Imagine androgynous 1980’s glam rock, indie music with an iPhone T-Pain app, a tinfoil lightshow, and a group of zombified Jems. You’d have Michael Howell’s Romulus Ate.
When going to the student theater, you go past the well-known B. Iden Payne Theatre and walk through an alley with mazes of metal pipes bolted against the grimy brick walls with the sound of gasses and fluids churning inside them. You’ll soon hit the UT Lab Theatre—a small, black, well kept secret.
Romulus Ate isn’t exactly a play. It’s more of a concert with the zombie Jems dressed and choreographed in a way to question and experiment with the polarizations of gender. There are obvious jabs to contemporary pop artists, such as Ke$ha, as they satirize the typical club dance moves of women. Director Michael Howell seems to lead the five female dancers with his own androgynous look: shaved pits, long hair, tight leather pants, and a neon muscle shirt. Even his voice is masked to higher and lower octaves, which beckons the audience to question his gender even further. Yet this leaves an unanswered question: is a male still dominate in an androgynous society? I doubt this was the intention, and that the characters were supposed to be seen of the same gender, if any gender at all.
There is virtually no plot, only vague guidelines for the audience to interpret as they wish. Although some of the crowd seemed to crave more substance, I felt that the interactive cast, crawling on top of and through the audience, lifting, laughing at, and handling random people in the audience set a clear enough story—we are the aliens. We’re new, and the Jems are exploring the existent of light as we explore their world. We inadvertently became a part of the plot, which only adds to the depth of the “story”.
The light effects created a unique experience with this play. Rather than being an added effect, the lights became characters themselves. In one instance, the five girls are investigating the nature of their lights. As each one extinguishes, the girls look in pain and frustration, even beating the bulb on the hip, as if to bring the light back. The last girl with a lit light cradles it within her arms, desperate to keep it alive. A second girl leaps on her back, as if trying to pry the life from the girl’s hand. The light’s death clearly brings pain to both girls’ eyes.
I’m hopeful that Romulus Ate will expand with Howell’s dreams of integrating video and taking the concert on tour. I can only hope that there will be a CD alongside those plans.
What I found most interesting is that hunting, or killing, an animal was alluded to in both “The Thrill of the Chase” and “Shooting an Elephant.” What I’ve heard about hunting is that it creates a feeling of superiority, a thrill of excitement, an experience of power. I’ve never hunted for animals like deer, pigs, or birds, so I’m not quite sure if this is true.
That’s not to say that I’ve never killed an animal. I feel safe in saying that we’ve all had our fair share of bug stomping. I’ve killed snakes and fish before (nothing else sticks out in my mind at this point, although I’m sure there are many other creatures I have forgotten or who I have indirectly harmed). But the point is that these are animals that I have intentionally sought out to kill.
The snake, of course, was 1) an order from my family and 2) out of protection. Spending my summers on farms, I was able to identify between a harmful and a harmless snake. So my encounters with snakes… the most memorable one was when we were driving down a dirt road in the middle of the night, on our way home from a neighbor’s bbq. We were nearly back to the farm when my mom stopped the car, reversed it, went forward, stopped, reversed. I asked what she was doing, and she said, “There’s a cottonmouth in the road.”
My cousins, sister, and I soon learned not to go out in the tall grass during the warm seasons without a garden hoe. I remember the first snake I ever killed myself was at the farm’s pond. It was a large, long, green snake that was slithering near the shore. It must have been 2-3 feet long. I cut it’s head off with the hoe, draped the dead body over the barbed wire fence, and backed away from the still slithering head. I can vividly remember it’s fat yellow body hanging helplessly on the fence.
Another significant time in my life was when we still lived in Beaumont. We lived right near a large drainage ditch, so turtles, frogs, snakes, and even the occasional tiny alligator were our visitors. My puppy, Snickers, was parking and pointing her snout at the ground, like a bird dog that had spotted her prey. I went outside, not knowing what to expect. A large, black moccasin was coiled under the bushes. Again, I used a garden hoe to sever its head. I tossed the head over the fence into the ditch, and again draped the body on the fence.
The last and final snake killing I remember was at camp. There was a coral snake under the steps of the mess hall. My father was there (he was the one who spotted it), and with his help, we both killed the snake. It was a strange sort of daughter-father bonding over the death of an animal… but we didn’t see it that way. At the time, we saw it as the protection of others. The snake had been resting in the most populated, trafficked area of the camp. Moving it would cause a danger to ourselves, and leaving it would be a danger to others. Was I right in any of my decisions?
Unlike the policeman in “Shooting an Elephant,” I don’t feel as if my motives were as selfish as, “do[ing] it solely to avoid looking a fool” (443). My actions weren’t out of pride, but out of fear. (Fear, at this point, may be too generalized an emotion. Perhaps concern?) Each time I picked up the garden hoe, I never felt a surge of excitement. On the contrary, I felt fear, but not a debilitating fear. It was more of a calm fear that sat in the back of my mind. I focused more on the calm rather than the fear that could strike panic in me at any moment. Calmness was the key factor in any of these situations.
Snake killing was not a sport. It was more a defense mechanism. Something I was taught to do in order to protect myself. Of course, I don’t go killing every little garden snake I pass by.
However, I see fishing as a sport. Since I was a toddler, I’ve gone fishing. In the summers, we went to Arkansas to catch rainbow trout, Athens for catfish, Galveston for red snapper, and Canton for large mouth bass. The last time I fished was last year in Lake Travis, during the mating season. I know how to clean, gut, and prepare a fish for cooking. Although I may not find myself within “rows of horns and hides, mounted heads and stuffed bodies,” is fishing any different than sport hunting? (416) Am I any better than the orange man?
“The good Lord Buddha seated him
Under a jambu-tree, with ankles crossed–
As holy statues sit–and first began
To meditate this deep disease of life,
What its far source and whence its remedy.
