Why We Cling to the Animal Kingdom

Critics at Large | The New Yorker · Jun 11, 2026 · 52m

Since the days of Aesop, stories about animals have been used to explore distinctly human values, virtues, and vices. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider such childhood classics as E. B. White’s “Stuart Little” and C. S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series, as well as “The Sheep Detectives,” a recent entry in this canon that centers on a flock who learn poignant lessons about life and loss. Works of adult literature, too, have explored the animal-human bond. Our tendency to project onto animals translates to the real world in…