In "Animal's People", author Indra Sinha explores the idea of what it means to be human primarily through his main character, a teenage boy with a body so twisted he rejects humanity and calls himself Animal, and a human-rights leader who sacrifices his own pleasure for the greater good. Yet while one character would, at first, seem to be the epitome of man's animal nature and the other the epitome of man's best potential, Sinha constantly plays with these ideas, sometimes showing that the baser character makes purer choices than the good and vice versa. Even in the real world, different people have divergent personalities. For example, some people can have the image of ‘bad person’ kind of type but be the most generous human. Even in this …show more content…
However, when Animal finally find love around his friends, he then shows his deep down feelings of tenderness. According to the text, “Nish, if you’re ever unhappy, just remember, for your sake I’ll do anything” (47). This shows the change that Animal have in him emotionally because his love. In this book, he shows his caring for his loves ones in many ways and a lot of times. To pick out major ones, it would be on his Ma, Nishia, and Anjali. In the beginning of the book, the author stated, “well, fuck that. No way was I going to tell those stories. I’ve repeated them so often my teeth are ground smooth by the endless passage of words”(5). This shows that his using profanity in front of the tapes is not an expression that many normal people would do. His use of profanity language makes him look rude, savage, and mean. However, he used those expressions to hide his true feelings about his softness on what happened on ‘that night.’ After he met Nishia, according to Animal, “the love of his life,” people start noticing about how caring Animal can be and his kindness. Before that Animal is known for a person who does not cares about his past and never have sad emotions. However, Nishia changed everything about his feelings. All those years, the wall Animal builts to protect himself emotionally, Nishia starts to make them collapse little by little. Two major of many …show more content…
She always portrays him as an ignorant person. Animal bad behaviors always goes back to his way of talking to people around him. His wordings are the negative impact of his image that people have view on. Because of his depiction, people might have think he is a person who snitch on people for his own benefit or just for being very talkative. However, those were not the case, he is being very secretive of his actions. He is very loyal to people with his own kinds, friends, and family. In this case, Zafar might be the one to trigger his loyalty when Zafar trusted him with a lot of money. In text stated, “I was amazed that Zafar, knowing I’d been a scam artist, would put so much money in my hand” (39). This moment is the moment when Zafar shows him what kind of person he is. Even in reality, a person always need another person to support and trusts him for moving forward in life. He is willing to do whatever Zafar suggests except death because Animal thinks that death is one way to give up what they’ve been fighting for. In the novel, the author stated, “I am watching Zafar’s face and it seems to me that a great weariness appears in it. It comes to me then that he is doing this because she is tired of fighting and that this is the only way he can stop with honour” (294). This shows that even though Zafar action was brave to Animal, he never thought about their organization was to die
Candy also feels the burden of loneliness and shows it by his relationship with his sheep dog. The dog, being described as “ancient”, “stinky”, and “half-blind”, had been in Candy’s life for a very long time and Candy had grown attached to it.
Through the experience of the young character, Bobby, the short story Catapult by J. A McLeod is a good example in which characters in texts are constructed to represent the best and worst qualities in human nature. In this short story, Bobby is constructed to convey just how easily we are able to destroy our innocence and to represent some of the uglier qualities in human nature, like how we crave power, are greedy and how easily we are able to kill if given the power paired with a lapse in judgement. It shows how we would rather pin the blame on something innocent rather than accept our faults and also suggests that our lack of judgement could be our downfall. At the same
When you look at yourself in the mirror, probably, you are wondering what is human nature, how does it affect us? We all say that men’s nature at birth is good. But the truth is we realize more and more darkness of humanity along with we grow up, and that changes us inattentively. Today, I would like to present human nature base on the transition of Charlie who is the main character in Craig Silvey’s ‘Jasper Jones’.
a human being has been contemplated for centuries. Numerous philosophers have read and debated this significant question and it is still reflected upon today. Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley plumbs the depth of this question with the example of a creature who is spurned by humanity despite being human in character. The discernment of creature from man is still misconstrued as shown in this tale, but its importance lies in the message Frankenstein that appearances matter very little when it comes to being human. The creature’s human qualities of its emotions, desire for companionship, and intelligence set it apart as uniquely human from simply a base and barbaric monster
The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something worthwhile for mankind. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to determine what makes a human being choose the way he/she behaves. Mary Shelley (1797-1851) published a novel in 1818 to voice her opinions about determining personality and the consequences and repercussions of alienation. Shelley uses the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make her point. Rousseau proposed the idea that man is essentially "good" in the beginning of life, but civilization and education can corrupt and warp a human mind and soul. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (hereafter referred to as Frankenstein), Victor Frankenstein’s creature with human characteristics shows us that people are born with loving, caring, and moral feelings, but the creature demonstrates how the influence of society can change one’s outlook of others and life itself by his reactions to adversity at “birth”, and his actions after being alienated and rejected by humans several times.
The Road is a phenomenal example of how raw human nature shapes peoples’ decisions. It addresses the behaviors of people neither informed nor controlled by a social order. In the essence of The Road, people’s actions are highly dependent on the person’s basic needs. A lack of basic human needs often results in the more disturbing view of human nature. (Gilbert pg. 43) Betrayal, suicide, and cannibalism are all examples of behaviors that human nature can bring out of people.
