The Mythology of Masquerading Animals, or, Bestiality

Author(s): WENDY DONIGER

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Social Research, Vol. 62, No. 3, In the Company of Animals (FALL 1995), pp. 751-772
Published by: The New School
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971119 .
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The Mythology of
Masquerading
Animals, /
or,Bestiality / BY WENDY DONIGER

Cultures throughoutthe world representour deceptive

relationshipswithanimalsas masquerades,whichoperate in
both directions:in our rituals,humansoftenmasqueradeas
animals,butin our mythswe imaginethatanimalsmasquerade
as humans.The mostintenseversionof thisuniversalthemeis
thetale of thebestialdeception,the masqueradeof an animal
as a humanin the mostintimateof all relationships.
Whatdo
the mythsof bestialmasqueradetells us about the ways in
whichhumanshave fantasizedabout theirrelationships with
animals?

WakingUp WithAnAnimal

You wake up in the morningand discoverthatyou have

been in bed all nightwithan animal(or a god in theformofan
animal):thatis thefantasy thatunderliesboththefolktales and
the literaryretellingsof those tales about figuressometimes
called "animallovers."(Unfortunately, thistermis oftenspelt
witha hyphen,which produces a potentialconfusionwith
animal-lovers, people whoare fondof straycatsand dogs. It is
easierto distinguishanimalhusbands-as theFrogPrincesare
-
usuallycalled fromthosewho engage in animal-husbandry.
Of course,the partnerof an animalloveris, in a mostliteral

SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Fall 1995)

752 SOCIAL RESEARCH

sense, even a bestial sense, an animal-lover.) Freud's Family

Romance (in which the child's parents turn out to be other,
better people than his apparent parents) often involves
animals, for the changeling child may be raised by or among
animals, so that the animal is a maternal surrogate, like a
wet-nurse,impersonatinga mother; or the child may be sent
out to be killed, whereupon the compassionate killer relents
and killsan animal instead,takingback its heart (or tongue) as
proof of the murder, so that the animal is a sacrificial
surrogate, impersonating the sacrificial victim. The Family
Romance presents two complementary animal paradigms:
often,lowlyanimals are assimilated to the lower class people
who adopt a royalchild; as animals are below humans, so lower
classes are regarded as naturallybelow higher classes. But, on
the other hand, animals may be assimilated to gods and
regarded as the high parents of children who appear to be
lower- merelymortal.
Even in folktaleswhichlack an explicitreligiousagenda, the
union of a human and an animal has theologicalimplications.
Midas Dekkers has suggested that the myth of Leda
impregnated by Zeus as a swan is the source of the mythof
Mary impregnatedby God: "Christwas born of a virginand a
dove; Christianitytoo is founded on bestiality.. . . Bestialityis
present at the very cradle of Christianity.Bestial tendencies
can be discerned not onlyin the Christchild himself,but in the
gathering assembled round the crib" (Dekkers, 1994, pp.
9-10). The assembled animals are evidence not so much of the
bestial parentage of the Christ child but of his place in the
mythologyof the Family Romance. For Jesus, followingthe
pattern of the birth of the hero already established by
Oedipus, Romulus and Remus, and many others (and later
continued in Tarzan and Mowgli), is taken from his noble
parents (in this case, God) and nurtured by animals before
being raised by parentsof lower birth(Dundes, 1990). Like all
the children of Leda and her swan,Jesus "is at the same time
the product of bestiality(man x animal) and of theogamy(god
 BESTIALITY 753

x man). . . . Human beings are, so to speak, marryingboth

beneath and above their station"(Dekkers, 1994, p. 10).
The donkey has special meaning in Christianmythology,as
Gerard Kornelis van het Reve argued in 1966/7:

WhetherGod is a Lamb withbloodilypierced feetor a one

year-old,mousey grey donkey, which allows itself to be
possessedbyme at lengththreetimesin successionin itsSecret
Opening,whatdifference does itmakeas longas He takesaway
the sins of the world,and has pityon us all? ... I shall put
bandagesaroundHis hooves,so thatI shallnotreceivetoomany
grazeswhenHe thrashesaboutat themomentof orgasm(cited
in Dekkers,1994,pp. 127-28).

Here we may be reminded of Apuleius's famous pornographic

novel of the man who turned into a golden ass. The Dutch
parliament may well have suspected the lecherous spirit of
Apuleius, rather than the devout spirit of Saint Francis,
hovering over this argument, for it accused van het Reve of
sacrilege.

