Reviewed by: The Mythology of the Animal Farm in Children's Literature: Over the Fence by Stacy Hoult-Saros Nathan Poirier (bio) Stacy Hoult-Saros. The Mythology of the Animal Farm in Children's Literature: Over the Fence. Lexington Books, 2016. In her monograph, The Mythology of the Animal Farm in Children's Literature, Stacy Hoult-Saros examines the narratives and illustrations of dozens of children's books from the past sixty years that feature farmed animals. The book proceeds through five chapters, each centering on a theme: anthropomorphism, freedom, commodities, protection, and submission. Each theme interacts with and strengthens the others, and chapters often touch on multiple themes. Ultimately, Hoult-Saros concludes that works of children's literature tend to replace violent and oppressive realities of farm life for animals with images of the farm as a haven for animals who have comfort, freedom, protection, and care. As Hoult-Saros points out, representation of the animal farm as benign is widely accepted by consumers as reality. However, for nearly every farmed animal, the experience is quite the opposite. For instance, stories depict farms as family farms, rather than the industrial facilities comprising 99 percent of farming operations. To this end, Hoult-Saros is critical of the connection (and contradiction) between eating meat and caring for animals. If one consumes animals, one essentially condemns (certain) animals to slaughter. Whether raised "humanely" or otherwise, nearly all farmed animals endure the same horrific industrial slaughter procedure. Thus, it makes sense to question how requiring a premature violent death is part of an ethic of care. Further, Hoult-Saros highlights the fact that allusions to slaughter are exceedingly rare in both text and illustrations. This literary sleight of hand renders invisible the most violent part of the reality for farmed animals. In fact, some stories explicitly indicate that even animals enjoy consuming animal products (of other species, at least), further effacing the inherent violence. Anthropomorphism is pervasive in children's books (DeMello 339–43), and Hoult-Saros continually reiterates the prevalence of talking animals as a predominant feature in stories about farmed animals. She finds that depictions of animals possessing humanlike traits such as walking on two legs is common; [End Page 143] further, she notes animal characters routinely express a desire to acquire even more human attributes, like thumbs or proficiency with human technology. According to Hoult-Saros, while "talking (and otherwise expressive) animal stories, in giving voice to a subordinate group that literally cannot speak for itself" may seem liberatory, this capacity to speak also "all too conveniently give[s] the dominant culture exactly what it needs: the 'consent' of the oppressed to their own confinement, subjugation and exploitation" (124). In her chapter on freedom, Hoult-Saros observes that doors, gates, and fences are "invariably" left open implying freedom of mobility and the option for animals to leave the farm if they choose. This is not the case on almost any farm as animals are tightly confined for profit reasons. Freedom depictions are often illusory as Hoult-Saros exemplifies with Margaret Hillert's The Cow That Got Her Wish (1981). In this story, a cow dreams of actually jumping over the moon to escape her mundane farm life. A raccoon offers help but tricks her into jumping over a puddle merely bearing the reflection of the moon. The cow revels in her "success" but this storyline does nothing to address the fact that the cow's status on the farm does not change, and in all likelihood never will. Tellingly, how and why animals "end up" at farms in the first place is almost never mentioned. This omission elides the fact that captivity is forced, and hides the reality that farmed animals do not possess freedom at all, or at most, only in a very limited sense. Next, chapter 3 turns to the commodity nature of farmed animals. Hoult-Saros finds this theme to be composed of two parts: animals repeatedly represent both the production of commodities (as in "giving" their milk, eggs, or fur), as well as serving as commodities themselves (valued for meat or as prized animals in contests). Hoult-Saros cites numerous stories in which animals are willingly...
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Jan 1, 2019
Nassim Ahmad Iqteit + 1
Open Access
