Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature [Mass Market Paperback]

David P. Barash (Author), Nanelle R. Barash (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2008

What can elephant seals tell us about Homer’s Iliad?

How do gorillas illuminate the works of Shakespeare?

What do bloodsucking bats have to do with John Steinbeck?

Madame Bovary's Ovaries

A Darwinian Look at Literature

According to evolutionary psychologist David Barash and his daughter Nanelle, the answers lie in the most important word in biology: evolution. Just like every animal from mites to monkeys, our day-to-day behavior has been shaped by millions of years of natural selection. So it should be no surprise to learn that the natural forces that drive animals in general and Homo sapiens in particular are clearly visible in the creatures of literature, from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones all the way to Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones. Seen through the lens of evolutionary biology, the witty repartee of Jane Austen’s courting couples, Othello’s tragic rage, the griping of Holden Caulfield, and the scandalous indiscretions of Madame Bovary herself all make a fresh and exciting kind of sense.

The ways we fall in—and out—of love, stand by our friends, compete against our enemies, and squabble with our families have their roots in biological imperatives we share not only with other primates but with an amazing array of other creatures. The result is a new way to read, a novel approach to novels (and plays) that reveals how human nature underlies literature, from the great to the not-so-great.

Using the cutting-edge ideas of contemporary Darwinism, the authors show how the heroes and heroines of our favorite stories have been molded as much by evolution as by the genius of their creators, revealing a gallery of characters from Agamemnon to Alexander Portnoy, who have more in common with birds, fish, and other mammals than we could ever have imagined.

As engaging and informative as a good story, Madame Bovary’s Ovaries is both an accessible introduction to a fascinating area of science and a provocatively sideways look at our cherished literary heritage. Most of all, it shows in a delightfully enteraining way how science and literature shed light on each other.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One can only imagine the kitchen table conversations that inspired evolutionary psychologist David Barash and his daughter Nanelle (an undergraduate at Swarthmore) to collaborate on this witty and insightful book. Their explicit goal is to apply the basic principles of sociobiology (think Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene) to the study of literature. Thus, they say, we can better understand Othello as "a story about a jealous guy" if we know that males tend to be particularly afraid that their mate might have been impregnated by another, thus suckering them into expending resources on a child who doesn't carry their genes. By the same token, we can read Jane Austen's novels as detailed depictions of the cost-benefit analysis inherent in female mate selection. This conceit actually works quite nicely—the Barashes' writing is easy and ironic, as if they themselves take it with a grain of salt, and sociobiology benefits from being cast as an interpretive lens rather than the ironclad, coldly calculated truth that leaves many of its opponents feeling nervous about being nothing more than "gene machines." From its irreverent title to the last paragraph, the result is a surprisingly lighthearted romp through both literature and the animal kingdom, aimed at a casual reader who's interested in either or both. Agent, John Michel at the Howard Morhaim Agency. (May 3) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"From its irreverent title to the last paragraph, the result is a surprisingly lighthearted romp through both literature and the animal kingdom, aimed at a casual reader who’s interested in either or both."—Publishers Weekly

"Madame Bovary's Ovaries lies at the crossroads between literary studies and biology, and has much to offer students of either subject.... it provides an interesting addition to our knowledge of human culture."—Nature


From the Trade Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Dell (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440241847
• ISBN-13: 978-0440241843
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,774,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David P. Barash is an evolutionary biologist (Ph.D. zoology, Univ. of Wisconsin), a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, and the author of 30 books, dealing with various aspects of evolution, animal and human behavior, and peace studies. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received numerous awards. He is most proud, however, of his very personal collaboration with Judith Eve Lipton, his three children, one grandchild, and having been named by an infamous rightwing nut as one of the "101 most dangerous professors" in the United States. His dangerousness may or may not be apparent from his writing!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It's been a long time coming . . . " **, June 2, 2005

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature (Hardcover)

Literature, it's said, holds up a mirror to life. If our image of life is flawed or blurry the reflection will be hardly better. We are only now beginning to understand how life, especially human life, actually works. The Barashes, drawing on literature and the new science of evolutionary psychology, demonstrate that much of literature may be explained by biology. Instead of literature depicting limited or skewed views of morality or other ephemeral concepts, it can use universals applicable to all humanity. And that means the most enduring literature, no matter unconscious the author might be of Darwin's natural selection, still rests on evolutionary foundations.