The MutilatedEquine Foot

Van het Reve's image of the donkey incorporatesan

importantsymbol, the wounded foot, in particular the
wounded footof the equine. The horse is one of the most
evocativeof mythologicalspecies, straddlingthe boundary
betweenthe wild and the tame (O'Flaherty,1981, ch. 6).
Mutilatedfeetare a centralthemein Europeantalesof equine
masqueradesto whichthe associationof witcheswithhorses
adds anotherdimension,forabnormalfeetwere regardedas
"a recurrent
signof contrariness,and, in women,of deviancy"
(Warner,1995,p. 121). Here is an exampleof such a story:

[A Czechfarmhand went]wherethewitcheswerehavingtheir
feast.. . Now,whenhecamethere,
thefarmer'swifeknewhim,
and,to hideherselffromhim,sheturnedherselfintoa white
horse.Buthedidnotlosesightofthehorse.He mounted itand
754 SOCIAL RESEARCH

wenttothesmithwithit,and toldhimtoshoeit.Nextdaythe
womanhad fourhorseshoeson,twoon herhandsand twoon
herfeet.Andshehadtostaylikethatalways!
(Baudis,1917,pp.
191-92).
Thus, the men in the story(and tellingthe story)impose
cultureon thewomen:ifitis a horse,itcannotbe a wildhorse
but mustbe controlledthroughitsfeet,likeCinderellain her
impractical glassshoes.
Why does thefoot,particularly themutilatedfoot,playsuch
an important role in mythologiesof thesexualmasqueradeof
animals throughoutthe world? Feet functionas signs that
allowa particularindividualto be recognized.Moreover,they
are signsnot merelyof individualidentityand class identity
but of the identityof the species as a whole. In Hindu
mythology, one identifying sign of mortalsis thattheirfeet
touchtheground,whilethegods floateverso slightly aboveit,
like hovercraft1- just as Jesus walked on the water. Magic
animals,on the otherhand, cannotalwayswalkon water:A
hunterformedan alliancewitha beaverwomanwhorequested
thathe build her a bridgeto preventher feetfromtouching
water.He neglectedone spotand she reproachedhimforhis
carelessness:I onlyasked theeto help me dry-footed overthe
waters.Thou didstcruellyneglectthis.Now I mustremainfor
everwithmypeople (Lang, 1885,pp. 76-80). But whyshould
feetthattouch the groundbe a sign of mortality? Perhaps,
because it is the pointof the bodywherewe are earthbound.
As MarinaWarnerhas put it,"Feetare ascribedtelltalemarks
of identityand origin,perhaps throughthe literal-minded
wordplayof theimagination, sincetheyare thelowestpartof
thebodyand in touchwithearthas opposed to the heavens"
(Warner,1995,p. 115). We continueto speakof feetof clayas
a metaphorfortheweakspot,themortalspot.The heelof Eve
is bruisedby the serpent(thatsloughsitsskinin immortality)
as she is banished from Eden for her transgression- a
transgression thatresultedin hermortality, and in ours.In this
context,we mayrecallthemutilation of thefeetofJesuson the
 BESTIALITY 755

cross- and note that in medieval textsJesus is sometimes

referredto as the hunted stag whose hoof is stainedwith
blood.
The mutilatedfootmay functionas a synecdochefor the
mortality of the human body as a whole. We speak of the
Achilles'heel and pointto our own Achilles'tendonsas the
signof our mortality, the place whereAchilleswas held when
he was dipped into the watersthat made the rest of him
immortal,the place where he remained vulnerable and
throughwhichdeath enteredhim. (As anyoneover fifty will
we
testify, might more properly refer to our fatalweaknessas
the Achillesknee: who ever had arthroscopicsurgeryon a
heel?) Like Achilles,the incarnateHindu god Krsna is killed
whena hunternamed,surelysignificantly, "Old-age"mistakes
him foran animaland shootshim in the foot(Mahabharata,
Book 16).
Carlo Ginzburg,followingthe lead of Claude Lévi-Strauss
(1963), offersa magnificent surveyof theliterature on people
distinguished by extraordinarily large or otherwisedeformed
feet,ending with the "devil's goose foot, equine hoof, or
lameness"(Ginzburg,1991, p. 258). Lameness,here listedas
an afterthought amongdistinguishing marks,providesthekey
to the meaningof the feet thesemyths,as Ginzburgnotes
in
withreferenceto "Achilles-son ofa goddesswithsomeequine
characteristics,likeThetis,raisedby the centaurChiron."He
goes on to spellout some of thesemeanings:

Malformationsor imbalancesin gaitdifferentiate

beings(gods,
men,spirits)
suspended betweentherealmofthedeadandthat
of the living.. . . The symbolicequivalenceof swollen,
deformed, scorched, or simply
barefeetreceivesconsiderable
confirmationoutsidethecircleof myths withinwhichwe have
beenmoving. In themultiplevariants
ofan apparently
marginal
detailareencloseda thousand-year-old
history
(Ginzburg,1991,
p. 232).

This is a most tellinginsight,with relevance not only to

756 SOCIAL RESEARCH

distinctionsbetween humans and immortalsbut between

humansand animals.

