Demystifying the Non-human Animal: Analyzing animal agency through the select narratives of Jim Corbett

Abstract

The present article revives the jungle knowledge of a renowned Anglo-Indian hunter cum conservationist; Jim Corbett. The contemporary significance of Corbett’s first-hand experiences with the animals lies in providing an insight into the ways of the wildlife; unraveling the multilayered relationships of animals with their environment; including humans. The focus on animal behavior takes this paper to exemplify how the interspecies and intraspecies interactions validate the non-human agency. There is an attempt to bring Corbett’s select narratives from the collections — Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon, and Jungle Lore in dialogue with the ethological studies, that complement and precede the debate of the animal agency. Concerned with the question of the animal, this study evolves a critique of Heidegger’s dichotomy between the human and animal that sprouts on the idea of the relative non-agent(ic) functionality of the non-human animals. This study opts for an interdisciplinary approach of ethology and philosophy to execute a textual analysis of Corbett’s narratives to analyze the animals as agents.