Animal Abuse and Human Cruelty Theme Analysis

The One and Only Ivan is the story of Ivan, a gorilla who has spent most of his life living in the Big Top Mall. There, Ivan lives with an elephant named Stella, a small stray dog named Bob, and a variety of other domestic and exotic animals who perform in three shows per day, every day of the year. Ivan can more or less ignore how unfulfilling and sad his life is in his tiny glass and cement “domain” (his word for his cage)—that is, until the owner of the Big Top Mall, Mack, purchases a baby elephant named Ruby to add more life to the show and try to improve the mall’s financial situation. This marks the first time that Ivan has seen (rather than just heard about) the painful techniques handlers use to train elephants to perform. Through this training, Stella’s death from neglect, and the other animals’ memories of cruel and abusive humans, the novel suggests that humans’ cruelty to animals stems from a belief that animals are fundamentally different from humans and don’t feel pain, fear, or betrayal the same way that people do—something that the novel shows couldn’t be further from the truth.

First, the novel makes clear that cruelty and neglect don’t have one single definition or look one certain way—there are varying degrees of abuse. Both Ivan and Ruby tell stories about their babyhood, when they were both captured from the wild after poachers killed their parents and other family members. They describe these “bad humans” as killing adult gorillas and elephants without a second thought. This, the novel suggests, is true, inarguable evil and cruelty. On the other hand, the novel offers up Mack, the owner of the Big Top Mall and the animals in it, as the embodiment of casual cruelty and neglect. The novel implies that Mack’s business is struggling financially, and as a result, some of his animal husbandry practices are neglectful. For instance, he allows Stella’s infected foot to go without medical attention, keeps the animals in small cages, and cuts food rations and heating when money gets even tighter. But the novel also portrays Mack as a complex person who once cared for his animals to the best of his ability. Despite his good intentions, his financial desperation has pushed him to become neglectful and even abusive. Both Mack and the poachers severely mistreat animals, but the novel encourages readers to recognize that some evil behavior is a result of circumstance while other evil behavior is simply evil.

The novel also suggests that people are willing to treat animals cruelly and neglectfully in part because they don’t see animals as experiencing pain or emotions in the same way that humans do. Stealing babies and killing adult family members, for instance, shows that the poachers who captured Ivan and Ruby don’t believe that the animals’ family units are at all important—they see the baby animals as quick money, and the adults as disposable. Later, Mack’s choice to use the claw-stick (a long, sharp stick with a crescent-shaped hook capable of piercing elephants’ skin) to train Ruby shows, at the very least, that Mack doesn’t care if Ruby feels fear or pain. His desire to get her to perform is more important than what she’s feeling. Animals, according to Mack’s outlook, are merely creatures that exist to make him money by performing for others, and whatever it takes to get them to perform is acceptable.

But throughout the novel, the various animal characters show that they are indeed capable of feeling emotions and have spirits that can be broken. Mack says things about Ivan that are cruel and hurtful, not knowing that Ivan can hear and understand every word Mack says. Ivan dwells on Mack saying that Ivan has “lost his magic,” or that he isn’t cute anymore. It also seems to hurt Ivan when Mack insists that Ivan’s drawings are just “scribbles,” since Ivan tries his best to draw pictures of items in his domain, like banana peels or candy wrappers. Mack clearly doesn’t realize that Ivan understands his casual insults—the possibility never even seems to occur to him. This shows that Mack thinks of Ivan as fundamentally different—and less intelligent—than him. Further, it’s heartbreaking for Ivan when, after Stella’s death, Mack begins training Ruby to perform in the thrice-daily shows. Mack’s use of the claw-stick frightens Ruby into submission, making her dull and hopeless, and causing her to fear that she’s going to die in the Big Top Mall of neglect—just like Stella did. Indeed, the fact that Ivan—a gorilla—narrates the novel, offering his own thoughts and feelings on everything he sees and does, provides the novel’s clearest indicator that animals have feelings and are deserving of respect and kindness. While the novel and its anthropomorphized animals are fictional (though the novel is loosely based on a true story), hearing the story from Ivan’s point of view encourages readers to develop empathy for animals, whom the novel suggests aren’t so different from the humans who, in many cases, dictate their quality of life.