SCHUTTEN, Julie “Madrone” Kalil and Caitlyn BURFORD

Special Issue 2017, 47.3, pages 257-263

“Killer” Metaphors and the Wisdom of Captive Orcas

Abstract: This entry distinguishes captive orcas from their wilder and freer kin. We speculate that captive orcas embody three principle metaphors: Prisoner; Activist; Martyr. These metaphors help us to imagine the kinds of rhetorical thinking necessary for a deeper understanding of the costs of human behavior as well as the potential for creating new visions and modes of witnessing. By witnessing orcas-as-prisoners, humans begin to see marine parks anew, as prisons, understanding their own complicity in the imprisonment of animal activists. Captive orca metaphors help to convey the actions of other-than-humans as rhetorically salient and politically motivated.

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