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Trojan Horses

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Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ((PSAAL))

Abstract

In the videogame Trojan Horse, players are given the task of defending the ancient city of Troy from invading Achaeans, who attack the city both at ground level and by scaling the walls by means of their massive wooden horse. The frontal assault depicted in the game thus bears only passing resemblance to the traditional tale, in which wily Odysseus and a select band of warriors enter and ultimately capture the city by secreting themselves inside the horse. Much work has been done in the genre of what might be called vegan apologetics, the explicit defence of veganism against the attacks of its opponents. This essay, however, considers an alternative, complementary tactic, which eschews confrontation in favour of a less direct stratagem.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, 2nd ed. (Emeryville, CA, 2004), pp. 30–35; Jaro Gielens, Electronic Plastic, trans. Antje Blank (Berlin, 2000).

  2. 2.

    Apollodorus, The Library, trans. James George Frazer, 2 vols, Loeb Classical Library 121–122 (Cambridge, MA, 1921), 3.10.9; Hesiod, The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments., trans. Glenn W. Most, Loeb Classical Library 503 (Cambridge, MA, 2007), pp. 231–33.

  3. 3.

    Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Omerod, 5 vols, Loeb Classical Library 93, 188, 272, 297, 298 (London, 1918), 3.20.9.

  4. 4.

    Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 3.3–6.

  5. 5.

    Cypria, “Cypria,” in Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, trans. Martin L. West, Loeb Classical Library 497 (Cambridge, MA, 2003), p. 79.

  6. 6.

    Homer, The Iliad of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago, IL., 1951), 16.698–711; Aethiopis, “Aethiopis,” in Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, trans. Martin L. West, Loeb Classical Library 497 (Cambridge, MA, 2003), p. 113; Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 3.3–6.

  7. 7.

    Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 5.8.

  8. 8.

    Tryphiodorus, “The Taking of Ilios,” in Oppian, Colluthus, and Tryphiodorus, trans. A. W. Mair, Loeb Classical Library 219 (London, 1928), pp. 573–633, 21–24.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 14–16 (translation modified).

  10. 10.

    Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy, trans. Arthur S. Way, Loeb Classical Library 19 (London, 1913), 12.21–45.

  11. 11.

    Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 5.14–15.

  12. 12.

    Sack of Ilion, “The Sack of Ilion,” in Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, trans. Martin L. West, Loeb Classical Library 497 (Cambridge, MA, 2003), p. 145; Homer, The Odyssey of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore (New York, 1965), 8.505–510; Virgil, The Aeneid of Virgil, trans. E. Fairfax-Taylor, Everyman’s Library (London, 1907), 2.35–39; Tryphiodorus, “The Taking of Ilios,” pp. 250–259.

  13. 13.

    Virgil, The Aeneid of Virgil, 2.49.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 2.234–247.

  15. 15.

    Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 5.16; Tryphiodorus, “The Taking of Ilios,” pp. 343–346.

  16. 16.

    Little Iliad, “The Little Iliad,” in Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, trans. Martin L. West, Loeb Classical Library 497 (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp. 123–125.

  17. 17.

    Homer, The Odyssey of Homer, 4.274–289.

  18. 18.

    Tryphiodorus, “The Taking of Ilios,” 621–622.

  19. 19.

    Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 5.20–23.

  20. 20.

    Homer, The Iliad of Homer, 24.804; Eva Brann, Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad (Philadelphia, 2002), pp. 112–113.

  21. 21.

    For example, William Caxton, Mirrour of the World, ed. Oliver H. Prior, Early English Text Society (London, 1913), p. 94.

  22. 22.

    Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy, 12.19–20.

  23. 23.

    C. S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,” in Undeceptions: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (London, 1971), pp. 64–76.

  24. 24.

    Plato, “Apology,” in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, 3rd ed., vol. 2, 5 vols (London, 1892), pp. 95–135.

  25. 25.

    Mark Edwards, Martin Goodman, and Simon Price (eds.), Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford, 1999).

  26. 26.

    Origen, The Writings of Origen, trans. Frederick Crombie, 2 vols, Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 10, 23 (Edinburgh, 1869), 5.14.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 5.18.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 5.23; Henry Chadwick, “Origen, Celsus, and the Resurrection of the Body,” The Harvard Theological Review 41, no. 2 (1948): 83–102.

  29. 29.

    William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or the Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul, 9th ed. (London, 1816), p. 8.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p. 16.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., p. 31; Lydia McGrew, “Paley’s Horae Paulinae on Aquila and Priscilla,” Extra Thoughts, 17 September 2014, http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2014/09/paleys-horae-paulinae-on-aquila-and.html

  32. 32.

    Kathryn Paxton George, “Should Feminists Be Vegetarians?”, Signs 19, no. 2 (1994): 407, 421, 406.

  33. 33.

