Solomon Kane: avenger of women who've been wronged, men who've been murdered... and small fluffy animals?
“While evil flourishes and wrongs grow rank, while men are persecuted and women wronged, while weak things, human or animal, are maltreated, there is no rest for me beneath the skies, nor peace at any board or bed.”
Fluffykins must be avenged!
In the above quote, Solomon Kane is describing his purpose in life to Jack Hollinster and Mary Garvin, the young couple whom he has just saved. So what is the reader supposed to make of Kane’s claim that he protects not just people, but animals? Is this mere hyperbole? Apparently not: in ‘The Footfalls Within’, it is said that in the past Kane has risked his life ‘for the sake of a pagan child or a small animal.’[1] (The first thing to acknowledge in that statement is Howard’s racism: he essentially puts pagan children on the same level as animals. Having acknowledged that, I intend to ignore it for the moment -- not because it doesn’t deserve discussion, but because it needs too much discussion, and that’s a blogpost, or several, for another day.)
The revelation that Kane was apparently a champion of animal rights initially struck me as incongruous with his dour demeanour. I chuckled to myself as I imagined the stories in which the Puritan avenger rescues a basket of fluffy kittens or avenges the cruel mistreatment of young Marylin Taferal’s pet hamster. (Perhaps those manuscripts are gathering dust in an attic somewhere, just waiting to be discovered!) Then I did a little digging, and found out that the Puritans actually had something of a track record when it came to opposing animal cruelty -- something which was a rarity at the time.
Puritan protectors
In 1654, under Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, Parliament banned the blood sport of cockfighting.[2] The reasons behind this ban have been hotly debated. The nineteenth-century historian Lord Macaulay claimed that the ‘Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators’. Macaulay was notoriously biased against the Puritans in general, and his comments should be taken with a pinch of salt, but the wording of the ban itself is somewhat damning. It does not mention ending the suffering of the animals, but only an end to public gatherings that ‘are commonly accompanied with Gaming, Drinking, Swearing, Quarreling, and other dissolute Practices, to the Dishonor of God’. So the wording of the ban suggests that its authors cared less about animal rights and more about saving people’s souls by denying them an outlet for their sinful pleasures. (The same reasoning was behind other bans, under Cromwell’s regime, of things such as stage plays,[3] visiting taverns on a Sunday,[4] and even traditional Christmas celebrations.[5])
However, if all of this gives the impression that the ban on cockfighting was motivated purely by political concerns, or by a wish to curtail people’s worldly pleasures, then that does not reflect the full complexity of the situation.[6] Some Puritans thought that enjoying cruelty against animals, or the cruelty of one animal towards another, was immoral. Originally, in the Garden of Eden, all creatures were (presumably peaceful) herbivores.[7] It was as a result of the fall of man that animals became violent towards each other, and became carnivores. A good Christian watching the violent behaviour of animals should have considered it a sobering reminder of man’s sin, rather than an enjoyable spectacle.[8]
The views of John Calvin, the French theologian, had a profound impact on Puritan thought. He believed that God had placed mankind above the other animals, but that man still had a duty of care towards them. He encouraged people 'to practice justice even in dealing with animals' and 'to nourish them and to have care of them'.[9] Animals, just like humans, were part of God's creation, and to misuse them was to show disrespect to their creator.
Other Puritans expressed a more basic, and heartfelt opposition to blood sports: they were revolted by them, and felt sympathy for the animals. The Puritan polemicist Philip Stubbes asked, ‘What Christian heart can take pleasure to see one poore beast to rent, tear, and kill another, and all for his foolish pleasure?’[10] As well as disliking the cruelty of blood sports, some Puritans also followed a vegetarian (or vegan) diet. These Puritan vegetarians were always a minority, and a small one at that. However, they did exist, and they included some colourful characters such as Roger Crab[11] and Thomas Tryon.[12]
A man on a mission
So which of these motivations might apply to our favourite Puritan, Solomon Kane? Perhaps he has theological objections that mean he avoids mistreating animals, and that he disapproves of those who do. But his views are clearly stronger than that: he is prepared to act on behalf of defenceless animals which are mistreated, and even to risk his life. The question is why. Is Kane simply blind to the fact that he should distinguish between humans and animals when he sees a creature suffering (or in need of avenging), or is he so wrapped up in a constant need to embark on a mission, to find a purpose in life, that he will use any pretext?
