An elephant may seem to be a silly topic to be writing an honors thesis over. To a lot of people the elephant is a mammal they can only find at the zoo or in a circus. It is not something to be treasured and loved. It is a machine to move logs across the country or to fight wars. It is something to stare at in adoration and wonder. It is something they never touch. They might as well just be something of fairy tales and stories. The truth about elephants is that they are truly magical creatures that are of fairy tales and stories. They are creatures who have been on Earth for millions of years. They lived when dinosaurs still walked the Earth and continue to survive even today. People need to understand the importance of these remarkable creatures. They also need to understand the value that these animals play with thousands of peoples lives, including my own. They portray a symbol of strength, hope, knowledge and thousands of other things. They have been depicted in gods and religions. Most importantly, to me they are a symbol of love and adoration. They remind me of a time when my father was still with me. This is why I am writing my thesis. I plan to discuss the importance of elephants to many different religions and cultures.
Elephants have been seen as gods, deities, symbols, and are supportive for many different people. There are good reasons for why elephants have been chosen as gods, deities, and symbols. These reasons are why so many different religions and cultures have used them as a symbol for their community and their beliefs. These symbols all vary in meaning throughout the different religions and cultures. Some cultures have turned this belief into fear of the elephant. They fear they will be reprimanded...
... middle of paper ...
...yclopedia’s which help to start the investigation process. Second, I plan to look to secondary sources. These secondary sources include journal articles, blogs, and other websites. I have found many journals and websites dedicated to the understanding of elephants. There are also many videos which explain animals as divinities and festivals where elephants are present. Furthermore, I plan to observe actual phenomenon including artwork and human behavior around elephants. I also plan to observe by behavior towards elephants and the impact they have had on my life.
The elephant is a mammal that is highly regarded in many different religions and cultures. The meaning of the symbol does vary between each different religion and culture. Throughout this thesis, I will be sharing the results of my investigation to answer the eight research questions I discussed earlier.
Have you ever wondered how animals interact and work together to get a job done? Many times, animals put their minds together to complete a task. But what many people do not realize is that animals interact with one another just as humans would. In many instances, people don’t realize the amount of intelligence and common sense that animals, such as the elephant, possess. The study of elephant’s thoughts and thinking were explained and backed up through three different mediums. This information was explained through articles, videos, and passages. Combined, these pieces of work clarified what the experiment was, what it was testing, the purpose behind it, and how the different pieces were
This knowledge and empathy combined would anthropomorphize elephants, imagining them as more human-like and would lead to coexistence, aka the trans-species psyche. In Siebert's An Elephant Crackup?, elephants and humans as a whole are in conflict with each other due to not knowing why the other group is aggressive and thus are in constant retaliation to each other (Siebert 322). A trans-species psyche can not be achieved if humans do not imagine elephants are equal beings. This imagination is not simply making up things as if they were lies, imagining elephants as more human teaches humans that they are emotionally and socially on the same level by emphasizing their mind's eye; giving another perspective of elephants than just wild animals ready to be poached. An example of people being blind to imagination is shown in an incident when a herd of elephants killed a man near the village Katwa, but buried him out of respect. The elephants themselves elephantmorphize the human so the human is like them, but the humans that want to retrieve the man's corpse do not anthropomorphize the elephants. The human villagers shoot gunfire on the elephants to drive them away, causing future generations of traumatized and violent elephants (334). Without imagination, people would not be able to understand others(which don't have to be human) causing a lack of empathy, a trait important for creating the trans-species psyche that Siebert
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a short story that not only shows cultural divides and how they affect our actions, but also how that cultural prejudice may also affect other parties, even if, in this story, that other party may only be an elephant. Orwell shows the play for power between the Burmese and the narrator, a white British police-officer. It shows the severe prejudice between the British who had claimed Burma, and the Burmese who held a deep resentment of the British occupation. Three messages, or three themes, from Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” are prejudice, cultural divide, and power.
Each author has the same purpose in writing about the elephant studies and there are many similarities and differences in which the elephants behaved.
There are some wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than wounds that bleed. Just as all humans, elephants similarly feel emotions whether it is joy or sorrow. In his article “An Elephant Crack Up?” the author, Charles Siebert focuses on the recent strange and bellicose behaviors of elephants and clears up the causes of the behaviors with plenty of informative observations. In “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert theorizes that the psychological immune system is triggered by large-scale negative events. We also see these negative effects in the passage, “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” while Ethan Watters exposes the attempts of Glaxo Smith Kline to convince the Japanese doctors that the Japanese people
The Elephant is something to marvel at, there is no animal quite like them. Between its shear size (the largest terrestrial mammal alive today), the familiar emotions they share with humans such as mourning for their dead, or their unique features like their large trunks, tusks, and ears, there is nothing that compares. These are some reasons why this large, beautiful animal should not be taken for granted in today’s society. Unfortunately, they have been between the illegal poaching of ivory, human elephant conflict regarding land usage, and environmental factors; they have become endangered. In the beginning of the 1800’s, it is estimated that there were 26 million elephants roaming our planet.
