what's in a name?

Having not read Black Beauty in over a decade, it was a nice treat to read familiar text. After reading some of the other blog posts from my classmates, I will base some of my blog on Ducks DB A Horse by any Other Name.

Duck writes on the topic of Black Beauty’s name, which changes many times throughout the book. Each owner chooses a name for B.B. mainly based on his color. His different names include: Black Beauty, Black Auster, Jack and the nickname of Blackie. Throughout the book, B.B. refers and acknowledges himself to be Black Beauty (which of course was his original name and his last). On the second to last page of the book, B.B. remarks “after this it was quite decided to keep me and call me by my old name of ‘Black Beauty’”. (212) Through the name changes, it is clear that B.B. does accept his name and shows acknowledgement to his owner of that recognition. B.B. is a fictional character, so does this translate to real animals.

Having just adopted my new companion from Animal Pets Alive, I decided to keep his name Bear. He is over two years old, and having been called Bear for that duration I found it a bit cruel to give him a new one. I could understand renaming a young animal that has not found attachment to a spoken name, but with age a name sticks. He came right up to me the first time I called his name, so it stuck. With my pet bird Jazz, he shows acknowledgement each and every time I speak his name. Writing this currently I tried to call him Jack (still a J name) and he didn’t respond.

1. My dog Bear and his white patch on his head

Black Beauty is a beautiful story of a character with a strong heart and a good soul. In reading the afterward for the copy of Black Beauty that I hold, I find it interesting on how the author, Anna Sewell, beliefs were molded. Lucy Grealy writes, “Anna’s beliefs were shaped in part by a book called Essays on Animals by Horace Bushnell. Bushnell believed man to have brains superior to those of animals, yet rather than affording man the divine right to use them to exploit lesser creatures, Bushnell believed the very fact of our superiority demanded that we treat those below us with kindness and fairness.” (221)

2. Sewell Family at Dudwick House

I end with a quote that I had also included in my video road map. This quote speaks to me and my difficult travels, though I am much younger than Beauty in the book. Joe Green after realizing that the horse in his care is indeed Beauty remarks: “Give you a fair trial! I should think so indeed! I wonder who the rascal was that broke your knees, my old Beauty! You must have been badly served out some-where; well, well, it won’t be my fault if you haven’t good times of it now.”

3. Movie poster for Black Beauty (1994)

Images:

1. http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=11925508&id=901305076

2. http://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/buxton.htm

3.http://sholander.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/black_beauty.jpg

Tomorrow is a new Day

1. Bear

I realize that this blog is late in terms of being posted. I feel though that my time was spent in better ways filling out an application form to adopt a dog from Austin Pets Alive! Wish me luck that Bear and I will have a great meeting that will lead into a lifelong friendship. So tomorrow is a new day.

I have always thought that people who said animals can’t speak were less of a person for saying such. Though we cannot understand the direct meaning of a dogs bark, or the whistle from a pet bird, their emotion can come through if you listen with your heart and not your ears. “They speak to us, and we to them. In how many several sorts of ways do we speak to our dogs, and they answer us?” (836) When time is spent with an animal, communication can transverse spoken words. Being a communication major I learned a long time ago that 97% of the act of communicating is non-verbal, and 3% being the actual words used. Of that 97% a large portion is the tonality of the voice (rate, pitch, depth) and the rest with gestures, gaze, and facial expressions. So of course animals can tell when we are upset with them, and when we are happy or sad. The problem is most of us don’t see things the other way around. We don’t take the time to see that animals do express their emotions, and if we paid attention we could read their non-verbal’s. It is easy to see when a dog is happy when he wags his tail. It is also very apparent the suffering animals express when they are treated with a cruel hand. People that take a cruel approach to handling animals (and that is what they do, handle) are past the point to realize the emotional connection that can be made with that animal. In the 1700s, “wide diffusion of biological notions…gave birth to a conventional, almost fashionable, mode of sentimental commiseration with the sufferings of animals.” (804)

John Berger writes in Why Look at Animals about this concept. “With their parallel lives, animals offer man a companionships which is different from any offered by human enhance. Different because it is a companionship offered to the loneliness of man as a species. Such an unspeaking companionship was felt to be so equal that often one find the conviction that it was man who lacked the capacity to speak with animals—hence the stories and legends of exceptional beings, like Orpheus, who could talk with animals in their own language.” (796)

2. Orpheus

Images:

1. http://www.petango.com/webservices/adoptablesearch/wsAdoptableAnimalDetails.aspx?id=10138869&css=http://www.austinpetsalive.org/wp-content/themes/apa/style.css

2. http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/orpheus.jpg