Research Article
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Year 2022, Issue: 56, 45 - 66, 01.11.2022

Abstract

References

  • Adams, Carol J. Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum, 1990. ---. Pornography of Meat. New York: Continuum, 2003. Adams, Carol J. and Josephine Donovan (eds). Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Durham: Duke UP, 1995 ---. Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics. New York: Columbia UP, 2007 Bekoff, Marc. Wild Justice. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2009.
  • Derrida, Jacques. “The Animal That Therefore I am” Critical Inquiry 28.2 (2002): 369-418. Reprinted in Derrida, Jacques. The Animal that Therefore I Am. Ed. Marie-Louise Mallet. Trans. David Wills. New York: Fordham UP, 2008.1-51.
  • Haraway, Donna. “The Companion Species Manifesto. Chicago: U of Indiana P, 2003 ---. Encounters with Companion Species: Entangling Dogs, Baboons, Philosophers, and Biologists” Configurations 14.1-2 (2006): 94- 114.
  • ---. When Species Meet. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 2008.
  • Johnson, Michelle. Review of The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez. World Literature Today, Winter 2019, 47. MacIntyre, Alisdair. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court Publising House, 1999.
  • Aging, Abandonment and Friendship in a Cruel World: Human-Canine Bonding in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend 66 Nunez, Sigrid. The Friend. New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
  • Patterson, Charles. Eternal Treblinka. New York: Lantern Books, 2002.
  • Savage-Rumbough, Sue. Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2004 Spiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988.
  • Weil, Kari. Thinking Animals. New York: Columbia UP, 2012.

Aging, Abandonment and Friendship in a Cruel World: Human-Canine Bonding in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend

Year 2022, Issue: 56, 45 - 66, 01.11.2022

Abstract

German-Panamanian-Chinese-American writer Sigrid Nunez’s
seventh book The Friend (2018) is a hybrid narrative, a composite
of memoir, meditation, novel, fiction and metafiction, on human and
non-human animal companionship. It amalgamates issues that have
become trademarks of Nunez’s fiction such as loss and grief with the
companionship of non-human animals and humans. The book thematically blurs the boundaries between humans and non-human animals
and fundamentally challenges and questions Western ways of thinking
about human-animal dualistic hierarchy, according to which animals
are associated with instincts rather than reason, with teh body rather
than the mind, and with nature rather than culture. While the human
world the novel presents is filled with vile gossip, competition, senseless brutality and bloodshed, the animals set an example of loyalty and
friendship; with their superior mental and bodily capacities, animals in
The Friend are portrayed, rather than dumb creatures, as wise kin of
humans still persisting in goodness though wrongfully exiled from human privileges. Thus in her intricately knitted narrative, Nunez offers
the companionship of non-human animals as the only saving grace in
human life.

References

  • Adams, Carol J. Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum, 1990. ---. Pornography of Meat. New York: Continuum, 2003. Adams, Carol J. and Josephine Donovan (eds). Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Durham: Duke UP, 1995 ---. Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics. New York: Columbia UP, 2007 Bekoff, Marc. Wild Justice. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2009.
  • Derrida, Jacques. “The Animal That Therefore I am” Critical Inquiry 28.2 (2002): 369-418. Reprinted in Derrida, Jacques. The Animal that Therefore I Am. Ed. Marie-Louise Mallet. Trans. David Wills. New York: Fordham UP, 2008.1-51.
  • Haraway, Donna. “The Companion Species Manifesto. Chicago: U of Indiana P, 2003 ---. Encounters with Companion Species: Entangling Dogs, Baboons, Philosophers, and Biologists” Configurations 14.1-2 (2006): 94- 114.
  • ---. When Species Meet. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 2008.
  • Johnson, Michelle. Review of The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez. World Literature Today, Winter 2019, 47. MacIntyre, Alisdair. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court Publising House, 1999.
  • Aging, Abandonment and Friendship in a Cruel World: Human-Canine Bonding in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend 66 Nunez, Sigrid. The Friend. New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
  • Patterson, Charles. Eternal Treblinka. New York: Lantern Books, 2002.
  • Savage-Rumbough, Sue. Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2004 Spiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988.
  • Weil, Kari. Thinking Animals. New York: Columbia UP, 2012.
There are 9 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects North American Language, Literature and Culture
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Nilsen Gökçen Uluk

Publication Date November 1, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Issue: 56

Cite

MLA Uluk, Nilsen Gökçen. “Aging, Abandonment and Friendship in a Cruel World: Human-Canine Bonding in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend”. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, no. 56, 2022, pp. 45-66.

JAST - Journal of American Studies of Turkey