Elephants'." Studies in Short Fiction. 17.1 (Winter 1980): 75-77. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 75-77. Literature Resource Center. Gale.
The excerpt from Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk is about the exact procedures and results of the same experiment that Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk was about. It contains the precise physical dimensions of every part of the test, and detailed explanations of each step that was followed to preform the test. Little to no opinions, quotes, or even conclusions that could be drawn were included, due to the strict, formal, and informational nature of the passage. The author's purpose was purely to explain all parts of the elephant study, and not at all to entertain or persuade.
For years, animals have been at the center of our world; “the lives of animals and humans have been inextricably intertwined” (Corbett, 178). Thus, based on the close relationship between animals and humans throughout history, in my opinion animals have been used in all cultures to reflect the nature of humanity, symbolizing societal and individual characteristics. The traits of animals are very simple to observe and recognize, whereas human behavior is more intricate and difficult to describe. Animals are familiar creatures to us, which mutely encourage projection of people’s emotions and attitudes onto them. Animals can be used and as we have learned most recently, they are used to convey deep dimensions of human feelings and ideas. When I think of animals, their representation and their symbolism in our society, I immediately think of ani...
Cohn, Jeffrey P. "Do Elephants Belong In Zoos?" Bioscience 56.9 (2006): 714-717. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
The common name is the African Elephant, the scientific name is Loxodonta Africana, the phylum is Vertebrata, the class is Mammalia, the order is Proboscidea, and the family is Elephantidae. The Closest Relatives to the African Elephant are: the Asian Elephant, mammoths, primitive proboscidean (mastodons), sea cows, and hyraxes. Scientists believe that the African Elephant evolved from one of its closest relatives, the Sea Cow. The geographical location and range of the African elephant covers all of central and southern Africa. In Ethiopia there are isolated populations that exist around Lake Chad in Mali and Mauritania. Also in Kenya, Rhodesia, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Zaire, and in National parks located in South Africa, as well as several other countries. African Elephants, originally, were found in all of the Sub-Saharan African habitats except desert steppes. Elephants still occupy diverse habitats such as: temperate grassland, tropical savanna and grass lands, temperate forest and rainforest, tropical rainforest, tropical scrub forest, and tropical deciduous forest despite their drastic decline in numbers. However, their migratory patterns and habitat use have changed, due to the fact that they are restricted to protected areas. The elephant can exist in many types of environments but it prefers places that have many trees and bushes, which the elephant needs both for food and shade. They also like warm areas that have plenty of rainfall.
In fact, the history of the portrayal of the animal could be traced back to prehistoric time when people were still residing in caves and hunting animals like horses, reindeers for the food. Hunting was an indispensable part of their daily life because animals were the primary source of food and tools. That’s the reason why hunting was considered as one of the most popular themes in prehistoric art. As early as 3,000 B.C., a rock art from Uruk that demonstrates the king killing a lion using ancient weapons was already created. Later, around 700s and 600s B.C., a series of sculpture which has the similar theme was identified in the palace of Ashurbanipal. Every element of the carving signifies the message of strength and motion (Animals in Art). As we could observe from the ancient art, human beings have been closely bonded with the nature and animals since prehistoric time. Animals became a vital element in our art and were portrayed by us to convey messages to the
The rapid evolution of the family Elephantidae throughout time has been extensively researched in the past decades and has resulted in many new discoveries and lineages between the genuses of Elephantidae. Throughout evolution, a majority of the species of Elephantidae have become extinct, leaving only Loxodonta africana, Loxodonta cyclotis, and Elephas maximus. The number of these species, however, has dwindled significantly in the past years due to the high number of deaths of elephants due to poaching. The continuation of poaching has a possibility of a new evolutionary event within the elephants, elephants without tusks.
Elephants should not be killed because they help the environment. Elephants actually help the environment by acting like a bulldozer and knocking down dead trees that would stand dormant otherwise. Africa does not have the time or money to bulldoze these dead trees that take up land that could be used for some well needed shelter. There are too many homeless people in Africa to have dead trees taking up in some cases large parts of land. Elephants work as construction equipment that Africa does not have the money for. Without these elephants dead trees would take up many miles of that that could be houses sheltering the poor population of Africa.
What do you think about when you hear the word Africa? How about the word safari? Most people tend to think about elephants or giraffes. In this paper I will tell you many important facts about elephants: how they live, their appearance, and many other interesting facts about them. There are two different kinds of elephants; the African elephant and the Asian elephant (also known as the Indian elephant). The African elephant is the larger of the two.