So vast a pity filled him, such wide love
For living things, such passion to heal pain,
That by their stress his princely spirit passed
To ecstasy, and, purged from mortal taint
Of sense and self, the boy attained thereat Dhyana, first step of ‘the path'” (461).
The story of Prince Siddhartha meditating under the jambu tree tells about the inevitable suffering of life. While everything may seem to be at harmony one minute, pain and death will always follow. Becoming overwhelmed, Siddhartha leaves the area until he finds the jambu tree and meditates. Here, he enters dhyana–or the state one enters during meditation–and reflects on suffering as a part of life. This is a precursor of when Siddhartha meditates under the bodhi tree, where he attains enlightenment and becomes the founder of Buddhism. We know Siddhartha as the Supreme Buddha, or just Buddha.
“The Path” which Siddhartha mentions at the end of his meditation is the Four Noble Truths:
life is suffering
suffering is caused by craving
suffering can have an end
there is a path which leads to the end of suffering (the Eight Fold Path, which focuses on wisdom, morality, and meditation).
Although I had some problems with the article “What the West Can Learn from Oriental Thought” (for starters, I didn’t like how they called it “oriental”… that implies that it is an inanimate object such as a cup. Also, oriental does not include Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani/Sri Lankan thought–where these religions originated), many of the differences between Western and Eastern thought were true, although glorifying Eastern thought may be taking the situation too far. But it is true that Eastern thought tends to believe in the Four Noble Truths, where as Westerners believe that everything can be improved. Although I would not go as far as to say the West needs this, I do agree that Eastern thought “sens[es] the presence of what is at every particular moment, and of giving up everything that can be had” (507). In my Buddhism class last semester, the self and impermance were the foundations of the course.
The above video is of Tibetan Buddhist monks creating art with colored sand–known as a sand mandala. (The video says it is a sand mandala of Chenrezig, which is the Tibetan name for Avalokitesvara). It’s a practice used to demonstrate impermanence. After they have spent hours–even days–tediously exerting themselves over the art, they quickly wipe it away and destroy it, much like the story about Siddhartha realizing that “life liv[es] upon death” (461). Life depends on the end of life. Through this, Siddhartha feels extreme passion towards living things, yet he is unable to help everyone.
One of the four most influential Bodhisattvas of Mahayana is Avalokitesvara, who exhibits extreme compassion (the other three: Manjusri, Mahasthamaprapta, and Samantabhadra, are known for their compassion and wisdom). A Bodhisattva is an enlightened being who intentionally postpones his Buddhahood in order to help others attain nirvana.
Avalokitesvara became known as the Bodhisattva of compassion when he vowed to free all beings from samsara–or the cycle of rebirth. But he was unable to hear all the cries of the people, so Amitabha Buddha gave him eleven heads to hear everyone. But once Avalokitesvara could hear everyone, he did not have enough hands to help, so Amitabha again came to his aid and gave him a thousand arms to reach all the people.
So what the article, “What the West Can Learn from Oriental Thought,” essentially tries to say is that Americans need more compassion, wisdom, and self-awareness in their lives. Although I think this is true for all people, the article gave me the impression that Eastern thought was perfect.
I would like to know when this article was written–was it pre- or post-Chinese economy take over? Before the Japan bubble burst of the late 80s and early 90s? Does it correlate at all with the success of Eastern economies versus Western? What did they think of Western thought during the early years of nuclear fission, before films like Gojira publicized the downfall of nuclear power?
The earth moved beneath my foot. A large rumble woke me. Everything was now quiet and still, but I couldn’t see the sunlight shine through my shell. Instinctively, I could tell I wasn’t where I had fallen asleep. I wanted to stay hidden. Whenever I felt scared, I’d bury my head within my shell because it gave me a false sense of protection, but hiding from the unknown was better than facing it. But I didn’t know where I was, so instead of hiding, I poked my eyes from my shell–one after the other cautiously crept out–then finally my head.
Straining to see was pointless. The thickness of the dark fell like a weight on my eyes. Before I could crawl forward, a sudden jolt stopped me. The rocking and the rumble that woke me started again. The world tilted once again, but this time fiercer than before. The mucous on my foot couldn’t keep me locked to the ground. I hit something hard and bounced off, rolling back to the other side. I hit what I guessed was another wall. The rocking wouldn’t stop flailing my body around. I couldn’t see anything. I started to panic-taking quick, short breaths. The air was thin and hard to breathe. I wasn’t getting any air. I was going to die. I moved my tentacles around quickly, trying to see a way out, but the dark engulfed me. My eyes were clouded by the empty void of darkness and the rolling rumble of my body slamming against walls. I gasped in pain and heard my shell crack.
Then stillness, and silence once again. But I still couldn’t breathe. All I could feel was the pain of my shell and the pain of my lungs. The darkness seemed to suck away all the air. My panicking had used up all of the air. I contracted all my muscles, moving my body in a rippling action, one short wave starting from the back moving slowly to the front. I strained my head forward, stretching until the pain was unbearable. Another rippling wave from the back of my body to the front. I could tell the weight of my shell slowed me down. Another ripple, another. Stretching my head even further while my eyes moved wildly around. I moved about a millimeter.
I would never get out of here alive. I was too weak to panic any more–I knew I would die here in the unknown dark. My eyes grew heavy, my lungs constricted. I put my head down and slept, not having the strength to recoil in my shell for protection.
***
A snail’s home is her shell. My shell is beautiful. It doesn’t swirl upwards into a cone like most shells, but it’s a perfectly round circle that curves within itself. It’s small and cozy, and when the sun is shining, the inside becomes warm and glows red. But the outside is a gorgeous blue with black stripes following the round spirals. Dots of white fleck the outside, which remind me of clouds scattered across the sky. A shell is a wonderfully warm and a protective place to live.
I always sleep under the same flower, in the same garden, in the same grass. I live mostly on my own, with the occasional visit from a bee, or a butterfly, or a bird. But I keep mostly to myself. Being slow, I tend to stay where I am. I love the garden I live in, with its big, beautiful daisies and the occasional blackberry vines in the summer. There’s a creek nearby, so the lone garden snake will drift by to cool down in the water. His slithering body always pushes back the grass, creating a path for my slow foot to follow. I love leaving my slimy trail in the large paths of others.