Bipedsand Quadrupeds

For the feet symbolizeour separationnot only fromthe

gods, above us, but fromthe animals,below us (or, by some
also above us). That our feetare indeed the sign
calculations,
ofour humanconditionis confirmed byour basicway(derived
from Aristotle)of classifyingthe animal orders: bi-peds,
quadrupeds, and six-leggedinsects.2This assumptionwas
satirizedbyGeorgeOrwellin AnimalFarm,whentheold prize
boar,Major,taughttheanimals,"Whatevergoes upon twolegs
is an enemy.Whatevergoes upon fourlegs,or has wings,is a
friend"(p. 21). AftertheMajor'sdeath,theclever,wickedpig
Snowballmade thesesentencesintothe firsttwoof the Seven
Commandments (p. 33), but when he realizedhow illiterate
mostof the animalswere,Snowballreducedit to the slogan,
"Fourlegsgood,twolegsbad,"whichthesheepbleatedout to
stiflediscussionon anypointthatthepigsdid notlike(p. 40).
When the birdsobjectedthatthisexcludedthem(sincethey
had two legs and twowings),Snowball,ignoringthe earlier,
more subtle Commandmentbut thinkingon his four feet,
argued thatbirdswere actuallyquadrupeds: "A bird'swing,
comrades,is an organof propulsionand notof manipulation.
It should thereforebe regardedas a leg. The distinguishing
markof manis thehand,theinstrument withwhichhe does all
his mischief"(p. 41). Years later, when the pigs had
thoroughly betrayedtherevolution, theanimalssaw a terrible
a
sight: pig walking on his hind legs,followedbya wholerow
of them."Somedid itbetterthanothers,one or twowereeven
a trifleunsteadyand lookedas thoughtheywould have liked
the supportof a stick.. ." The animalswereabout to protest
whenthe sheep bleatedout, "Four legs good, twolegs better]
Fourlegsgood,twolegsbetterl" (p. 122). And at theend of the
 BESTIALITY 757

book, when the pigs and the humans were celebratingtogether

in the Manor House, the animals noticed somethingthe matter
withthe pigs' faces: "No question, now, what had happened to
the faces of the pigs. The creaturesoutside looked frompig to
man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but
already it was impossibleto say which was which" (p. 128). To
walk upright is the final betrayal,the final denial of the real
barrier,the final lie.
Orwell, as usual, merely anticipates and exaggerates "real
life," for the line between birds and the quadrupeds called
horses was also recentlyblurred in a Canadian court:

In Reginav. Objivway, a Canadian court found that a horse

a downpillowin place of a saddlehad legallybecomea
carrying
bird.The SmallBirdsActdefineda birdas "a two-legged animal
coveredwithfeathers," and thecourtagreedthattwolegswere
merelytheminimum requirement.The case reportwascertainly
meantas satire,but textbookshave reprintedReginavs. Ojibway
withoutcomment,and generationsof law students have
repeatedit (Wachtel,1995,p. 6).
Of course, if two legs are "merelythe minimumrequirement,"
then we, too, are legallybirds when we wear ostrichplumes on
our hats.
Mary Douglas, in her analysis of the "abominations of
Levicitus,"the listsof animals that the Hebrew Bible declares
inedible, has taught us the implications of this classifying
systembased upon not only the number of legs but the means
of locomotion:

In the firmament two-legged fowlsflywithwings.In thewater

scalyfish swim with fins.On theearthfour-legged anmalshop,
jump or walk.Anyclassof creatureswhichis not equipped for
the rightkind of locomotionin its elementis contraryto
holiness.[One listof forbiddenanimals]wouldappear to consist
preciselyof creaturesendowedwithhandsinsteadof frontfeet,
whichperversely use theirhandsforwalking.. . . Sincethemain
animal categoriesare defined by their typical movement,
"swarming" whichis not a mode of propulsionproperto any
particularelement,cuts across the basic classification.... If
758 SOCIAL RESEARCH

penguinslivedintheNearEastI wouldexpectthemtobe ruled

uncleanas wingless
birds(Douglas,1966,pp. 41-58).

Animalsthemselves do seemto be structuralists, at leastto the

extentthattheyclassifypotentialpredatorsaccordingto their
gaits:yourown horsesdo notrecognizeyou ifyou limpbadly
enough (whichis particularly gallingsincethe limpis oftena
resultof fallingoffthem), and theyshyviolently at thesightof
lame people and especiallyat lame horses. The category
"human"or "horse" is definedby the gait, and a creature
withoutthatgait cannotbe a human or a horse. "Category
error!"theirfrightened eyesproclaim(to a structuralist rider),
just as the shufflinggait of the homeless identifies them
instantly to us whoare well-heeled(sic),and we shyawayfrom
thosewho are "downat theheel."
The "wronggait"maybe natural(snakesmove differently
frombirds)or unnatural,theresultofa mutilation (a birdwith
a brokenwing).Animalsoftensuffermutilations of theirfeet
when theytransgressthe boundarybetweenthe human and
the animal, a boundaryestablishedby their feet. We, by
contrast,sufferinjuriesto our legs when we move in the
opposite direction,tryingto separate ourselves from the
animals.The injuryto the foot symbolizesthe hobblingof
uprightness and theinauthenticityof our relationship withthe
earth.But it also symbolizesthe deal thatwe made withthe
devil: the use of our hands forthe loss of the powerof our
(four) legs. By walkingupright,we gain the use of the
opposable thumb ("the organ with which he does all the
mischief,"as Orwell'spig putit).We wintheprivilegeof being
artisansby givingup the swiftand secure movementsof
quadrupeds.The mythological sacrificeleads, in real life,to
chroniclowerback pain.
Hephaestus,the artisanof the gods, is lame. Achilles'heel
was also thesourceof his greatgift:Achillesis theman "swift
A similarsacrifice,
offoot"parexcellence. in whichthewounded
foot stands as a metaphor for the artist,is implicitin
 BESTIALITY 759

