Animal Slaughter in Jane Smiley’s Fiction

Limin WU

Abstract


In the American Pulitzer winner Jane Smiley’s fiction, there is often a concern about animals. One of the animal issues in her fiction is animal slaughter. In her novel A Thousand Acres and her novella Good Will, the killing of nonhuman animals is no longer taken for granted, but contains reflections on humans’ cruelty and instrumentalist attitude to nonhuman animals. On top of cruelty to animals, animal slaughter also does harm to humans. The cruel slaughter of animals is very likely to aggravate the cruelty to humans. Besides, the exposure to animal slaughter intensifies violent tendencies. Smiley objects to instrumentalist views of animals and asks for reverence for them.

Keywords


Animal slaughter; Instrumentalist; Cruelty

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References


Adams, Carol J. (2010). The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum.

Ascione, Frank R. (1999). The Abuse of Animals and Human Interpersonal Violence Making the Connection. In F. R. Ascione & P. Arkow (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (pp.50-61). West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press.

Jorgensen, Star and Lisa Maloney. (1999). Animal Abuse and the Victims of Domestic Violence. In F. R. Ascione, & P. Arkow (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (pp.143-158). West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press.

Plumwood, Val. (2005). Environmental culture: The ecological crisis of reason. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Smiley, J. (2008). A thousand acres. London: Harper Perennial.

Smiley, J. (1990).Ordinary love & good will. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/11278

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