Ecocriticism And Animal Studies

•What sort of nature is presented in Of Mice and Men? How do the concepts of wilderness and domesticity function at the level of setting?

•What does the concept of the ranch represent from an ecological perspective?

•Would you say that nature is active or passive in the text? Why?

•Can you identify any romanticist tinges in the text when it comes to how nature is depicted?

•Where does nature and nonhuman otherness stand in relation to the cultural/human sphere in the novel?

•Does the highly masculinized atmosphere of the novel indicate a certain type of abuse towards nature and nonhuman otherness?

•Does the study of nature and/or nonhuman animality have consequences over the genre and/or stylistic treatment of the novel?

•Ecology: from the Greek oikos (‘house’ or ‘environment’). It refers to the (biological) study of the interactions amongst organisms and the physical environment.

•Domestic vs. wild nature: domesticity, as is easily inferred, refers to an activity that involves customizing for human benefit and exploitation. Nature may be domesticated through many different forms: ranches, farms, gardens, urbanization, parks, conservation spaces, reservations, etc. The wilderness, on the other hand, represents the pristine side of nature in which humans do not intervene in a drastic way, and thus organically functions in accordance to its own tendency towards biodiversity and bio-equilibrium.

•Biocentrism: ethical standpoint that defies anthropocentrism by politically and morally defending the ecological drive towards biodiversity and subsistence.

•Darwinism: theory on biological evolution according to which organisms emerge and are developed through natural selection (the survival of the fittest) with the prime object of the biological subsistence of the species.

•Pioneer species: species and organisms that colonize new terrains, ultimately redefining the ecosystem and biodiversity of such terrain.

•Speciesism: the cultural process whereupon certain species are given more moral worth than others on the grounds of anthropocentric and androcentric bias (usually based on reason). It is the natural successor of racism and sexism.

•Sentience: biological and cognitive capacity beyond the mere physical stimulus-response instinctual process. It involves the capacity to suffer and to have a subjective experience that (usually) involves a level of self-consciousness.

•Anthropomorphism: when human emotions and traits are attributed to an animal (or even an inanimate) species.

-Animal standpoint: perception of reality and of immediate circumstances through the senses and subjectivity of a particular nonhuman other, a factor which will be highly mediated by the specific senses of that species in particular.

“George chooses, for example, to ignore both his and Lennie’s forebodings about the ranch. He chooses to go into town, leaving Lennie unsupervised even though he knows that Lennie is not a responsible adult. Urged on by Slim’s approval of the action, he finally chooses to pull the trigger that kills his friend even though he is most hesitant and reluctant to do so.” (Heavilin 2009, 281)