Humanimal Analysis by Anna Boyer

Anna Boyer

Cooper

CRWR212

April 22, 2013

Analysis: Humanimal

            Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal is a story written in poetic prose form and is based on the story of two girls who were found dwelling with wolves in the city of Bengal, India in 1920 (Kapil IX). While these girls still had their human form physically, they were in another, non-human space mentally. Through living amongst wild creatures, the girls are essentially dehumanized and live outside any written system of law. Kapil’s work, through historical account and first-hand experience as a filmmaker, explores what exactly it means to be human and what it means to be an animal and just how blurred the lines are between those two realms.

            One of the main themes woven throughout the tale is that of dehumanization. The two girls who were living with the pack of wolves, Kamala and Amala, wear white dresses as their only clothing, as the author observes from a photograph. This seems to be one of the factors that distinguishes them as members of the human species apart from their physical bodies. At the Home, others watch in fascination as these beings are taught to eat and speak as humans do. The action of the staring automatically gives them an animal-like designation, since such a situation is eerily similar to what happens on either side of zoo enclosures. The narrator describes the scene in which she first discovers the girls living amongst wolves: “Her elbow as thick as a knot. I said it was cartilage-the body incubating a curved space, an animal self. Instead of hands, she had four streaks of light. An imprimatur, she saw me and flinched” (Kapil 6). A being that fits this description is not viewed as fully human in the context of society, and “domestication” is the order of the day. Kamala and Amala cannot speak the way that humans can when raised and socialized amongst other humans, and that lack of speech is a sharp dividing line between the human realm and the animal realm. The girls are dehumanized and are forced to conform to what the society expects, essentially spinning a tale comparable to those of colonized nations that were forced to adopt the ways of the invading culture.

            The second theme that runs through Kapil’s work is that of animals living outside a world governed by systems of law. Animals live outside the structures of human law and order, not because they are stupid or ignorant, but because they are not expected to. Although the mental space that Kamala and Amala occupy is questionable and a cause for concern in the minds of many people, it is their physical form that assigns them to the difficult task of learning the ways of “civilized” life and the laws, written and unwritten. This, in part, is what makes Kapil’s descriptions of the girls being roughly shoved into human society so brutal: they do not know how to function as humans, but only as wolves without a thick coat of fur. When Amala tragically passes away during the process of these domestication efforts, Kapil writes: “Red worms came out of their bodies and the younger girl died. Kamala mourned the death of her sister with, as Joseph wrote, ‘an affection’” (Kapil 55). The law, in a social sense, not a legal sense, killed Amala and eventually Kamala as they try to cross the thin border that separates humans from other animals, which includes the display of emotion. Social constructions ultimately brought around the deaths of these two girls in society’s demand for human conformity.

            Kapil also uses several poetic devices in her work to describe this emotionally and intellectually challenging tale, even though it is written in narrative prose. One of the devices she uses most powerfully is that of imagery, particularly in descriptions of the jungle. The following passage is simply one example of an image built through language: “At the edge of the jungle was a seam, a dense shedding of light green ribbons of bark. A place where things previously separate moved together in a wet pivot” (Kapil 6). Even though the description is abstract, one can still construct the scene mentally. A second device that Kapil uses is a foil. Dr. Joseph Singh serves as a foil to Kamala and Amala as the head of the Home and eventual officiator of their burials. He is not necessarily an antagonist but he does take the girls from their environment and is present for the difficult journey. This piece, as a whole, is a narrative poem, in that is uses poetic language and form to tell a compelling and very complex story of the thin veil between human society and the animal world.

The point of view of the narrator in this work is quite interesting because it is Kapil herself as a filmmaker tracing the steps of a journey that happened in the past. The narrator tells the story based on knowledge from primary and secondary sources as well as what she has observed herself, blending to create a story rich in emotion and sensory details. The use of symbolism is also quite heavy in this work, especially within the jungle itself. The jungle represents the unknown and is a concealer of things not present in modern human society. The fact that Kamala and Amala emerge from the forest adds even more to society’s need to domesticate them. Another device that Kapil uses is that of syntax. She orders her words in a very poetic way, giving them meaning that goes well beyond the surface, creating both mystery and empathy for the historic figures and the author.

Works Cited

Kapil, Bhanu. Humanimal: A Project for Future Children. Berkeley: Kelsey Street Press, 2009.

Humanimal Analysis

Crystal Fulp

Cooper

CRWR 212Y

April 22, 2014

Humanimal Analysis

            Humanimal was an interesting read from start to finish. Upon picking it up one isn’t really sure what to make of the work, as it doesn’t follow the typical form for poetry or even works of fiction. The subject matter is also difficult to pinpoint, as it tends to change sporadically as one reads. This piece is very difficult to sort through, but one can argue that the author did this quite purposefully. The main purpose behind this work is to stimulate the readers’ ability to think on an intellectual level. The author wants the reader to sit with text and ponder its meaning and to even give it their own meaning. The text is simply an elegant mish-mashing of different forms and content that presents the reader with a literary patchwork quilt to piece together as they read and the “story” unfolds.