Philoctetes'festering, stinkingfoot(woundedfromthebiteof
a serpent,liketheheel of Eve),whichwas thepriceforhisskill
as an archer.3The metaphorof thefootwoundedbyan animal
-here, a serpent-makesclear the sourceof our problematic
humanity.The particularassociationof horsesand wounded
legsis an intrinsicpartof themythof Chironthecentaur,who
purchased his skill
as a physicianat thecostofhisownconstant
pain from his wounded foot- and who was the tutor of
Achilleswiththe fatalheel.4And, on the otherborderof the
human,we sufferthemutilation of our feetwhenwe cease to
in
be gods (as Eden) and becomereal humanbeings.
Feetdistinguish us fromanimals,so thatwhenwe are bestial,
thefirstthingto go are thefeet.Hence,as MarinaWarnerhas
noted, devils still have animal feet- they are not yet fully
transformed- and bestialwomenalreadyhave animal feet-
they beginningto be transformed.
are The sexistequationof
womenand animalsgivesriseto one of the greatjokes about
standingupright,Samuel Johnson'sremarkthat "a woman
preachingis likea dog'swalkingon hishindlegs.It is notdone
well; but you are surprisedto find it done at all" (Boswell,
1791,p. 287).
Carlo Ginzburghas argued persuasivelythat the human
experienceunderlyingour mostbasic classificatory systemis
thatof thehuntertracking an animalbyitsfootprints. He sees
the footas a sign,the greatmetonomy:the hunterknowsthe
animalby its footprints, tracks,traces(Ginzburg,1980). This
technique was eventuallytransferredfrom the realm of
prehistorichuntersand gatherersto that of scientistsand
remainsthebasisof manyof our taxonomies.(As humankind
beganto standupright,we movedfromthefootprints tracked
by Neolithichuntersto the fingerprints trackedby Sherlock
Holmes). Noting the importance of the footin paleontology,
for instance,Ginzburgcites a statementmade by Cuvier in
1834:

Today,someonewho sees the printof a clovenhoof can

760 SOCIAL RESEARCH

concludethattheanimalwhichlefttheprintwasa ruminative
one,andthisconclusion as anythatcanbe madein
is as certain
ormoralphilosophy.
physics Thissingletracktherefore
tellsthe
observer
aboutthekindofteeth, thekindofjaws,thehaunches,
theshoulder,and thepelvisof theanimalwhichhas passed
(Cuvier,1834,p. 185).
It maywellbe thatthe memoryof thisancientand enduring
way of knowingthe identityof a creatureoperates,sub-
consciously,to bringfeetand footprints intoso manyof the
of
myths masquerade in which identityis in question-the
identityof thechild,or theidentityof the parent.
The riddleof the footis theriddleof the FamilyRomance.
Oedipus's foot is the the key to the Sphinx's riddle: the
creaturethatgoes on fourfeet,thentwofeet,thenthreefeet,
is thehumanbeingwhocrawlsas a child(or an animal),walks
uprightas a man,walkswitha cane as he ages- and then,we
mightadd, dies. Oedipus himselfis thatman; hisname means
"SwollenFoot,"and his feetare piercedwhen,at hisbirth,he
is exposed on the hillside-amongthe animals.His mutilated
feetfurtherconnecthim,especiallyin Lévi-Strauss's analysis,
withothermortalswho are paradoxically bornfromtheearth
and born fromtheirmothers;theyremindus, too, thatwe
werebornof theearth,notof thegods (Lévi-Strauss, 1963).

Nightand Day

Throughout these stories, we encounter the contrast

betweenday and night."Mynightis yourday,"saystheBeast
inJeanCocteau'sfilmofBeautyandtheBeast.There is an hour
of twilight thatthe Frenchcall "entrechienet loup"("between
dog and wolf").That is wherethesestoriestakeplace,forthe
transitional, marginal,liminalanimal transgressesthis most
basic of all boundaries.Indeed, in Latin (and in manyof the
Romance languages derived from it), the very words for
twilightor dawn(lux)and wolf(lue)are etymologically related;
 BESTIALITY 761