In the mornings, I’ll hear a bell chiming through the air. That’s my usual wakeup call. It lets me know that the puppy will soon be here, and it’s time for me to crawl back into the warmth of my shell. I’m not afraid of the puppy, but I’ll never forget the first time I met her. I heard the metal gate across the yard open, and the footsteps of a person walking towards the garden. He wore sandals, and all I could see were dirty toe nails and freckled feet. He carried a small black puppy in his arms with a piece of tape wrapped around her neck and a note stuck onto her back. Her long, black tail wagged and her pink tongue licked his arms. Then he placed her down and walked back to the gate, trying not to let her follow.
Then she came running–more like jumping–back to me. My eyes were waving at her, trying to see every angle of those large white paws and that great big, black face. Her pink tongue hung out and a drop of drool landed on me like a falling boulder. Then the nose came down and sniffed. The bursts of air were quick and strong, in out in out. She sniffed me. All I could see were the cavernous depths of her nostrils. If my mucous weren’t anchoring me to the ground, I was sure those wet caverns would swallow me. So every time I hear the bell ring, I curl into my shell so I won’t be faced with the empty, dark abyss of the puppy’s nose.
***
A scraping noise woke me up. It came from above. The air was still thin, and I was drowsy and dizzy from the jolting. All I wanted was for it all to be over.
The scraping became louder and louder. A spasm of excitement ran through me. I had no idea what was happening, but a tense thrill gripped my body. I could only focus on that scraping noise above me. My tentacles stretched as far as they could go, my eyes unblinkingly staring into the dark. Every fiber of my body relied on that scraping noise.
The noise stopped. My body relaxed. BANG! A huge burst of light shone through. I could finally see! My eyes went wild with excitement, trying to take in my surroundings as quickly as they could. But there was nothing to see. Just four gray walls, a gray floor, and a gray ceiling. I was in some sort of box. Air flooded the room. I could finally breathe again. I tried to peer through the little hole, but light flooded my vision. A beautiful, white, clear light. BANG! Another hole! More light! The two holes shone down beams of light. I couldn’t help but laugh with relief. Bang! Bang! Bang! Hole after hole appeared after each loud crashing noise.
When enough light flooded the room, I could finally see what made those loud bangs, what created that beautiful light and air. A huge, metal, sharp spear crashed through the ceiling. I didn’t know whether to be afraid or happy. I stood still, but my eyes slowly crept back into my shell.
Then suddenly, the gray ceiling lifted, and two human faces peered down at me. They were two little girls, one with golden curly hair and two front teeth missing, the other with black hair in pigtails. They were smiling at me.
One of them clutched a fistful of leaves and twigs and placed them next to me. The other a tray of water. I quickly retracted into my shell as soon as I saw those large hands bearing down on me, but it was no use. One of them grabbed me, and I felt the warmth of their palm underneath my shell. Everything stood perfectly still. Slowly, I poked my eyes out. Their squeals of excitement filled the air. One of them shouted, “Mommy, look!” and ran into another room with me. All I could see were their bouncing curls and their excited smiles. I never knew my face could bring such joy. Despite the nauseating, rocky ride, I was glad that these girls found me so interesting.
But my arrival was a different story with the mother. She looked at me with a sneer and told the girls to put me down and wash their hands in the bathroom. They did so after placing me on the kitchen sink spout near where the mother was peeling an apple. I looked over the gleaming silver spout to see the drip-drop of water falling down to the depths of the basin. Spirals of red apple skins scattered the bottom. I crawled slowly forward, peering down below to the puddle of water that had collected.
A shadow covered me. I moved my eyes upward to see the mother glowering at me. She raised her hand, a blue carton with a cute picture of a girl in a yellow dress. She held a blue umbrella over her head to keep the rain off of her. The mother tilted the carton and shook. White powder snowed down on me, sticking to the mucous on my skin.
The pain! I was screaming, crying, and she kept shaking! My eyes rolled over, I couldn’t see any more! My body twitched involuntarily, curled up inside itself. It was worse than the fear in the dark. Worse than the dog sniffing at me. Worse than the pain when my shell cracked. I was losing my grip. I couldn’t hold onto the spout any more. I was falling, falling, falling… and crash!-into the puddle of water.
There was once a shogun from 1680-1710 named Tokugawa Tsunayoshi that was nicknamed the “Dog Shogun.” Born in the year of the dog, he felt obligated to protect dogs. Although believed to be influenced from his mental retardation (a result of generations of inbreeding), he released Edicts on Compassion for Living Things (Shoruiawareminorei), which protected stray and diseased dogs.
But towards the end of his reign, the 50,000 dogs in Edo overran the streets. People were executed for wounding dogs, dogs of higher ranks were dressed up and when walked down the streets, were given higher honor than most humans, and they were fed fish and rice, bought with the money from taxpayers. Ironically enough, when Tokugawa first came to reign, he ordered the suicide of many samurais only to demonstrate his power as shogun.
At a certain point, a line must be drawn. I see parading a dog through the streets, forcing people to part way for him and bow down at his presence, ridiculous. Equally as ridiculous is ordering people to kill themselves in order to demonstrate power. But why don’t I see these as ridiculous when the roles are reversed?
Bjork’s song “Earth Intruders” reminds me of Hopkin’s “God’s Grandeur”:
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. (375)
Centuries later, humans are still not part of the “mysterious and ungovernable order of nature” (381). We are, as Bjork puts it, earth intruders. Being human, I personally feel this disconnection between nature-perhaps because I grew up learning Genesis’s belief that humans have “dominion over the beasts” (382). Through this, I’ve never felt as if I’m a part of nature.
