Animalia

The novel Animalia is the representation of not just human relationships, but
also, of human beings’ relationships to other animals. While the story revolves around
a family, the narrative as a whole is meant to bring the reader into a microcosmic
ecosystem. Essentially, I am examining an ecosystem. An ecosystem, not in the
traditional sense, but an ecosystem nonetheless, because the narrative is a study of how
varying species of heterotrophs interact with one another for both physical and
emotional sustenance. Russell Water’s story is paramount, but the animals’ affect on
one another is what lies below the peak and forms the mountain (an unintentional
Hemingway reference). “It has often been observed that an object in a story does not
derive its density of existence from the number and length of descriptions devoted to it,
but from the complexity of its connections with the different characters” (Sartre 1210).
Essentially, through complex and multiple connections between the human species and
other species within Kingdom Animalia, I am attempting to develop an “ecosystem” that allows for narrative progression and the interconnection of relationships and
thematic elements which range from the capitalistic class system to natural selection.