Hunting in War and Peace and Fowling in Anna
Karenina
Abstract
This paper looks at the depictions
of hunting in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace
and fowling in Anna Karenina to
figure out the kinds of multi-species leisure politics in these two novels.
Both these novels are well-known for presenting well-rounded depictions of
human characters. However there is a lack of depth in depicting non-human
animal characters in these two works and this paper places such narrative
techniques in the broader literary career and life of Tolstoy. The paper
associates the depth of depiction with sensitivity and empathy towards
non-human animals. It looks at leisure activities in these two novels where
other animals, in addition to humans, derive pleasure. However, it points out
that whereas pleasure of some non-human animals is emphasised, empathy towards
other non-human animals is not evoked. It points to a hierarchy of
relationships. The paper seeks to explore the politics and ethics of such
relationships.
The paper also comments on the
general nature of the hunt, and cites secondary scholarship on the politics and
leisure of multi-species leisure activities involving dogs. The paper highlights
the relevance in the twenty-first century of revisiting literary artefacts from
an earlier period, such as the nineteenth century, in order to foreground
ethical and political issues and use it to frame our present and future actions.
The paper concludes by positing imaginative literature as an apt method for imagining
another species and highlights these two novels as being prime examples of
reading such imagination or empathy for another species.
Keywords
culture,
history
Article
Introduction
Multi-species leisure is a term
which is open to interpretation. Are humans privy to the mental thought-process
of any species other than itself? Even if humans think that they can empathise
with another species, can humans represent that species? Or is the issue of
representation of another species an exercise in anthropomorphism, where other
species may not be represented in terms of human behaviour and according to a
human paradigm, but where the non-human species is thought of using human
parameters. These are some of the larger issues that perhaps have no single
answer but remain open to subjectivity.
Literature provides an apt
perspective for addressing this issue. A literary text, in the form of a poem,
a play-text, or a novel or a short story, is a work presenting the author’s
subjectivity. It rarely lays claim to presenting an objective view of its topic
of representation.
Animals often feature in literary
works. Most often, animals feature in human language in the form of metaphors,
and this use of language is carried forward into literary works. Metaphors
usually say more about the subject being compared rather than the object to
which the subject is being compared. Animals usually feature as objects in
metaphors. Claude
Lévi-Strauss, in his work Totemism, writes that natural species are
chosen as totems because they are ‘good to think’ with (Lévi-Strauss, 1991). Going beyond Durkheim’s and Radcliffe-Brown’s reasonings for choosing
animals as totems, Lévi-Strauss cites Rousseau and writes:
Metaphor, the role of which in totemism we
have repeatedly underlined, is not a later embellishment of language, but is
one of its fundamental modes. Placed by Rousseau on the same plane as
opposition, it constitutes, on the same ground, a primary form of discursive
thought. (Lévi-Strauss, 1991, p. 102)
Writers
use animal metaphors because metaphor is one of the primary forms of discursive
thought. Animals in metaphors are usually zoomorphised humans, and usually the
subjects of the comparison are human beings, whereas animals only feature
tangentially as objects of the comparison. However, animals also feature in
literary works in other forms, such as animals that serve as identifiers of the
natural world and provide a backdrop or a setting for a discourse on human
nature, such as in pastoral literature; or anthropomorphised animals,
reflecting on human nature. Very few animals appear in literature as animals per se, where the work tries to present
either an interior view of the mental faculties of animals in order to
understand them as fellow creatures of the writer, or a view of animal-human
relations in society. Animals are often presented, even in this category, with
human beings, but the focus is firmly on the animals and either their inner
lives or their relationship with humans, as opposed to the focus on humans in
the earlier three forms.
One may question even this last form
of representation, and question whether the non-human species is ever actually
represented or whether it is ultimately a human projection of animals and
ultimately a kind of anthropomorphism, but one which reflects on human-animal
interaction rather than reflecting solely human behaviour. However, this form
remains the best method to understand multi-species interaction in literature.
Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) is
one of the most famous examples of such representation. There are several other
such examples of literary multi-species interaction. However, when it comes to
multi-species leisure, the number of examples is obviously fewer.
