Izzy (U6) has been given honourable mention in the Queens’ College Cambridge Estelle Prize for English. Her essay topic was ‘A hunger for subordination: exploring how animal imagery satiates humanity’s need for control’. Read the full essay below.
A hunger for subordination: exploring how animal imagery satiates humanity’s need for control
Subordination, or “the act of giving someone or something less importance” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.), propels perpetrators into a position of superiority by diminishing the value of the subordinated. This imposed distinction between the superior and inferior promotes widespread moral disengagement surrounding inhumane treatment of the lesser-valued being. With UK animal cruelty reaching a record high in recent years (World Animal Protection, 2024), humanity’s ingrained agreement of the insignificance of animals’ lives is evident now more than ever. Yet this widespread preconception has been weaponised for further control, with the same tactics used to subordinate animals being historically applied to minority groups of humans; animal imagery has been employed to diminish these “out-groups” (Utych, 2018) to the same subordinate status as animals, thus allowing a similar mistreatment. Modern poetry responds to this animalistic dehumanisation by reclaiming animal imagery, instead directing it towards the injustice of humanity’s subordination of both animals and people. Through the modern poet’s wielding of this language, the moral disengagement that numbs humanity to our cruelty is stripped away, leaving only evidence of our hunger for subordination. Modern Canadian poet Anne Carson uses her poem ‘Between Us And’1 to deconstruct the feeble methods humanity has historically used to claim ownership over animals, and thus exposes how ingrained the subordination of animals is within society. In this poem, Carson ridicules the self-imposed authority humans have over animals by disarming the act of naming animals to mark possession; the Latin name for “giraffe” is made trivial, being named such simply because “it looked to them like a camel crossed with a leopard”. Here, Carson breaks down preconceptions about human power in revealing the childish simplicity of the names we have enforced upon animals to claim them as our own. These ideas of power are further dissolved in Carson directing this ridicule towards “the Romans”. In doing so, a historic symbol of power, empire and sophistication is diminished to one of simplicity that “get(s) the category wrong” in their attempts of subordination. By removing the façade of power we hold so highly and replacing it with a juxtaposing panicked “flail” for superiority, Carson highlights the human hunger for control by exposing humanity’s fragility. The extent of our ingrained subjugation of animals is further depicted in the suggestion that a species is merely a “cognate” of another, rather than an individual being. In this reduction of life, animals are removed of their unique characteristics in place of the overarching stereotype that all animals are wild and dangerous. As the poem progresses, Carson narrows this removal of individualism from the collective species to the single animal, suggesting we maintain superiority over an individual animal by “pretend(ing) they are objects”. The reference to common pet names in “Spot” holds the reader accountable for an indirect act of subordination upon their pets, removing their ability to excuse these faults as a product of all humanity. Yet Carson suggests that even if we choose to name our pets “just other selves” they are still seen to be “other” because of a “namelessness” that exists “between us and animals”, an unspoken yet widely acknowledged power disparity between the two groups. In this way, Carson’s ‘Between Us And’ suggests a societally-ingrained power imbalance between animals and humans that has been perpetuated by language used to remove individuality. 1 provided in question, available at: https://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/files/estelle_prize_2024.pdf
Lydia Davis reflects this same “namelessness” in an encounter between the speaker and their pet in her poem ‘Dog and Me’.2 Similarly to Carson, in this poem Davis’ persona distinguishes themselves as superior to the animalistic qualities of their dog; they adamantly insist that they “do not leap up at a fence” and “do not leave (their) tongue hanging out”, ringfencing human traits and thus separating themselves from the perceived unruliness of the dog. However, Davis’ poem differs from Carson’s in her directing ridicule not at humanity’s desperation for power, but at the subordinated animal. The condescending “of course, my dog does not know I am human” implies a disparity of intellect between the two and ensures the owner’s superiority. By