Theorization of Animal Studies and Re-reading White Fang

Abstract

The recent advances in technology has paved way for deconstruction of the concepts like human being, humane and humanity. These are conventional forms of looking at the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. Post structural theorists and many Marxist thinkers have critiqued the construction of the ‘other-ness.’ Similarly, anthropocentrism questions and debates the conception of human (self) and the animal (other) is produced and understood. Donna Haraway`s cyborg gives a jolt to the epistemology of the self.1 It contrasts the mechanized AI or humanoid with a virtue that alters the centrality of the human being. Thus, ‘Animal Studies’ investigates the human attitude towards the treatment of other animals. There are numerous graphics, films, animations, comics, texts, etc. that talk about the human- animal relationship. However, Jack London`s White Fang is used to analyze the human attitude towards wolf dog and thereby understand the conception of self and the other. The aim of this paper is to understand what makes human beings identify themselves superior and animals inferior. This question becomes important especially, when one reads the post humanist critique of humanism and its legacy. It challenges the human subjectivity and embodiment.2 Though animals share the human legacy of creation and evolution, they are traumatized and ill-treated. Due to human cruelty and pollution has altered the habitat and food chain of most spices, that is, anthropocene. Animal studies revisits the position of animals in literature. Nonetheless, we witness that cruelty towards women or cruelty towards animals are due to the fact that man or the human being in the latter instance, is the nucleus of the discourse.