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Sajid Aziz

Professor Weil

COL130

12/10/21

John Maxwell Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals is a metafictional novel that explores the

rights of animals. The story’s main character, Elizabeth Costello, travels to Appleton College to

deliver several lectures on her view of animal rights in society. It turns out that Elizabeth

Costello’s son, John Bernard, is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the college as

well. The relationship between Costello and Bernard is tense, partly due to the tension between

John Bernard’s wife and his mother. Costello, an activist for animal rights, is highly against

animal consumption and slaughter. John Bernard’s wife, Norma, believes that these ideas are

unnecessary and can be a bad influence on their young children. These fundamental

disagreements create a triangle of tension between the characters that persists throughout the

short story. While John Bernard knows that his mother’s arguments may be controversial, he can

not completely side with his wife. Bernard is caught as a mediator between the two women who

nonverbally conflict with one another. Costello’s first lecture describes the methods in which

philosophy plays a role in our understanding of animal rights. Costello argues that there is no

real way to measure an animal’s thought process or prove that they do or do not use reason.

Instead, Costello claims that philosophical approaches end up asking questions that limit the

intelligence of animals instead of allowing them to prosper. She also brings to attention an

argument about “being.” Costello states that questions about what it is to “be” another being are

irrelevant; instead, the fact that all animals are full of being is enough to disprove any theories

about hierarchy. In her next lecture, Elizabeth Costello speaks about poetry and how it functions
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in relation to animal rights. Costello’s main argument here is that through poetry, one can

embody an animal and for a brief period of time, be one with the animal. Overall, Costello is

making the claim that poetry allows for a deeper spiritual and ethical connection to animals,

while philosophy simply looks for a way to differentiate humans and animals.

The philosophical approach to animals is one that is driven by differentiating questions,

according to Costello. These questions are incorrectly used as a basis for the similarities and

differences between human and animal, and therefore used to prove superiority. For example,

Costello brings up “philosophical language” (Coetzee 22) that asks questions about reason, souls,

and rights regarding animals. Philosophy may try to prove that the main distinction between

humans and animals is reason: humans have it and animals do not. Costello counters this by

questioning if one can prove this. She brings up the example of the experiments of Wolfgang

Köhler. In these experiments, an ape named Sultan is put in different scenarios where his

bananas are in hard-to-reach positions. Different obstacles and items are placed in his pen and he

is watched to see how he reacts and what methods he uses to get to the bananas. From a

philosophical standpoint, Sultan’s responses would be a clear indication of his level of reasoning.

Costello, however, argues the opposite. By creating scenarios with “correct” answers, the

experimenters are actually limiting Sultan’s thought processing by forcing him to ask the right

questions. For example, one might expect Sultan to wonder how he can use the crates to reach

the bananas that are high up. Costello argues that this is overlooking more complicated thoughts,

such as “why is he starving me?” (Coetzee 28). Philosophy, in this case, is driving Sultan to

engage in “practical, instrumental reason” (Coetzee 29) rather than allowing him to think freely

and show his true potential. Another criticism of philosophical thinking that Costello makes is

that relating to being. According to American philosopher Thomas Nagel, it is only possible to
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imagine what it is like for one to be another being. It is impossible to imagine what it is like for a

being to be that being. The limitations of the mind disallow a human to know what it is like for a

bat to be a bat, for example. Nagel states that a bat is an alien, “not as alien as a Martian but less

alien than another human being” (Coetzee 32). Costello then concludes that there is a spectrum

of “alienness,” and as one moves closer to humans, it must be easier to imagine what it is like to

“be” that being. One fundamental disagreement that Costello raises is that she does not think that

one needs “to be able to experience bat-life through the sens-modalities of a bat” (Coetzee 33).

Instead, she believes that since a living bat is “full of being” and a human being is “full of

being,” it is possible “to think our way into the life of a bat” (Coetzee 33). Where philosophy

would argue that simply “being” is not enough and differences in species matters, Costello

would counter that bat-being and human-being are “secondary considerations” (Coetzee 33).

Philosophy, according to Elizabeth Costello, should not be used to determine animal rights

because it does not ask the right questions; philosophy creates a disconnection between humans

and animals by limiting animals’ reasoning and by separating two living beings based on their

species.

