There are simlarities between Watership Down, The Odyssey and “Into The Woods”. Certain archetypes are followed in each story, for instance, in “Into The Woods” everybody has a wish and therefore must go on a journey to fufill their wish. In Watership Down, the wish of Fiver and Hazel (along with many other rabbits) is to continue living so they, too, must begin a journey to stay alive and escape the danger that was predicted in the meadow where they live. Also, the predicted danger in the warren is much like the beanstalk that grows just before intermission begins as it foreshadows a series of dangerous events. In “Into the Woods”, the danger is the giant coming from the sky; but in Watership Down, the danger comes along as the rabbits leave the safety of their holes.
A similarity between “Into The Woods” and The Odyssey is the giant. In The Odyssey, Odysseus must face the cyclops, a one eyed giant, and in “Into The Woods” a second giant falls from the sky. Also, from blinding the cyclops, Odysseus faces another giant of a problem: the cyclops’s father, Posideon. The parallel situation to this in “Into the Woods” is the facing the woman giant in act two; she is the widow of the origianl giant and is there for revenge, much like Posiedon.
