What if they could speak? Humanized animals in science fiction

Literature offers us plenty on ‘humanized animals’, but traditionally they are fantastic or allegoric figures, just another product of the universal imaginative practice of anthropomophization. In this chapter instead I focus on the science fictional version of this theme, i.e., with figures of animals which have undergone a process or a procedure of humanization: "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by H.G. Wells; “Heart of a Dog” by Michail Bulgakov; in Philip K. Dick’s postapocalyptic novels; the Maddaddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood. All these figures present some common features – like a controversial legal status, or an estranged and estranging use of language, a strongly pathetic profile – which I think might be useful both to highlight some implications of the theme of vulnerability in literature, and to connect it to the rich discussion on non-human animals as ‘vulnerable subjects’ in Human-Animal Studies.