Theme
The wizard Merlyn becomes the tutor of Arthur Pendragon,
known to himself and his adopted family only as Arthur or Wart.
Merlyn transforms the Wart into different animals in order for
him to learn about styles of leadership.
At the end of The Sword in the Stone, Arthur is crowned king of
England.
 The novella The Sword in
the Stone is about how the
violence of power does not
gain a ruler respect but
fear.
 The novella The Sword in
the Stone is about how the
power of education can
spark change.
“’There is nothing,’ said the monarch, ‘except the power which
you pretend to seek: power to grind and power to digest, power
to seek and power to find, power to await and power to claim,
all power and pitilessness springing from the nape of your
neck.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is
the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of
the individual mind, but the mind’s power is not enough. Power
of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is
Right.’” (White 52)
“EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY
He read the notice with dislike, though he did not understand
its meaning. He thought to himself: I will explore a little, before
going in. For some reason the notice gave him a reluctance to
go, making the rough tunnel look sinister.” (White 122)
“The extraordinary thing was that he could not ask these
questions. In order to ask them, he would have had to put them
into ant language through his antennae– and he now
discovered, with a helpless feeling, that there were no words for
the things he wanted to say. There were no words for happiness,
for freedom, for liking, nor were there any words for their
opposites. He felt like a dumb man trying to shout ‘Fire!’ The
nearest he could get to Right or Wrong , even, was to say Done
or Not Done.” (White 124)
“The time for the war came soon enough. The preparations were
in order, the soldiers were drilled to the last ounce, the walls of
the nest had patriotic slogans written on them, such as ‘Stings
or Mash?’ or ‘I vow to Thee, my smell,’ and the Wart was past
hoping. The repeating vices in his head, which he could not
shut off– the lack of privacy, under which others ate from his
stomach while others again sang in his brain– the dreary blank
which replaced feeling– the dearth of all but two values– the
total monotony more than the wickedness: these had begun to
kill the joy of life which belonged to his boyhood.
The horrible armies were on the point of joining battle, to
dispute the imaginary boundary between their glass trays
when Merlyn came to his rescue. He magicked the sickened
explorer of animals back to bed, and glad enough he was to be
there.” (White 130)
 “’What were you sent for?’
‘To learn my education.’
They grazed in silence, until his own words reminded him of something he had wanted
to ask.
‘The sentries,’‘ he asked. ‘Are we at war?’
She did not understand the word. ‘War?’
‘Are we fighting people?’
‘Fighting?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘The men fight sometimes, about their wives and that.
Of course there is no bloodshed– only scuffling, to find the better man. Is that what
you mean?’
‘No. I meant fighting against armies– against other geese, for instance.’
She was amused.
‘How ridiculous! You mean a lot of geese all scuffling at the same time. It would be fun
to watch.’
Her tone surprised him, for his heart was still a kind one, being a boy’s.
‘Fun to watch them kill each other?’
‘To kill each other? An army of geese to kill each other?’
She began to understand this idea slowly and doubtfully, an expression of distaste
coming over her face. When it had sunk in, she left him.” (White 169)
 …”’These are natural enemies. But what creature could be so
low as to go about in bands, to murder others of its own blood?’
‘Ants do,’ he said obstinately. And I was only trying to learn.’”
 “’But don’t they fight each other for the pasture?’
‘Dear me, you are a silly,’ she said. ‘There are no boundaries
among the geese.’” (White 170)
 “’He would go to war, if king Uther declared one. Do you know that homo
sapiens is almost the only animal which wages war?’
‘Ants do.’
‘Don’t say ‘Ants do’ in that sweeping way, dear boy. There are more than
four thousand different sorts of them, and from all those kinds I can only
think of five which are belligerent. There are the five ants, one termite
that I know of, and Man.’
‘But the packs of wolves from the Forest Sauvage attack our flocks of sheep
every winter.’
‘Wolves and sheep belong to different species, my friend. True warfare is
what happens between bands of the dame species. Out of the hundreds
of thousands of species, I can think of seven which are belligerent.
Even Man has a few varieties like the Esquimaux and the Gypsies and
Lapps and certain Nomads in Arabia, who do not do it because they do
not claim boundaries. True warfare is rarer in Nature than cannibalism.
Don’t you think that is a little unfortunate?’
 ’Personally,’ said the Wart, ‘I should have liked to go to war, if I
could have been made a knight. I should have liked the
banners and the trumpets, the flashing armour and the glorious
charges. And oh, I should have liked to do great deeds, and be
brave, and conquer my own fears. Don’t you have courage in
warfare, Badger, and endurance, and comrades whom you
love?’
The learned animal thought for a long time, gazing into the fire.
In the end, he seemed to change the subject.
‘Which did you like best,’ he asked, ‘the ants or the wild geese?’”
(White 193-194)
 Through education, Merlyn is hoping to help Arthur make
different choices than those before him.
 The novella The Sword in the Stone is about how the violence of
power does not gain a ruler respect but fear.
 The novella The Sword in the Stone is about how the power of
education can spark change.