Multi-species leisure is perhaps
always thought of in terms of the definition of leisure according to human
parameters. Thus, running, walking and swimming (not for work but for relaxing)
are thought of as leisure for animals as well. Human beings can ultimately
perhaps understand another species only by its own parameters and project unto
another species its own ideas, and defined by multi-species interaction,
analyse the other species again by human parameters. The other species thus
lies in a relationship of interaction, followed by external projection by
humans, then reflection by humans and finally representation by humans.
Hunting is one of these human-animal
interactions which human beings often classify as leisure. Hunting is often
also classified as work and not as leisure. The essay also analyses these
aspects of the hunt. The main focus of this essay, however, is to look in
detail at representations of hunting and allied activities in two exemplary
works of literature, Leo Tolstoy’s War
and Peace and Anna Karenina, in
order to analyse other issues concerning multi-species leisure. These two
novels are chosen because they are well-known literary works and also because
among the myriad topics that these two novels address, multi-species leisure is
an activity which stands out. Whereas in War
and Peace, the multi-species leisure is often difficult to trace and a
reader needs to read with special focus in order to find such markers, in Anna Karenina, multi-species leisure is
highlighted more strongly.
Body
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (first published in its entirety in 1869) and Anna Karenina (first published in its
entirety in 1878) are well-known for presenting balanced views of its
characters where the view-point of most major characters are presented and used
as a tool for understanding their actions. There are no explicitly villainous
or evil characters in these two works. Anna Karenina and Vronsky’s actions form
one of the central plots in the text in spite of leaving behind a trail of
broken lives in their wake. The novel is based on the reader empathising with
these two characters despite their actions which destruct not only them but
also those around them. Similarly, in War
and Peace, Anatol Kuragin’s affair with Natasha Rostova is marked by
Kuragin’s for-the-nonce pleasure. If there is one character in War and Peace who is portrayed in a
relatively negative light, it is Anatol Kuragin. Yet, Tolstoy’s style of
depicting most major characters involves giving the reader an idea of the
character’s thought-process. Anatol is not described as a villain. Rather he
too is described as a human being with his own ways of thinking. In not
de-humanising any character and not marking a character out as a villain, it
may be argued that the third-person omniscient narrator does not condemn this
character’s treatment of other characters. On the contrary, all kinds of
actions are condoned by the narrator in a kind of a way. Such however is the
narrative style that Tolstoy follows in these two novels.
One of his descriptions of Anatol
Kuragin is as follows.
Anatol was
always content with his position, with himself and with others. He was
instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was impossible for him to live
otherwise than the way he lived, and that he had never in his life done
anything base, but he was quite incapable of considering how his actions might
affect others, or what the consequence of this or that action might be. He
believed that just as a duck had been created to live in water, so God had
created him to spend thirty thousand a year and always to occupy a prominent
position in society. He was so firmly convinced of this that looking at him
others were persuaded of it too, and refused him neither a leading place in
society nor the money he borrowed right and left, obviously with no notion of
repaying it...All that he cared about was pleasure and women; according to his
ideas there was nothing ignoble in these tastes, and as he was incapable of
considering what the gratification of his desires entailed for others, he was
quite sincere in regarding himself as an irreproachable man, felt genuine
contempt for wrongdoers and scoundrels, and with a clear conscience held his
head high.
Rakes, those male Magdalens, cherish a secret
belief in their own innocence similar to that of female Magdalens, and based on
the same hope of forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much;
all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.” (Tolstoy, 1980, Vol.2, Part 5,
Chapter 11, pp. 686–687)
Anatol’s
behaviour is justified if the reader looks at him as he looked at himself.
The point of this example was to
highlight the balanced and well-rounded style of portrayal of characters that
Tolstoy uses in these two novels. Tolstoy’s style of depicting the mental
thoughts of characters is not restricted just to human characters. He also
depicts the mental workings of non-human animal characters, especially hunting
dogs. However, Tolstoy fails, in these two novels, to present a well-rounded
style of portraying hunted or preyed upon animals and birds. He also does not write
much about the horses used for riding out to the hunt, be they riders on
horseback or in carriages drawn by horses. The horses in Tolstoy, more often
than not, are barely discussed.
The nineteenth century Russian
land-owning aristocracy which Tolstoy depicts in these two novels was heavily
invested in hunting. Tolstoy himself partook of such pleasures before his spiritual conversion in the 1880s, after which
he renounced not only hunting but also eating meat. One of Tolstoy’s early
works, ‘The Bear Hunt’ (published in 1872, about a real-life n incident in
1858) is a testament to Tolstoy’s early hunting phase. Whereas in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy as a writer is able to attribute a mental
thought-process to the hunting dogs, it took Tolstoy till the 1880s to also be
able to empathise with the hunted animal, and which in turn led him to renounce
hunting completely.
Empathy with animals is a developing trait in Tolstoy’s works and
one can thus argue also in his life. Josephine Donovan, in an article titled
‘Tolstoy’s Animals’ (Donovan, 2009), looks very briefly at depictions of
animals in a few shorter fictional works by Tolstoy—‘Snow Storm’ (published in
1856, a story about getting lost where animals play a very minor part), ‘Strider:
The Story of a Horse’ (published in 1886, though begun in 1861, a story which
deals primarily with a horse and is almost like a bildungsroman; it
belongs to that uncommon genre of imaginative literature which deals primarily
with animals and human-animal relations), ‘Master and Man’ (published in 1895,
similar in theme to ‘Snow Storm’ and where animals, again, play a minor part)
and ‘Esarhaddon, King of Assyria’ (published in 1903, a story about empathy and
imagining oneself in another creature’s position and then behaving unto that
creature — including animals — as one would unto oneself). Donovan points out
that while his later works, especially ‘Strider’ and also ‘Esarhaddon’ to an
extent, deal with animals in a more sensitive manner, his earlier works also
carry some traits of his sensitivity which developed more fully later on.
A more explicit statement of Tolstoy’s
beliefs can be found in his aphoristic work, A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, a kind of
common-place book, which has several entries dealing with human-animal
relations. This work, A Calendar of
Wisdom, was written across a period of almost twenty years and was one of
Tolstoy’s last major works to be published. Tolstoy’s changing sensitivities
regarding animals could also be gauged from an earlier work, his 1892 preface
(titled ‘The First Step’) to Howard Williams’ The Ethics of Diet. In that preface Tolstoy describes his
experiences in visiting slaughterhouses, where he used to go in order to see
what industrialisation had concealed from public view—the slaughtering of
animals for meat. Tolstoy wanted to be responsible for his actions and so he
wanted to visit his scenes of crime
as it were, in order to let its full moral effect sink into him.
Ivan Turgenev, with whom Tolstoy had
a difficult association, once visited Tolstoy at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana,
and wrote about the strong impression that Tolstoy’s close sense of kinship
with animals, especially a horse, made on Turgenev. Jospehine Donovan also
mentions this in her article cited earlier (pp. 45–46). Even those who did not
have unqualified admiration for Tolstoy, also remarked on Tolstoy’s affinity
with animals, in the later stages of his life.
All these works, both fictional and
non-fictional, highlighted the changing and changed sensitivities of Tolstoy.
However, War and Peace and Anna Karenina are works from a different
period of Tolstoy’s life, pre-spiritual conversion as it were, and though the
reader can read a heightened sensitivity towards non-human creatures in these
two novels, the works lack sensitivity towards hunted animals.
For what they are worth, the
depiction of the hunting scenes in these two novels, present a kind of
multi-species leisure—human master and faithful dog on one side, and the hunted
bird or animal on the other. The dog is as interested in the hunt as the human
master, if not sometimes even more, as Tolstoy depicts. Whereas in War and Peace, there is a depiction of
hunting mammals, in Anna Karenina, it
is shooting of birds or fowling. Fowling and hunting are two distinct
activities, yet they are connected by their concepts of the game.
In my earlier research, I had
analysed some aspects of the hunt (Ghosh, 2017). It is worthwhile to
recapitulate some salient points over here. The word ‘hunt’ descends from a
proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘to catch, to seize’. Hunting has
conventionally been understood to refer to the hunting of animals by animals
(this includes humans in both roles). Other forms of human activity often use
this as a metaphor, such as ‘hunting for the truth’, ‘sexual predator on the
hunt’ and so on, and the hunting scenes in both War and Peace and Anna Karenina
can also be read metaphorically (such as the hunt in War and Peace providing a contrast for Nikolai’s success on the
battlefield, or the fowling in Anna
Karenina providing examples of Oblonsky’s self-sufficiency, Velsovsky’s
casual attitude and Levin’s wavering luck), but even if one restricts oneself
to hunting of non-human animals by humans, what constitutes hunting is a
difficult question.
