In a paper consisting of 7 pages the texts Notes from the Underground and Chelkash are used to illustrated how the authors employ animal imagery especially pertaining how the characters perceive others and look at themselves.
Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLanimal.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
what should define a man, and yet almost immediately refers to heroes and insects being at opposite ends of the scale of humanity, and uses terms such as swarming to
describe the way that different feelings conflict within him. Later, in chapter three, he distinguishes between normal men, whom he compares to bulls, and retort-made men who are, in effect,
mice. When faced with a desire for revenge, the former attacks the issue directly, without a great deal of forethought but with honesty and force. The latter, however, is scheming
and malignant, and constantly aware of his inferiority, as exemplified by his mouse-like characteristics. In addition, he is effectively powerless, and rather than taking his revenge and considering the matter
closed, allows his spite and vindictiveness to fester and rule his entire life. In chapter 9 he
looks at the tendency of human beings to focus on the process and not the objective, pointing out that men will construct grand buildings and then leave them for the
sheep and the ants: the latter, he asserts, are more worthy of respect because the ant-heap is both a work in progress and a finished structure, and the ants need
nothing more than this to be content. In Part 2, when the narrator describes
his youth, we see that he is attributing to himself many of the characteristics of the mouse-man whom he referred to with such contempt in Part 1. However, this time
the comparison is not with a mouse but with a fly - something which, we can assume, he sees as having a lower level of existence even than a mouse.