Miyazaki’s film, Princess Mononoke (1997), explores the intrusion of humans into the natural world-dominated by gods in the forms of animals. Like Hopkin’s connection of God and nature, “God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,/ Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,/ Being mighty a master, being a father and fond,” Miyazaki gives nature a other-worldly aspect (376). In the film, iron industrialization creates a “nameless god of rage and hate” that takes over the animal gods, forcing them to run through villages and destroy them. A boy defending his village is touched by the demon, which curses his arm. The curse gives him strength, but as a result has the ability to easily kill (and the curse is affected by life-it is activated by seeing the beauty of nature and has an impulse to destroy it). His journey is to stop the curse from spreading, preventing hate to cloud his eyes.
The story explores the idea that humans can live peacefully with nature and animals, but unlike reality, they are given means to defend themselves. However, it is ultimately a human that saves nature from mankind, giving a mixed moral at the end of the story. We have the ability to preserve or destroy nature.
However, ignorance is viewed almost as an excuse in many occasions, “…these bloodied animals were probably not victims of cruelty. Cruelty implies a desire to inflict pain and thus presupposes an empathetic appreciation of the suffering of the object of cruelty” (382). In my P1, I discuss Lewis Carroll’s belief that it is intent rather than act that is inhumane. I agree with this, but there must be a point where ignorance cannot be enough to say “Oh, its ok.”
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Like Roosevelt’s inaugural address, the texts we have read for today have a common theme–we fear the unknown. We fear being alone.
William Blake conflicted me with his Songs of Innocence. They remind me so much of Sunday school–we are lost lambs, and God is our shepherd. We must not be led astray, or else we’ll find ourselves in the fiery pits of hell. But following the herd, staying in the crowd, is something I have learned to resist:
From About a Boy
Like the mother tells her son, be you. Make sure to stay true to yourself, although that is a scary thing to do. It takes courage to stay true to yourself when you are surrounded by those that disapprove.
Blake’s story about the lost Lyca caught my attention. Here, we have a girl who is lost–wandering into the unknown desert, “Sweet sleep, come to me,/ Underneath this tree;/ Do father, mother, weep?/ Where can Lyca sleep?” (355). She is so frighten, so alone, that she does not want to sleep. Understandably, she is afraid of what might happen to her in the desert as she vulnerably sleeps. When finally, she does close her eyes, lions, tigers, and leopards appear. Rather than attacking, they take her safely away to their cave.
In “The Little Girl Found,” we see the parent’s fears, “Seven nights they sleep/ Among shadows deep,/ And dream they see their child/ Starved in desert wild” (356). This fear, I have witnessed for myself. When my sister Elizabeth and I were little–my sister four and I was six–my family went to Waterworld for vacation. The park was crowded because of a Beach Boys concert, and my parents did not notice when Elizabeth slipped away and into a water slide by herself. My parents went absolutely nuts.
They were screaming and yelling, telling every person that they could find that a blonde girl in a watermelon swimsuit was missing. Soon, we had everyone in the vicinity trying to find her. When people would bring back the wrong child, my mom’s vocabulary turned to one that I did not recognize at my tender young age. She was absolutely livid and distraught. We were all crying, fearing the worst had happened.
Within the half hour, she was found. Giggling and completely oblivious to the entire situation. There was such a great sigh of relief when she was finally found.
In Blake’s poem, what humans naturally and normally fear–lions, wolves, tigers–were Lyca’s saviors. It forces us to reconsider what it means to be scared, why we are scared, and should we be scared.
This point is also covered in Harrigan’s stories. Is it natural to fear animals?
“It had to do with the realization of a fear built deep into our genetic code: the fear that a beast could appear out of nowhere–through a window!–and snatch us away” (362). I have this fear of windows. A fear of windows ever since I was very little. I’m always afraid something–or someone–is watching me. My mom, also, has this fear of windows, and she calls me every night to make sure I’ve closed my curtains. A fear of being watched, especially unknowingly, is something horror movies tend to play on.
This also, I think, has a connection with eyes, “When the great head pivoted in my direction and Miguel’s eyes met mine I looked away reflexively, afraid of their hypnotic gravity” (366). As Derrida explains, “…in silence by the by the gaze of an animal, for example the eyes of a cat, I have trouble, yes, a bad time overcoming my embarrassment [or shame]…” (217). And I also quoted the passage in an earlier blog (Sound of Silence) about Mowgli’s ability to stare at animals, but they are unable to hold his gaze. Like Harrigan, are the Jungle Book animals afraid to look at their potential death in the eyes?
Harrigan is a much braver man than myself. If a tiger had just previously killed a person, I would not have gone near his cage. Especially when Miguel pounces against the cage and shows his, “demonstration of the power he possessed” (366). I doubt I could ever be near a tiger again without some uncontrollable panic rising in my throat. Like Lennon’s song, once I’m scared, I’m scarred.
Author’s note:First and foremost, I would like to address my readers.I believe the readers play an intricate role to the text.How they interpret the text tells far much more about themselves and their culture than any writing could ever do.So in accordance to that remark, I will be writing in the first person.Yes, first person in an analytical response.For shame, but I believe it is a vital tool in unearthing the animal cruelty in Lewis Carroll’s writing.Furthermore, I will not conclude by summarizing my thoughts.Instead, I will provoke the reader (and myself) to think.Some may call this food for thought, but I digress that the questions are ones that Time would not allow me to answer.
I am the Walrus: Animal Suffering and Lewis Carroll
The premise of the 1967 The Beatles song, “I am the Walrus,” is attributed to Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” from the book Through the Looking Glass (1871).The Beatles nonsensical and psychedelic lyrics hold true to Carroll’s imagined world, although they did not fully understand that the Walrus was essentially the villain of Carroll’s story because they have identified us—us being all of humanity—with the Walrus.Indeed, the lyric “I am he/ as you are he/ as you are me/ and we are all together…”[3]demonstrates the identification with the Walrus, who hardheartedly eats a family of oysters and leaves none for his human cohort the Carpenter.He is greedy, apathetic, and altogether unkind.Yet The Beatles decided to write a lyrical contribution to the character, albeit with the influence of acid.This brings me to my earlier note—how you interpret the text reveals much more about yourself than the writing.
