Thou Shall Not Take His Name in Vain

Emma McCluskey

In The Case of the Animals versus Man, we are introduced to conflict between, as may have been guessed, animals and mankind. Animals are fighting on their own behalf to argue against the notion that God created them intentionally as slaves, which is the claim the humans are making. On page 108, the King calls for many groups of people and beings to join court for a sort of hearing, and “(takes) his seat to judge the case of the animals against the delegates and advocates of men.” He begins with mankind, who list attributes such as “upright carriage”, “keen senses”, and “superior intellects” (109) as justification for their role as master. These are compared to the “bent backs and bowed heads” (109) of the animals, and similarly, slaves. The human spokesperson also calls upon the word of God, and claims that obeying or rebelling against them, is the same as doing so against God.

Within this scene, there is a high amount of tension. The spokesmen is playing heavily on religious beliefs, and on phrasing that will come across as sensible and undoubtedly correct to the King, regardless of the truth. However, the reliance on these physical traits as the deciding factor is not logical, or even close to the high standard of argumentation set by the animal spokesperson mentioned in the assignment posting. One can argue in the first place about the logic behind the validity of slavery at all, but it is definite that trying to use these characteristics as examples of “God’s” categorization of beings is ridiculous.

Additionally, with all of this reliance on God, this spokesperson and these people are not being true to their beliefs. A well-known and oft-used guideline is to not use His name in vain. Now, most may compare this to phrases such as “god damn,” but this can also be used against situations such as these. Not only within this story, but within a lot of religious experiences both fictional and non-fictional, God is used as a weapon against others, the various religious writings used as tools to win arguments. This is not and never was the intent of either of these things. For all of the talk of positivity, kindness, compassion, and love in these texts, it should be obvious, but still people continue to misuse these, which is exactly using God’s name in vain. This perfectly highlights both flawed logic and inconsistency with claimed beliefs.

The Rabbit versus The Horse

In The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn, readers are shown the differences between humans and animals and the challenges of coexistence. Over the course of the book, the animals criticize humans, deny human superiority, and make powerful arguments advocating for justice. On the other hand, the humans claim that the animals are their slaves and humans are their masters. 

However, one the specific section involving the rabbit and the horse demonstrates an inconsistency in the logical arguments of the animals. The underlying reason for the animal’s arguments was to stop the discrimination in the hands of humans. However, readers see a part of the text where the rabbit calls the horse stupid, which raises tension and irony. Being the speaker, the rabbit discriminates against the horse, despite also complaining about humans discriminating against animals.The rabbit can be seen to be hypocritical in this situation, but the humans also display irony when describing the character of the horse. Prior to this section, the humans use extremely negative descriptions when describing animals, yet the humans describe the horse to have “handsome form and fine proportions, well knit frames, pure colours, and glossy coats,” (122). They also bring up “the horses are sharp witted. They have keen senses and they’re well mannered…” (122). This description of the animals is ironic because the humans explain their own kind to be superior over animals due to  “fair form, erect stature, upright carriage, and keen senses, our subtle powers of discrimination, our sharp minds and superior intellects all show that we are the masters…” (109). The humans see the horse to be a symbol of the human race. Since the horse is useful, they have no problem describing the horse to have the same traits to those of a human. 

The rabbit describes the horse to be the same as how a human describes animals. The rabbits adds that horses have a lack of insight, implying that horse is stupid and not loyal to their own. The horse is to be described “like a sword…without sense, sentience, or spirit, as quick to behead the owner who burnishes it…” (123). In this sense, the rabbit describes the horse to be a symbol of war or a symbol of humanism. The rabbit implies that the horse is good for nothing, ultimately betraying it’s own kind, just like humans. When thinking about horses being a weapon of war, humans are usually at the forefront of war. Humans wage wars against their own kind, betraying each other in the process. By discriminating against the horse, the rabbit is no better than the human. The rabbit takes away the animalistic qualities of the horse and replaces these qualities with those of a human.

By Brieanna Anderson

The Case of the Animals Versus Man Before the King of the Jinn

In the story The Case of the Animals Versus Man Before the King of the Jinn we are shown the struggle of coexistence between animals and humans. The animals want to live a peaceful life without worrying about getting hurt. Meanwhile, the humans believe that the animals are their birthright right making them come to the conclusion that the animals are only there to suit the needs of the humans as they see fit whether it be to help humans transport goods from one place to the next or even as a source of food. With this being said humans truly believe that they are the masters over all animals and that any animals that flee from them are just runaway slaves that need to be recaptured.

For instance, the passage exclaims, “They saw all sorts of animals – beasts, cattle, birds, and carnivores – all living in peace and harmony with one another secure and unafraid,” (Goodman, pg 101). The humans see nothing wrong with what they are doing in fact they truly believe that every animal present is there of their own free will. The irony of this statement is that a few paragraphs before the aforementioned quote the passage tells us that any animals that tried to avoid humans were to be hunted down and trapped as these animals were nothing more than runaway slaves to them. This shows that even if their words and actions don’t line up humans truly believe that not only are animals only here to serve them but humans also believe that the animals are doing so happily and of their own free will.

• Antonio Jacobo

Alas, a Ribbit is not a Roar

Alejandro Joseph Serrano

There are definitely some instances of when the moral of the story in Aesop’s fables, some of which had just been shoehorned in to give the story some semblance of meaning. In one infamous fable that makes no sense, as well as the moral provided by the translator, is the fable “The Camel Who Shat in the River,” which has such a confusing message in both the original text and the included moral, that it had taken a good portion of the class to find several different layers with no real conclusion; instead, it was decided that it should be left up to interpretation. However, the fable I will discuss today will not deal with the shitting camel, but rather the fierce Lion and the little Frog, affectionately called, “The Lion and The Frog.”

 

In the story of The Lion and The Frog, the Lion hears a frog croak, and he believes it comes from a large creature. He waits so he can see the loud beast, but when he sees that it is but a small frog, he crushes it under his paw and exclaims, “So much noise from one so small!” The moral underneath then goes on to state that, “This fable applies to people who are all noise and have no substance to them.”  Now, I feel as if there are several confusing articles to this fable. First of all, it doesn’t seem like the Lion’s style to just kill another animal without the intention of eating it. As is seen in other fables, he would either kill other animals so that he may consume them or he would converse with them in a regal fashion. In the fables assigned, he has not killed a single animal without reason, except in this one.

 

Second, the moral feels as if it were a tad confusing. When the moral says it, “applies to people who are all noise and have no substance to them,” it makes it sound as if the main character of the story is the frog. However, it makes very little sense since he is only presented to the Lion for such a short time before meeting an untimely end. With such a grim demise for one croak, despite how loud it was to the lion, it has very little bearing on the story. If the Frog had more dialogue or even had more to do in the story, then maybe the fable would at least make the moral have some sense in the end.

 

In the end, although the moral of the fable did not feel as if it were a strong enough moral, it now feels also feels mildly ironic that the story is all noise with a moral to match, and yet neither has the substance to support each other.