Anna Sewell's representation of animals giving them human characteristics impacted my emotion, sympathy and a slight aspect of empathy. She does this as well as any author I've read. It was like watching a rated R movie in high definition text because it was graphic and vivid. Not only does she draw on my memory of experiences I've had at the dispense of belligerent, drunken, cruel and undeserving authority; her style caused me to consider horses in the same light of having dealt with similar things, if only imaginatively. And though I don't have any memory of being a horse in this life, I was able to imagine being a horse for the sake of considering her message. The imagery she uses makes it easy to imagine what it might be like to be a horse--for me at least.
If your horse breaks when you beat it--get a new one! That seemed to be Jake's line of thinking.
Sewell's point is obvious throughout the novel, but particularly when addressing Jakes, "You see he was quite willing when you gave him the chance; I am sure he a is fine-tempered creature, and I dare say he has known better days. You won't put that rein on me again will you?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmq22PJZhiE
My! I'm in such a hurry that I haven't the time to be kind or hear your whine about how I should dine all of the time to suit "your kind". I'm benign. You acting as if devine.
'Spaceships and Horses' seemed like a good idea 10 seconds ago until you started babbling on with this drunken notion. You mustn't disrupt my day dreaming of horses and space ships with silly ideas about the standards of treatment towards animals. Humans can't possibly obtain this level of morality. We're so busy; it's not important... unless we observe the situation from an outsiders perspective, unless we choose to inform ourselves. Only then can we make wise choices by examining and observing then selecting our choice of what it is we're choosing:
(like treating animal as instruments for our "progression")
Very sad.
But life is fast in pace and we all get caught up in the the material chase and we don't think about a horse as having a face while cruel to them in this place making them race with haste to suit our tastes of pace. Race!
Seriously speaking, we don't seem to have the capacity. I'm guilty of perceiving the notion of animals possessing "faculties" as fallacious. Surely, they don't have thought like we do--in the Western sense of rationale... Not "faculties".... Or do they?
I think one of the most absurd notions ever believed by our species was larger brain implied higher intelligence. Time has proven us to be the chicken heads in this case:
Some of the theories we've drawn in our existence as a species have been almost as silly as calling someone a chicken head, but a lot more serious.
Anna Sewell, then must have been one of the few having lived amongst on our ancestors on a higher plain of existence given she seems to be only one of the era's authors who wrote about it. . . . Was it her connection with animals or her seemingly an intuitive gift off knowledge about human nature that lacked compassion and empathy--the era? I don't know much about Sewell, but she intrigues me. Having read some animal rights literature from her era a few weeks ago, I knew the idea wasn't altogether unheard of. Though, I do admire what it is that she is actually doing in tapping into moral conscious of reader by lending a names and personalities to the horses that humanize them. Her unique style impacted my thoughts afterwards. I came away thinking if nothing else, Sewell had a good understanding of the dynamic cultural, social, economical and political aspects of society and might have had hopes of ending cruelty amongst humans, too. The lines she draws between life in the jungles of capitalism connecting human characteristics to animals in the their social constructs provided by our strive for progress made me stop and think about passing along the notion of treating animals with kindness. I'd hate to think of my life in subordination and think well of it. Sewell's clever usage of the sympathetic imagination is similar to that of Hardy's, yet appears more densely than "Jude". I wonder if this has anything to with the fact that I can't ever remember seeing a statue of a pig. Certainly I am wrong from a logical standpoint in that one does exist. But the horse serves Sewell in a solid manner to further her cause, so I couldn't resist ending with theses tidbits: The White Horse Temple seen below is considered the first Buddhist temple on Chinese soil. Also interesting to me was noticing Sewell as only one many authors we've read about with Buddhist tendancies, "Oh! pray do not whip your horse any more: I am sure he is doing all he can, and the road is very steep, I am sure he is doing his best".
Though her maxim is obvious, it is noble as well. And even more so effective because she doesn't hide behind, ambiguously, her motive.
Not to take away from Hardy's novel which deals with a variety of issues giving it a level of complexity not involved with Sewell's. His novel does reflect similar empathy towards animals during an instance when a rabbit's presence disturbs moral state of mind, "it was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin. As was the little creature's habit, it did not soon repeat its cry; and probably would not do so more than once or twice; but would remain bearing its torture till the morrow, when the trapper would come and knock it on the head". 3 Hardy's novel makes a point to draw upon the same senses of graphic nature that tends brings about the same level of awareness with vivid imagery, "The faint click of the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now, and reaching the spot he struck the rabbit on the back of the neck with the side of his palm, and it stretched itself out dead"4. And we're left with the vision of a rabbit in a trap (not a hat) something like this.
While he used a great deal of imagery, he also utilizes the same sort of moral appeal as Sewell, "I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then I heard the rabbit, and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered, till I felt I must come down and kill it! But I am so glad you got there first. . . .They ought not to be allowed to set these steel traps, ought they!"4
I would say I'd have to agree. They ought not. . .
Finally, I ran across this peculiar looking group of people while searching for information on the White Horse Temple . . .
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603B07/pics/Buddhist%20Temple/classHwism.jpg
(I kid.)
[1] Sewell Anna, Black Beauty (New American Library: New York. 2002) 199
[2] Sewell Anna, Black Beauty (New American Library: New York. 2002) 199
[3] Hardy Thomas, Jude the Obscure 2nd Edition. (New York: W.W. Norton Company 1978) 169
[4]Hardy Thomas, Jude the Obsure 2nd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton Company) 169
[5]http://henrypayne.com/images/cartoons/editorial/2007/september/0918aHorseShowB&W.gif
[6]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmq22PJZhiE[7]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q9vckeUyIE
[8]http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/2006/29-06-06.jpg
[9]http://www.zudfunck.com/photos/uncategorized/chickenheadcom.jpg
[10]http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/7/79/250px-Rabbit_trap.jpg
[11
[11]http://gb.cri.cn/chinaabc/chapter7/images/baimashi.jpg
[12]http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603B07/pics/Buddhist%20Temple/classHwism.jpg
[11]http://gb.cri.cn/chinaabc/chapter7/images/baimashi.jpg
[12]http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E603B07/pics/Buddhist%20Temple/classHwism.jpg
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