Reductio ad Absurdum: Lewis Carroll and Vivisection
Before delving into the depths of animal depravity in “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” I would like to set a basic foundation for Carroll’s opinion on the treatment of animals.In his 1875 essay, “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection,” he makes a clear distinction between animal suffering and animal death.The essay, by and large, introduces the two polarized opinions of animal “rights”.One being, “That the infliction of pain on animals is a right of man, needing no justification,” and the other, “That it is in no case justifiable.”[4]Here, Carroll wants to bring the reader to a happy medium by expressing that death is sometimes necessary, but prolonged pain is needless and cruel.
Yet, in Carroll’s eyes, pain is in no way justifiable.The seemingly never-ending torture of a creature is the true crime, where as a quick and painless death is seen as humane.He stresses the argument that death and pain are not homogenous by taking a statement from pro-vivisectionist Mr. Freeman and retaliating with a logical contradiction:
The only question worth consideration is whether the killing of an animal is a real infringement of right…[it] is illogical to assign rights to animals in proportion to their size. Never may we destroy, for our convenience, some of a litter of puppies—or open a score of oysters when nineteen would have sufficed—or light a candle in a summer evening for mere pleasure, lest some hapless moth should rush to an untimely end!Nay, we must not even take a walk, with the certainty of crushing many an insect in our path…[5]
With this, Carroll forces himself and the reader to draw a line—we must determine when anti-cruelty becomes an absurdity to follow.As with the Tiny Toon Adventures episode that I uploaded, the writer suggests, “Where does the line end?” by showing the pain of vegetables.
If plants endure the same pain and suffering as an animal (or human), then would it not be considered cruel to rip an ear of corn off its stalk and boil it in water to then eat?If the stalk bled red once the ear was torn off, or if the corn shrieked as the water scalded, the same logic of animal cruelty must be applied.The problem is that vegetables cannot voice their pain, therefore we do not listen.The same goes for the cries of the moth and the pleas of the insect—we cannot hear them.A practical solution must be made, which is Carroll’s message, for not all of us can turn to Jainism where a minimum amount of harm is equally given to both animals and plants.The solution, then, is separating and treating death and cruelty as separate entities.
An important aspect of “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection” is to remember that Carroll wrote it in 1875, one year before the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.For this reason, the distinction between contemporary and past vivisection must be made.Do not read it as if Carroll is writing in 2009, but take into consideration the differences and improvements made in the past century, for Carroll writes about the immoral complications scientists face with the act of vivisection. One blogger that responded to Carroll’s essay had this to say:
If Carroll knew that more than a century later scientists have to go through rigorously monitored procedures to get permission to do anything involving animals, that there are alternatives involving cell cultures, fake animals, or computer modelling to reduce the need for animals in research or teaching to the absolute minumum, that any animals used are better cared for than many pets, and not purposely hurt, would he approve?I think he would. I think all of his concerns are dealt with, and what’s more: nobody would even dare kill part of litter of puppies for convenience![7]
However, I strongly believe that the core moral implications that Carroll suggested still exist today, “The lust for scientific knowledge is our real guiding principle.The lessening of human suffering is a mere dummy set up to amuse sentimental dreamers.”[8]The weight of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 held during the Victorian era is questionable.Even now, such anti-vivisection or anti-cruelty laws are not strictly followed.The scientific world still seems to function on efficiency and cost.The quicker, the cheaper, the better.
my experience, scientists are not minimizing the need for animal research.Robert Titus demonstrated to the class that thousands of birds were beheaded in the animal research labs for no particular reason.No scientific good was coming from it, no new discoveries were surfacing, yet bird after bird was killed.
In January, I attended a lecture by Tyrone Hayes about the chemical effects of atrazine in our water.The study was conducted on various types of frogs in order to ban the chemical from use.The results were that the frogs were born as hermaphrodites.In the testes, males were capable of successfully producing eggs.
“Atrazine induces gonadal malformations in males. The testes in this Northern leopard frog have been feminized. Not only have eggs developed, but they have accumulated yolk and are bursting through the surface of the testes.”[9]
The research is effective, but it is continuous.The research shows, basically, that atrazine in the water is not good.The results practically yell this conclusion, but the Environmental Protective Agency refuses to listen.Therefore, Hayes continues his research by expanding it to other amphibians, fish, and rodents in order to persuade the EPA.Here, I am extremely conflicted.I am upset that Hayes continues needless research, but I turn to anger when I realize that the research only continues to satisfy the EPA.This continuation of uncalled for torture in order to appease bureaucracy completely goes against Carroll’s protests against animal cruelty.
Playing with your Food: Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
Before I begin my interpretation, I must acknowledge the fact that Martin Gardener says, “As a check against the tendency to find too much symbolism in the Alice books it is well to remember that, when Carroll gave the manuscript of his poem to Tenniel for illustrating, he offered the artist a choice of drawing a carpenter, butterfly, or baronet.”[10]I will not discuss the importance that the Walrus is a walrus and the Carpenter is a human, and that the human is subservient to an animal.I will also not discuss that the food of choice is oysters, whose shells are drawn like the bonnets of babies.If the animal is not important, then the characters could be any type of animal.Perhaps switch the animals around and see if that influences the story at all.Make the Walrus an oyster, make the Carpenter a walrus, and make the Oysters humans.Instead of focusing on symbolism, I will focus only on the actions that take place—regardless of species—and the reactions of Alice and generations of readers.
Now I would like to take a few steps back to “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection” where Carroll compares the needless abuse of animals to, “open[ing] a score of oysters when nineteen would have sufficed”[12]This is a reference to “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” where a bed of oysters are gluttonously eaten.Our hero Alice is unable to empathize with the eaten Oysters, but is able to ask whether to feel sorry for the Walrus or the Carpenter:
’I like the Walrus best,’ said Alice: ‘because he was a little sorry for the poor oyster.’
