Animal Victims in Modern Fiction : : From Sanctity to Sacrifice / / Marian Scholtmeijer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Scholtmeijer, Marian,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)

The Darwinian revolution profoundly altered society's conception of animals. Marian Scholtmeijer explores the ways in which modern literature has reflected this change in its attempts to deal with the reality of the autonomous animal and the animal victim. Scholtmeijer considers works of fiction dealing with animal victims in the wild and in urban settings, how they are used to represent human sexual dilemmas, and how the hopes and disillusionments invested in myth generate animal victims. A broad range of authors is represented: Jack London, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway, Frederick Philip Grove, Mary Webb, Gustave Flaubert, Timothy Findley, John Steinbeck D.H. Lawrence, Jerzy Kosinski, Stephen King, and many others. Her analysis suggests that the issue of the victimization of animals is much more tangled than we might like to believe. Scholtmeijer finds that animals resist assimilation into cultural products, and that, regarded with due attention, they possess a certain power over the themes and narratives that contain them.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- CHAPTER ONE. The Animal Victim in Its Cultural Context: A Brief History -- CHAPTER TWO. The Animal Victim in Its Cultural Context: Some Theoretical Considerations -- CHAPTER THREE. Home Turf- Animal Victims in the Wild -- CHAPTER FOUR. The Urban Context: Dispossessed People and Victimized Animals -- CHAPTER FIVE. Animal Victims and Human Sexuality: Body Trouble -- CHAPTER SIX. Myth, Disillusionment, and Animal Victims: Modern Variations upon Animal Sacrifice -- CHAPTER SEVEN. The Doubly Victimized Animal -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index