Del i serien Ecocritical Theory and Practice

Canine Death in Canonical American Fiction

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

AvAmelia Labenski,Douglas A. Vakoch,Douglas A Vakoch

2 019 kr

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Canine Death in Canonical American Fiction investigates the presence of dogs in literature through an analysis of classic and popular novels. The author interrogates the validity of the “man’s best friend” trope by using fiction as a telling source of cultural attitudes towards animals and questions why dog death is so pervasive in literature. From sentimental tearjerkers like Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller to canonical classics like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, this book examines the wealth of human-dog relations that the literary archive does not currently address and complicates prevalent assumptions of this relationship as inherently altruistic and symbiotic. Amelia Labenski argues that dogs carry a heavy symbolic weight in and outside of literature, where they often function as moral alibis or romantic stand-ins for our other, more explicitly harmful, relationships with animals. These arguments bring to bear a useful discussion about the role fiction can play in how we re-envision our relationships with animals of all kinds and the environment which we all share.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-10-29
Mått152 x 229 x 25 mm
Vikt19 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieEcocritical Theory and Practice
Antal sidor204
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781666980189

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For many Americans, a core childhood memory involves reading a book in which a beloved dog dies, leaving readers with emotional scars that can last a lifetime, as the presence of the website ‘Does the Dog Die’ indicates. Amelia Labenski's Canine Death in Canonical American Fiction explores this trope, and argues that there is more to these literary depictions of canine death than the romantic ‘loyal dog is sacrificed to teach humans a lesson’ explanation. Dogs have died at human hands for as long as we have kept and loved dogs, just as they have been weaponized by humans to kill other humans. Labenski argues that these very real deaths, unsentimental and terrible, tell a much more nuanced story of the human-dog relationship. This book offers an important corrective to the overly sentimental way in which we represent and understand the deaths of our most cherished companions.