Animals, Society and Culture

Lecture 12: Anthropomorphism and animal

tales2012-13

Lecture outline

Anthropomorphism Children’s literature Literature and campaigns against

cruelty to animals

What is anthropomorphism?

Human shape Gods Animals Unscientific

Making connections Anthropomorphism derives from human

capacity for ‘reflexive consciousness’ Makes possible the ‘incorporation of some

animals into the human social milieu’ (Serpell, 2005:124).

Enables humans ‘to participate in nonhuman lives not just as observers but as active social partners…. [and] … to bridge the conceptual and moral gulf that separates humans from other animals’ (Serpell, 2005:132)

Types of anthropomorphism

Allegorical Personification Superficial Explanatory Applied (Mullan and Marvin, 1999)

Controversial

anthropomorphism is very close to anthropocentrism – humans project own ways of behaving, thinking feeling because they see themselves as the centre of the universe (Tylor)

Can also be understood as the opposite – as emphasising continuity between humans and animals (Fudge)

Children’s literature

Civilising process Children closer to nature than are adults The process of acculturation of children

likened to the process of human development from ‘savage’ to ‘civilised’

Children are ‘like’ animals –this animality has to be controlled, tamed, repressed through process of acculturation

Children and animals

Animals are as important as humans Relationships with them significant Know their likes and dislikes See them as individuals Embodiment and touch important

aspect of communicating with animals

Social positioning similar

Fairy stories

Civilising process Repression of animality Taught about morality Charles Perrault: ‘They all tend to

reveal the advantage in being honest, patient, prudent, industrious, obedient’

Red Riding Hood

Original tale In facing the werewolf and temporarily

abandoning herself to him, the little girl sees the animal side of herself. She crosses the border between civilisation and wilderness, goes beyond the dividing line to face death in order to live. Her return home is a move forward as a whole person. She is a wo/man, self-aware, ready to integrate herself into society with awareness. (Zipes, 30)

Perrault’s tale ‘As every reader/viewer subconsciously knows,

Little Red Riding Hood is not really sent into the woods to visit grandma but to meet the wolf and to explore her own sexual cravings and social rules of conduct. Therefore, the most significant encounter is with the wolf because it is here that she acts upon her desire to indulge in sexual intercourse with the wolf, and most illustrations imply that she willingly makes a bargain with the wolf, or, in male terms, ‘she asks to be raped’ (Zipes, p.239, Don’t Bet on the Prince)

Animal autobiographies Develop an anti-cruelty message Invite the reader to experience life from

an animal’s perspective Children are addressed by these books

because they’re seen as effective agents in promoting

better treatment of animals they can learn lessons in good behaviour

from the behaviour of the animals and their owners

Slave narratives Same social positioning Autobiographical Part of campaign to change the law Testimonial as well as testimony Subjectivity created for animal

autobiographers often analogous to children, women, slaves, servants (Cosslett, 2006)

Realist element Class system Morality tale – exemplar of good

behaviour (both human and animal) Respects human and animal

hierarchies Relates to treatment of horses in real

world Communication by touch and tone of

voice

The jungle book

Anti-cruelty campaigns

Published in 1877 RSPCA endorsed several editions

of the book George Angell, founder of the

American Humane Society, ‘issued free copies to American cabmen with the subtitle ‘The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Horse’ (Kean, 79).

Summary Anthropomorphism enables emotional

connection between humans and animals Devalued in modernity because it’s associated

with emotion rather than reason, women/femininity rather than men/rationality, children rather than adults, nature rather than culture

Important in children’s literature and in literature opposing cruelty to animals

Re-emergence of anthropomorphism at end of 20th beginning of 21st century is significant as it suggests change in how human-animal relations are understood/experienced – post-modernity

References used Armstrong, P (2008) What animals mean in the fiction of modernity,

Routledge Cosslett, T (2006) Talking animals in British children’s fiction, 1786-1914,

Ashgate Crist, E (2000) Images of animals: anthropomorphism and animal mind,

Temple University Press DeMelo, M (2012) Animals and Society, Columbia University Press Greene, A (2008) Horses at work, Harvard University Press Keane, H (1998) Animal Rights, Reaktion Mullan, B and Marvin, G (1999) Zoo Culture, Univ. of Illinois Press Serpell, J (2005) ‘People in disguise: anthropomorphism and the human-

pet relationship’ in Daston, L and Mitman, G (eds) Thinking with animals, Columbia University Press

Tipper, R (2011) ‘A dog who I know quite well’: everyday relationships between children and animals in Children’s Geographies, 9 (2): 145-165

Tyler, T (2003) ‘If horses had hands’ in Society and Animals, 11 (3) Zipes, J (2006) Fairy tales and the art of subversion, 2nd edition,

Routledge Zipes, J (1986) Don’t bet on the prince, Gower