Lewis Carroll: Animal Environmentally Not The Other

Abstract

The Victorian fictionist Lewis Carroll known for his fantasy wonderlands has touched upon a serious subject
concerning science and human attitude to animals in the nineteen century England. The very principles which allowed
for scientific experimentations on animals to enhance the status of human is based on the belief that man has the right to
use ‘inferior’ beings in his quest for knowledge and power. Carroll’s critical consciousness could see the linkages
between the human ego, quest for knowledge and power and dominance over the nonhuman other for wealth
accumulation at any cost. However, he has explored the line between human/animal realms as slippery, interspecies
relationship as more charming and challenging, and the scientific test upon animals as inhuman and unethical. Whether
it is the Snark, or Caterpillar or Cat, etc, Alice’s encounters with them tell it all exposing man’s instrumental reason to
dominate the powerless realms including children and animals. Carroll’s challenging of the discriminatory humananimal hierarchies is a precursor of the critical philosophical concern of the twentieth century that speaks now a
language of compassion and ethics.