Conventional common sense is that
when humans hunt, the hunted animal has to be big enough for the hunter to see
from a distance of say ten metres or so, because it is difficult to hunt
animals smaller than the size of say a bird. Thus, flies are not hunted in the
conventional sense of the term ‘hunting’ though ‘catching’ or ‘seizing’ such
small creatures is a common human practice. The hunted animal’s fastest speed
of movement is also an important factor. Animals whose fastest speeds are
significantly slower than the fastest speed of humans, such as cows, are
usually not ‘hunted’. They are captured, seized, devoured, but the verb ‘hunt’
is not usually used in case of cows. Rather, the verb used is ‘butcher’. Fishes
are also not ‘hunted’ in this sense. Size and maximum speed are perhaps the
only two conditions which are common to the animals commonly ‘hunted’ by
humans.
From my study of the reasons why
humans hunt, I think the kinds of hunting can roughly be categorised as
follows.
1.
Hunting for food
2.
Hunting to remain safe from wild animals
3.
Hunting to kill vermin
4.
Hunting for pleasure
5.
Hunting as a show of status
6.
Hunting out of peer-pressure
7.
Hunting for obtaining medical, cosmetic and sartorial goods
8.
Hunting as a mark of protest
9.
Hunting as a show of bravado
10.
Hunting as training
The
hunting in War and Peace and the
fowling in Anna Karenina fall into
the fourth category listed above, that is, hunting for pleasure.
The hunt in War and Peace takes place in Book 2, Part 4, Chapters 3-6. There
are three distinct hunts that take place though all happen on the same trip.
The first is a hunting of a wolf, the second is a hunting of a fox, and the
third of a hare. In Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play A
Woman of No Importance, one of the characters says ‘...one knows so well
the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the
uneatable.’ It is interesting to note the choice of prey in War and
Peace — only the hare is conventionally consumed by humans. Wolf meat and
fox meat were and still are rarely eaten by humans. The wolf and the fox were
not the primary choice of prey till the 19th century. They were most
often viewed as vermin and fell into the third category above. The deer was the
primary prey in 16th and 17th century Europe. When
over-hunting had drastically reduced the deer population by the 19th
century, wolves and foxes became significant animals hunted for pleasure in
Europe, and from their status as vermin, they changed to animals hunted for
pleasure.
In War and Peace, like in a lot of hunting
narratives, the depiction of the hunt offers vicarious participation for the
reader. Through the detailed portrayal of the
almost-successful-yet-momentarily-unsuccessful-but-finally-successful hunt,
Tolstoy offers the readers similar kinds of anguish and tension that the
portrayed characters also seemingly endure. Several features of the depiction
of the hunt stand out.
One
is the sincerity and passion of the hunters. Nikolai Rostov, in the heat of the
moment, thinks the hunt is the most important aspect of his life. This getting
carried away by the present and the constant changing of priorities is a
characteristic feature in both these novels. Pierre Bezukhov’s changing
priorities, Nikolai Rostov’s changing love interests, Levin’s changing
agricultural schemes—one of Tolstoy’s distinctive narrative style in these two
novels is to show that life is unexpected and what may seem very important at
one point of time in life may seem insignificant in the larger scheme of
things. It is the same with Tolstoy’s notion of history, where seemingly
important historical actions are often of little consequence in shifting the
stream of a larger historical narrative.
The reasons for Napoleon’s defeat and the course of the war, as analysed by
Tolstoy, bear testimony to this claim. Tolstoy also claimed that whereas the
historian often has to bend events to fit into a grand narrative, the artist,
on the other hand, is free to not have any narrative and on the contrary
present as many views as possible.
This is one of the reasons why characters in Tolstoy’s works are often
well-rounded and balanced, as he chooses a narrative style of presenting
multiple views about most of his major characters. Also, just as Tolstoy
encourages the reader in War and Peace
to read against the dominant narrative and to read between the lines and make
all possible connections; similarly, Tolstoy’s own narrative can also be read
against, and it is in the spirit of Tolstoy to read between the lines of
Tolstoy’s narrative and try to uphold issues such as those concerning animals
and multi-species interactions and leisure.
During
the hunt, Nikolai Rostov is depicted as thinking of the hunt as of supreme
importance in his life.
