Canetti's Final Frontier: The Animal

Summary

Der Morgen, so lustig, als wäre er für immer angebrochen.

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The statements about animals in Elias Canetti's works reveal the scope and direction of the author's thought as few other topics do. In her anthology Elias Canetti über Tiere (2002), Brigitte Kronauer writes that Canetti's relationship to animals is indicative of the much-debated fascination with and concern about power that permeated all phases of his career as a writer and critic. Rather than considering Canetti the “ruthless tyrant who paradoxically criticizes the exertion of power” as some critics have characterized him, Kronauer emphasizes his desire for equality among all living beings:

Etwa unter der empörten Zurückweisung einer absoluten Sonderstellung des Menschen gegenüber dem Tier den generellen Ekel des Autors vor Machtanmaßung; sein Interesse für die Dynamik von Mengen und Massen bei der Darstellung großer Tierherden; seine Weigerung, sich trotz des unwiderleglichen Augenscheins mit dem Faktum des Todes abzufinden, also im Schlachthaus das Schlachten nicht zu akzeptieren, nicht zu glauben, daß etwas (hier die erschlagenen Schlangen im Sack) “ganz tot sein könnte.”

Scattered throughout Canetti's work, observations about animals and the relationship between humans and animals seem strangely at odds with the human-centeredness of the dominant philosophies and ideological programs of his era such as Marxism, fascism, existentialism, and humanism. In fact, there is a development in Canetti's thoughts on animals that leads from his earlier, mostly abstract configuration of the concepts “man and animal” as myth or metaphor to a more literal understanding of animals and to a real concern for their well-being in a world increasingly dominated and devastated by humans. “Die Laute der Wale. Im Grunde empfinde ich Scham, diese friedlichen Laute von Geschöpfen zu hören, die sich gegen uns nicht zur Wehr setzen können,” he wrote in 1992 (Tiere, 98). Such statements transcend the anthropocentric patterns of the post-Enlightenment and place Canetti into the context of post-humanist, postmodern movements concerned with ecological issues and animal rights. For example, in a statement made in 1985, Canetti expressed his refusal to take part in the domestication of nonhuman animals, which would result in making them subservient to him: “Kein Tier hat ihn erkannt. Er war keinem Tier geheuer. Er weigerte sich, ein Tier zum Diener zu nehmen” (Aufz. 1942–85, 530).