thewolfis thetwilight animal,or, ifyou prefer,twilight

is the
hourof thewolf.
But thereis a significantdifferencebetweenstoriesin which
the primaryallegianceof the creatureis animaland thosein
whichit is human (or divine). Storiesabout animal lovers
presenttwovariantsof a singletruth:a humanbeingis really
an animal. But the weightof realityis placed differently in
differentvariants,so that when the storyends, and the
masqueradeis over,eitherthereis a human,or thereis an
animal. It does matter.Generallyspeaking,the formsare
distributed as in StithThompson'smotif(B 640.1): "marriage
tobeastbyday,manbynight."This is thepatternofBeauty and
theBeast,the storythatis in manywaysthe paradigmof this
entire genre, in which a monstrousgroom of unspecified
zoologicalnatureis equated withuglinessin contrastwiththe
definingbeautyof his bride.5She thinkshe is a beast,but at
night,by the lightof the forbiddencandle,she discoversthat
he is a handsomeprince.The reversealso occurs,however,
whentheloverappearsto be a humanbyday butbecomesan
animalat night.An exampleofthisis Shakespeare'sMidsummer
Night'sDream,in whichthe magicof the nightand the dream
and themoonlight givesBottomtheWeaverthehead of an ass
and bewitchesTitania into believingthat he is a handsome
suitor;in thelightof day,Bottombecomesa weaveragain,and
both he and Titania have onlya dim memoryof his animal
form.
The key seems to be that the true formis the one that
appears at night-an interesting assertionof the primacyof
whatis hidden,the timeof dreaming,over whatis apparent,
thetimeof theworkadayworld.Sometimesthetrueform,the
nightlyform,is human (when a man or woman has been
bewitchedinto becominga beast,as in some variantsof the
SwanMaidentheme,or in thetaleof Malusine),butsometimes
the true form is animal (when an animal or a demon
masqueradesas a human,likethe snakeloverin India or the
fox womanin Japan). This patternof diurnaland nocturnal
762 SOCIAL RESEARCH

images of women is expressed in an Oriya proverbthat

"capturesthisambivalentattitudetowardwomensuccinctly:
'Beautifulas a picture by day; a cobra-womanby night'
('Dinorecitrini, ratirenaguni')"(Marglin,1985,p. 242).
The twoimagesofanimalbydayor bynightare conflatedin
thefilmLadyhawke, said (bythefilmmakers)to be "based on a
thirteenth-century A
European legend." lady and her lover
suffera double curse: she is transformed intoa hawkby day
and he intoa wolfbynight:"Onlytheanguishofa splitsecond
at sunriseand sunsetwhen theycan almosttouch,but not."
The cursewasto be broken"whenthereis a daywithoutnight,
a nightwithoutday." This supreme liminality was a solar
it
eclipse; beingday, the knight already human,and as
was a
the moon obscuredthe face of the sun, the hawkbecame a
womanand stoodbeside him.They rode offintothe sunset,
presumably to livehappilyeverafter.In thisstory,ridingoff
intothe sunsetis moremeaningful thanthe usual Hollywood
finale; at last the hero and heroine are able to bear the
dangerous,liminalmomentthatseparatesthehumanfromthe
animal.
Storiesabout animalswho lose theirshellsor sloughtheir
skinsare also about souls sheddingbodies, about all of us
shuffling offour mortalcoil. In manyHindu stories,where
one person entersanotherperson'sbody, people burn the
bodyof thetravelling soul,wronglythinkingthatit is dead, so
thatit cannotget back into the body any more (O'Flaherty,
1984). (This is also the premiseof the filmHeavenCan Wait
and itsvariants, suchas HereComes Mr.Jordan).The lossofthis
body is like the terrible moment when the human burnsthe
animal'sskinso thatitcannotreturnto itsownworld.It means
you have to keep on goingforward.But the Hindu Vedantic
modelaccountsforjust one halfof the possibilties, assuming
that the body is unreal and the soul real. What if the
animal- and the body- is the true self, the human- the
imaginedsoul- the masquerade?Then if someoneburnsthe
skin,theanimalis doomedto be unrealforever, and whenwe
 BESTIALITY 763

die, and our bodies decay,we die forever.Onlyour children

liveon.
Barbara Fass Leavy has useful insightsinto the way that
realityfallson thebestialside moreoftenforthewomanthan
forthe man in theSwan Maiden storiesthatshe has studied:

Animalgroomandanimalbridestories inthattheanimal
differ
groom'sdisenchantment seemsto be basedon an assumption
thatthehumanformis thetrueform,thebestialshapesome
(exceptin storieswherea demon'shumanform
aberration
a deception),
constitutes whereasa basic assumption about
womanis thatherbeastformdefinesheressential being
The womanmaypreferthebeastto theprince, prefer,thatis,
therestraints
debasednatureas she resists it is
of civilization:
thenshewhois the animal,her beastparamourvirtually an
extension ofherself
or projection (Leavy,1994,pp. 221-22).
The statement made by thesestories,thatwomenare animals
(most recentlytranslatedinto the structuralist paradigm:
women / men = nature / culture),a bias that has been
attributedto the male authorshipof mostof our texts,has
been challenged(by SherryOrtner,among others6),and we
mightmarshallthe evidenceof a different selectionof stories
to challengethe sexismof the paradigmby pointingout the
equally frequentoccurrenceof storiesin which men are
animals(thoughtheyare different sortsof animals).Indeed,
MarinaWarnerarguesthatthereare moremaleanimals:"The
Beast has been primarilyidentifiedwiththe male since the
story'searliestforms"(Warner,1995,p. 279). Or, moresubtly,
we mightargue thatthewomanwho is theanimalis themore
civilizedof thetwopartners.
Stuart Blackburn,challengingBruno Bettelheim(1986),
commentson the psycho-sexual meaningsof the transforma-
tionfromnightto day,viewedfromthe man'spointof view:

