My obsession with cows in this book starts here. Although it is business and many people simply view them as animals, as a vegetarian and animal lover this chapter hits me hard. I don't think less of people who eat meat or who are in the cattle industry, but it was here that I picked up the idea for my final paper. The cows in "Plainsong" are not accessory items, but something much more symbolic. For me, the cows exhibit the idea of proper motherhood and all the emotions that are entailed.
On page 62 Raymond says, "But she was a good mother, you have to say that for her." He is talking about a cow, but the statement could reach across the species barrier to the McPherson' mother, Ella, and Victoria.
The passage that follows rips your heart out if you replace the animals with humans. A mother and her baby are being separated. Perhaps I am too sensitive in this arena (ha, no pun intended!) but I imagine images of government violence and the Holocaust when I think of a mother being denied her child in the eyes of death and torture.
On page 67 Tom is "kneeling at his (Bobby's) head" which to me is another religious symbol.
This is also a chapter in which the boys are taken out on a manly bonding trip/experience with their father and older men.
Harold uses inappropriate and gender-specific language when he becomes angry with the red-legged cow and says to her, "you gd crazy old raw-boned bitch."
Maybe we are seeing the boys slowly lose their innocence.
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