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

savage Imagery in herds grass Findleys The WarsSigmund Freud once argued that our species has a volcanic potential to erupt in aggression . . . and that we harbour not totally positive survival instincts but also a self-destructive death instinct, which we ordinarily displace towards others in aggression (Myers 666). Timothy Findley, born in 1930 in Toronto, Canada, explores our human predilection towards violence in his third figment, The Wars. It is human savageness that initiates the horrors of humanness 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 just 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, an d the most often recurring formula is that of animals. Throughout 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 sh are with our animal counterparts, is our inexplicable predisposition to costless 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 radical 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 unwashed 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. T his is the truism that Findley depicts in his obese of the tragic story of Robert Ross. Works CitedCude, Wilf Truth Slips In Timothy Findleys Doors of illustration The Antigonish Review, Spring 1996, vol 27 pp75. Findley, Timothy. Inside Memory Pages From a Writers 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 sixth ed. Worth Publishers, New York 2001. Roberts, Carol. Timothy Findley Stories from a Life. ECW Press, Toronto 1994.