Social Concerns / Themes
Shardik tells how the presence of a monstrous bear inspires a subject island people to overthrow the ruling empire. Confident that this bear is Shardik, the promised incarnation of divine power, the Ortelgans capture the capital of Bekla. They are led by Kelderek, who first discovered Shardik. While Kelderek ministers to the captive bear, the Ortelgans consolidate power throughout the empire and begin to rule harshly. Shardik suddenly escapes from Bekla. Following him into the countryside, Kelderek discovers that Ortelgans have allowed the slave trade to flourish. When Shardik perishes in the act of saving some children from a slaver, Kelderek believes that this is God's revelation: children must be cared for if society is to flourish.
Fundamentally Shardik is a novel about human misery. From the opening description of a forest fire, destruction is the constant occurrence of the novel. Shardik is the antithesis of Watership Down (1972), showing the ravaging rather than the reestablishment of community. The novel is filled with riveting scenes of death and devastation: the sack of the capital city, the slaughter of a Beklan army, Shardik's destruction of his temple, and Genshed's torture of enslaved children. Although the novel ends with Shardik's revelation about children, this commandment is only a hope rather than an accepted principle.
Thematically, the novel is a puzzle. Shardik may or may not be divinely...
(The entire section is 491 words.)