    Josephine Donovan, “Comment on George’s ‘Should Feminists Be Vegetarians?’”, Signs 21, no. 1 (1995): 226–229.

  34. 34.

    Carol J. Adams, “Comment on George’s ‘Should Feminists Be Vegetarians?’”, Signs 21, no. 1 (1995): 221–225.

  35. 35.

    Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen, “Comment on George’s ‘Should Feminists Be Vegetarians?’”, Signs 21, no. 1 (1995): 235.

  36. 36.

    Donna Haraway. “Donna Haraway with Jeffrey Williams,” interview by Jeffrey Williams, 6 July 2009, http://theconversant.org/?p=2522

  37. 37.

    Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis, MN, 2008), pp. 106, 80; see also Donna Haraway, “Staying with the Manifesto: An Interview with Donna Haraway”, interview by Sarah Franklin, Theory, Culture & Society, 28 March 2017, 8, https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276417693290

  38. 38.

    Eva Giraud, “Veganism as Affirmative Biopolitics: Moving Towards A Posthumanist Ethics?”, PhaenEx 8, no. 2 (2013): 52–55.

  39. 39.

    Richard Twine, “Is Biotechnology Deconstructing Animal Domestication? Movements toward Liberation,” Configurations 21, no. 2 (2013): 139.

  40. 40.

    Anat Pick, “Falling Towards the Heights: Worldliness and Animal Ethics” (Unruly Creatures 2: Creative Revolutions, Natural History Museum, 18 June 2012), http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/06/anat-pick-falling-towards-the-heights-worldliness-and-animal-ethics/

  41. 41.

    Dominique Lestel, Eat This Book: A Carnivore’s Manifesto, trans. Gary Steiner (New York, 2016), pp. 59, 66.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., p. 5.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., pp. 73–74, 68.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., pp. 26, 36–38, 48.

  45. 45.

    Dominique Lestel, Apologie du carnivore (Fayard, 2011), p. 73.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., p. 59.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., pp. 72–73.

  48. 48.

    Pierre Sigler, “Apologie de La Mauvaise Foi,” Les Cahiers Antispécistes, 24 June 2011, http://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/apologie-de-la-mauvaise-foi/

  49. 49.

    Lestel, Eat This Book, pp. 44–46.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., pp. 36–38.

  51. 51.

    Gary Steiner, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (Pittsburgh, 2010), pp. 223–24.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., p. 226.

  53. 53.

    Dares, “The Fall of Troy: A History by Dares the Phrygian,” in The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, trans. Richard M. Frazer (Jr.), Greek and Latin Classics (Bloomington, 1966), §19–36.

  54. 54.

    Lestel, Eat This Book, pp. xviii, 59.

  55. 55.

    Further, it is perhaps worth pointing out that, in this context, one’s reasons for pursuing or promoting a cause are similarly beside the point. It matters not whether one besieges Troy for the honour of Menelaus or for economic gain, whether one evangelizes from habit or born-again zeal, and whether one endorses veganism on ethical, environmental, or health grounds. In marked contrast to the legislative concerns discussed in Allison Covey’s essay elsewhere in this volume, the rationale, sincerity and coherence of one’s creed are not at issue here.

  56. 56.

    Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,” p. 67.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., p. 68.

  58. 58.

    See Adams, Living Among Meat Eaters (Brooklyn, 2009), pp. 115–122, and Adams and Calarco , “Derrida and The Sexual Politics of Meat,” in Meat Culture, ed. Annie Potts. (Leiden, 2017), pp. 45–47.

  59. 59.

    Tom Tyler, “Cows, Clicks, Ciphers, and Satire,” NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies 4, no. 1 (2015), http://www.necsus-ejms.org/cows-clicks-ciphers-and-satire/

  60. 60.

    Tom Tyler, “Playing Like a Loser,” in Beyond the Human-Animal Divide: Creaturely Life in Literature and Culture, ed. Roman Bartosch and Ohrem (London, 2017), pp. 141–149.

  61. 61.

    Melanie Joy , Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, the Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others. (Berkeley, 2010); Martin Gibert and Élise Desaulniers, “Carnism,” in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, eds. Thompson Paul B. and David M. Kaplan, (Dordrecht, 2014).

  62. 62.

    Homer, The Iliad of Homer, 16.130–154.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., 16.816–854.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., 19.400–417.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., 2.299–330; Apollodorus, The Library, Epitome 3.15; Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy, 8.474–477.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Eva Giraud, Tom Jackson, Kurt Lampe, Robert McKay (for “vejan”), Gary Steiner, Richard Twine, Monica Tyler, Dinesh Wadiwel, and N. Kivilcim Yavuz.

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  1. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Tom Tyler

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  1. Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Emelia Quinn

  2. Wadham College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Benjamin Westwood

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Tyler, T. (2018). Trojan Horses. In: Quinn, E., Westwood, B. (eds) Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73380-7_5

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