Inwardly examining his own nature, man would prefer to see himself as a virtuously courageous being designed in the image of a divine supernatural force. Not to say that the true nature of man is a complete beast, he does posses, like many other creatures admirable traits. As author Matt Ridley examines the nature of man in his work The Origins of Virtue, both the selfish and altruistic sides of man are explored. Upon making an honest and accurate assessment of his character, it seems evident that man is not such a creature divinely set apart from the trappings of selfishness and immorality. Rather than put man at either extreme it seems more accurate to describe man as a creature whose tendency is to look out for himself first, as a means of survival.
... human he has known or loved has rejected the creature he decides to isolate himself. But as he retreats to his desolation he saves a girl from drowning in river. This concern for human life in addition to his love toward the family is evidence to his humanity.
In viewing 12 Angry Men, we see face to face exactly what man really is capable of being. We see different views, different opinions of men such as altruism, egoism, good and evil. It is no doubt that human beings possess either one or any of these characteristics, which make them unique. It is safe to say that our actions, beliefs, and choices separate us from animals and non-livings. The 20th century English philosopher, Martin Hollis, once said, “Free will – the ability to make decisions about how to act – is what distinguishes people from non-human animals and machines 1”. He went to describe human beings as “self conscious, rational, creative. We can fall in love, write sonnets or plan for tomorrow. We are capable of faith, hope and charity, and for that matter, of envy, hated and malice. We know truth from error, right from wrong 2.” Human nature by definition is “Characteristics or qualities that make human beings different from anything else”. With this said, the topic of human nature has been around for a very long time, it is a complex subject with no right or wrong answer. An American rabbi, Samuel Umen, gave examples of contradictions of human nature in his book, Images of Man. “He is compassionate, generous, loving and forgiving, but also cruel, vengeful, selfish and vindictive 3”. Existentialism by definition is, “The belief that existence comes before essence, that is, that who you are is only determined by you yourself, and not merely an accident of birth”. A French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, is the most famous and influential 20th - century existentialist. He summed up human nature as “existence precedes essence”. In his book, Existentialism and Human Emotions, he explained what he meant by this. “It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will be something, and he himself will have made what he will be 4”. After watching 12 Angry Men, the prominent view on human nature that is best portrayed in the movie is that people are free to be whatever they want because as Sartre said, “people create themselves every moment of everyday according to the choices they make 5”.
In Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People, he provides the reader with a fictional account of the Bhopal Disaster through the eyes of a deformed teenager in a fictional town named Khaufpor. This teenager calls himself ‘Animal’ because his deformity bent his spine to the point where he must walk on all fours, making him feel inhuman. With his mother and father dead, he accepts the name as his own and denies his own humanity. Although Animal tries to separate himself from his humanity because of the pain it causes him, he is forced to accept his humanity through his friends’ guidance and the inner and external conflicts that he faces meaning that humanity is unavoidable.
Animal Farm by George Orwell is a novel based on the lives of a society of animals living on the Manor Farm. Although the title of the book suggests the book is merely about animals, the story is a much more in depth analysis of the workings of society in Communist Russia. The animals are used as puppets to illustrate how the communist class system operated and how Russian citizens responded to this. And also how propaganda was used by early Russian leaders such as Stalin, and the effort this type of leadership had on the behavior of the people of Russia.
Within his essay of The Damned Human Race, author Mark Twain powerfully declares that the human race is both flawed and corrupt, and that people actually should be classified as 'lower animals' rather than the formerly known 'higher animals.' Twain does not hold claim to a Darwinian or creation standpoint, but rather draws conclusions from his own observations in performed experiments. He states that 'man is the cruel animal,' and that we can attribute this to his moral character. However, there appears to be another side which contradicts his findings. Perhaps man is indeed the 'highest animal,' but possesses something which other animals do not.
"The Case For Animal Rights" written by Tom Regan, promotes the equal treatment of humans and non-humans. I agree with Regan's view, as he suggests that humans and animals alike, share the experience of life, and thus share equal, inherent value.
The world is constantly trying to invent and find new forms of entertainment. This being said, people often find pleasure in watching animals. When thinking about how animals are used in the entertainment industry, it seems that in most cases they are being mistreated. Owners of such animals that are neglected lack the care and knowledge to provide for them. This is a social issue because not only do we use animals for our own enjoyment, but we uproot them from their natural habitats and take them away from their families.
Since animals, especially dogs, share similar emotions as people they to make great companions. Animals do show us how to love better, because their emotions are more pure than a human's. According to Mary Lou Randour, in "What Animals Can Teach Us About Spirituality", animals are spiritual companions to humans. She tells the story of a boy who, after murdering someone, receives a dog to care for as a form of therapy. The dog comforts him, and the teenager learns to love the animal over time. The boy's pet is "healing his soul" by teaching him how to love. Dogs give their masters unconditional love, never questioning the human's orders or disciplines. I thought the story of the dog appearing in the author's backyard as her dead grandfather was rather outlandish. All of Randour's examples of how animals influence our feelings were viable aside from the disappearing ghost dog.