ABSTRACT
William Hogarth's The Four Stages of Cruelty figures prominently in cultural histories of the human-animal relationship in the eighteenth century. The male figure who seeks to intervene in the animal abuse in the first engraving is markedly middle-class in opposition to Tom Nero and the other participants in cruelty. Of particular interest to this study is that Tom Nero's progression of cruelty from animal to human victims takes a gendered form. The status of animals, or the Animal Question, to use Paola Cavalieri's coinage, was the subject of rigorous scientific, philosophical, and political debate during Austen's lifetime. Eighteenth-century discourses of animal welfare and rights emphasized animal sentience. The founding of animal protection organizations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Great Ape Project are connected to the animal welfare and rights movements of the eighteenth century and to the early steps towards legal protection of animals that took place during this time.
