Sterne’s Journey Into Animal Affect

Solitary Confinement, Aloneness, and Sociability in Sterne

“…Distressed animals feature regularly in sentimental fiction, where they straddle a somewhat uneasy boundary between concern for the emotions that a non-human creature might experience, as Glynis Ridley has eloquently argued in discussing animal affect in the starling episode, and their more functional role in triggering or highlighting seemingly superior human affect. 5 The caged bird is supposed to act as a catalyst of compassion, stimulating Yorick to move beyond his bubble of self to contemplate states of captivity affecting other beings, but in the process the reality of one creature's confinement becomes subsumed within the imagined captivity of others, beginning with and centring on Yorick himself. The starling morphs from being an actual bird to a non-natural object -'Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile' (95-96) 6 and then to an abstract concept, as Yorick physically moves away from the immediate scene: 'The bird in his cage pursued me into my room' (97).…”