ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Olive Schreiner's Undine: A Queer Little Child, which is an experimental intertext that uses older allegorical narrative forms to explore progressive political and ethical positions. It assesses the relationship between form and radicalism, focusing on one of the main allegorical thrusts of Undine, which is provided by the zoomorphic human and anthropomorphic animal characters that descend from mythical, fairytale, and Ancient Greek philosophical origins. The connections that Schreiner makes in Undine between allegory, animals, and politics can be explained by turning to the work of Derrida. In line with Derrida's arguments, Schreiner's metaphorically significant animals disrupt a rationale of inclusion/exclusion, thereby recognising the political and ethical force instigated by the animal. Schreiner's attempt to articulate her burgeoning and incompletely formed feminist, freethinking and anti-imperialist positions through the allegorical beastly natures of her characters leads her to position them as future leaders who hope to overthrow existing laws.
