Under the Lilacs (1878)

AUTHOR: Alcott, Louisa May

The kind of food mentioned explicitly in this novel includes nut cakes, cake, cheese, and fruit but the eating of animal flesh is never mentioned. Emphasizing the moral imperative to show kindness to animals, to respect their lives and communities, the novel dramatizes the network of values that promote the practice of ethical veganism: the importance of education and religion for children, the moral educational and disciplinary methods of Lydia Maria Child and Catharine Beecher, the avoidance of meat-eating, and concern for animal welfare. While women are placed “in their sphere” (the domestic world of the kitchen, house-making, and raising children), the character Miss Celia encourages the girls to succeed in sports and to beat the boys.

In other of her writings for children, notably "The Whale's Story," Alcott dramatizes verbal and other forms of communication between humans and other-than-human animals by manipulating narrative focalization and perspective. Here, scenes are narrated from the perspective of Sancho the dog or Chevalita the horse or even a flock of chickens; the chirpy interjections of birds is reported as direct quoted speech; and the function of the narrator at times is to translate the body language of non-human animals.

KEYWORDS: food and diet, animal welfare, moral education

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen):

Bab and Betty Moss, two young girls, find that their picnic has been eaten by a stray poodle who performs circus tricks for them; when the poodle, Sancho, returns a few days later he runs away with their dinner pail, which is restored to them by the dog’s owner, Ben Brown. Ben is a young boy of eleven who has run away from the circus after the ringmaster beat him and mistreated him. After Ben proves his worth as farm laborer he is hired  by Miss Celia, to be a domestic help and a companion to her sick brother. Ben again proves his value when he rescues Miss Celia who has a fall while horseriding. Ben is an example of the Alcott protagonist who is distinguished by a capacity to communicate with non-human animals, both by speech and gesture: the narrator reports that he "talked to animals as if they were people, and was understood much better than any one not used to their companionship would imagine" (174-175). Ben is understood and, reciprocally, non-human animals understand him: “Sancho had listened to this portion of the tale with intense interest, and when Ben spoke to him he stood straight up, put both paws on the boy's shoulders, licked his face with a world of dumb affection in his yellow eyes, and gave a little whine which said as plainly as words,— ‘Cheer up, little master; fathers may vanish and friends die, but I never will desert you’” (34). This capacity to exchange across species lines is part of the general harmony with which Ben relates to the natural world.

Sancho seemed to share the longing, for he kept running off a little way and stopping to frisk and bark; then rushed back to sit watching his master with those intelligent eyes of his, which seemed to say, "Come on, Ben, let us scamper down this pleasant road and never stop till we are tired." Swallows darted by, white clouds fled before the balmy west wind, a squirrel ran along the wall, and all things seemed to echo the boy's desire to leave toil behind and roam away as care-free as they (56).

The dog Sancho communicates in a body language that Ben can comprehend while Ben's desires are communicated by birds, a small animal, the clouds, and the wind. Ben represents the uncorrupted ethos of a person who lives in connection with nature.

Ben and Bab run off to see the circus, where Sancho is stolen because he displayed his value as a performer. The narrator laments, “Oh, luckless Bab! why did you turn your back? Oh, too accomplished Sancho! why did you neatly untie that knot and trot away to confer with the disreputable bull-dog who stood in the entrance beckoning with friendly wavings of an abbreviated tail? ” (158). Ben learns from a travelling organ player that he saw a dog perform in New York who spelled his own name, “SANCHO,” and the group conspire to learn more; eventually, they discover that the dog has since run away.

Ben mourns the loss of Sancho and is accused of having stolen money from Miss Celia (it was actually eaten by mice), so to apologize and to raise his spirits, Miss Celia’s brother, Thornton, and Betty go to town to buy a few gifts for Ben. Betty sees some boys stoning a dog and recognizes him as Sancho; as Betty leads Sancho away to safety, Thornton tells the boys that he should report them “to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (210), which was founded by Henry Bergh in April 1866.

 

Last updated on February 10th, 2024

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