Parul Rani & Nagendra Kumar
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. Email: parulnet.e@gmail.com. ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585
Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.16
Received July 30, 2017; Revised September 01, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20, 2017.
Abstract
The present article argues that the representation of the animals in the colonial texts try to reassert and reconfigure the colonial rule on the colonised subjects. Likely, the handling of the non-human animals by the colonials in sporting or non-sporting ways erects an invisible and persistent hegemonic control over the native land. As far as the processing of the big cat animals, particularly a man-eater is concerned; it emerges with convoluting the sound factors of race, gender and supremacy. The shooting of the man-eater animal by a white is purely a forefront which designs an imperial masculinity. Through a critical analysis of Jim Corbett’s text Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, the study aims exclusively at: first, to explore the role of an animal (Leopard): a vital object in contouring masculinity. Secondly, to foreground the animal stance, questioning the human authorised version of a man-eater and the enduring human rule over the non-human animals. The discussion implants the leopard, a subject of explication, as an essential character; liable to his ‘natural’ proviso.
Keywords: Imperial masculinity, animals, the man-eating leopard, animal studies, Jim Corbett.
