| This dissertation explores how vermin, as animals that transgress the boundaries of proper sociozoological conduct, are represented in human cultural forms, including prose fiction, poetry, cinema, and entomology. The dissertation shows that vermin, including, but not limited to, rats, cockroaches, and flies, are simultaneously represented as being antithetical to humanity and as mirrors for human characteristics, and that this duality of representation is common among all the cultural forms studied. The dissertation posits a critique not only of these representations, but also of ecocriticism, a literary movement that has conspicuously neglected these very important subjects. The dissertation breaks its study down into several modes of approaching vermin: disgust, abjection, and objectivity. The dissertation explores the alienating effects of the emotion of disgust, and the possibility that this alienation could lead to a broadened, possibly nonanthropocentric perspective. The dissertation then explores the construction of abjection, an emotion distinct from, but related to disgust. Abjection, as a linguistic response to the transgressive nature of verministic behaviors, is also explored as a method for forwarding social critiques. Finally, the dissertation explores the objectivity of scientific representations of cockroaches, showing the changes in representation since the eighteenth century, but also the ideological debt that late twentieth century scientists owe to the pioneers of entomology. Throughout, the theoretical positions are related to the author's personal experiences with cockroaches. |
