Watch out for literary critics. They can get feisty.
Imagine putting a country music fan and a dubstep aficionado on a deserted island with one speaker system. A lot of the debates in animal studies play out as if they were taking place on that island—they're claustrophobic, heated, and full of rum. Hmm. Maybe not the rum part.
There are a lot of debates in animal studies—some of the squabbling depends on how many academic disciplines are involved, some of it depends on debates about how to best understand human culture that have been going on for awhile (Literature vs. Philosophy, The Cage Match! Bout #567…), and some are just downright political. What we think about animals says a lot about what we think about humans—so a lot is at stake. Here are few examples of some specific debates:
Merely metaphors?
In cultural representations are animals always just mere metaphors for human ideas and feelings? Think back to Bronte's dogs in Wuthering Heights—scholars will disagree about the function of these animals in the novel.
Some would say that they merely serve to shadow and heighten human dramas. Some will argue that the animals themselves are characters in the story in their own right, with actions and beings that matters in and of itself.
Think of it this way—we tend to read human characters not just as imaginative figments in texts meant to represent abstract and possible human emotions but rather as "real," implied persons. Characters represent and actually embody aspects of real persons, and we feel things towards them: we love Jo in Little Women. We're annoyed by her sister Amy. We think Meg is a sweetie-pie, and we're sad when Beth gets sick. These characters have personhood, dagnabbit.
The question is, then, what about Garfield and Odie? Do they have personhood…or rather "animalhood"? How about animals that don't speak in cynical thought bubbles?
Companions or slaves?
Some of the politics motivating animal studies comes down to fundamental questions about the relative freedom of other animals. Donna Haraway's concept of "companion species" (We're all buddies and chums here right? Now sit, roll over, and beg.) has been extremely influential in this debate.
The idea that animals are our companions—starting with those we really do think of as companions, our cats, dogs, tortoises, pet monkeys—is an attractive one. Haraway sees relationships of cooperation between humans and other animals, even when we're putting animals to use for human ends, like workhorses. Other critics find these arguments bogus—they seem so self-serving to the human species!
Sure, Skip is man's best friend… but what about the skylark in Shelley's poem? The tiger in Blake's poem? Or the cow in a dairy? Can we really talk about companionship with those critters? Aren't they relatively indifferent to us, at best, or exploited by us, at worst? Maybe we should stop trying to get all up in their business, and instead find ways to let them be?
So many questions. It's still very much an open and heated debate.
Can literature make an argument about animals and how we should live with them?
Literature isn't political theory. It's not ethics. It's not psychology. It's not philosophy. But can it show us the way? Can it make arguments for how we should live? Is it actually better at doing this than these other, seemingly more practical fields?
We're not suggesting you visit a literature professor for therapy or ethical guidance—although they might be awesome at it—but there is a healthy debate about the best way to think our way into some of the debates regarding humans and animals. J.M. Coetzee's novella The Lives of Animals foregrounds such a discussion.
Go ahead and check out our section on Key Texts for more books that will blow your mind and broaden your horizons when it comes to questions about furry/feathered/finned creatures.