The Revolt of the Animals

"Don't give up! I'll help you!" barks Rex, the hero of Władysław Reymont's  Revolt of the Animals  (1924), "carried away with wrath and compassion" at the sight of his friend the old donkey with "his head covered in a hempen sack, being whipped by boys harrying him towards a pit of lime." Who would not be roused to a righteous indignation at the sight of such wanton cruelty, inflicted upon a wise, sentient creature - for the perverse pleasure of man, that "crown and lord of all creatio