Aegis 2012
30
From Dominance to Companionship: Animals in Behn and Defoe >>> Hannah Biggs “What is this earth and the sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I and all the other creatures, wild and tame, human and brutal, whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret Power who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky; and who is that?” (Defoe 81) In 1735, Carl Linnaeus published Systema Naturae, the first edition of his classification of living things, thereby leading 18th century Europe down a path of biological and taxonomic sciences that forever changed humankind’s perception of their relationship with the birds and beasts of native and foreign lands. Thereafter, the relationship between animal and human grew into a subject of intense intellectual and ethical debate. Now, around 250 years later, Linneaus’s ideas, along with many others, have developed into new 20th and 21st century paradigms for animal-human relationships. These ideas are morphing into a branch of study known as critical animal theory or animal studies. However, even before concepts like Linnaeus’ took hold among European and American readers and developed into the various branches of animal studies present today, the relationship between animals and humans was already undergoing a profound transition in English literature. In comparing Aphra Behn’s 1688 text, Oroonoko, and Daniel Defoe’s 1719 text, Robinson Crusoe, readers see one of the first noticeable transitions from how animal-human relationships are represented in 17th century texts compared to those relationships in 18thcentury texts. Although similarities between animal and human interactions remain in both Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe in the form of an intense desire to maintain ordered separation between so-called lower order animals and higher order humans, differences in how said groups interact show stark contrast as well. Oroonoko asserts violent power over animals in an attempt to prove his masculinity to onlookers and reassure his status as a forceful, dominant being whereas Crusoe, on many occasions, labels animals as his companions and “family” rather than assert patriarchal, violent domination over them. Thus, we see a transition from violent domination over animals as means to assert masculinity and control in Oroonoko to the compassionate caretaking of animals stemming from a feeling of kinship with non-human species in Robinson Crusoe. Although noted differences emerge in the treatment of animals between the two texts, marked similarities between animal-human relationships exist between the texts as well. For example, in each text we see an intense focus on othering animals as savage beasts bent on destroying the sanctity of humankind. Arluke and Sanders cite what they call a Sociozoologic Scale in which “vermin … the worst animals—commonly portrayed in popular culture as fiends, predators, or maneaters—that contest the established social order itself [present themselves as] ‘Demons’ [that] mount a serious and evil challenge to the ways things ‘ought to be’ by trying to reverse the fundamental master-servant relationship present in the traditional phylogenic order … The typical response to demons is to kill them before