…Nikolai, with a shamefaced awareness that at the sight of the hunting
weather, the hounds, and the huntsman, he was being carried away by that
irresistible passion for the chase which makes a man forget all previous
intentions, as a lover forgets everything in the presence of his mistress. (p.
597)
[Nikolai] prayed
with that passionate compunction with which men pray in moments of intense
emotion arising from trivial causes. “Why, what is it to Thee,” he said to God,
“to do this for me? I know Thou art great and that it is a sin to ask this, but
for God’s sake, make the wolf come my way and let Karai get his teeth in his
throat and finish him off…”No, that won’t be my luck,” thought Rostov. “It
would be worth anything! But it won’t happen. I’m always unlucky — in cards, in
war, in everything!...Just once in my life to run down a full-grown wolf — I
want nothing more!” he thought…(pp. 604–605)
“Ulyulyu!” cried Nikolai in a voice not
his own… (p. 605)
That instant
when Nikolai saw the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray
coat and outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in
terror and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of
his life. (p. 606)
Nikolai
is extremely high-strung and passionately involved during the hunt.
The second important feature of the
hunt in War and Peace, as opposed to
the fowling in Anna Karenina, is the
participation of women. Natasha Rostova is compared to Diana by one of the
huntsmen, Ilagin. However, she plays a minimal part in the actual hunting
though she is clearly impressed by it and is joyous at its successful
completion. This is in contrast to the fowling in Anna Karenina where the shooting functions as a male get-together
away from the world of women and offers Levin a world where he can indulge in
manly activities with his male acquaintances away from the world of cares and
familial obligations. This dichotomy is not implicit and is not left to the
reader to deduce. Tolstoy makes Levin explicitly aware of it. In doing so, it
may be that Tolstoy was offering a critique of the exclusively male hiatus, or
maybe he was depicting a more realistic view of the way society functioned.
Levin’s awareness of this dichotomy bothers him and attracts him at the same time.
The opulence of the landed class in
these two novels is striking and extends to the hunt as well. About a hundred
and fifty dogs were used in chasing an old she-wolf and her cubs in the
Otradnoe forest in War and Peace.
What is missing from the description
of the hunt though is empathy for the prey. It is interesting to note that even
wolf cubs do not elicit any empathy from Tolstoy the narrator. This sentence
quoted earlier to illustrate a different point — ‘That instant when Nikolai saw
the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray coat and
outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in terror
and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life’
— is the only mention of the horror that the prey feels.
The hunt was a social activity with
its own set of rules and etiquettes. The character referred to as ‘Uncle’ cuts
off a pad off the hare and gives it to the dog, Rugai, who had managed to kill
the hare. This was in keeping with hunting etiquettes mentioned regularly in
hunting manuals in Europe over the course of several centuries, such as The Boke of St. Albans (first published in 1486) and Jacques du Fouilloux’s La vénerie
(first published in 1561).
The fowling in Anna Karenina involved guns, unlike the hunting in War and Peace. The fowling in Anna Karenina is also less elaborate and
less opulent than the ones in War and
Peace. There are no ventures involving one hundred and fifty dogs to hunt primarily
one prey! The shooting in Anna Karenina
always involve Levin, and mostly take place when Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky
goes to Levin’s estate primarily to shoot. Levin’s estate in the countryside
with a lot of animals, appears to Oblonsky mostly as a game preserve. He makes
specific trips to Levin’s estate only to indulge in fowling. It is a kind of
leisure tourism or a shooting or fowling tourism. The first shooting takes
place in Part 2, Chapter 15 (Tolstoy, 2016) when Oblonsky and Levin shoot woodcocks.
The second shoot is very briefly described and does not take place on Levin’s
estate but rather when Levin goes to visit Nikolay Ivanovich Sviyazhsky in Pat
3, Chapter 26 (p. 332).
The hunting dogs in War and Peace often appear very eager in
the hunt. In Anna Karenina, Levin’s old
dog, Laska usually appears more eager than even Levin and other humans in
participating in the venture. During the shooting of the woodcocks in Part 2,
Chapter 15, Levin asks Oblonsky whether Kitty had gotten married to Vronsky and
Oblonsky replies that the marriage was called off and Kitty had fallen ill. On
the heels of this discussion came this bit of the narrative:
As they were
speaking, Laska had pricked up her ears and was gazing both up at the sky and
also reproachfully at them.
