Introduction
What a good way of concealing meanings in another kind of writing that is descriptively true than the work of Alice Walker entitled “Am I Blue?” At the start, one thinks that the story revolves around a horse named Blue, yet subtly, the author has other intentions. This becomes the outlet of the author as she looks at the women and the animals who both endure discrimination. The name is appropriately chosen as Blue, connoting depression and being alone. She maintains that living things must not be treated differently only because it is in a different form.
Main body
The owners of Blue are motivated to buy another horse so that they could reproduce. The story begins in a narrative style but as the story progresses; one gleans the author’s thoughts as it also becomes argumentative. She states the nature of the horses which is quite similar to the ways of a human beings, It is their nature to express themselves. Once Brown became pregnant the owners of Brown took her from Blue, leaving Blue in a shell of his graceful self once again. The plot of the story, therefore, becomes an argumentative platform for the author to touch on the way the animals are being discriminated upon and how that is more than likely similar to how people have discriminated against others.
The author uses literary devices to illustrate the human qualities in animals. She is successful in bringing out the emotions that animals are also wont to do and experience. Through their gestures and signs, animals are very much like human beings too. She starts with words that elicit vastness of emotions such as having a house of many windows. Walker also has a depressing view of how human beings treat animals. She states that she already dreads the look in his eyes since he thinks that Brown had already gone. The attitude with which Walker treats the horse is very much similar to how she regards other people of low stature. There is no judgment or condemnation and people are oftentimes treating animals like they were just objects.
Alice Walker is at her best as she recounts the three Summers in Georgia and how she views different regard for the black people. She uses the character of the white horse Blue, his trials, and the many other things that are found in the meadow. Walker makes use of several phrases such as “well” as a kind of a technique in listing so that she can point to the slave-era ways by which people behave especially the relationship between the white people and the black people. She points out the ways when she feels that there is indifference especially when she uses the word “forget.” We feel an affinity with the animals and liken it to the childhood empathy she felt for these animals. She can use literary devices so that she diffuses several delicate spots in the story.
As one dwells on the kind of relationship that they carried with them, the other characters mirror the kind of treatment that they get from those that disparage them. It is important to study the different animal species conveniently. Many animals die in captivity. They are not afforded the needed exercise and some of the essential nutrients that they get in their natural habitat, in their restrictive and artificial environment. It is about time that governments around the world take a gentler way to the owners. With these documentaries, the researchers and scientists are the ones who go to the animal’s natural habitat and get the observations with the least interference and interaction with the animal being studied. The animals remain in their places, we get the needed educational researches and studies from these observations, the video documentaries are enjoyed right in our homes through cable and/or television and most importantly, the animals are not inconvenienced.
Walker succinctly addresses the superiority of some people over other people and this is also seen as she illustrates how the horse can be discriminated upon. Walker finds that she can give an outlet to her views on how things ought to be done right. Animals also are an excellent research subject because they are biologically similar to human beings. Animals have similar susceptibility to humans when it comes to health problems. They also have short life cycles and scientists can control the environment of animals during testing. However, despite how people may justify it, it is still important to adhere to some conditions about how these tests are administered to the animals. (Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals).
The use of animals can be very useful in developing different drugs and medical procedures so that diseases do not spread. In the same vein, if a new drug shows promise, there is a need to still test that on animals to be very sure about its effectiveness. Only if the results of the test are good for these animals can scientists give the go signal to try it out on human beings. (Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals).
Walker tries to take the horse as representing the other animals that are treated with discrimination. Blue impregnates another white horse and readers see the way Blue is drawn as another character altogether. Blue’s partner, as well as her unborn child, are removed as if “they had been born into slavery.” This is what makes the story touching because all the illustrations are pointing to discrimination and slavery. Blue runs around the meadow as if he “looked always and always toward the road down which his partner had gone.” Blue realizes that people are not that sensitive about the feelings of others and he resents this a lot. It is inevitable then that Blue would lose all his trust in humans because for him, they are insensitive souls who are not mindful at all of the way animals suffer. He looks with disgust and disappointment at human beings who do not consider them as living things. They are like slaves who are thrown around and not treated with compassion. Indeed the story is an allegory of slavery that shows how people can be inhumane to living things.
Work Cited
Walker, Alice. Am I Blue?