Ceridwen Dovey’s argues in his book “Only the Animals” humans can articulate their thoughts and transmit them to others. If human beings are animals, then they are what Nietzsche refers to an underlying animal principle. Those species that do not have the language are thus different from the humans in the kind rather than the degree. They are beasts of burden, companions, or source of entertainment. They have been the primary subject of, and mute witness to, the human dominion over the natural world.
Over the recent past, such anthropocentrism has faced a sustained confrontation whether from postmodern thought or the biological science. Human nature is now beginning to ask why their peculiar skill needs to be at the top of the hierarchy of subjectivity. Furthermore, they are beginning to ask why the rational thought and the capacity for language are somehow more superior compared to dog’s sense of smell or dolphin’s echolocation capacity.
Ceridwen Dovey’s second book “Only the Animals,” expresses what it indicates on the label. The short stories are ‘sequence of imaginary thought experiments in which voice are given to only the animals. Although Dovey’s bestiary displays many characteristics, they are considered humans intrinsically. The traits include loyalty, yearning, curiosity as well as love. Moreover, the attributes collectively disabuse the belief that such qualities appear only as an exemplary reflection of the human features. Just like women are celebrated by men as the fairer sex to give a reason for their subaltern status, the multiple viewpoints of creaturely existence considered here are an exploration of special characters whether foolish, tragic, eccentric, or complicated rather than heraldic blazons.
It takes some courage, for instance, to open the volume with a story narrated from the perspective of the drunken camel on a room lying next to a campfire in Australia bush beside yarn-spinner Henry Lawson and poet as he claims nonsense to the stars. It was in 1982, and the owner of the camel, pack animal, is Mister Mitchell one of Lawson’s childhood friends (Dovey 2014, 7). At one point, Mitchell participated in an Aboriginal massacre. He almost became insane due to the belief that vengeful spirits haunted him. The man had dug up the bones of an indigenous woman and stolen them. The woman was a queen from the time before Captain Cook. The action is the one the camel finds disturbing and inexplicable.
Although the story is short, it compresses an excessive amount of material into space. There is an existence of topsy-turvy moral locus of the narrative. An Afghan dromedary appears to be regretful, worldly wise, and thoughtful. By contrast, Lawson seems to be bibulous pessimist whose love for the good story is buried beneath the liquor or separates from the ethical consideration. The cruelty of Mitchell is reflected in every action since he was the mad man. He carelessly fired a shot at a drunken camel and a lizard.
Dovey ventures into rescuing the animals from the cultural margins. To be seen by the animals is the deep inversion of the status in which humans who is watching. The outcomes are in some instances profound and always powerfully disconcerting. Dovey recognizes that the relationship between the human beings and the animals was at one point governed the kinship acknowledgment of mutual interdependence. It is just recently that the relationship has turned into real utile.
Reference
Dovey, C. (2014). Only the Animals.
