The Rabbit Hutch

Dead animals are a prominent motif in the novel. While we learn that live vermin are abundant in Vacca Vale—“the rat population surpassing the human population by an estimated 30,000” which symbolizes the town’s decay and the way it has been orphaned by the authorities (40)—most of the animals at the Rabbit Hutch are dead or on the brink of sacrifice. Without any visible outside help, the residents feel they need to deal with the vermin problem themselves, as overwhelmed young mother Hope traps the mice in her apartment but then flings them over the balcony. Her casual wonder but ultimate carelessness about where the mice land indicates that she has abdicated her communal responsibility, just as the authorities abandoned her town.

Then, Blandine uses small animal skeletons in her protest and deposits them along with voodoo dolls, dirt, and fake blood at the Vacca Vale development project’s dinner at the country club. While the developers sit in their insulated environment and make decisions about a nature they are disconnected from, Blandine hopes to remind them of the messy, natural components of the Chastity Valley they will be interfering with. While the mud and fake blood reflect the mess they will make and the voodoo dolls imply a curse, the real animal skeletons are meant to unsettle their enjoyment of a meat-laden dinner and evoke a sense of the death that their actions will bring.