UC Berkeley

Aesop’s fables are sometimes dismissed as stories for children, and not worthy of serious study. This dissertation argues that fables are an important part of understanding cultural world views of animals, and that the relationships between humans and animals depicted in Aesop’s fables are question the binary division between humans and animals. Talking animals are not just laughable tales for children, but they provide a method for exploring human identity as one species among many, interacting with other beings in a way that depends upon relationship rather than possession of human speech. I use theoretical approaches from Indigenous Studies and Human-Animal studies, and I use Indigenous animal stories, in particular, those collected by William Jones in the earlier twentieth century and published in his two-volume Ojibwa Texts. The Ojibwe stories demonstrate alternative methods of understanding anthropomorphism and the relationship between humans and animals.

In chapter 1, I first look at an Aesopic fable that may have been translated into Ojibwe as a case study for my methods. Next, I look at several famous fables quoted by other Greek authors, and I demonstrate that the talking animals in these accounts can be read as destabilizing the idea of human exceptionalism and human exclusivity in the realm of justice. In chapter 2, I explore human relationships with other animals, specifically with canine species. I focus on Aesopic fables about wolves and the Ojibwe story “Nenabozho and the Wolves” for this investigation. In chapter 3, I look at trickster figures: the fox in Aesop’s fables, and Nenabozho and other animals in Ojibwe stories.

This project makes two important contributions to the field. First, it looks at fables for their own sake, arguing that they are more than just allegories of human experience, but that they demonstrate cultural attitudes toward animals and allow human beings to better understand their relationship with other species. Second, this dissertation relies upon Indigenous stories and Indigenous scholars to provide interpretive methods for better understanding of Aesop’s fables. This is in contrast to previous scholarship which used Classical mythology to explain Indigenous stories.

I have chosen this interpretive method because I believe that Indigenous stories and methods afford valuable perspectives that are often ignored or forced to fit into Western paradigms. By adopting this cross-cultural methodology, I hope to both open a new method of interpretation and also recognize the value of Indigenous stories and language within the humanities in general.