The Study Of Imperial Animal Discourse In New Victorian Female Novels

This thesis will study imperial animality discourse in neo-victorian fictions by Angela Carter,A.S.Byatt and Margaret Atwood.Neo-Victorian fictions in this thesis are narrowly defined as the ones which represent Victorian era with an intention of(re)interpretation,(re)discovery and(re)vision.Imperial animality discourse is a kind of power strategy exercised by the appropriation of speciesism,that is,the binary opposition between human beings and animals.Accordingly,animals and human beings labelled as animals are sacrificed in order to maintain and consolidate power.Imperial animality discourse will be dealt with in this thesis from three themes: sexism,colonialism and imperial subjectivity.Firstly,sexual inequality is an internal factor to keep stable imperialist power.Inevitably,Victorian English woman’s awakening female consciousness caused wide-spread social unrest since it posted a threat to patriarchal society.The convenient way to cope with this trouble is to downgrade women culturally as animals and justifiably deprive them of rights.It is no wonder that biased metaphors such as “woman is an animal”,the pornographic imagination of woman as a piece of meat,the image of carnivorous woman,the establishment of the metonymic relations between women,madness,sexual desire and animals in public media,were quite common in Victorian society.Despite the seemingly seamless and penetrating web of sexual power,the stories of women empowered by identification with animals are convincing evidences to question the feasibility of imperial animality discourse.Secondly,imperial animality discourse plays an important role in colonial expansion.The scientific researches in colonial areas,such as naming and classification of animals,the collection of animal specimen,witnessed the combination of speciecism and colonialism.Therefore,animals were highly encoded and conquering them has been interpreted as a symbolic imperial conquest.The biopolitic strategy adopted by imperialism,according to which racial others were downgraded as non-human in scientific terms and were reduced to bare life proscribed of human rights,is excersied within the mentality of speciecism as well as colonialism.However,fissures were exposed when the binary opposion between human beings and animals was again and again overthrown in such highly symbolic places as circus.A third factor threatening imperial power is the “animal” within.Darwinism proved the presence of an “animal” within human being.This poses a heavy blow to imperial subject’s self-oppointed superior status since there is now no essential difference between imperial subject and those animalized object.The imperial subject is preoccupied with this unnerving specter and endeavors by every means possible to “kill” it.However,he is doomed to failure since this “animal” within is an innate being,who has always already tracked him,harassed him.A healthy subject is one who is able to keep the balance between humanity and the animal within.The complicity between speciesism and imperial power bespeaks a necessity to rebuild the relationship between human being and animals.It not only helps deconstruct the violent hierarchical system,but also meets the requirements of animal ethics.