Unearthing Underland

“‘Shh, don’t tell anyone else….No one is allowed to know this.’” (452) What I am about to reveal is the secret of the secret.  Professor Bump and David Daniel have unearthed the secrets of animal cruelty in fictional stories as in the real world.  But something is amiss. 

While Daniel emphasizes the importance of the animals themselves in Alice in Wonderland as a means to “allow a full appreciation of Lewis Carroll’s mad world,” his argument is not airtight (443).  My main critique is that Daniel suggests that there is something inherently wrong with the way that Alice perceives an animal exhibiting human characteristics and style.  Does Alice pay attention to the white rabbit “only because it is an animal”? (443)  Perhaps if a human had pranced around in animal furs and making animal noises, Alice would have been equally as intrigued.  Daniel seems to misinterpret Alice’s voracious appetite for wonder and her curiosity as something bound essentially to the animal world.  In fact the next sentence confirms my critique, stating that it is indeed the “something out of the ordinary” that captures Alice’s attention—and not necessarily the character of the rabbit.  (Perhaps in logic this is considered the fallacy of a slippery slope.)

Family?  I don't think all four of them would agree.
http://www.westga.edu/~dmaccomb/Sum%2009%20XIDS%202100%20SYL.htm

Bump capitalizes on the “family systems theory and speciesism in the Alice Books,” drawing from Victorian and contemporary literature.  (Curiously the word “speciesism” does not appear to exist in the Microsoft Word 2004 dictionary.)  My first critique is in regard to the definition of “family.”  If family is defined by “’those descended or claiming descent from a common ancestor: a house, kindred, lineage,’” then in what sense is a slave (or “servant”) considered part of the family.  Human servants of Slavic or African descent did not share the same ancestors as did say their white European host families.  While drawing parallels between racism and speciesism, the absence of a race analysis of servitute within the construction of the “family system” raises issues.  For one, I’m sure many anti-racists would raise issues with the argument that “servant animals [and] servants” (448) are categorized as virtually the same. 


If on the other hand, by virtue of existing under the roof of a “house” one is considered “family,” then surely pets are included.  But then let us not forget that houses are also home to cockroaches, moths, and ants.  Are we all family?  Where does one draw the line between which animals can be considered part of the family and which not?  (Wherever the line is drawn, it is the human who arbitrarily makes those discriminations.)  Over the course of merely two sentences, the definition is dramatically broadened to encompass the entirety of living organisms: Earthlings.  But one cannot build a logical argument for the includion of animals in the “familiy” category, if the very definition is categorically limited by its sociological conception.  For one, the word family is derived from roots that denote anthropological characteristics:  “servant” and “household.”  I can understand the argument that animals are included in our extended family, but the argument that they are “family” using the definitions posited, is simply not strong.  I did, however, grow up believing dogs and cats and fish to be my brethren, so on that note, I would like to end with what our pop culture has defined as the definition of family--if in a comical sense......

FAMILIA.....and the dog too.
http://cyberbargins.net/family-guy-birthday.htm