Since the last couple weeks have been family and friends, this week is about those wonderful creatures that are both family and friends to so many of us-Animals.
Animals in literature are a long-standing tradition. Not only are animals present in most early literature, but they’re usually part of the first books we read. What’s the fascination?
Some possible answers follow.
Much literature includes animals. Early examples are Aesop’s fables and ancient Persian tales that used animals as ways to deliver a lesson. Certain animals gained characteristics through literature that were ill-attributed. The snake, for instance, isn’t particularly crafty or evil, yet the Genesis story makes the snake synonymous with evil and deception. Foxes aren’t particularly clever or owls particularly wise, but Aesop will tell us so.
Modern literature and popular fiction often includes or is even centered around animals. From Watership Down to Tailchaser’s Song, to the novels of Rita Mae Brown and Lillian Jackson Braun and the marvelous James Herriot stories, animals are often a big factor in what makes a story good and successful.
Not all animals in literature are cuddly or sweet. Shardik was a frightening animal, not something you’d collect a figurine of and decorate your room in as a child. Likewise, that perhaps most famous literary animal, Moby Dick.
In my opinion, animals are used primarily as a shortcut to get people to think differently when they’re reading. Animals also make for an easier write, sometimes, since it’s much easier to ascribe motives to an animal than to a person. A rabbit eats, breeds, and dies. A dog seeks its master. A cat is independent and nonchalant. Animals are built-in stereotypes, guaranteed not to offend. Animals make wonderful sympathetic characters, like My Friend Flicka, the innumerable Marguerite Henry horse books, Roger Caras dog and cat stories, and Lassie.
Books and stories about animals that stand out, though, go much further than that. Animal Farm, for example, and as mentioned above, Moby Dick. Rudyard Kipling forced his animal characters out of their molds, and made them much more than a lesser writer could have done. And of course, the animals of Dr Seuss, though often not real, were definitely speaking with their own voices and behaving in ways we never expected.
What are some of your favorite books about animals? Fiction and non-fiction, both. Are there books about animals that you read as a child that made a lasting impression on you? And as always, what have you read lately?
