“The Old Kinship of Earth”: Science, Man and Nature in the Animal Stories of Charles G.D. Roberts

Abstract

Science has been a major, but overlooked, influence on the animal stories of Charles G.D. Roberts. It shaped the form of the stories, dictated much of their content, and allowed Roberts to present his stories of animals thinking and reasoning not as fables but as realistic fiction. His work is not a revolt against Darwinian determinism but a synthesis of the science with older Romantic conceptions to make an emotionally satisfying and scientifically correct vision of nature and man’s place in it. This is most evident in the contrast Roberts drew between man’s abilities and emotions as an animal on the one hand, and his higher faculties and the world he has created outside nature on the other. The stories must be seen not just as Canadian literature but as part of Western societies’ attempts to come to terms with the world of Darwinian nature.