A Leap Of Empathy:Human-Animal Ethical Relation In Coetzee’s Works

The issue of animal ethics in Nobel laureate J.M.Coetzee’s works has been a focus in domestic and foreign Coetzee studies.In recent years,the exploration of ethical implications in light of the concept of empathy has become an essential research trend.From the interrelation of empathy,sympathy,and sympathetic imagination,this thesis carries out textual analysis on Waiting for the Barbarians,Disgrace,and Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons,analyzes the human-animal ethical relation in Coetzee’s works,aiming to reveal the role of empathy in Coetzee’s animal ethics.This thesis consists of three parts,including introduction,body,and conclusion.The introduction part includes research background,literature review,research questions,methodology,and organization of thesis.The body part is divided into three chapters.Chapter one discusses the realistic dilemma of empathy failure in the anthropocentric human-animal ethical relation.Empathy failure in Coetzee’s works is manifest in the rationalization of animal suffering,specifically in rationalization of animal slaughtering,rationalization of animal instrumentalization,and rationalization of animal silence.This chapter points out that Coetzee attributes the root cause of the problem to anthropocentricism,because it entrenches the dominant speciesism,reason,and language,and justifies human exploration of animals.Chapter two explores a leap from empathy to sympathy in human-animal ethical relation in Coetzee’s works.Human beings’ sympathy for the animal other arises through empathic experience of animal other’s body pain,empathic encounter with animal other’s gaze,and empathic understanding of animal other’s being.This chapter points out that Coetzee juxtaposes the suffering of human beings and animals,elicits human beings’ sympathy for the animal other,and dispels the dualistic division of mind and body,subject and object,as well as humans and non-human animals.Chapter three argues the leap of empathy from Coetzee’s fiction to reality.Through literature,Coetzee establishes an idealized human-animal ethical relation,which allows writers,protagonists,and readers to empathize with animal other fictionally and realistically.In literary writing,Coetzee and his fictional character Costello employ sympathetic imagination to exercise empathy with animal other.In ethical engagement with animal other,protagonists in Coetzee’s works similarly experience empathic awakening and transformation,and employ sympathetic imagination to understand the pain of animals.In the process of reading Coetzee’s works,readers achieve vicarious experience of protagonists through sympathetic imagination,and thus exercise empathy in their realistic moral choice.This thesis points out in the conclusion part that Coetzee exerts the moral possibility of literature to establish an idealized human-animal ethical relation,and resorts to the power of empathy when probing into the issue of animal ethics.A leap of empathy in his works is manifest in two dimensions,one is a leap from empathic understanding of animal suffering to further sympathy for the animal other;the other is a leap from his fictional works to a change of ethical relation in the reality.In face of human beings’ violence and indifference towards animals,Coetzee aspires to solve the realistic problem of empathy failure,appeals to human beings’ empathy with animals,and thus facilitates an equal human-animal ethical relation.