The literary representation of pro-animal thought : readings in contemporary fiction.

摘要

This thesis analyses the representation of pro-animal thought in literaryudfiction published over the last thirty years.udRecently, critics have begun eclectically to trace animal rightsudarguments in past literature, attaching criticism to politics in a familiar wayud(considering the recent history of the literary academy). However, they haveudneither explained the holistic picture of human-animal relations inudindividual texts, nor how such questions relate to a specific literary context.udThis thesis, on the other hand, involves more a pinpointing of the particularudvalue of literary works for extending the horizon of current ethical debatesudabout animals than a partisan mobilisation of literary criticism in the serviceudof animal rights. To that end, each chapter offers a thoroughgoing reading ofudan important text in the story of contemporary fiction's ethical encounterudwith the animal. I contextualise these extended readings with more succinctuddiscussion of the wide range of contemporary authors who represent proanimaludthought.udThis approach requires several theoretical methodologies, though alludare within the realm of feminist post-structuralism. Butler's work on theuddiscursive production of sex illuminates the ethical representation of speciesudin Atwood's Surfacing. The representation of animals (both literary andudpolitical) in Walker's The Temple of My Familiar is explained by situating theudanimal within feminist debates about the relation of literary writing to theuddiscursive formation of race. Levy's avant-garde representation of the animaludin Diary of a Steak is explained by placing a literary-theoretical readingudinspired by Bakhtin and Irigaray within a broader cultural study of the BSEudcrisis. Derrida's recent work on ethics and the question of the animal helpsudme explore the literary representation of ethical vegetarianism in Coetzee'sudThe Lives of Animals.udMy concluding remarks suggest how the results of my research mightudimpact on the future role of animal ethics in literary criticism.