The Aesthetics, Politics and Ethics of Becoming-Animal in Thomas Hardy’s Novels

Abstract

This essay aims to bring into dialogue the encounters between humans and non-human animals that feature prominently in Hardy’s novels with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming-animal. It demonstrates that the close proximity of Hardy’s characters to non-human animals sometimes initiates the process of becoming-animal, albeit with varying degrees of success. This possibility of affective becoming challenges the notion of human auto-affection and provides us with an unusual vantage point from which to examine Hardy’s subversion of the human/animal dualism. This becoming-animal not only functions as an aesthetic device, creating a destabilising lyricism in Hardy’s text, but also provides a new lens through which to explore Hardy’s political and ethical concerns with reference to what Deleuze and Guattari call “minoritarian groups”. The article argues that the ontological continuity between humans and animals does not necessarily exclude an ethic of care. If Hardy’s fictional portrayal of animals runs the risk of anthropomorphism, then this possibility of becoming-animal in his novels revivifies human animality and builds up an alliance between humans and non-human beings.