There is evidence that Kane's attitudes towards animals isn’t solely about himself, and his own needs. In the fragment, ‘Castle of the Devil’, Kane refuses John Silent’s offer to share his horse because it might ‘overtax’ the animal.[13] In 'Wings in the Night', Kane seems genuinely distressed when he kills a number of wild pigs. The killings 'racked Kane’s heart, for he was a kindly man and this wholesale slaughter, even of pigs who would fall prey to hunting beasts anyhow, grieved him.'[14] Even so, Kane is still prepared to kill the animals in order to further his scheme of vengeance against the akaanas, and a little later in the same story the same motivation drives Kane to kill a wild buffalo. This time, though, there is no mention of Kane's tender-heartedness. He considers his task 'tedious' rather than distressing, and the bull is described as 'surly', rather than in a sympathetic way.[15] (However, Kane’s attitude towards killing the buffalo may be representative of his mental unravelling in this particular story, rather than of his typical behaviour.)
Kane's involvement with the death of animals is not limited to his plans for vengeance, though: he also eats meat. 'The Hills of the Dead' and 'Wings in the Night' both refer to the fact that he carries dried meat as food. In the former, his attempt to eat it is interrupted by the vampire creatures,[16] but in the latter, he finishes his supply of the stuff.[17] The Solomon Kane stories do not provide enough information to know if Kane's diet normally contains meat, and it is possible that he is only forced to do so out of necessity while travelling in Africa, but he shows no qualms about consuming meat in either of those stories.
Reasonable and proportionate
All of this has led me back to where I started, namely picturing scenarios in which Solomon Kane might have actually meted out justice on behalf of an animal -- but in a darker, more realistic, way. I don’t think that he would have reacted to the simple killing of an animal in a humane way, or what passed for it in the sixteenth century. What would have infuriated him would have been the infliction of unnecessary suffering or death, especially on a weak or defenceless animal, and more especially if the human perpetrator enjoyed what they did. I could, for example, imagine Solomon Kane having some stern words with a farmer he saw whipping a horse or cow that was simply too tired or ill to move. Those stern words would likely have been accompanied by the full force of Kane’s powerful stare, and perhaps a hand placed menacingly upon the hilt of his rapier. However, I still have a couple of unresolved questions.
Firstly, there’s the question of whether Kane only intervenes to protect animals that are being maltreated, or whether he goes as far as to avenge them after their death? I can imagine the former, but I still struggle to picture him on an epic quest -- spanning years and continents -- against someone whose only crime was to kill an animal. It’s entirely possible that I’m underestimating Kane's fanaticism.
Secondly, there’s the issue of what Kane does to those who maltreat animals, and whether the severity of his actions are on some sort of sliding scale. If he unflinchingly kills those who rape women and commit murder, then what does he do to those whose victims are dumb beasts? Perhaps the offenders get off more lightly: I do not believe that even Kane, who shows a concern for animals that is unusual in his culture, would value an animal life as highly as a human one. It is, however, possible that Kane views all wrongdoers with equal fury and hatred, regardless of whether their victims were human or animal. In his eyes, the culprits may be regarded as equally evil.
After all, it is quite clear that Kane has risked his life in protecting, or avenging, animals in the past. That means that some of the people he faced were dangerous, potentially lethal foes. When the time came to mete out punishment, perhaps he dealt with them in an equally lethal way.
1 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), p. 329. ↩
2 Ordinance for prohibiting cock-matches (31 March 1654). See C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait (eds.), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, London 1911, p. 861. ↩
3 C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait (eds.), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, London 1911, pp. 26-7. ↩
4 C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait (eds.), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, London 1911, pp. 1162-1170. ↩
5 C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait (eds.), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, London 1911, p. 580. ↩
6 A balanced discussion of the topic can be found in P. Beirne, Confronting Animal Abuse: Law, Criminology, and Human-Animal Relationships, Rowman & Littlefield 2009, pp. 42-50. ↩
7 Genesis 1:29–30. ↩
8 E. Fudge, Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture, Chicago 2002, p. 14. ↩
9 J. Haroutunian (trans. and ed.), Calvin: Commentaries, Library of Christian Classics, Westminster 1958, p. 329. ↩
10 P. Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, London 1583. ↩
11 C. Hill, Puritanism and revolution: studies in interpretation of the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, New York 1958, p. 283. ↩
12 T. Stuart, The Bloodless Revolution, New York 2007, pp. 65-67. ↩
13 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), p. 88. Of course, it is possible that Kane simply does not trust Silent, and wishes to keep him at arm’s (or rapier’s) length. ↩
14 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), p. 316. ↩
15 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), p. 317. ↩
16 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), pp. 232-3.↩
17 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (New York, 2004), p. 282. ↩
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