‘He ate more than the Carpenter, though,’ said Tweedledee.
‘That was mean!’ Alice said indignantly.‘Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.’
‘But he ate as many as he could get,’ said Tweedledum.[13]
Again I would like to emphasize Carroll’s belief that death is not cruel, but it is the prolonged and superfluous torturing, which Alice ignores is unable to recognize in the poem.She focuses on the Walrus and the Carpenter’s feelings—not the Oyster’s.
To put simply, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” is the idea of playing with your food.Something, of course, that Alice does not empathize with.The reason I say “of course” Alice does not empathize is a result of her relationship with her pet cat, Dinah.Like many of us—and I say this with the confidence of reading other’s blogs—we are able to recognize our pets as family members, but little more than that.(In advance, I’m sorry Justin.I’m using your P1 as an example).In Justin Locascio’s P1, he demonstrates the bond between his dog and his father through a hatred of squirrels.This is a happy thought for the dog, but what about the squirrel that is being chased, caught, and killed?Like Alice, Locascio was only able to talk about an animal that he had a prior relationship with, not with an animal that his pet chased and killed.When Alice first enters Wonderland, she encounters a mouse.The only thing she can think of talking about—to a mouse, no less—was cats.She is completely unaware of the Mouse’s feelings at that point because she disregards the Mouse’s inherent fear of cats.[14]In relation to “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” this prior conversation with the Mouse needs to be understood because it sets the basis for Alice’s thought process.Like a cat with a mouse, the Walrus plays with his food before he eats them.
As the Walrus and the Carpenter sit on the rock with all of the Oysters standing in a row before them, the Walrus cries aloud for a loaf of bread, pepper, and vinegar, for they—the Walrus and the Carpenter—are about to feed.The Oysters then understand that they are about to be eaten, and cry out in fear, “’But not on us!…After such kindness, that would be/ A dismal thing to do!’”[15]The Walrus ignores their cries and strikes up a casual conversation with the Carpenter as they begin to eat.
Carroll does not explicitly describe the pain and the fear of the Oysters as he does in “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection”:
And when that day shall come…what potent spell have you in store to win exemption from the common doom? Will you represent to that grim spectre, as he gloats over you, scalpel in hand, the inalienable rights of man? He will tell you that this is merely a question of relative expediency, —that, with so feeble a physique as yours, you have only to be thankful that natural selection has spared you so long. Will you reproach him with the needless torture he proposes to inflict upon you? He will smilingly assure you that the hyperæsthesia, which he hopes to induce, is in itself a most interesting phenomenon, deserving much patient study. Will you then, gathering up all your strength for one last desperate appeal, plead with him as with a fellow-man, and with an agonized cry for ‘Mercy!’[16]
Perhaps Carroll does not tell the terror of the Oysters simply because Through the Looking Glass is a children’s book, and the Oyster’s story would frighten the young readers.But still, audiences have always identified with the Walrus and the Carpenter rather than the Oysters.I cannot simply state that the poem is written in such a way for the readers to identify with those characters.There must be a reason we cannot imagine the Oyster’s fear and pain.
However, Alice’s reaction to the poem supports Carroll’s beliefs about cruelty by asking “the traditional ethical dilemma of having to choose between judging a person in terms of acts or in terms of intentions.”[17]This echoes his vivisection essay where he talks about killing animals as a sport.Although he is thoroughly against hunting, he admits that, “I am tolerably sure that all sportsmen will agree with me…whenever the creature is killed at once, it is probably as painless a form of death as could be devised; while the sufferings of one that escapes wounded ought to be laid to the charge of unskillful sport, not of sport in the abstract.”[18]Here, Carroll again makes the distinction between death to an animal and cruelty to an animal, but also the distinction between act and intent.They are not, as many of us believe, hand in hand.And so, although the poem does not unequivocally describe the suffering of the Oysters, Carroll hints at the pains they have gone through.They were taken from their beds with ill intentions, were befriended under false pretenses, and heartlessly eaten by someone they trusted.This cruelty displayed by the Walrus and the Carpenter has been ignored for generations, and instead of finding their actions appalling, we have identified with them.
The popularity of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” is obvious through the many adaptations. They each have their separate morals, like Dogma‘s interpretation that the poem is an indictment of modern religion, and the more popularly known Disney adaptation, which is more of a recreation of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper” than Carroll’s story. However, the question I would like to leave the readers with is this: What do these interpretations say about us? About you? The issue of cruelty is never an issue within these texts, which we can logically assume means that cruelty is not an important issue within our culture.
WC Total: 2,700
WC extra: 866
WC: 1834
[1] The Beatles. I am the Walrus. Magical Mystery Tour. Parlophone, Captiol, 1967.
[4] Lewis Carroll, “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection,” Fortnightly Review [Londong: 1865-1934] 23 (1875 Jun): 847-854 [Online at Animal Rights History, 2003].
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners’ hollo!
‘God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus!
Why look’st though so?’—‘With my cross-bow
I shot the albatross.
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ‘em woe;
For all averred I had killed thebird
That made the breeze to blow.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
When Coetzee introduces the albatrosses in chapter two, he does so in a way that reminds me of Coleridge’s albatross, “There is an albatross colony on the hillside, they are advised; they are welcome to photograph the birds, but should not approach too closely, should not alarm them” (55).The mariner of Coleridge’s story makes the mistake of disrupting the albatross—killing the albatross.By doing this, he disrupts the course of nature.The wind no longer blows, and the ship is lost in the Antarctic.Blaming the mariner for the bad luck, the crew forces him to wear the dead albatross as punishment:
Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung
The albatross is given a supernatural, powerful role in the poem.He signifies the force of nature, the well being of the crew, and a shining hope.There is no motivation for the mariner’s actions—no reason for him to shoot the albatross from the sky.He does so on a lark, which results in the death of the crew members and a fate worse than death for himself.
