The major theme of the story is the struggle between the noisy, common way of life and the quiet and genteel. The Wild Wooders, including the stoats and the weasels, epitomize the former, while the River-Bankers, including Badger, Mole, Rat, and Toad, represent the latter. Toad is a lovable rebel who does not fit well into either camp. Structurally, the fantasy is a small epic in prose paralleling to some degree the events in Homer's Odyssey.