The Tales We Tell Ourselves About Animals
How fiction impacts the way we see animals
The idiosyncrasies of our attitude towards animals are perfectly encapsulated by fiction. Every time a story about an animal goes viral, I am reminded of particular pieces of fiction that have stuck with me all these years. Some of my earliest memories of animals come from the fictional world. Mickey, Dumbo, Simba, Sebastian were all deeply embedded in my consciousness before I had any real grasp of what mice, elephants, lions and crabs were really like. I work in an elephant sanctuary and it’s fascinating to watch people behold the real version of an idea they have had since childhood. Expectedly, Dumbo comes up a lot.
In Kerala, India, a story about a pregnant elephant that was killed because it ate a fruit filled with firecrackers has recently gone viral. People were understandably outraged, and many expressed their feelings by creating and sharing various cartoons depicting the plight of the elephant.
In thinking about animals behind our screens and between our pages, I keep returning…
