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The Human and the Animal in the Works of Zora Neale Hurston, Mark

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The Human and the Animal in the Works of Zora Neale Hurston, Mark SHARED SPACES: THE HUMAN AND THE ANIMAL IN THE WORKS OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON, MARK TWAIN, AND JACK LONDON Pamela Evans Harper, B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2008 APPROVED: Jacqueline Foertsch, Major Professor Stephanie Hawkins, Committee Member Ian Finseth, Committee Member Robert Upchurch, Director of Graduate Studies in English David Holdeman, Chair of the Department of English Sandra L. Terrell, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Harper, Pamela Evans. Shared Spaces: The Human and the Animal in the Works of Zora Neale Hurston, Mark Twain, and Jack London. Master of Arts (English), August 2008, 92 pp., works cited, 47 titles. Living in tune with nature means respecting the natural environment and realizing its power and the ways it manifests in daily life. This essay focuses on the ways in which respect for nature is expressed through animal imagery in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Mark Twain’s “The Stolen White Elephant,” Roughing It, and Pudd’nhead Wilson, and Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. Each author encouraged readers to seek the benefits of nature in order to become better human beings, forge stronger communities, and develop a more unified nation and world. By learning from the positive example of the animals, we learn how to share our world with them and with each other. Copyright 2008 by Pamela Evans Harper ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapters I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 II. “MULES AND OTHER BRUTES HAD OCCUPIED THEIR SKINS”: THE INGRAINED ANIMAL IN ZORA NEALE HURSTON’S THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD ..................................................................................................7 Animal Imagery in Language Janie’s Work as Family, Self, and Community The Wisdom of Animal Instinct Chapter Notes III. “I BELIEVE I DO NOT WISH ANY OF THE PIE”: THE UNCIVILIZED IDEALS OF MARK TWAIN’S “THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT,” ROUGHING IT, AND PUDD’NHEAD WILSON...............................................33 Twain’s Exotics Twain’s Canines Chapter Notes IV. AVOIDING THE “PRETTY SPECTACLE”: THE NATURE OF JACK LONDON AND BUCK’S STRENUOUS EVOLUTION IN THE CALL OF THE WILD .....................................................................................................................63 The Strenuous Life The Path of Evolution Conclusion Chapter Notes V. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................86 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................88 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In 2008, “green” is a buzzword, its use indicating an awareness of current environmental issues as well as the hope that environmental awareness becomes a permanent part of American lives. However, as Glen Love has pointed out, “The disquieting fact is that we have grown inured to the bad news of human and natural disasters. The catalog of actual and potential environmental crises is by now familiar to us all, so familiar as to have become dismissible (14). It seems acceptable then that if we ignore the natural environment in real life (with the exception of its saving resurfacing as a fad every few years), we must, more than ever before, keep up an awareness in our literature. Of the American nature writers, the list nearly always begins with Henry David Thoreau and then includes a variegated catalog that includes Mary Austin, Aldo Leopold, James Fennimore Cooper, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Love 27, 32; Mason 4, 9), among others. Nature has become embedded in our literature. The pastoral, says Andrew Ettin, much “like the terms tragedy and comedy…are permanently parts of our thinking and writing” (qtd. in Love 65). And in this valuable nature writing I have noticed a trend in American culture but not a recent one. The idea that an ever-increasing modernization of America lends itself to a gradual but continuous disregard for nature and the animal is an issue that authors were addressing in fiction over a century ago. As critic Jennifer Mason indicates, “In American literary and cultural studies, the second half of the nineteenth century is universally understood to be a period of intense interest in animals and their relationships to people” (1). Mason attributes this idea to the growing disillusionment with human nature. In the decades after the Civil War, Americans perceived unprecedented levels of greed and self-interest in their now thoroughly urban, industrial, capitalist society. Indifferent to the wealth and prestige that 1 increasingly stratified social relations, the animals people encountered in the built environment seemed to many to be more honest, more generous, more loyal—in short more civilized—than many of the people who lived there. (19-20) However, I have noticed that this attitude, important to more than just the general populace as Mason indicates (as general populaces are often fickle), is a permanent attitude of those authors who write about nature and animals. This study attempts to take a look at three authors’ interpretations of being in tune with nature. I see the works of Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God), Mark Twain (“The Stolen White Elephant,” Roughing It, and Pudd’nhead Wilson), and Jack London (The Call of the Wild) using animal imagery to show nature’s benefits for the individual human and ultimately pointing to elements of the nation at large. I see their works acknowledging and critiquing the phenomenon of how unnatural nature is for much of the American public, poignant then as well as now. These works serve as both a warning against devaluing nature as well as a reminder that humans are not the only animals that matter. We are not here alone. We share this space we call the world, and it is in our best interest that we continue to do so. Being in tune with nature means being aware of, living in harmony with, and respecting the natural environment. I see in the works of Hurston, Twain, and London an important connection to the larger picture (self, community, and nation). Interestingly, each author uses animals as metaphors to contrast humans. The animals function in their own right meaning that their actions are not aligning them with humanity. Instead the animals in all these works are demonstrating to the human a better way to live. They exemplify ways that the human can live in harmony with nature: Hurston demonstrates the human in touch with the environment so much so that animals are part of human daily interaction. Twain’s animals are then used as representations of the good in humankind that humanity tends to ignore. London exemplifies 2 how an embrace of animal instinct keeps the true nature of the self in focus. All these authors have similar threads in their works, and one uniting theme is that humans in general and Americans specifically must reign in and control the power we hold over the other beings in our world. These works were important in their time to serve as reminders and guidance. They are important now as environmental issues are surfacing again, and as we are only a few years past the last turn of the century. The concern over the human’s living in harmony with nature is an issue that remains vital today, and this essay will show how maintaining respect for nature and being in tune with the environment is vital to a worthy life according to Hurston, Twain, and London. I have chosen Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as I feel it best represents a time in America’s past when nature was fully ingrained in people’s lives. The novel, set in southeast America—Florida and the Everglades—signifies the new beginning of the country after Reconstruction with a theme of rebuilding. And though Hurston’s 1937 novel comes after Twain and London in a chronological timeline, I place it first as I see the novel representing an attitude and lifestyle of the past; her work shows the roots of American culture and the importance of a natural life, remembering where we came from and where we might be headed. Specifically, Hurston’s human characters live a life in constant interaction with animals that animals have becomes a normal part of their everyday existence, exemplified in not only the language they use with each other but the causal and friendly tone of Hurston’s narration as she introduces the reader to this world. Second, much like the nation’s rebuilding itself, Hurston’s protagonist Janie Starks is continually rebuilding her life through her work. Janie is surrounded by animal descriptions and references that change as she moves through the novel from husband to husband and job to job. And though Their Eyes embraces the past and contains echoes of 3 slavery, with each turn Janie’s life takes, her work represents a growing American culture as nature, self, and the community. Moreover, the animals in Their Eyes are in the tradition of the animal tale of African American folklore and prove to be the wisest of all. They maintain natural instincts that warn them of the approaching storm, so their mass exodus should serve as a warning to all the people of the community. In that it does not, Hurston uses the power of nature to show the importance of living in tune with natural instinct. Interestingly, as Hurston’s work represents the community of the Southeast, Twain’s work becomes the larger nation as a whole. I have placed Mark Twain and several of his animal sketches together as a second example to the American nation of how to live in harmony with nature. In the short story “The Stolen White Elephant” and the novels Roughing It and Pudd’nhead Wilson, Twain provides a lesson for America in the form of the fable, and in this way his work also follows in the African American oral tradition, much like Hurston’s work.
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