Disease, Language, and Animal Life

This paper proposes a critical approach to the “animal issue” from the perspective of disease. Through the analysis of a set of literary texts published after the year 2000, we approach the theoretical problem of “animality” and its relationship with humanity as a key aspect within modern experiences of pathologies. Firstly, we will note the quite common rapprochement or assimilation effect between the ill subject and animals in contexts of a serious illness or an acute pathological process. In most cases, this animalization is closely linked to medical narratives and practices. Secondly, we will explore other ways in which the animal element disrupts our experiences of illness. Deleuze’s idea of “becoming animal” is here useful to understand such disruption: as a theoretical tool, it allows us to realize how the “becoming animal” of sickly literary characters reacts against the processes of animalization linked to medicine (as a biopolitical practice). In these cases, “becoming animal” is specifically materialized in relation to a particular “becoming animal of language”.