Rhetoric and man's best friend : culture, narrative, and the voices of dogs
- UNCW Author/Contributor (non-UNCW co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Jean Lorschieder-House (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW )
- Web Site: http://library.uncw.edu/
- Advisor
- Don Bushman
Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to explore the significance and implications of texts
written from the points of view of companion animals. Companion animals, particularly
dogs, historically and currently play an important role in American culture. Studies in
sociology and behavioral psychology explain the symbiotic human-dog relationship and
its associated emotional ties. People commonly assign dogs human personalities and
values, assignations that are supported by science as well as our tendency to value the
cultural narrative of Man’s Best Friend.
Voice, a tool central to rhetoric, is often attributed to these animals in various
texts. We see voice attributed to animals in children’s literature, a foundation of literacy,
and animals that speak in the first person are also utilized to persuade readers to act in
both liberatory and consumer situations. Liberatory texts that use the personal pronoun
“I” include argumentative essays about animal rights, narratives in free publications that
encourage readers to adopt homeless animals, and letters asking for support of local
humane societies. Consumer texts in which animals are the speakers include
advertisements in various media as well as articles that are included in pet product
catalogues.
Rhetorical acts in which dogs and other companion animals are assigned voice are
significant in terms of critical literacy and economic citizenship. Critical consumers’
decisions and beliefs may be informed by rationality as well as narrative, and
conscientious economic citizens can employ critical reading strategies to counter
scotosis, “rationalized acts of selective blindness that occur by allowing certain
information to be discounted or unexamined” (Mathieu 112-113). Through critical literacy and conscientious economic citizenship, hegemony, including the domination of
the Man’s Best Friend narrative to fulfill consumerist agendas, can be opposed. A critical
reader of the liberatory and consumer texts examined here must look at those texts from
multiple perspectives and question who the actual rhetor is, what that rhetor’s agenda is,
why that rhetor is recycling the Man’s Best Friend cultural narrative, and what value lies
in that narrative.
Rhetoric and man's best friend : culture, narrative, and the voices of dogs
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Created on 1/1/2009
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
- Language: English
- Date: 2009
- Keywords
- Personification in literature, Point of view (Literature)
- Subjects
- Personification in literature
- Point of view (Literature)