What's the deal with all the shots of animals?

Especially when the kids are on the raft, there are all kinds of shots of animals. Did Charles Laughton just love animals, or is there something else to this? I really have no ideas or else I would make this OP longer… sorry.

The natural world loves and protects the children. The river current pulls them away from the murderous preacher, and the rabbits and spiders watch over them until they arrive in the arms of the Good Mother — Lillian Gish (at her most magical)

meh – fair enough. I guess I could have thought of that… I’m just trying to make more threads about specific films for Jazzaloha… we can still discuss, though. Anyone?

At a very basic level, on the one hand you have the animals that are associated with domestic safety—the bird in the cage visable through the window shade as the hear the mother singing the lullaby, the cows in the barn. On the other hand you have the more predatory (“hunter”) animals which are more like talismans against being hunted.

There is a decent analyses of the film here: Night of the Hunter

The scene in the cellar is also where Powell’s associations with the animal come to the fore, qualities which are increasingly developed through the rest of the film, in the animal-like sounds Powell starts to emit: the shriek and then the low guttural growl when John slams the cellar door on his hand; his wild thrashing through the bushes by the riverside; his roar as he stands chest-deep in the water while the children escape; and finally, when Miss Cooper shoots him, his high-pitched shrieks and squeals as he leaps up and down outside and into the barn.
So, Powell’s is a character marked by evil and violence, associated with the animal and the non-human (“Don’t he ever sleep?” asks John), and whose ultimate defeat is signalled in the way his threat is undermined by the increasing comic tone brought to the portrayal.

I don’t know much about Jung, but the film has always seemed like an archetypical hero journey to me.

It’s kind of interesting that the only two James Agee screenplays involve river boat journeys (The African Queen and Night of the Hunter). It’s a shame he died so young (45).

I saw the animals as God; watching over the children to make a safe journey.

I also think they add to the subverted/demented fairy tale aspect of the second half of the film. That late-night row boat ride, despite the lurking danger, feels like a sweet childhood reverie.