Unveiling Animal Individuality: Depictions of Equine Personalities in Jane Smiley’s Fiction

Li'min Wu

Abstract


This paper explores the representation of animal individuality and personality in Jane Smiley’s literary works, specifically focusing on equine characters in Horse Heaven and The Horses of Oak Valley Ranch series. Smiley’s narrative vividly delineates distinct equine personalities, challenging traditional anthropocentric biases and highlighting the uniqueness of each animal. Animals in her novels cease to serve merely as symbols or metaphors for humans; instead, they emerge as fully realized characters, each possessing its own crucial status and distinct personality. Smiley’s narrative intention is to portray animals not as a collective entity but as individuals with their own complexities. The novels underscore the significance of recognizing and appreciating animal individuality, challenging readers to view animals through a lens of uniqueness rather than uniformity.

 


Keywords


animal individuality; personality; subjectivity; equine characters; Jane Smiley

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bekoff, M. (2002). Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lloyd, A. S., et al. (2008). Horse Personality: Variation between Breeds. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 112(3), 369-383.

Pervin, L. A., & John, O. P. (1997). Personality Theory and Research. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Pizer, D. (2013). Men, Women, and Horses: The American Literary Horse Racing Novel. The South Carolina Review, 46(1), 155-167.

Smiley, J. (2000). Horse Heaven. New York: Ballantine Books.

Smiley, J. (2004). A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Smiley, J. (2009). The Georges and the Jewels. New York: Yearling.

Smiley, J. (2010). A Good Horse. New York: Yearling.

Smiley, J. (2011). True Blue. New York: Yearling.

Smiley, J. (2012). Pie in the Sky. New York: Yearling.

Smiley, J. (Ed.). (2013). Gee Whiz. New York: Yearling.

Strozier, R. M. (2002). Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: Historical Constructions of Subject and Self. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/13269

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Studies in Literature and Language

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share us to:   

 

Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/sll/submission/wizard


Reminder

How to do online submission to another Journal?

If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

 Articles published in Studies in Literature and Language are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture