Human and Animal Interrelationships from Domestication to Present - Book Report/Review Example

The implication is that there is only enough food for two lionesses, not three, and Elsa, as the smallest and weakest of the trio, probably would’ve been thrown out of the pride and starved to death. We get to know the three cubs as they are growing up – their games, their interactions with each other, and their bond with Pati. The chapter also provided the reason why Elsa became bonded to her human caregivers – Elsa, being the weakest of the lionesses, couldn’t get her fair share of meals, because the three lionesses would fight over meals, and Elsa wasn’t able to win these fights.

So, the caregivers had to give Elsa special treatment, which consisted of feeding Elsa on Joy’s lap at every meal. This chapter, by introducing how Elsa became tame, as opposed to wild, sets up the conflict that would permeate the last part of the book – that Elsa had become dependent upon her human caregivers, therefore did not have the instincts that would help her survive in the wild (Cookson, 187). Chapter 2 In this chapter, we become more aware that Elsa has become more tame, and more dependent upon her humans, for she does not even recognize her own kind.

There are other lions who are making sounds, and Joy remarks that Elsa was not concerned about these other lions. She obviously didn’t recognize these other lions as her own kind. On the other hand, Elsa did get disturbed and depressed when Joy was away in Nairobi, because Joy was putting Elsa’s two sisters into a zoo in Holland, and Joy had to see them off. That said, Elsa met other kinds of wild animals, and the chapter describes her interactions with them. In this chapter, as in others, the reader is inculcated with Joy Adamson’s basic ethos regarding Elsa and the animals in general – that she has great empathy for Elsa, and other animals, and she also has a profound respect for the natural world.

These qualities, according to Callejo-Brighton (1), represented a change in literature regarding animals, that also reflected the conservation movement in general. This is that, prior to books like Adamson’s, the books about animals were written by males and concerned conquest of animals. There was a shift in the popular mentality regarding animals, and the bestselling books about animals reflected this shift. These books were more like Adamson’s book in tone and focus – that animals are creatures to be cherished for their qualities, and should not be seen as creatures that should be ours to conquer.

This is very evident by the way that Adamson lovingly writes about Elsa’s antics and bonding with her. Chapter 3 - Elsa Goes to the Indian Ocean This chapter was all about Elsa going to the sea with the Adamson’s, and how much she enjoyed frolicking in the water. This chapter basically advances the overall ethos of the book, which is that Elsa was more human than lioness at this point. Although the book is subtitled “A Lioness of Two Worlds,” at this point, Elsa was a lioness of one world, and that was the human world.

She played with Joy in the ocean, and she played with George on the shore. This chapter basically enhanced the notion that Elsa was bonded to her human caregivers in a way that was like a child more