Running Potential

   While delving into a book, it is not usually expected to be reading from the perspective of something other than a human, yet that exactly what we get  in Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Sewell presents animal cruelty from the point of view of the mistreated rather than like most other author’s who speak from an objective view, or from the view of the abuser themselves. When animal cruelty is spoken about through the lips of an animal rights human, although they side with the animal, they are still of the same species as the ones imparting the injustice and therefore lose a little of their credibility as an animal advocate. There is no way that a human could fully understand the same feelings or emotions that an animal may have during cruel actions. It is the fact that animals are subjugated to horrific acts that makes it so difficult for humans to use a sympathetic imagination towards the animal’s feelings. “…[W]ith cruelty and oppression it is everybody’s business to interfere when they see it…” but what about for the millions of humans who never see it (20)? In this novel,  Sewell does as best as any human could do to put herself in the hooves of a horse who is subjected to abuse by the human species. Sewell does an excellent job of getting to the soul of the humans and animals alike by allowing Black Beauty to have animal and human friends as well as animal and human enemies. Sewell not only used this novel to put herself in the place of the horses, but also to let each of her readers get a small taste of what animal cruelty can look and feel like. 

Sewell gave each horse in her novel a voice and a place. Each horse was a character in its own with a personality, characteristics and vices. The horses are given human traits to make it easier for the human readers to relate. “Merrylegs could not be resisted, so we broke off our long conversation, and got up our spirits by munching some very sweet apples which lay scattered on the grass” (10). According to the average human, animals cannot speak or feel, much less carry on a conversation and have relationships. The difference that many humans place between themselves and animals is that they can perceive themselves in a place and that they can feel passion and  build bonds with others of their kind or even interspecies. In Black Beauty these horses passionately feel and emotionally act on their ideas and emotions.

   Humans do not understand the ways of animals, how they think and how they act are so foreign to us because we do not have the same form of communication. “[Ginger] did bite James once pretty sharp, but John said, ‘Try her with kindness,’ and instead of punishing me as I expected, James came to me with his arm bound up, and brought me a bran mash and stroked me; and I have never snapped at him since, and I won’t either” (8). This novel encourages acts of kindness towards animals and discourages the instinctual acts of superiority such as using bearing reigns. Sewell embraces the relationship between human and animal as something with so much room to grow and succeeds in making her readers aware of this relationship potential. Animal instinct is to love and embrace, what is human's instinct?