situating this line after “an ant can look at you, too, and even threaten you with its arms”, Davis further widens this nameless gulf in power by likening the feeble ant to the dog. In using the first person, a persona is created which allows the reader to assume the “I” and thus creates a direct instance of subordination. In this regard, Davis implicitly attests to the ingrained subordination of animals by using language and tone to reveal the hidden biases we hold regarding human superiority. In this sense, both Carson’s ‘Between Us And’ and Davis’ ‘Dog and Me’ use language to reveal a nameless power disparity in an encounter between humans and animals. Yet this same language has often been weaponised to subordinate groups of people when the inferiority of animals is applied to humans. Much like Carson’s reduction of animal species to “cognate(s)” of others, animalistic dehumanisation has historically acted to deny “outgroups traits that are uniquely human” (Utych, 2018) by labelling traits distinct to the collective as beastly or sub-human. The concept of being “individual” is thus instinctually removed from these “out-groups” as it describes something distinctly human, being defined as “a person who thinks or behaves in their own way” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019). This act of likening humans to animals to suppress their individuality is evident during the slave trade “when black people were constantly referred to as beasts” or “ferocious animals” (Marisol Meraji, 2018) to perpetuate a sense of fear associated with animals. It is here where Carson’s and Davis’ words are mirrored most potently: in likening black people to “beasts” a similar intellectual disparity is assumed as in “the dog does not know that I am human”, promoting the same moral disengagement that enabled “the Romans” to claim authority over animals. This dehumanisation is notably evident in literature, with the historical preconceptions of the subordinate status of women bleeding into the literary canon. Throughout history, imagery has been used within global literature to liken women to animals and thus diminish them to a position of inferiority. The frequency of this animal imagery is evident in a study conducted by Thuy Giang Pham (2023) where, out of 50 works of 20th century Vietnamese fiction, 191 metaphorical expressions were used to compare women to animals. Of these metaphors, 11 were focused on domestic animals, perpetuating this subjugation by implying women are solely for ownership or consumption. In this way, stereotypes regarding the subservience of women have perpetuated into the modern day with “our incessant comparison of pretty girls to Bambi” (Palacios-González, Estévez-Saá and Pereira-Ares, 2020). The extent for which humanity exerts control over animals is made blatant when the power imbalance is reversed. In response to these continual acts of literary dehumanisation, modern female poets have manipulated the language weaponised against them to reclaim the identities that have been suppressed by reductive comparisons. 2 provided in question, available at: https://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/files/estelle_prize_2024.pdf Sylvia Plath uses animal imagery in her poem ‘The Bee Meeting’ (Plath, 2010a, pp.55–57) to express the complexities of the female condition, in contrast to much the literary canon which uses this imagery to diminish women. The poem opens with an air of vulnerability; by blurring the animal and the sexual, Plath intertwines the subordination of women and animals to evoke a feeling of helplessness evident in: “I am as nude as a chicken neck”. The suggestion that all “chicken neck(s)” are inherently “nude” implies that they are to be inevitably stripped of feathers and thus are born solely for consumption. This simile therefore evokes the image that women, like livestock, are bred for the sexual consumption and possession of men, an image more crudely realised in the poultry-like “buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees”. In these uncomfortable comparisons of sexuality to food, Plath may be toying with the subordination of women by the reductive male gaze. In light of this, Plath’s positioning of animal imagery from the perspective of the subjugated woman reveals a female response to the male “desire for mastery” (Ketz, 2014) that reduces women to an observable body; rather than animal imagery suppressing female individuality, Plath uses it to expose it under a raw light. In this sense, Plath twists the dehumanising language imposed upon women to reveal the female experience of being perceived for the consumption of men, thus enlightening the consequences of humanity’s hunger for subordination. These parallels between female sexuality and animals are seen throughout the other poems of Plath’s ‘Bee Sequence’, namely in ‘Stings’ (Plath, 2010b, pp.60–62). In this poem, the persona enacts a form of subordination herself by creating a distinction between her role as queen bee and those she condescendingly considers “winged, unmiraculous women”. The poem’s speaker is further seen to establish her own control in claiming ownership, not in Carson’s naming of animals, but in the possessive “my honey machine”. Here a power is assumed by the persona, but this is soon diminished by the imagery of bees, with the queen bee’s purpose revolving solely around reproduction. A similar focus on sexuality is thus adopted as in Plath’s ‘The Bee Meeting’, again suggesting a reduction of women’s bodies to sexual commodities. For example, the persona’s “honey machine(…)opening, in spring, like an industrious virgin” taints her possessions with the sexuality of “virgin” that makes way for the double entendre of “opening”, thus revealing how the subordination of women has surrounded femininity with an inescapable air of sexuality. Through this sexual atmosphere, the “winged, unmiraculous women” take on another meaning; they are not merely dull women looked down upon by the speaker but women with “winged” capabilities of greatness, condemned to mundanity by a society who deems them inferior: useful only for sexual consumption. Through her bee sequence of poems, Plath reveals the subordination of women not only through a focus on their reduction to observable objects, but through a wider mereology present in bee imagery. Mereology is a philosophical study concerning the relationship between parts and the whole and thus acts in parallel with individuality being lost within the stereotyped whole due to subordination. Not only does Plath mirror mereology in her singular poems collating to form the bee sequence (Rogers and Sleigh, 2012), but she explores the concept in the extended metaphor of bees. Familiar with her father’s studies in entomology, Plath’s knowledge of the collective hive bleeds into her poem ‘The Bee Meeting’ (Plath, 2010a, pp.55–57) in “the white hive is snug as a virgin, sealing off her brood cells”. By personifying the collective “hive” as a singular being in the pronoun “her”, Plath uses mereology to suggest a removal of individuality, implying that the bees are merely components of the wider “hive”. In choosing to gender this collective “hive” as a woman, Plath also alludes to the specific subordination of women by labelling this removal of individuality as feminine. Ultimately, Plath’s use of animal imagery in her ‘Bee Sequence’ reveals the extent of human subordination by depicting its effects in an expression of the female condition. Former laureate Carol Ann Duffy (2019, p.26) explores the interaction between the subordination of animals and of women through the references to livestock in her poem ‘Io’. Here, Duffy reveals the subordination of women through the modernisation of the ancient myth of “Io”, a female lover of Zeus transformed by him into a “white heifer” to disguise his affair from his wife. Duffy uses “the useless vowel of her voice” and the “needles of sperm” to paint a coarse and uncomfortable portrait similar to Plath’s, emulating both the mistreatment of women and of animals with images that could be applied to either. The same is true of Duffy’s accusation of the readers in the rhyming couplet of: “The Gods who did with her as they pleased, the meat-eaters, the lovers of cheese.” In her comparison of the human reader to the “gods”, a misused omnipotence is revealed, as in Carson’s ‘Between Us And’, with Duffy similarly deconstructing humanity’s idea of collective power and directly placing blame on the individual reader. Here, Duffy repeats the concept of consumption in “meat” and “cheese”, perhaps attesting to the greed and indulgence that surrounds these cruel acts of control. By reversing the roles of animal and human, Duffy uses the cruel subjugation of women to expose the accepted subordination of animals in raw and shocking descriptions. Modern poetry acts as a medium for humanity’s subordination of others to be coarsely ripped from the passive acceptance of modern society and revealed to the reader, often with direct accusation. The objectification that distorts our perception of animals’ lives is revealed in the lines of Anne Carson and Lydia Davis, and redirected to reflect the subordination of women as highlighted in the work of Sylvia Plath and Carol Ann Duffy. In this way, modern poets can be seen to take advantage of the dehumanising language often weaponised against animals and minorities to construct their own narratives. In modern poetry, animal imagery is used to starkly reflect our unjust desire for control, revealing humanity’s insatiable hunger for subordination.
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Izzy (U6)
