The Difficulty of Reality

            Cora Diamond’s Philosophy and Animal Life seeks to define the difficulty of reality through an analysis of J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals. Coetzee’s main character, Elizabeth Costello, is an isolated figure that aims to explain why the differentiation of man and animal is a bigger dilemma than perceived. In Diamond’s piece, certain other authors such as Peter Singer try to criticize Coetzee by proposing that Costello is merely a fictional character encompassing Coetzee’s views. Yet, Diamond tries to demonstrate to the readers that the failure to understand Coetzee’s piece is the same one as the one where we misunderstand ourselves. The difficulty of reality, as proposed by Diamond, is that in the process of immortalizing ourselves through goals, beliefs and careers, we have been conditioned to ignore the “permanent horrors’ of the imagination of death.” (45, Diamond). Our thoughts and reality are in utter conflict whereas the promise of a meaningful reality has become enough to repress the thought of a meaningless one. Costello may be a lonely character but in trying to brush her off as merely fictitious, we fail to see that her isolation is a representation of our own: we have made ourselves into stone, we have created the word “rationality” to divide us from non-beings in an attempt to survive the idea of ever not being. Thus, this contradictory inner conflict is what Diamond describes as the “difficulty of reality.”