The authors, a father-daughter team, have scoured a wide range of literature, from Shakespeare through Tolstoy to Mark Twain, in demonstrating which human characteristics are best portrayed in fiction or drama. They are quick to insist that biology is not "the" tool for analysing writing, but is "a" tool. One which should be used more often and given more attention than it has. They show how Othello, a play whose characters have been adapted to endless variations, is at heart, about male jealousy. Nature teems with examples of manifestations of this basic trait, from the physical to the behavioural. Scientific publications present countless examples from insects to elephants.

The chapter "The Key to Jane Austen's Heart" is about "what women want," and why. There's far more involved than Helen Hunt's ambition to be a successful manager or Freud's lack of answering his own question. The situation rests on finding the right mate. Like male jealousy, females of the species have a strong vested interest in what kind of male they select. Unlike males, females of many species, especially we primates, make a heavy investment in the reproductive process. For human females, there's the long gestation period, need for assistance during upbringing of the offspring and indication of long-term support. One of Darwin's great insights is that while males may do much posturing prior to copulation, it is the females who ultimately accept or reject the male's advances. This situation is reflected in the title of the book. While a female may accept one male for some aspects, she may wander afield searching for others for different reasons. Even a male bird seeking food or other mates may return to the nest to find himself displaced. Whose chicks will he be feeding?

Once offspring have been produced, a whole new spectrum of behaviours is unleashed. How many stable households have been disrupted by parent-offspring conflict? Twain's Huckleberry Finn, with no mother and a dysfunctional father, moves from one surrogate family to another. None beat him, reject him nor judge him, but he leaves them all, closing his narrative with the intent to "light out for the territories". As children mature, they develop their own agendas. From the "terrible twos" to the stresses of adolescence, parent-offspring conflicts reflect the stress of developing individuality, which may only be fulfilled by flight.

We've waited a long time for the insights provided here. Although the Barashes aren't the first to attempt this technique, this book is clearly the best effort made to date. The authors explain every factor clearly, there's no need for the reader to have a degree in zoology. Preconceived notions of what literature is about, however, should be placed in a tightly locked container. There are new and challenging ideas here and every fiction reader should consider them. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

** Thanks to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Toward Consilience, June 25, 2005

By 

DancesWithAnxiety "chewtoy to the Fates" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature (Hardcover)

This book muddles cart and horse: at times, evolutionary theory is explained by reference to literature; at times, literary productions are explained by reference to evolutionary theory. The book is as apt to go on an explanatory tangent featuring wasps or gorillas as on one featuring Othello or Emma. This tends to blunt the book's argument, but the defect is not fatal. I would recommend the book more for its explanations of evolutionary theory than for its insights into literature, but there is plenty of each.

Note that the subtitle, "a Darwinian look at literature," is accurate so long as "look" is understood to mean "survey" rather than "perusal." This book examines so many literary works (I counted over 150 in the index) in the light of evolutionary theory that it tends to breeziness. Still, it makes for an interesting and provocative read, if an odd one in places.

To wit, with surprising frequency, the book claims that the deeds or thoughts of a fictional character can be understood as the workings of natural selection or other Darwinian dynamics. No, fictional characters are not the products of natural selection, but rather of human beings, who are. This elision allows the authors to avoid or undertreat a number of interesting lines of inquiry: What is the adaptive value of literature? How, if at all, does it relate to the adaptive value of language generally? Given that human beings are an inveterately fiction-creating species, which aspects of our biological nature do we tend to present faithfully in literature, which do we tend to distort, and why? (And is there a Darwinian explanation for the pattern?) What, in Darwinian terms, can we make of a number of persistent characters, themes, and figurations that would seem to touch on biology: witches, extraterrestrials, life after death, spirits and ghosts, immortals and gods, robots and automatons, human-animal hybrids including sentient animals? Heck, why is the floppy-haired innocent in horror movies always a boy named Timmy, Joey, Bobby, or another name ending with the hard "e" sound?

This book may indeed herald a promising new approach to literature, but the detail work remains to be done. This is a further step toward the "consilience" between science and humanities that E.O. Wilson proposed in his book by the same title, but there are many more to take.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Novel Approach to Literature, May 5, 2005

By 

Jesus Surfs (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature (Hardcover)

Don't let the fact that Madame Bovary's Ovaries is a fun read fool you; the ideas contained within will forever change the way that you read fiction. Barash and Barash have managed to cogently describe their clever new way to analyze literature. It makes so much sense, you'll ask yourself "why didn't I think of that". In fact, you'll wonder why generation upon generation of English Lit. professors failed to pick up where Darwin left off.

I think it's safe to say that just about any lover of literature will enjoy a fresh perspective of their old favorites after reading Madame Bovary's Ovaries.