Mr. Fox is a clever and quick-witted fox. He lives in a hole under a tree with his wife, Mrs. Fox, and their four children. Their home is on a hill above three lucrative farms. Mr. Fox plunders these farms each night for chickens, ducks, geese, or turkeys (depending on Mrs. Fox’s request). This is a risky endeavor, as the three farmers who own the farms (Boggis, Bunce, and Bean) lie in wait with shotguns, hoping to kill Mr. Fox. This risk leads to Mr. Fox’s tail being shot off in Chapter 3.

Mr. Fox relies on his keen sense of smell and sharp intellect to best the farmers who aspire to kill him. His biggest challenge arises when the farmers use shovels and machinery to try to dig out and kill him and his family. Mr. Fox and his children manage to tunnel underneath the farms in order to feed themselves and the other animal families. At the end of the novel, Mr. Fox is praised as “fantastic” for managing to outsmart the farmers and save his family and friends (77).