Animals and Alice

As we look at animals and humans, were does one draw the line in separating them? From Alice’s experience and our own, we can see that there are differences in how we think and feel about different subjects. Alice finds many times that she offends the animals, and it made me wonder how many times I myself have offended an animal. In order to find what separates us, we must find how the other feels, thinks, and perceives things in comparison to the way we do. Because we cannot speak with animals, we have to take everything we know about them and try to see what it is like being them. The best way to do this is sympathetic imagination: “actually entering into the object… to secure a momentary but complete identification with it.”[1] If we could only use sympathetic imagination in our daily lives we would be able to be more respectful to the other species.

            Alice does not do a very good job in being respectful to the various creatures in Wonderland. Poor Mouse was frightened many times as Alice talked about cats and dogs, and although Alice did not intend to frighten the mouse, by not imagining herself as a mouse, she could not stop herself from saying offensive things before they slipped out.[2] Alice had the advantage in Wonderland to be able to talk the animals, so just by listening to his history, she could “understand why it [was] [the mouse] hate[d] cats and dogs.”[3] We, on the other hand, cannot communicate with animals and, therefore, we are not reminded of how our actions affect them. We think nothing of harming an ant or insect, although when it comes to harming dogs or cats, we tend to “have a bias towards big mammals like us”.[4]

            We should try to be sensitive to something no matter what its size is. We should even consider how they feel being the size they are! Alice, once again, has an advantage in Wonderland as she becomes only three inches tall. The Caterpillar, also three inches tall, thinks it’s a very good height, but because Alice is not used to it, she in unable to understand how the Caterpillar feels, and because of this, she offends him by saying it is a “wretched height to be”. [5] [6] Each animal should embrace who they are, and others should respect why others feel the way they do, even if they are different and embrace their own way.

            Taking just a moment to consider what another feels can help you understand where they are coming from. An upset Pigeon accuses Alice of being a serpent.[7] Alice defends herself, for she knows she is not a serpent, but the Pigeon shares what it thinks a serpent is, giving Alice a new perspective.[8] It was such a “new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or two”[9] as she considered the Pigeon’s view.

            I believe considering another’s view is crucial in life. Whether the view of an animal or insect, human or plant, everything deserves to be respected. By “seeking first to understand”[10] you must use empathic listening so that you “listen with your heart…for feeling, [and] for meaning.”[11] Although we do not get to experience Wonderland, where we can easily communicate with animals, we can still give them a fighting chance by placing ourselves in their paws, hooves, feet, or fins.[12] [13]

---

[1] Walter Jackson Bate, “The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 160.

[2] http://www.ebbemunk.dk/alice/08mouse_pool_of_tears.jpg (accessed October 22, 2008)

[3] Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), 27.

[4] Donald G McNeil, “When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans”, Bump, 1046

[5] Carroll, 53.

[6]http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/2/MTS2_Lethe_s_669091_caterpillar-2.jpg (accessed October 22, 2008)

[7] http://www.natureman.net/files/snake_emerald_tree_boa.jpg (accessed October 22, 2008)

[8]http://www.naturalmath.com/workshops/scrapexchange/20january2004/alice1.jpg (accessed October 22, 2008)

[9] Carroll, 56.

[10] Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Fireside, 1989), 240.

[11] Covey, 241

[12] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18525/18525-h/images/illus_p019.png (accessed October 22, 2008).

[13] http://www.rydersranch.ca/f/footprints_4.jpg (accessed October 22, 2008).