Jody Baxter

Jody Baxter showed his deep love for his pet fawn which made him willing to sacrifice anything for it. In the book, when his father was crippled with rheumatism, Jody’s pet fawn was trampling crops and knocking over food containers and even though his fawn caused so much trouble, Jody still loved his fawn. After that, Flag ate and destroyed the entire corn crop that Jody and his dad worked hard to plant and even when his dad demanded him to release the fawn, he went against his father’s orders because he loved his fawn. When Jody’s pet fawn ran off a few times, he would just put aside his chores and search high and low for his pet fawn so that it was safe and not hurt by the animals in the forest. Lastly, Jody’s father demanded for him to shoot Flag, but he just could not do it and he even found ways to avoid it and decided to visit the Forresters to ask if they would take Flag to Jacksonville to live in the park.

Jody went through a difficult time fighting against himself and came out the winner. In the book, he changed when he could not kill Old Slewfoot, the bear and he started to understand more of the conflict between man and nature and the difficulty of the world. He always thought that hunting was like a game but after the bear attacked them in the forest and injured their dog, he changed his mind and realised that hunting was dangerous. Secondly, his destructive pet fawn destroyed crops and caused trouble and caused Jody to struggle internally between staying a boy and becoming a man in the hard world. It was because he could not think of himself anymore, he needed to protect and look after it to make sure it was safe. He also had an extra responsibility. Lastly, when Jody Baxter reached home, his father realised that he now understood how things happened in the world and he knew men were cruel and inconsiderate. He had been through starvation and in life man would always be knocked down but then again, he must always stand up to his errors.