When we had our discussion circle this week, I wrote on my notecard about this… Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to get to my card so I figured I would discuss my idea here.
In our reading for this week, when Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca, he goes into the city and sees one of his favorite hunting dogs, Argos, left behind when he went on his journey to Troy to fight in the war. Here is the passage:
“While he spoke an old hound, lying near, pricked up his ears and lifted up his muzzle. This was Argos, trained as a puppy by Odysseus, but never taken on a hunt before his master sailed for Troy. The young men, afterward, hunted wild goats with him, and hare, and deer, but he had grown old in his master’s absence. Treated as rubbish now, he lay at last upon a mass of dung before the gates- manure of mules and cows, piled there until fieldhands could spread it on the king’s estate. Abandoned there, and half destroyed with flies, old Argos lay. But when he knew he heard Odysseus’ voice nearby, he did his best to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears, having no strength to move nearer his master. And the man looked away, wiping a salt tear from his cheek… Eumaios crossed the court and went straight forward into the megaron among the suitors; but death and darkness in that instant closed the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master, Odysseus, after twenty years.” (Book 17, lines 375-422)
For me, this passage stirred an immense amount of emotion inside; it was the saddest I had felt throughout the entire story. I found this incredibly odd, however, as the entire story deals with death. All of Odysseus’ crew dies in some form… Some are eaten by cannibals; others have their brains bashed in by the Cyclops and are eaten; others are scooped up by Scylla and are subsequently eaten; and the rest, having survived all of these ordeals, are eventually killed when Zeus destroys their ship. Nearly crying about the death of a dog rather than multiple shiploads of men, I wondered if anybody else felt the same way. As I expected, may others felt the same way about numerous other stories and movies.
Old Yeller’s owner is forced to shoot him after he contracts rabies, Old Dan is attacked by a mountain lion and dies and then Little Ann dies of grief shortly thereafter in “Where the Red Fern Grows,” Marley becomes ill and is euthanized at the end of “Marley and Me,” and the list goes on and on. All of these deaths occur and audiences bawl, while hundreds of soldiers die in any given war movie and, generally, minimal emotion is felt by the audience. Clearly, this is very odd and it raises the question: shouldn’t audiences be feeling more emotion over the death of their own species rather than another?
Personally, I believe that this difference in emotion occurs because domesticated animals, specifically dogs, represent a sort of innocence that humans lack. Animals do not kill massive groups of their own species, nor do they feel the same emotions as humans. There is also the sentiment that domesticated animals are weak, relying on humans for all of their needs. Possibly one of the biggest reasons why we feel such emotion for the fuzzy creatures is because we can relate to them, likely having owned one ourselves. All in all, it is understandable why we as humans feel more emotion for deaths of animals rather than those of humans. However, it can still almost seem ironic at times.
In our reading for this week, when Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca, he goes into the city and sees one of his favorite hunting dogs, Argos, left behind when he went on his journey to Troy to fight in the war. Here is the passage:
“While he spoke an old hound, lying near, pricked up his ears and lifted up his muzzle. This was Argos, trained as a puppy by Odysseus, but never taken on a hunt before his master sailed for Troy. The young men, afterward, hunted wild goats with him, and hare, and deer, but he had grown old in his master’s absence. Treated as rubbish now, he lay at last upon a mass of dung before the gates- manure of mules and cows, piled there until fieldhands could spread it on the king’s estate. Abandoned there, and half destroyed with flies, old Argos lay. But when he knew he heard Odysseus’ voice nearby, he did his best to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears, having no strength to move nearer his master. And the man looked away, wiping a salt tear from his cheek… Eumaios crossed the court and went straight forward into the megaron among the suitors; but death and darkness in that instant closed the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master, Odysseus, after twenty years.” (Book 17, lines 375-422)
For me, this passage stirred an immense amount of emotion inside; it was the saddest I had felt throughout the entire story. I found this incredibly odd, however, as the entire story deals with death. All of Odysseus’ crew dies in some form… Some are eaten by cannibals; others have their brains bashed in by the Cyclops and are eaten; others are scooped up by Scylla and are subsequently eaten; and the rest, having survived all of these ordeals, are eventually killed when Zeus destroys their ship. Nearly crying about the death of a dog rather than multiple shiploads of men, I wondered if anybody else felt the same way. As I expected, may others felt the same way about numerous other stories and movies.
Old Yeller’s owner is forced to shoot him after he contracts rabies, Old Dan is attacked by a mountain lion and dies and then Little Ann dies of grief shortly thereafter in “Where the Red Fern Grows,” Marley becomes ill and is euthanized at the end of “Marley and Me,” and the list goes on and on. All of these deaths occur and audiences bawl, while hundreds of soldiers die in any given war movie and, generally, minimal emotion is felt by the audience. Clearly, this is very odd and it raises the question: shouldn’t audiences be feeling more emotion over the death of their own species rather than another?
Personally, I believe that this difference in emotion occurs because domesticated animals, specifically dogs, represent a sort of innocence that humans lack. Animals do not kill massive groups of their own species, nor do they feel the same emotions as humans. There is also the sentiment that domesticated animals are weak, relying on humans for all of their needs. Possibly one of the biggest reasons why we feel such emotion for the fuzzy creatures is because we can relate to them, likely having owned one ourselves. All in all, it is understandable why we as humans feel more emotion for deaths of animals rather than those of humans. However, it can still almost seem ironic at times.