Vers l’humanisation des figures animales

la place des émotions dans « Cabo de Hornos » de F. Coloane

Abstract

Nowadays, animal’s emotions are invoked as arguments to advocate the equality of consideration between all sentient beings (for example, the utilitarian work of Peter Singer). This article addresses this issue through literature: how can emotions, represented and aroused by the literary characters, express the porosity of the boundary traditionally established between human and animals beings? In order to outline an answer to this complex question, we will propose, as case study, the analysis of the collection of short stories Cabo de Hornos / Cap Horn (1941) by the author Francisco Coloane, that can be considered a precursor for his realistic staging of animal protagonists experiencing feelings.