Animal Imagery in Timothy Findley’s The Wars Essay -- Timothy Findley

Animal Imagery in Timothy Findley’s The Wars Sigmund Freud once argued that "our species has a volcanic potential to erupt in aggression . . . [and] that we harbour not only positive survival instincts but also a self-destructive 'death instinct', which we usually displace towards others in aggression" (Myers 666). Timothy Findley, born in 1930 in Toronto, Canada, explores our human predilection towards violence in his third novel, The Wars. It is human brutality that initiates the horrors of World War I, the war that takes place in this narrative. Findley dedicated this novel to the memory of his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, who 'died at home of injuries inflicted in the First World War" (Cude 75) and may have propelled him to feel so strongly about "what people really do to one another" (Inside Memory 19). Findley feels a great fondness for animals, and this affection surfaces faithfully in many of his literary works. The Wars is a novel wrought with imagery, and the most often recurring pattern is that of animals. Throughou t the novel, young Robert Ross' strong connection with animals is continually depicted in his encounters with the creatures. Findley uses Robert to reveal the many similarities between humans and animals. The only quality, which we humans do not appear to share with our animal counterparts, is our inexplicable predisposition to needless savagery. In his video documentary, The Anatomy of a Writer, Findley describes his affinity for animals when he says that he has "always been in awe of . . . animals. [He has] never understood where [humankind] picked up the idea that [animals] are less than [people] are-that man is everything". In The Wars, Findley stresses his belief that humans are "no better and... ...s of humankind and the hostile environment we create. Although a common assumption is that animals are vicious and wild, there is no evidence of this in the novel. Malice appears to be solely attributable to humankind. This is the truism that Findley depicts in his telling of the tragic story of Robert Ross. Works Cited Cude, Wilf "Truth Slips In: Timothy Findley's Doors of Fiction" The Antigonish Review, Spring 1996, vol 27 pp75. Findley, Timothy. Inside Memory: Pages From a Writer's Notebook. Harper Collins, Toronto: 1990. Findley, Timothy. The Wars. Penguin Books, Toronto: 1996. Macartney-Filgate, Terence. Timothy Findley: Anatomy of a Writer. National Film Board of Canada, Toronto: 1992. Myers, David G. Psychology 6th ed. Worth Publishers, New York: 2001. Roberts, Carol. Timothy Findley: Stories from a Life. ECW Press, Toronto: 1994.