Coetzee, too, gives the albatross this supernatural feeling, “’An albatross,’ she remarks to the woman, speaking softly.‘That is the English word.I don’t know what they call themselves.’The woman nods.The great bird regards them calmly, no more afraid of two than of one” (56).These birds, after Coleridge’s poem, are believed to carry the souls of lost sailors.To kill one would be considered an omen of bad luck.By killing one, you lose your way.
Recently I’ve read Neuromancer for my Rhetoric in Cyberculture class.Neuromancer is an AI.The “left-hemisphere” of an AI that has been split in two—Wintermute and Neuromancer.Wintermute is the brains, the planning the data, where as Neuromancer is the personality.Neuromancer is the answer to immortality.A person’s memory is stored as either ROM or RAM.Neuromancer “is the dead, and their land” (244).When Neuromancer (Necro+romancer) says this, “He [Neuromancer] laughed.A gull cried” (244).The only other noise in this land of the dead is the cry of a gull—an albatross.
What has fascinated me about the book is the role of animals—they are virtually nonexistent.When one character—very cat-like in her own description—sees that her companion has not finished his meal, she yells, “’Jesus, gimme that.You know what this costs?’ She took his plate. ‘They gotta raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it.This isn’t vat stuff.’She forked a mouthful up and chewed” (Chapter 11).Yet that same character is always wearing black leather—black Paris leather.The author makes it a point time and time again to describe how hot her body looks in the black Paris leather.Why, then, are the people unable to identify a horse or commonly eat animals, but they wear black leather jeans and use calfskin bags?The book is extremely inconsistent with its rarity and sacramental status of animals.
Which brings me to zoos.What is the purpose of zoos?Are they to preserve rare animals, to display their importance in the ecosystem, to put them on show?Hughes’s poem reminded me of my trip to the San Antonio zoo in January 2008.There, I saw Lucky the elephant.I stood there watching Lucky for a good ten minutes (much longer than the usual glance and walk by that most animals receive).I was concerned about what she was doing—picking up a stick with her trunk, raising her front foot, raising her back foot, dropping the stick.Over and over and over again.Some parents told their child the elephant was dancing, but like the jaguar, “[her] body is just the engine shoving it forward,/ Lifting the air up and shoving on under” (331).
Later I went online to research Lucky, and found out she had been abused during circus training.I signed a petition to relocate her to an elephant sanctuary—but that seems like such little effort now.Animals in zoos, in what I have experienced, is treating them like, “they are a part of the furniture, part of the alarm system.They do us the honour of treating us like gods, and we respond by treating them like things” (335). Further more, I disagree that animals have, “already been through it. Born with foreknowledge…They don’t have to be told what steel is for…They are born prepared” (337-338). Perhaps not all zoos are like this, but they don’t have a private life, as Coetzee explains:
‘Don’t animals deserve a private life as much as we do?’
‘Not if they are in a zoo,’ she says.‘Not if they re on show.Once you are on show, you have no private life.Anyway, do you ask permission from the stars before you peek at them through your telescope?What about the private lives of the stars?’ (33)
For a brief moment, I misread this passage.I read “stars” as people.As celebrities.We give celebrities just as much a private life as we do animals in a zoo.Even less, if it were possible.So my mind splits here—do we treat animals any differently than humans, really?
Today on Speedway, they had a picture from Josephine’s blog.A picture of a monkey about to be electrocuted.On the picture they had, “If this is wrong, then how is this right?” and beneath it was a picture of aborted fetuses.Do we need to face human rights before animal rights, take them simultaneously, or give a preferred order of animals over humans?The sign suggested corporal punishment and animal abuse were on the same level of fetus abortion—is it?
Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody continuously states, “When we change the way we communicate, we change society” (17).The one thing that Shirky constantly tries to warn is that the change has already occurred, “There is never going to be a moment when we as a society ask ourselves, ‘Do we want this? Do we want the changes that the new flood of production and access and spread of information is going to bring about?’ It has already happened…” (73).It is important to learn how to adapt to the changes.Shirky uses multiple anecdotes that range from social tools such as Flickr to programs like Linux to explain the mass amateurization of professions, the ease of coordinating and sharing within groups, and the application of pressure on institutions.
People like to consume, produce, and share media (104).What technology gives people is an easy to use platform, thus the mass amateurization of professions such as journalism, photography, programming, etc.The internet toys with the idea of “professional self-definition” by challenging the professionals themselves to understand “major changes to the structure of their profession” (58).As Shirky says, “The distinction between communications and broadcast media was always a function of technology rather than a deep truth about human nature,” now that technology provides people with the right tools, broadcast and communications have begun to blend together.Radio, television, newspapers, and movies are now becoming a “many-to-many” concept rather than a “megaphone” with the use of the internet (86-87).The ease of publishing to many outlets changes the question “Why publish this?” to “Why not?” (60).
With the “publish then filter” attitude of the internet, sharing and coordinating is an almost effortless task.Websites such as Flickr, Myspace, Youtube, Wikipedia, and Meetup allow the users to coordinate and organize their material with a few minutes of tagging and editing their entries.But there are three problems with improved freedom of assembly: mass amateurization takes away jobs based on copying and distributing information, damaged social bargains, and negative networked organizations (terrorists, Pro-Ana) (209-210).Aside from the three problems, the Birthday Paradox (“a group’s complexity grows faster than its size”) and Tragedy of the Commons (“individuals have an incentive to damage the collective good”) pose significant complexities (27; 51).Yet the ease of coordinating gives big voices to groups that are not “internally organized and externally supported,” which brings people together in a way that has never been supported before (198).
Mass amateurization and coordination makes it easy for organizations to put pressure on big institutions.There were four major examples of change brought about by online organizing.The first was Evan’s StolenSidekick page, which put pressure on the NYPD to continue investigation of the stolen phone and even bring about the arrest of Sasha.Another was that the creation of Linux forced Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Hewlett Packard, and Oracle to rethink their strategies (243).VOTF forced the Catholic Church to acknowledge and punish abusive priests (146).And the social disobedience of Digg users, when they protested the site to allow illegal information to be distributed (289).As Shirky states, “The Digg revolt was one of the broadest examples of this intersection between groups and governance; it will not be the last” (292).
