does not want to hunt that many doves. As Hugh went to go capture the doves, every day he was catching a beautiful white dove. The white dove escaped through the small net, when there was no hole inside. At the end when Hugh has captured all 100 doves he stops hunting and lives off of fruit and vegetables.  In this moment of the story, you know that Hugh feels terrible about his previous actions.

            As the first theme is important the second theme is also very important. The second theme of “The Hundredth Dove,” is magic. When Hugh captures the 21 birds the first day all them are grey/blue but only one is white. The white dove somehow escapes. Hugh wonders and studies the net to see if there were any rips inside it. Then he realized there were no holes. For the next day he caught 21 again. All the birds are the same but, only one white. Again the white dove escaped. This same pattern happened over and over again till the last day he was one away from 99 doves. The only dove left was the white one and he caught it. The dove somehow spoke and was saying “Master fowler, set me free.”  He wanted to set that bird free but he said to the king “Servo” which means “I serve.” So he killed that dove.

            Those are the two themes of “The Hundredth Dove.” Having Love about nature, when Lady Columbia didn’t want to kill or serve any doves ate her wedding. That is probably why there was no wedding after all. Yes, at the end of the story Hugh goes back to the castle with all the birds and it turns out there was no wedding. Also the second theme is having Magic with a very tricky bird to catch when the bird flew out of the net.