The construction of the horse point of view: strategies and implications of horse representation in film adaptations

Abstract

Humans tend to arbitrarily choose how to represent and treat animals according to their species, socially constructed ideas about them and the role they occupy in human societies.
This results in a proliferation of a variety of extremely different human-animal relationships and in the creation of fictional and real narratives regarding animals. Horses are a unique case study for a systematic investigation of the asymmetrical power relationships that lie beneath the construction of cultural representations. Indeed, the bonds that exist between humans and horses show a contradictory system of relations, which is reproduced in fiction and perpetuated in reality. My research focuses on novel and film adaptations that attempt to represent a horse’s point of view, and investigates the aesthetic, theoretical and material implications of these fictional representations. This study aims to demonstrate that representing horse point of view is a multifaceted and multi-layered creative process with contrasting and contradictory potentials. To do so, it looks at and beyond fictional
representation, namely at the processes of meaning construction across adaptations and at the problematic entanglements of film production into which real horses are forced. Utilising analytical lenses of textual analysis and adaptation studies, this work methodologically operates within the fields of cultural studies and critical animal studies. Since creative products belong to the same body of cultural knowledge that regulates real human-horse
relationships, these approaches allow me to maintain the importance of addressing both recurring narratives and the material implications of achieving them, thus combining reflections on anthropomorphism, issues and ethics of representation, real discursive practices and living conditions of horses.

Date of Award	23 Apr 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Edge Hill University
Supervisor	CLAIRE PARKINSON (Director of Studies), MARTIN MCQUILLAN (Supervisor) & Brett Mills (Supervisor)