‘A fine time to
talk,’ she was thinking. ‘There’s one on the way…Sure enough, here it is.
They’ll miss it…’ thought Laska. (p. 168)
Unlike
War and Peace where the hunted
animals are chased down by the dogs and the humans on horseback, in Anna Karenina, the shooting is usually of
birds which are gunned down by the humans and brought back to them by the dogs.
There is also an extremely brief mention of a bear hunt in Anna Karenina in Part 4, Chapter 1–2 (p. 359) with the help of a
peasant stalker (Russian: obkladchik)
who tracks the bear and drives the animal towards the hunter, and the
subsequent measuring of the bear-skin (Part 4, Chapter 7, pp. 378–379).
The most detailed depictions of
fowling in Anna Karenina take place
in Part Six, Chapter 8–10, 12–13 when Oblonsky brought along Vasenka Veslovsky
to Levin’s estate with the express purpose of shooting in another example of
fowling or shooting tourism. Oblonsky, Veslovsky and Levin go away on a two-day
shooting trip. The scene begins with the depiction of the eagerness of Laska,
Levin’s old dog, and Oblonsky’s dog, Krak.
The next day,
the ladies had not yet risen before the trap and the little cart which made up
the two hunting vehicles were standing by the front steps, and Laska, aware
since early morning that they were going shooting, and having yelped and leapt
about to her heart’s content, was sitting next to the coachman in the trap and
looking anxiously and with disapproval, due to the delay, at the door, through
which the sportsmen had still not emerged. The first to appear was Vasenka
Veslovsky, wearing new high boots…Laska came bounding up to greet him, and
after leaping about, asked him in her own way whether the others were going to
come out soon, but when she received no reply from him she returned to her
waiting-post and again sat stock still, with her head cocked to one side and
one ear pricked. At last the door opened with a crash and Stepan Arkadyich’s
gold-brindle pointer Krak flew out, spinning round and turning over in the air,
followed by Stepan Arkadyich himself, with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his
mouth. ‘Down, Krak, get down!’ he reprimanded the dog affectionately when it
thrust its paws on his stomach and chest, and got them caught up in his
game-bag. (p. 577)
Later
when Levin comes out to inspect the trap, there is the following passage.
‘Sorry,
gentlemen!’ he said, running out onto the steps. ‘Have you put the lunch in?
Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn’t matter. Stop it, Laska, go
and sit down!’ (p. 578)
The
best descriptions of the multi-species leisure evident in a hunt is to be found
in passages like these, where the eagerness of the human hunter is matched with
the eagerness of the hunting dog, for both of whom the hunt provides an eagerly
looked forward to pleasure activity. The depictions of the hunting dogs are in
keeping with Tolstoy’s style of creating well-rounded balanced characters and
trying to see events from all possible sides. As mentioned earlier, he however
fails to depict the perspective of the hunted prey to any significant extent.
Just like Anna Karenina and
Vronsky’s actions which form one of the central plots in the novel, leave
behind a trail of broken lives in their wake and Anna Karenina is based
on the reader empathising with these two characters despite their actions which
destruct not only them but also those around them, similarly the descriptions
of the fowling in Anna Karenina encourages the reader to empathise with
the human shooters and their successes and failures, and even with Laska, the
dog in the company of Levin, one of the major characters in the novel. The text
does not encourage the reader to empathise with the hunted animal or bird. It
is only in reading against the grain that one can choose to view the hunted
animal or bird at all, who is otherwise obliterated in the discourse of the
narrative.
Reading against the grain also
raises the issue of human-horse relationship in these two novels and
specifically in the hunt in War and Peace.
There is not too much scope for reading against the grain here for there is
very little material to read into. In Anna
Karenina, there is the scene of the horse race (Part 2, Chapter 25) in
which Vronsky takes part with the horse Frou-Frou. The scene describes the
close harmony where both Vronsky and Frou-Frou know exactly what to do and when
and when one anticipates the movement of the other. However, the reader’s
belief is shattered when the narrative takes a turn for the worse and the close
synergy between horse and man is shown as false and empty, as Vrosnky fails to
keep pace with Frou-Frou and due to his incorrect movements, Vrosnky ends up
accidentally fatally breaking Frou-Frou’s spinal cord. The horse is later euthanised
by being shot. The multi-species leisure activity that the horse and the man
take part in ends disastrously for the man and fatally for the horse. There are
no other leisure activities with significant depiction of horses in either
novel. Some concern is shown for the horses, such as horses being driven too
fast during regular transportation, or Vronsky’s estate managers being stingy
with grains for horses of visiting guests—but such activities are not leisurely
activities, nor do such passages say or intend to say much about the horse.