Response
The class had a collective negative response to Here Comes Everybody—the book did not address the “evils” of the internet.I beg to differ.Shirky touched on the downfall of professionalism, the negative impacts such as Pro-Ana, and the ease of coordinating terrorist and criminal groups.Yet what the book proves is that these obstacles do not shadow the beneficial aspects the internet provides.As of right now, the ability to patrol the internet is virtually unforeseen.Yet this is part of the chaos that Shirky explains we must expect from a revolution (107).
What wanted to be heard was more about phishing, identity theft, spamming, sexual predators, internet vandals.These issues are known on such a widespread and media oriented scale that publishing them in Here Comes Everybody would seem almost arbitrary.The thrust of the book was not to introduce the dangers of the internet, but promote the changes it brings (and along those changes, the negative aspects as well).And Shirky does so with his many anecdotes, most of which are commonly heard stories within this generation, but with fresh analysis and perspective of the situations.Using this easy to relate to method, he creates an open environment to a topic that can seem overwhelming, and at times, intimidating.
Since this is a rhetoric class, I wonder if the decline of professional journalism strikes fear in any of the students.If not, why not?Is the open-air feeling of writing inviting, or are they protective of their specialty?As a young generation that grew up with the internet at our sides, do we see the break between broadcast and communication as clearly as Shirky, or have we instinctively adapted to the change since we are the creators?I still see the break.I am territorial of my area of study, which is why I chose an online book club as my virtual community (I wanted to eliminate that train of thought).As an English major, I tend to be wary of blog entries that critique and review literature, yet I have one myself.I do not trust other’s judgment, particularly because they have not been trained in the subject, or I don’t know their qualifications.Yet, as Shirky states, “judgement becomes meaningless with transformations this large” and it would be best to swim rather than sink (207).
With my lit-blog, I face several dilemmas.One, I am always at the risk of being plagiarized.My blog is very specific, and I am still an amateur.I am not well known, and a student searching for “Jude the Obscure; Victorian literature; archetype” would easily find one of the papers I intend to publish and that I have presented at conferences.Two, I am not familiar with blog copyright policies.Once something is published online, for free, is it ethical to republish it somewhere else?Yet these are challenges I am willing to face, because without the internet as my platform, these ideas and articles would not have formed.In my personal experience, and what Shirky illustrates, is that the good can outweigh the bad.
Good and bad are relative terms.A high school student that stumbles across my blog would find this good, where I would find it bad.The Pro-Ana group brings up an obvious image of bad to our minds.Yet, as Shirky says, the group’s underlying message was for people to pay attention to them.Is it bad that they found acceptance?The fact that Digg was able to implement transaction of illegal information—none of this matters whether it is good or bad.The internet puts pressures on institutions that never fathomed threat from the public twenty years ago.The changes to religious affiliations, media industries, and government will continue to exist and flourish.
I read the assignment as Coetzee ONE, meaning Coetzee, lesson 1. My apologies for the inconvenience, but my blog is about Realism, not “The Philosophers and the Animals”.
“Is the comparison of human beings to animals venal? Patronizing? A mode of false consciousness? A blasphemy? A necessary mediation?” (Garber 297).
Throughout Coetzee’s Lesson One: Realism, he characterizes humans as animals, ranging from goldfish, cats, lions, mice, dogs, ducks, and insects. One particular line I enjoyed was, “Flecks of gold circling the dying whale, waiting their chance to dart in and take a quick mouthful” (Coetzee 6). The comparison to animals gave the person their personality–their identification. Here, Costello is describing the media. Rather than portraying them as the cliche vultures pecking on dead flesh, she demonstrates how little actions, if done in mass quantities, can bring down the strongest and largest of animals. The media can tear anyone apart. “‘There used to be a time, we believe, when we could say who we were,'” but that time is now past, and Coetzee uses animals to identify ourselves (19).
But animals are not the only thing that Coetzee relates to humans. At one point, Costello’s books come alive. She describes them as abused, homeless pets almost. Or perhaps orphaned children, “What lay behind my concern about deposit copies was the wish that, even if I myself should be knocked over by a bus the next day, this first-born of mine would have a home where it could snooze…and no one would come poking with a stick to see if it was still alive” (17).
So I can’t agree with Garber. The way Coetzee compares humans to naimals and gives literature a humanized place in Costello’s life gives me much more inspiration and sympathy towards animals than Garber’s use of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Holocaust. I can’t relate to those events–I wasn’t a part of them. And they’re given so vivid and understood an image that if one were to go against that feeling, they would be an outcast of society. If Earthlings had not used the Holocaust as it’s fundamental comparison to animal cruelty, would the class have reacted with such a strong hatred towards animal cruelty? You’re supposed to hate the actions of the Holocaust, so if animal cruelty is connected to the Holocaust, it creates the idea that animal cruelty should be treated as the Holocaust. The problem with this is the automatic dispassion and alienation it creates with no analytical or intellectual backup. It is all based on emotions and correlation.
All of my nicknames are centered on animals–Cat, Kitty Cat, Tiger. I like it when I’m told I’m graceful like a dear, fast as a mongoose, sly as a fox. But of course there are the bad ones: blind as a bat, slow as a turtle, big as an elephant. Further more, the inversion can be made with humans and books. Such as, your face is an open book, etc.
“‘If Jews were treated like cattle, it does not follow that cattle are treated like Jews. The inversion insults the memory of the dead'” (297). This seems completely arbitrary. Any argument could be written this way. The validity of this argument is just as bad as the Holocaust comparison in Earthlings. Why use an overused analogy that automatically disconnects the reader from the subject? This, in my opinion, is much worse than the disnification effect (if such an effect even exists). This creates dispassion and alienation through morals and ethics rather than childishness/immaturity.
Cathefrine 