if our tales expressnot femalebut male anxietiesabout

adulthood andmarried life,thenwealsoneeda reinterpretation
of the 'animalby day, husbandby night'patternin these
animal-husband tales.Froma femaleperspective,as Bettelheim
764 SOCIAL RESEARCH

observes,suchan alternation makeslittlesense(animalbynight,

humanbydaywouldmorelogically expressfemalesexualfears),
but he explainsawaythisanomalyby interpreting the animal
the
during day as a projectionof her inabilityto facerealityon
the morningafter:'What seemed lovelyby night,'he writes,
'looksdifferent by day' [Bettelheim, 1986, p. 297]. Bettelheim
does hintat a male perspectivewhen,two pages earlier,he
hypothesizesthat the distinctionbetweenthe nocturnaland
diurnalidentities oftheanimal-husband represents a man'swish
to keep his sex lifeseparatefromeverydaylife.But it remains
curiousthatthe non-sexualidentity is the animalform.(Is the
man, too, overcomeby morning-after guilt and denial?) A
separation between sexualand ordinaryexperienceexistsin our
tales,too, but it is maintainedneitherby a masculineneed to
isolatesex nor by a femalefearof sex. Rather,I believe,the
"turtleby day, princeby night"patternof our tales reflectsa
male fear of sexualityat home and a male wish fulfillment
outside the home. The distinctionto be made, then,is not
day/night, but internal/external, the domesticversusthe public
(Blackburn,forthcoming, p. 30).

This is in harmonywithA. K. Ramanujan'sinterpretation of

thesnakeloverstoryas a taleof tworealms,privateand public
(Ramanujan, 1991). In a French tale, the serpent lover
reassuredthe womanthathe could become a man when he
choseand askedwhethershe preferred himin humanformby
or
day bynight. "His wifereplied that she preferredhimto be
a manat night,forthusshe wouldbe lessterrified; byday she
would have less fearthanby nightto have a beast near her"
(Delarue,1956,pp. 178-79). Here, bothformsare real,but,as
usual,thenightly formis thepreferred form,thechosenform,
as wellas theprivateform.It is,in a sense,themorerealform.
The samechoiceis presented, withmanyothernuances,bythe
LoathlyLady,who oftenasksher husbandwhetherhe would
preferherbeautifulbyday (in public)or bynight(in private)7,
and is sometimes askedwhethershewouldpreferherhusband
an animalbydayor bynight(Leavy,1994,p. 290). The lifeof
the day and the nightmay also serve as analogies for the
worldsof lifeand fiction,as ElaineShowalterhas remarkedof
RobertLouis Stevenson'sdreamofleading"a doublelife- one
 BESTIALITY 765

of theday,one of thenight."She comments:"The doublelife

ofthedayand thenightis also thedoublelifeofthewriter, the
splitbetween reality and the imagination"(Showalter,1990,
pp. 106-7). Or, as I would put it, the twilight
of the animal
loveris thetwilightof the myth.

Animalsas People,Peopleas Animals

To cross the boundaryfromone group to another,from

animalto humanor fromdivineto human,is, in a sense,to
masquerade,to "pass." Thus, we are punished (or, if you
prefer,unmasked)by the mutilationof our feet when we
masqueradeas humaninsteadof animalsor gods,and animals
or demons suffermutilatedand/orinhumanfeet,too, when
theymasqueradeas humans.
Animalsfunctionin the mythology of masqueradein two
differentways. On the one hand, since the mythmakers
themselves,by and large,livedcloselywithanimalsand could
see how they behaved, they used animals (snakes, horses)
consciouslyas naturalmetaphorsto expresstheirideas about
humanand divinesexualityand masquerade;and by looking
at the animalsin myths,we can learn somethingabout those
ideas. Cuckoldersare cuckoos;theword"cuckold"comesfrom
"cuckoo"by the obviousanalogy(thoughwithan interesting
switchof gender):thebirdlaysher/his eggs/sperm in another
bird'snest.Clearly,we look to theanimalkingdomto findthe
imageswithwhichto expressour sexualambivalences.
But in additionto seeinganimalsthroughthe mythmakers'
eyes,we can also look at animalsourselvesand see aspectsof
animal behaviorof which the mythmakers may have been
unaware;and we can make our own, different mythological
judgementsabout our own animal natures.For mythsmay
expressnotonlyhumanobservations ofanimalsbuttheanimal
of
parts ourselves, the parts thatour bodies rememberand
thatour minds-our superegos,formalizedby society-may
766 SOCIAL RESEARCH

suppress.This realizationwillhelp us to understandsome of

the unconsciouslevelsof symbolism in the myth,some of the
ways in whichthemythmakers think,withoutbeingawareofit,
simplybecausethey,too,are animals.As StevenJayGould put
it, we are to some extentjustifiedin "backreading"our
emotions into animals, because we are animals, and we
understandourselvesbest(Gould, 1995).
Let us, therefore,firstconsiderthe animalsin our myths
that express ideas about human nature, and then let us
considerwhatwe knowaboutanimalsthatshedslightupon the
questionsabout humannatureraisedby the myths.Whatdo
these animals symbolize?Charles Rycroftoffersthe best
answerI know:

