The Speech for the Defense Summary and Analysis

My Family and Other Animals is an attempt at zoological dissertation on the island of Corfu, Greece. The novel succeeds in being a creative mixture of natural history study and autobiographical account of the Durrell family as they live on Corfu for five years. The first in a trilogy of books on the island, My Family and Other Animals is a creative introduction to Gerald Durrell, child animal collector, and his eccentric family. The novel is a humorous study on human and animal behavior by a best-selling author and zoologist.

Gerald Durrell attempts to explain why the story is mainly about his family though it was not his original intention. As his introduction of his family in the introduction warrants some explanation, Gerald continues to write about his family until they all but...