Those passages primarily reflect human characteristics, such as reflections on
Vronsky’s estate, or eagerness of the human riders in riding the horses too
fast. In War and Peace, there is very
little description about the horses during the hunt.
Other examples of passages in Anna Karenina which depict multi-species
leisure are when the shooters reach the first and the second shooting spots.
They had barely
managed to stop before the dogs were already haring off towards the marsh,
racing one another.
‘Krak!
Laska!...’
The dogs came
back.
‘Not enough room
for three people. I’ll stay here,’ said Levin, hoping they would not find
anything other than the lapwings, which had soared up away from the dogs and
were crying plaintively above the marsh, wavering as they flew.
‘No! Come along,
Levin, let’s go together!’ Veslovsky called.
‘Really, there
won’t be room. Laska, come back! Laska! You won’t need another dog, will you?’
(pp. 580–581)
When they
reached the second marsh…Krak went straight for the tussocks. Vasenka Veslovsky
was the first to run after the dog…
Levin was
beginning to be consumed with huntsman’s envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky
and walked into the marsh.
Laska, who had
long been whining pitifully and complaining about the injustice, sped off
ahead, straight to a reliable patch of boggy ground covered with tussocks which
Levin knew, where Krak had not yet been.
‘Why don’t you
stop her?’ shouted Stepan Arkadyich.
‘She won’t scare
them off,’ answered Levin, pleased with his dog and hurrying after her.
(pp. 581–582)
The
humans and the dogs seem to be deriving equal amounts of pleasure. The
‘hunstman’s envy’ that Tolstoy attributes to Levin is comparable to the
hunting-dog’s envy that Tolstoy also depicts between Krak and Laska. When
Levin’s shooting was going haywire, he came across a more successful Oblonsky.
The meeting is described as follows.
Before he saw
Stepan Arkadyich he saw his dog. Completely black from the stinking mud from
the bog, Krak leapt out from behind the upturned root of an alder and began
sniffing Laska with the air of a conqueror. (p. 587)
The
longest stretch of the narrative devoted to Laska occurs on the second day of
the hunt and occupies most of pages 595 and 596, and hence too long to quote in
full. The passages describe Laska’s style of hunting and the close synergy
between man and dog and the equal amounts of pleasure that both derive from the
exercise.
As can be seen from these examples
of hunting and fowling in War and Peace and Anna Karenina,
multi-species leisure is an important aspect of these activities. Yet certain
species are privileged over others. Animals are segregated into three kinds—one
that of the hunted prey; two, that of the intermediary between the hunting
human and the hunted non-human animal. This intermediary is also a non-human
animal. The third kind of animal belongs to the species homo sapiens. This
relationship involving three parties, where two parties derive pleasure at the
expense of the third, and the entire relationship is co-ordinated by only one
of the parties—casts the parties into a clear hierarchy with the human animal
on top lording over the canine intermediary and the base of the ladder occupied
by the mammalian or avian prey.
Neil Carr, in a book titled Dogs
in the Leisure Experience,
analyses several aspects of this relationship and hierarchy among humans,
hunting dogs and hunted animals. His work does not discuss Tolstoy or literary
artefacts but is rather concerned with social practices. Carr points out
several issues which are relevant to the discussion here. He briefly points out
the debates surrounding the legality of the fox hunt in the United Kingdom (pp.
43–44) and whether the joy the hunting dog may feel (pp. 51–53) justifies the
pain and the fear that the hunting dog, which is ultimately used as a tool or
an intermediary or a middle animal (in the way we have middle-men or
agents) as it were by the human hunter, may feel (pp. 46–48). Carr however does
not provide any answers as to how multi-species leisure can be truly
multi-species and not primarily subservient to human needs. He recognises that
hunting dogs would be bred less and perhaps even made extinct if there is a
lack of a ready market for employing such hunting dogs. Dogs which will serve
well as pets in small apartments and so on would be bred more. However, Carr,
like Tolstoy, does not question the ecological sustainability of the practice
of hunting.