The aptnessof animalsin generalto providemetaphors must

dependon thefactthatin somewaystheyresemblehuman
beings,whereasinotherrespectstheydo not,themostobvious
way in which do
they being that theyare born,live and
die,
eventually themost obviousway whichtheydo notbeing
in
thattheylackthepowerofsymbolic thought.Itmustbe thisfact
thatanimalshavedrives,passions,motives,a willto live,but
cannotspeakaboutthemor,so faras we know,reflect upon
them,thattheyhavebiological butcannotconceive
destinies of
biologicaldestiny,whichmakesthemsuch apt and such
frequentlyusedsymbols thosepassionsand drives
forprecisely
whichare hardestto put intowords,bothintrinsically and
becausetheyareliabletorepression 1979,
(Rycroft, pp. 84-8).
That is, the animalswantto do all the thingsthatwe wantto
do, but theylackthelanguageand self-reflexion to tellstories
about them.They share our sexualitybut not our storiesof
sexuality.
E. M. Cioran,on the otherhand, sees our sexualitynot as
animalbut as an escape fromour animality: "Ecstasyreplaces
sexuality. The mediocrity of the human race is the only
plausible explanation for As
sexuality. the only mode of
comingout of ourselves,sexualityis a temporarysalvation
from animality.For every being, intercoursesurpasses its
biologicalfunction.It is a triumphover animality.Sexualityis
 BESTIALITY 767

theonlygateto heaven"(Cioran,1995,pp. 22-3). In thisview,

our sexualityis whatseparatesus bothfromthe animalsand
fromtheecstaticsaints-or, ifyou will,fromthegods.
For me, contrathe prevailing(largelystructuralist) argu-
mentthatanything can symbolizeanything, thatcontextalone
determinesmeaning,animalshave multiplebut not infinite
qualities; and particularanimals tend to convey particular
meanings.A bull is bigger than a rabbit in all cultures
(whateveryou think"big" means),even thoughin India it is
much smallerthan an elephantand in Ireland much bigger
thanjust about anythingelse theyhave. A bull does certain
unmistakablethings. And snakes, both because of their
skin-sloughingand because of their uncanny means of
locomotion(an important factor),seemto convey
classificatory
ideas of rebirth(and of death:manysnakesare poisonous),of
shape-shifting,and of deception;moreover,theirshape makes
them both phallic and womb-like(when curled up into an
ouroboros),hence, a natural symbolof androgynyand a
commonplayerin mythsof sex-change.Animalsas a wholeare
laden withmeaningsfor us, and, thoughparticularanimals
have particularmeaningsforparticularcultures,someanimals
also have particularmeaningsforall of us.

DeceptiveAnimalsas People

Let us concludewitha considerationof the use of sexual

deceptionby animals,not in myths,but in real life.Telling
animalsapart is an importantpartof our taxonomizing, our
making sense of theworld. Thus, our anthropocentrism drives
us to use as thekeyto our own abilityto tellanimalsapartthe
animals'abilityto tellone anotherapartin whatwe nowregard
(supercedingthe rule of the foot)as the definingsituationof
reality(sex): if two animals do not intermate,theyare of
different species.
It is particularly importantfor animals to recognizeone
768 SOCIAL RESEARCH

another'smatingsignals,for sex is the one breach in the

otherwisenighimpenetrablecurtainof theirxenophobia,the
one momentwhen theyallow a strangeanimal to get close.
Only in sexual matters,then, do they have to tell the
difference:

In nature,red in tooth and claw, everyother animal is a

potentialdanger.Even creaturesthatlive in herds,swarmsor
packsusuallykeep some distancefromeach other.At mating
time,however,thatdistancecan be reduced to zero. For this
thereare all kindsof rituals,whichin thecase of humanbeings
have resultedin the discothequeand in the case of animalsin
display,sniffing,spawningand chorusing(Dekkers,1994, p.
29).

Here we mayrecall the elaborate ritualsto whichOdysseus and

Penelope submit one another before they are willing to
recognize one another as true mates.
Yet we know thatanimals can be fooled. TheAudobonSociety
Field Guideto NorthAmericanBirdstells us: "Mockingbirdsare
stronglyterritorialand, like a numberof other birds,will
attacktheirreflectionin a window,hubcap, or mirror,at times
withsuch vigorthattheyinjureor killthemselves.Thus the
boundariesof a bird'sterritory can be learned by placinga
mirrorat strategiclocationsand noting where the attack
ceases."8We assume thatstags'antlershelp to conceal them
amongthebrancheswhichtheyso closelyresembleand also to
servethemas weapons.But the stagsthemselves shadow-box
withbrancheswhen the ruttingseason begins; so they,too,
knowthattheirantlersresemblebranches.. . . We also know
thatanimalslie; we knowthata motherquail willrun out of
cover,fakinga brokenwing,to protectheryounglyingsafein
theirnest. This is, in the broadestsense, a sexual lie. But
animalsalso lie in the course of the matinggame, a game
whoserulesweredesignedtobe broken.And theycan foolone
anotherwiththeirlies.They are capableof bothperpetrating
and detectingsexualmasquerades.
Certain species have a particularlydifficulttime of it.
 BESTIALITY 769