Poetry, unlike philosophy, allows humans to connect to animals on an emotional and

spiritual level, thus enabling humans to act ethically towards animals. While philosophy deals

with reason and logic, poetry relates to one's emotions. One key difference between the two is

that emotions are subjective, so everyone has their own interpretation and understanding.

Costello’s first claim is that “animals stand for human qualities” (Coetzee 50) in poetry. Lions

represent courage and owls represent wisdom. Already, the emotional relationship to humans can

be seen. Poetry, according to Costello, requires the reader to “inhabit the body” (Coetzee 51) of

the animal rather than simply admiring it. Furthermore, it is not enough to embody the mind.
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One must become one with the body to truly connect. Poetry does not attempt to find reason or

logic within the animal, but “is instead the record of an engagement with him” (Coetzee 51).

This difference is key when trying to understand what makes philosophy and poetry different.

One important aspect of poetry that must be included is the relationship between the part and the

whole, or the individual animal and the broad ecosystem. In Ted Hughes’ poem The Jaguar,

Hughes is referring to a specific jaguar, not jaguars as a whole or as a species. This distinction is

important because according to Costello while it is true that in the “ecological vision” (Coetzee

53) each organism comes together to sustain life, each individual animal does not have the

survival of others in mind. Poetry allows mankind to relate to animals on an ethical level in ways

that philosophy can not. By staying away from logic, reason, and experiments, poetry can speak

to people without distancing itself from animals.

Coetzee utilizes several writing techniques that blur the line between fiction and non-

fiction. Unlike most stories, a large portion of The Lives of Animals takes place in lecture form.

This brings up the possibility that Coetzee is utilizing Elizabeth Costello as a way to display his

ideas without taking credit for them. Each character in the story plays an important role in

displaying the truth of the novel as well as challenging ideas that may be controversial. For

example, Elizabeth Costello’s role is to put forth the original thought process and ideas that first

come to mind. This explains why there are often questions that she is unable to answer. Next,

Norma represents the opposing argument. She is there to counter any ideas that come up and

provide a response to controversial ideas. John Bernard plays the mediator; he has to keep both

sides of the argument in check and make sure each side is accurate and logical. Each character

represents a part of the internal dialogue that Coetzee has while thinking of new ideas. Coetzee’s

novel illustrates the differences between the philosophical and poetic approach to animals very
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well because of the conflicting dialogue between the characters. The opposing ideas are

presented in ways that are easier to understand than a regular scholarly article.

In my opinion, Costello’s arguments are not fully convincing. While poetry is important

and unique in relating to one’s emotions, I’m not sure that a philosophical point of view should

be ignored. One area that I am confused about in Costello’s argument against philosophy is when

she is using Thomas Nagel’s “bat” question. Nagel claims that it is not within our mind’s

resources to be able to know what it is like for a being to be that being, which I agree with. We

can imagine ourselves as that being. Costello jumps to the conclusion that “she knows what it is

like to be a corpse” (Coetzee 32), which I am unsure how. Unless one has been a corpse, how

can they truly know what it is like to be one? This argument is used by Costello to claim that

since one is capable of “thinking their own death,” they are capable of thinking their way into the

life of a bat. I would argue that it is impossible to “think one’s own death” until they have died,

and therefore it is not possible to think their way into the life of another creature. Another area

that I disagree with is when Costello claims that bat-being and human-being are secondary

conditions when comparing what it means to “be.” While it is true that both are full of being,

they are fundamentally different in that they are different species. This difference is a roadblock

when trying to become something else. Of course one can imagine themselves as a bat or any

other species, but it will not be the same as being that being. Personally, I believe that both

philosophy and poetry are vital components when it comes to animals, and I do not think that I

can prove that one is more important than the other. Philosophy deals more with concrete

evidence to determine similarities and differences in the ways that species interact and

collaborate while poetry connects to the emotions of each individual reader and does so with

“complete indifference to their objects” (Coetzee 51). While they are equally important, I believe
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that poetry is easier to cause disagreements and conflicts. This is because each reader may

interpret the words in a different way, allowing for multiple individual truths, yet no universal

truth at all.