Defamiliarising the Zoo Representations of Nonhuman Animal Captivity in Five Contemporary Novels

Defamiliarising the Zoo Representations of Nonhuman Animal Captivity in Five Contemporary Novels A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury by Hadassa Prattley 2012 Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... i Abstract ........................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Expressing the Other: Literary Construction and Recognition of Nonhuman Animal Identity.............................................................. 12 Chapter Two: “With a View to Seeing”: Reading Eyes, Interpreting Gaze ................ 59 Chapter Three: “A Different Kind Entirely”: Actors and Illusions in the Modern Zoo ................................................................................. 93 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 143 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 150 Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 152 List of Figures Fig. 1 “Book cover and detail of the five zoo novels” ................................................ 72 Fig. 2 “Malik and Sophia” ......................................................................................... 129 Fig. 3 “Angie and Trent” ........................................................................................... 131 i Acknowledgments I would like to thank sincerely my supervisors Dr. Philip Armstrong and Dr. Annie Potts, whose remarkable way of engaging with and valuing my ideas while at the same time encouraging me towards new inquiries has ensured that writing this thesis has been both challenging and rewarding. Their fascinating under- and postgraduate classes first introduced me to Human-Animal Studies and as supervisors their vast knowledge and perceptive insights in this field have been invaluable and inspiring. I will always be grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them. Studying human-animal relationships and the captivity of nonhuman animals in particular has been fascinating but also deeply troubling at times. I am grateful to those who have contributed ideas and supported me along the way: I am grateful to my family for their input and support and for always taking an interest, especially my Mum and Dad and my brothers Ezra and Madison (who was there to make me feel brainy when I needed encouragement). Thank you to my friends Susan and Melissa, who inspire me both as fellow students and fellow women. Finally, I am grateful to Juliet for her companionship and reminders to take study breaks, and to my partner Tony, whose encouragement, humour, practical support and discussions about nonhuman animals helped me every day of this journey. ii Abstract While human-animal relations have always been part of human cultures the public zoo is a relatively recent phenomenon that reflects very specific elements of Western cultures’ modern ideas about, and relationships with, nonhuman animals. By becoming such a familiar part of popular culture the zoo naturalises these ideas as well as certain modes of looking at and interacting with animals. In this thesis I argue that as literary works contemporary novels provide a valuable defamiliarisation of zoos which encourages the re-examination of the human attitudes and practices that inform our treatment of nonhuman animals. Through my analysis of J.M. Ledgard’s novel Giraffe, Diane Hammond’s Hannah’s Dream, Lydia Millet’s How The Dead Dream, Valerie Martin’s The Great Divorce and Ben Dolnick’s Zoology I explore the inherently anthropocentric social construction of nonhuman animals in human discourses and the way the novels conform to or subvert these processes. I demonstrate that nonhuman animal characters are constructed through a process of identification which involves naming, recognising the existence of their emotions and mediating their nonhuman forms of communication. Anthropocentric tendencies both aid and hinder this identification, for example the human valuing of sight over the other senses that sees eyes become important literary symbols and the gaze a crucial part of interaction and attributing meaning. Gaze and observation are also fundamental to the concept of the zoo where human treatment of nonhuman animals is represented in visual terms in the relationship between powerful spectator and disempowered object. Drawing on texts from multiple disciplines I argue that the anthropocentric nature of socially constructed nonhuman animals in human discourses means that any study of these animals is actually concerned with the human ideologies and processes that create them; as a site of captivity that markets wildness and freedom the paradoxical nature of the zoo provides the literary setting for an exploration of these themes. 1 Introduction Over the past century zoos have become a pervasive part of Western societies; present in television shows, children’s books, films and product advertisements the concept of nonhuman animal captivity is a normal and familiar one for most people and the zoo visit a popular recreation activity. In response to changing public attitudes to nonhuman animals and the natural environment zoos have had to reposition or rebrand themselves over the years and today maintain their status in society by identifying themselves as modern-day conservation arks. This thesis aims to investigate contemporary representations of, and ideas about, the captivity of nonhuman animals by analysing five recent novels set in and around zoos or animal collections. These texts (hereafter referred to as “zoo novels”) are Giraffe (2007) by J.M. Ledgard, Hannah’s Dream (2008) by Diane Hammond, How The Dead Dream (2009) by Lydia Millet, The Great Divorce (first published in 1993) by Valerie Martin and Zoology (2007) by Ben Dolnick. My approach to these novels will take the form of poststructuralist contextual analysis based on the belief that although fictional, works of literature are historically contingent and by understanding their socio-cultural context a reader may more fully understand the meanings of the text. For example if, as Graham Allen notes, a novelist uses a word like “God” or “justice” or (with more particular significance to the novels discussed here) “natural” or “artificial”, these words do not have “clear and stable meanings” but rather “they embody society’s dialogic conflict over the meaning of words” (Allen, 36). Consequently such texts remain “thoroughly connected to on-going cultural and social processes” (36). In writing this thesis I adhere to the view of “culture” associated with contemporary cultural criticism, which insists that any one culture, for example that of contemporary North America, actually comprises “a set of interactive cultures, alive and changing, rather than 2 static and monolithic” (Murfin & Ray, 66, emphasis in original). In accordance with this belief my thesis adopts the theory of intertextuality proposed by Julia Kristeva that “any given work” must be viewed “as part of larger fabric of literary discourse” (Murfin & Ray, 176), but expands the scope of this concept to include the discourse of many forms of culture by including, for example, scientific, feminist, historical, pop culture and journalistic texts as well as literary texts in its discussions. This approach is an intrinsic part of the interdisciplinary field of Human-Animal Studies (HAS); as Margo DeMello notes, in HAS, “we study the interactions between humans and other animals, wherever and whenever we find them” (5). In taking this approach I follow the example set by critics such as Randy Malamud, who, in his book Reading Zoos, describes his approach to exploring the representation of zoos in literature: A valuable confluence links my postmodern scholarly approach - which asserts that the boundaries between literary culture, popular culture, and nature are highly permeable - and scientific sensibilities that challenge positivist received ideas about how people and animals relate to each other. ... Humanists, I think, can explore and expose the conditions of the world we live in, while scientists can work to repair the damage this exploration will reveal. (36-7) The realisation that boundaries between different fields of study are “highly permeable” is an important one because only with the various evidences provided by these different discourses can we begin to understand the way in which, for humans, nonhuman animals are “socially constructed” (DeMello, 10). As Margo DeMello explains: 3 On one level, animals surely exist in nature. However, once they are incorporated into human social worlds they are assigned to human categories, often based on their use to humans, and it is these categories (lab animal, pet, [zoo animal,] and livestock) that shape not only how the animals are seen but also how they are used and treated. … Moreover, these classifications are not neutral—they are politically charged in that they serve to benefit some (humans, some animals) at the expense of others (other animals). (DeMello, 10) In this sense nonhuman animals themselves

Load more