Black Beauty 2

RDB Black Beauty #2

This morning I woke up and ate Raisin Bran, immediately thinking of the bran mash that Black Beauty receives as a treat throughout the novel. I can’t say as I see it as much of a treat, but when you eat bland grains all the time, I guess it could be exciting. Oh wait…I eat bland grains (white rice and vegetables) all the time too…hmm…

I’ve never seen a movie adaptation of Black Beauty, but I imagine it to be somewhat like the film Milo and Otis.

Milo and Otis[1]

I remember watching this in elementary school. We were rounded up like cattle into the “multipurpose room” and seated in front of a small TV on a cart, lying on the white linoleum which was dusted with the day’s lunch crumbs. I don’t even think I saw the end of the movie that day, and the parting of Milo and Otis must have made me feel much like I did after reading about Black Beauty’s final conversation with Ginger and his glimpse of her presumed corpse. Black Beauty expressed knowledge that we can’t see animals express (and this often gives us grounds for further torment, i.e. “Animals don’t have feelings”): it is sometimes better to die a painful death than to suffer through life. He thinks to himself, “Oh! If men were more merciful, they would shoot us before we came to such misery”[2] (Black Beauty, chapter 40). This expression of emotion and sentiment argues against the idea that animals are slaves to their instincts and incapable of feeling deep pain or loss.

Too often though, we are portrayed as being slaves to our instincts.

Hey, it's just instincts![3]

Our behavior is predicted on the basis of science as well as stereotypes. This comes into play a few times in the novel, particularly when Black Beauty is being driven by Jakes in chapter 46, “One day, I was loaded more than usual, and part of the road was a steep uphill: I used all my strength, but I could not get on, and was obliged continually to stop…The pain of that great cart whip was sharp, but my mind was hurt quite as much as my poor sides. To be punished and abused when I was doing my very best was so hard it took the heart out of me”.[4] Jakes believed that Black Beauty was being “lazy” and shirking his work because he just didn’t want to do it, as he would presume to be “instinctual” in horses or animals, which don’t possess the same “work ethic” as humans. Oftentimes, we are misunderstood in quite the same way. In some of my classes, I feel like my efforts don’t matter; I will continue to do poorly despite all of the time and strain I put into doing my best just because I’m a college student who is presumed to be just like “everyone else”: someone who parties all night long, gets wasted, and then writes an assignment on an hour of sleep.

College Dance Party[5]

Like Marshall said, anyone who knows anything about literature knows that this book isn’t about horses, it is about people. Maybe we are more similar to animals than we think, or maybe we’re deceiving ourselves. Either way, our sympathetic imagination helps us to see this horse’s story as something we can apply to ourselves, proving that despite being called a different name, our Raisin Bran isn’t really all that different from bran mash.

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[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-KiinB5Ib8

[2] Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1994), 170.

[3] http://newmedia.funnyjunk.com/pictures/natural-instincts.jpg

[4] Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1994), 197-198.

[5] http://www.roncounts.com/party-dance1.jpg