Alice, Ethics, and Animals

Human's are weird. We have evolved into the most intelligent and complex species on this planet. We can manipulate our environment like no other animal on Earth. We were meant to be stewards of this planet. However, instead of using these abilities to benefit the Earth, we choose to destroy it. Common sense and compassion are replaced with selfishness and greed. There is no better way to illustrate this than to look at how we treat the intellectually inferior species that inhabit this planet. Lewis Carroll does an effective job of showing our relationship with animals by personifying them in his Alice Books.

Upon initial inspection, I thought that Carroll's use of personification with the animal characters was done so as to keep the attention of his audience. His intention of showing animals' plight in modern society didn't occur to me until I read Alice's run in with the mouse in Alice in Wonderland. After repeatedly offending the mouse by mentioning her cat Dinah, the mouse invites Alice to, "get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs." (27) However, Alice proves a poor listener, and the mouse eventually walks off upset. According to Daniel, this is "an effective way of highlighting Alice's own uncaring nature." (Daniel) Alice, much like the rest of humanity, finds it difficult to sympathize with the mouse. Its story is so small in scale that it doesn't interest her. This speaks to the theme of treatment of animals.

Carroll takes this theme even further in Through the Looking Glass. During Alice's dinner with the Red and White Queens, she is introduced to some plum pudding before taking a slice out of it. The pudding takes issue with this rude behavior, and exclaims, "What impertinence! I wonder if you would like it if I took a slice out of you, you creature!" (263). By asking his readers to empathize with some plum pudding, Carroll makes the ultimate statement regarding ethics and animals. It doesn't matter whether it is beef, pork, chicken, insects, corn on the cob, or plum pudding. Even things that don't have feelings or self awareness, whatever they are, they still deserve our consideration.