The purpose of this paper is to examine the role which animal narrators play in the it-narrative genre. This paper argues that the qualities of life and agency separate animal narrators from object narrators, making animal narrators especially capable of providing social critique thanks to animal narrators' naturally occupying a space between subject and object. This thesis marks the rising use of animal narrators and notes their narratological trends over a 62 period, showing the lingering influence of late-eighteenth-century models into mass-market periodicals of antebellum America and Victorian Britain. Chapters One and Two provides generic definitions and a brief consideration of animals in popular British culture and responds to key points of debate in the current it-narrative field by using Felissa or; The Life and Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment (1811). Chapters Three and Four analyze related texts from before and after Felissa. Chapters Four and Five extend the discussion to shorter fiction in children's periodicals, taking the audience response to it-narratives into account. Highlighting the distinction between animal and non-animal narrators in these venues gives nuance to our understanding of the well-known "circulation" thematic in the it-narrative genre, while also calling attention to these narratives' less-studied but rigorous examinations of slavery, class difference, and colonialism.

This master thesis deals with the phenomenon of non-human narrator in the literary fiction. The theoretical part of the thesis provides a conceptual framework. The framework is based on the so-called unnatural narratology. Firstly, the thesis discusses non-human narrators that are conventionally accepted. Secondly, the thesis provides a case study of non-human narrators that are perceived as unnatural. The case study includes examples from both canonical works and contemporary works. The research focuses on two main levels related to the usage of the phenomenon of non-human narration as used in the narratives: the level of "meaning" and the level of "form and effect".