Decentering anthropocentrism: human-animal relations in Aminatta Forna’s Happiness

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Happiness focuses on interspecies relations by decentering man from a position of superiority over animals to interdependence between humans and animals. I contend that Happiness provides a basis for exploration of the theme of interspecies relations, while it articulates Forna's concerns for the environment and its connections to ecocritical theory and post-colonial studies. I use her essay, "Wilder Things," in tandem with selected critical works, to explore her depiction of the relationship between humans and animals. My paper examines the concept of anthropocentrism using key incidents and events that reflect man’s attempts to control and destroy animal populations, and, at the same time, explores the survival strategies and resistance of animals. In the process, humans are animalized and animals are given human attributes to show the interconnectedness of the species. I argue that the novel demonstrates human-animal coexistence in a shared space.

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Ernest Dominic Cole

Ernest Cole, a native of Sierra Leone, is currently the John Dick Werkman Endowed Associate Professor and Chair of English at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, where he teaches Post-Colonial literature with an emphasis on Sub-Saharan Anglophone Africa, India, and the Caribbean. He is also Coordinator of Freshman English Composition. He joined the Department of English at Hope College in 2008 after completing graduate studies at the University of Connecticut, USA. He taught African literature at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone (1990–1996); Gambia College, Brikama (1996-–2000); and the University of The Gambia (2000–2003).

His work is on the representation of the disfigured body in post-conflict narratives from Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2008, and his primary focus is on the interconnections between the mutilated and amputated body and the body politic. His research is published in his monograph Theorizing the Disfigured Body: Mutilation, Amputation, and Disability Culture in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone (2014) that examines the ways in which bodily injury occasioned by punitive amputation of limbs in the Sierra Leone civil war shapes the memories and identities of survivors.

His recent monograph Space and Trauma in the Writings of Aminatta Forna (2016) is a critical study of her four works. He has also published two edited collections Emerging Perspectives on Syl Cheney Coker (2014), with Eustace Palmer, and Ousmane Sembene: Writer, Filmmaker, and Revolutionary Artist (2016), with Oumar Cherif Diop. He has articles and book reviews on Post-Colonial literature in Journal of African Literature Association (JALA) as well as book chapters in A Critical Introduction to Sierra Leonean Literature (Africa World Press, 2008) and African Cultures and Civilizations (Atlantis Books, 2005). His other research interests also include Victorian literature, Travel and Empire and Disability Studies.