Giving an animal human characteristics is known as anthropomorphism. How can we objectively judge an animal's thoughts and feelings? Humans place themselves above animals and anything inhumane. To give voice to an animal is to assert authority over it. How can we claim to know what an animal is thinking? There are several chapters in Glotfelty's The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, which comment on different topics in ecology; chapter 8 of the book talks about literature and ecology. The text notes that there is a big difference between how “the human world and the natural world support life and communities” (108). Both have different ways of surviving. Humans interact with nature on a daily basis, so it can be argued that the "human world" could not exist without the "natural world", but it is not a mutual relationship.