Homophobes often argue that homosexuality, transvestism,

and, most of all, transsexualityare unnatural, but these
patterns of behavior occur in nature all the time, especially
among insects. A particularlydramatic scenario is enacted by
certain fish:
It is noteworthy thatin certainconventionalmale-and-female
species,members ofone sex mayturnsuchcoordination to their
advantageby imitating members of the opposite sex. Such
activitymaybe thoughtof as anothernongeneticformof sexual
differentiation.
The bluegillsunfishengages in an intriguing formof such
genderbending. . . . Male sunfish
bluegill existin threedifferent
forms.Large, colorfulmales court femalesand defend their
territories.A second kind of male- often known as a
"sneaker"-becomessexuallymatureat a muchyoungerage and
smallersize.These smallmalesliveon theperiphery of a bigger
and clandestinely
male's territory mate withfemaleswhilethe
dominantmale is otherwiseoccupied. Sneaker males mature
into a thirdkind of male, one thatassumesthe behaviorand
drab colorationof a female sunfish.These female mimics
intervenebetween a territorialmale and the female he is
courting.The femalemimic,ratherthan the courtingmale,
usuallyends up fertilizing theeggs (Crews,1994,pp. 113-14).
Apparentlythe male victimwastes his sperm on the "sneaker"
male or mimic, who can then fertilizethe female. This is a
heightened form of the fakery of the cuckoo, the avine
cuckolder. The cuckoo fakes its species- a blow against
racism- while the bluegill fakes its gender- a blow against
sexism.
Yet, the bluegill is far fromunique; nature abounds in such
and transsexualmasquerades are, apparently,more
tricksters,
basic than many mightsuppose. Grouper fish have a kind of
mid-lifecrisisin which,unlike humans, theychange theirown
sex rather than their sexual partners. Here is a differentsort
of snake in the grass:
Male red-sided garter snakes enact a similar form of sexual
mimicry.At times of peak sexual activity,males congregate
around females, forming a so-called mating ball. ... In 16
percentof the balls, the snake being courted by the males was in
770 SOCIAL RESEARCH

facta disguised
male,whatwe calla she-male.She-males
have
thatproducenormal
testes and
sperm, they courtandmate with
females.But in additionto exhibiting behaviors,
male-typical
she-malesproducethe sameattractivenesspheromone as do
adultfemales.In the matingball,thissecondsourceof the
pheromone confusesthe moreprevalent conventional
males,
givingtheshe-malea decidedmating (Crews,1994,
advantage
pp. 113-14).
Is the matingball like the greatballs held in Europe where
youngwomencame to findtheirsuitors?Where Cinderella
met her prince?Do red-sidedgartersnakes lie about, like
Alice,waitingfora frog-footman to bringthem"an invitation
to thematingball"?The mindboggles.
Sometimesanimalsmistakeus fortheirmates,oftenthrough
the processof imprinting, made famousby Konrad Lorenz
and his ducklings(Lorenz, 1952). Imprintingworkslike the
magic drug thatOberon has Puck procurein A Midsummer
Night'sDreamand use on Titania: "The juice of it on sleeping
eyelidslaid Willmakeor manor womanmadlydote Upon the
next live creaturethatit sees" (2.1.170-172). In the case of
animals,"the next live creaturethatit sees" upon emerging
fromthewombor egg strikesitas a kindof mirror;itthinksit
mustbe likethatand, upon sexualmaturity, triesto matewith
it.
Animals,too,have theirsexualillusions.Thus, theyprovide
us withboth basic data and basic metaphorswithwhichto
formulateour own sexual masquerades. For we, too, are
subjectto the magicof imprinting, when,like thosemocking
birds,we use animalsas mirrorsin theconstruction ofour own
self-deceptiveself-images.

Notes:
1As in the in the Mahabharata,
storyof Naia and Damayanti
3.52-54.
2The
changein lengthofthethighis themostdramatic
change
 BESTIALITY 771

from primatesto humans, though perhaps it is not the most

change.The feetgrowverylittlewhilethefemurgrowsa
significant
great deal as we move from primate to human (personal
communication fromStephenJayGould,April8, 1995).
See also Edmund Wilson'sessayon the price paid for artistic
excellence, The Woundand theBow.
4 See 1962.
" See Updike, iyy5,and
Warner, Leavy,iyy4.
uSee Ortner,1974.
7 See
Chaucer,"The Wifeof Bath'sTale," in Canterbury
Tales.
8 Citedin TheNew withthecomment:
Yorker,May4, 1992,p. 77,
"And whereyourcat hangsout a lot."

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