"Oh, my dog owns me": Interspecies Companionship in Dodie Smith and Diana Wynne Jones

As critics have increasingly noted since the publication of Donna Haraway's The Companion Species Manifesto, studies of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals often challenge traditional conceptualizations not only of companionship and species hierarchy, but also of familial identity structures. This reconfiguration of human-animal relations is especially apparent in pet-owner relations. "Pet love," as Alice A. Kuzniar writes, "reorients companionship and kinship away from the normative strictures of heterosexual coupling and the traditional family" ('"I Married" 207). For Kuzniar and Haraway, "pet love" is not simply a replacement for human companionship, but offers the opportunity for a reconsideration of the limits of kinship, guardianship, and belonging. Contemporary studies of human and nonhuman companionship, often drawing on queer theory, not only challenge species hierarchies, but also posit affection, rather than reproduction, as a basis for family structures. Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) may initially seem opposed to such a reading; the novel, and especially its more famous Disney adaptation 101 Dalmatians (1961), appears to celebrate heteronormative reproductive futurity—whether canine or human—where the traditional nuclear family, marriage, and children are privileged. The novel also contains, however, an unexpected account of queer becoming, where gender roles and identities are far more fluid than they initially appear. Read in conjunction with its science-fiction sequel, The Starlight Barking (1967), which almost entirely elides the human element, Smith's work challenges the assumptions about family life and species hierarchies it initially seems to support. The queer potential of these mid-century animal novels is reinforced through comparison with Diana Wynne Jones's Dogsbody (1975) which, like Starlight, centers on the Dog Star Sirius, at once wholly star and wholly dog. While all three novels retain the basic structure of the family unit, they challenge the constitution of that family in order to suggest that true companionship is found not in homogeneity or intraspecies affinities, but rather in the desire for an affective structure that transcends species differentiation or hierarchies. Whether in Smith's fanciful approach to human-animal relations or Jones's more serious ethical focus, both novelists suggest that incorporating nonhuman animals into family life requires rethinking the nature of that family structure.

As Marjorie Garber notes, the majority of dog stories ultimately privilege the human: "Readers and writers, adults as well as children, anthropomorphize in order to regain their sense of a collective human experience. Paradoxically, the quintessence of the 'human' is often found in the dog" (34). In many novels of interspecies companionship the nonhuman animal either remains inherently other or is seen as a metaphor for human experience. For instance, in Olaf Stapledon's adult science-fiction novel Sirius (1944)—a possible inspiration for both Smith and Jones—the combination of a dog body with a human-like mental capacity leads only to tragedy, and a reiteration of both the superiority and fragility of the human; the title character's value lies primarily in the way he metaphorically represents problems traditionally associated with the human. In both Smith's and Jones's novels, however, dogs are not simply a metaphor for the human, nor a marginalized other, but allow for a broader reconsideration of the significance of family, ethics, and language, with a special emphasis on the possibilities interspecies companionship offers for a dynamic of continual transformation. Reading these novels in conjunction with current work in queer and phenomenological theory demonstrates the way Smith and Jones transcend simple questions of relational identity and identification in favor of a more inclusive approach to companionship, family, and community. In doing so, they reshape the reader's ideas of interspecies relation. By refusing to privilege the human, Smith and Jones critique the definition of nonhuman characters as intrinsically "other" and move past simple anthropomorphization or metaphorical representation to a more complex and inclusive perspective on both family and species dynamics.

Ethics of Transformation and Affection in The Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Starlight Barking

The opening of Dalmatians simultaneously highlights the centrality of marriage and gestures toward the fluidity of both human...