In the twenty-first century when
climate change is one of the most pressing concerns and is even responsible for
multi-national wars (such as the Syrian war), ecological sustainability is a
pressing concern. Multi-species leisure has to take into account whether it is
sustainable over a long term. Hunting for pleasure, as opposed to killing for
food, or killing for medicines or cosmetics or sartorial goods to be used by
humans, can be unsustainable. Think of the deer in early modern Europe and the
paucity of such practices in the twenty-first century. Even if one were to
discount the ethical conundrums that Tolstoy faced later on in his own life and
which forced him to change his views and lifestyle, whether hunting can be a
multi-species sustainable leisure activity is an ethical, political and vital
question for human beings in the twenty-first century.
Carr points out in his work that
dogs like running and humans who like dogs want their dogs to be happy and run.
Hunting, however, is one of the least natural forms of encouraging a dog to
run. Advocates of hunting may perhaps use the examples from War and Peace and Anna Karenina to point out the multi-species leisure that hunting
entails. What such a reading however obliterates is the lack of empathy for the
hunted creature, the lack of sustainability of such a practice, and the ethical
issues of using one animal as an intermediary to express dominance over another
creature.
When we think of leisure in the
twenty-first century, revisiting literary artefacts from an earlier period,
such as the nineteenth century, helps in foregrounding ethical and political
issues which were often overlooked in earlier times. Our modern concerns make
us excavate the past and reconsider it, in order to form a better idea of the
present and the future. For instance, leisure tourism in Anna Karenina is often fowling or shooting tourism when it comes to
Oblonsky in Levin’s estate. Whereas in the nineteenth century such tourism was
rarely considered unethical or unsustainable, such tourism in the twenty-first
century is usually extremely debatable. Organisations such as the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) often promote articles where
hunting tourism is considered good for the hunted species and for other
non-hunted animals in general. Such is the thrust of an article by Chris Brown
of the Namibian Chamber of Environment (Brown, 2017), who points out that
rather than pitting humans against animals in a battle for resources, where
humans would undoubtedly dominate over animals, if humans can use animals for
their economic benefit, they would try to look after the animals as in doing
such ‘husbandry’, humans too stand to gain monetarily. Chris Brown, in that
article, points out two kinds of animal conservation — one followed by Namibia
where hunting tourism is encouraged (and where over 70% land is used for
wildlife management) and one followed by Kenya, where it is not supported, and
points out that Namibia has now a greater amount of wildlife than in the last
150 years, whereas in Kenya wildlife continues to decrease despite
discouragement of hunting tourism. He also points out that once forest land is
converted into agricultural land or industrial land or buildings, there is very
little chance of recovering the forest and the wildlife within. Then wildlife
is only restricted to natural reserve pockets rather than large masses of land.
On the other hand, conventional
wildlife conservation practices would emphasise separation of wildlife husbandry
and wildlife consumption from wildlife tourism, and making humans gain economic
benefits from such tourism through other means, such as in the form of tourism
service providers. This debate about best practices of wildlife conservation is
not the main thrust of this article and this debate has very little significance
with respect to the two novels by Tolstoy. However, this debate provides a
modern concern about multi-species leisure, whereas one can read other concerns
about multi-species leisure in War and
Peace and Anna Karenina.
Conclusion
When one thinks of multi-species
leisure, humans can only guess at what other species may understand by leisure
and pleasure. Imaginative literature occupies a unique space in its ability to
represent human projections about the mental thoughts and concerns of other
species. Empathising with another entity requires one to imagine oneself in
place of the other. Literature enhances the ability and scope for imagining
oneself in other roles, and thus enhances the ability to empathise with another
entity, be it even an entity of a different species. Thus, when one thinks of
multi-species leisure, one is forced to imagine the other species and empathise
with it. Literary texts provide a good example of such empathising, and these
two novels in the realist mode by Tolstoy are prime examples of such methods of
understanding multi-species leisure.
Works cited
Ghosh,
D. (2017). Writings on Animals in Early Modern England. Ph.D. diss. Jadavpur
University.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1991). Totemism,
trans. Rodney Needham. London: Merlin Press.
Tolstoy,
L. (1968, rpt. 1980). War and Peace,
trans. Ann Dunnigan. New York: Signet.
