Odder

The relationship between Odder and her human caretakers features prominently in the novel. Using the perspective of a third-person omniscient narrator, the author explores some of the narrative’s events from both an animal and human viewpoint. Through this exploration, the author delivers important ideas about the value of the relationships between human and animals in conservation efforts, prompting readers to consider their own relationship to such topics.

This theme first appears in Part 1, when the poem “Squiggles and Splash” explains why some otters are numbered instead of named. The narrator explains that it’s for the sake of the humans not getting attached and clarifies that this is a good thing because “these otters need / all the help / they can get” (12). This is the first time the author references the idea that otters face threats other than predators in the wild. Explicit references to conservation continue in the poem “The Fifty,” in which the author portrays endangered species and, through an otter perspective, the history behind otters being endangered. She frames this as a story, a nearly mythological tale through which the otters understand their ancestry. By framing it in this way, the author prompts readers to consider how actions by humans have affected otters’ understanding of themselves and their species.

The development of this theme continues when the novel introduces the human perspective at the end of Part 1, as the humans rescue Odder in the poem “help arrives.” The line “music of grief and disappointment” emphasizes the empathy the humans have for the animals (71), which encourages the reader’s own empathy. The next poem, “afterward,” develops Odder’s importance to conservation efforts in general, as the humans think about how much they still have to learn from her, suggesting that the relationship the humans have with the animals under their care is a valuable source of new knowledge about the nature surrounding them.

This theme sees the most development in Part 2, when the author uses flashback to deliver background on Odder’s upbringing at Highwater. The importance of the relationship between humans and animals is unmistakable, as Odder gradually begins to consider them a “home away from home” and, to some extent, a surrogate family (120). Her relationship with her “otter-teacher” most significantly illustrates this point, and just before she joins the wild otters, Odder looks back at her human friends and knows that they “had saved her from death. / She [knows] in her heart that / she owe[s] them everything” (177). Without them, she wouldn’t have developed the skills she needed to survive in the wild. To reinforce the role that both humans and animals can play in conservation efforts, Odder steps into the “otter-teacher” role at the novel’s end to raise Otter #209. The parallels between Poem 116, “how to say goodbye to an otter pup,” and Poem 164, “how to say goodbye to an otter pup (otter version),” reinforce the importance of a positive relationship between humans and animals and the role of this relationship in protecting ecosystems.