            When many people read books they often wish to nail down the genre and form of the piece that they are reading. They do this in hopes of being able to create a framework that they can use to help them understand the story. The problem (or a point of contention) with Humanimal is that one can’t really nail down its genre or form. Personally, that threw me for a loop as I read the book. I kept saying, “What am I reading?” The book doesn’t present one specific genre because of its changing content and style. I wavered between it being literary fiction and prose fiction. Obviously the book has literary merit in that it’s a complex and multilayered story that discusses a multitude of important things, such as the balance between humans and nature and even the wild that lives in each individual person (think instinct here, like how animals behave in the wild). The changing form also threw me for a loop as I read. I went into the book thinking that it would be prose, but it’s so much more. There is a mixture of form here and even reference material for the author. There is obviously some material that is somewhat true to life (especially with the wolf girls), but the work is still fiction in nature because of observations, memories, and memoir-type anecdotes that are shared with the reader throughout the work. The form is very dynamic in that the observations, anecdotes or whatever can be shared through prose poetry or a simply sentence that isn’t poetic at all in nature (at least to me). It should be noted that this only my personal understanding of the work therefore it’s subject to argument.

            The book is troubling until one gets passed the initial shock of reading such a strange and different text. Until one understands that it is meant to be strange and thought provoking no real thought can be given to the content of this book. There were definitely parts of the book that were told in story form, especially in relation to the wolf girls, Kamala and Amala. However, most of this book seems to be an extended metaphor for life and nature. The story is easy to understand, but the metaphor is the meat of the book and is definitely where the struggle for comprehension begins.

            The author communicates the metaphor through imagery and a deep intellectual probing of sorts. In the beginning, all I could see in my mind as I read was a lush jungle forest full of greens, browns, and yellows. It started out to be a peaceful scene, but the image changed or evolved as I kept reading. It turned into a dangerous place full of unknown diseases, dangers, and even death. The inclusion of the feral children in the storywork greatly distorted one’s peaceful image of the jungle and made it something wild and uncontrollable. This reminded me of child psychology courses where I learned all about child development in growth. I have always thought that young children are very wild in nature and are similar to wild animals in many aspects. For instance, they only think and articulate their own needs and they also have to be taught not to bite, hit, kick, yell, scream, etc. Basically, all young children must be socialized (or civilized). In this way, normal children aren’t very different from the feral (wolf) children at all. The exception comes when normal children are socialized. Obviously feral children aren’t socialized at all, so they become “stuck” or “controlled” by their baser instincts. For me, this book spoke to the “wild” that each of us has inside of us. In a way, we are all nothing but wild animals that society has socialized or “broken”.

            After I finally came to this conclusion and felt comfortable with it, the metaphor began to change again and be all about some type of metamorphosis. Actually, as I read this book all I could think about what Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, which is a novella about a traveling salesman who morphs into this grotesque insect-like creature that repulses himself and everyone else around him. The main character spends the greatest part of the story adjusting to his metamorphosis. This book is definitely related to The Metamorphosis in that they both talk about a point of no return. In this instance, once people are socialized they have reached the point of no return and their metamorphosis into human beings truly begins. It works the same way in the case of the feral children. Their metamorphosis began when they weren’t socialized. In either case, the metamorphosis forms the basis for our experiences, which is the basis of our lives. Yes, the metamorphosis can be undone, but at a great cost to the individual. Look at the feral children, many of whom couldn’t survive in captivity. The same can be said for a socialized individual who ends up spending years alone in seclusion. The theme of a metamorphosis (of some type) was very important for me in understanding this text.

            This book is a beautiful, poignant, and lyrical exploration of human nature at its most basic form. The numerous experiences, observations, and historical anecdotes in this work fit together in such a way that it produces an experimental piece of poetry. For this piece, the poetry had nothing to do with form and everything to do with the meaning that the reader makes from the words.

Deyanira Bustos - Humanimal Analysis

Deyanira Bustos

Joseph Cooper

CRWR 212 Y

April 22, 2014

Humanimal Analysis

In the book Humanimal, Bhanu Kapil illustrates the hardships and life changing events that two young girls go through as they are changed from “animal” like creatures to “humans”. This story is very interesting and provides a sense of how far people can go in order to spread civilization. The book goes in depth of explaining the life of these two girls through the use of simile, point of view, imagery, syntax, flashback, and detail.

In the book, Kapil is able to portray different points of view in order to demonstrate her ideas as well as the the ones from the two girls. Through out the book she separates her work through numbers or the use of letters. Each of these describes something different and from my understanding, she tries to demonstrate the ideas and thoughts of the two girls and her findings and research all together into the book. She includes personal pronouns in the book such as “my” and “I”, and the text also changes in font to separate and distinguish the different points of view. For example, Kapil states “They tore strips from my spine” indicating that it was an act performed on one of the girls.

Kapil uses a lot of imagery in order to describe the lives of these two girls and with that detail and simile are incorporated. The imagery of Kapil is very astounding and goes on a very different level for example when she states “All the branches stir in their silver.” It seems like a very basic but very in depth description of the trees and the way they “stir”. You can imagine the tree “stirring” with the wind and the leaves rattling but the description that was used by providing the word “silver” is very rare and different. Silver tends to describe the image, color, and strength or material in which something is made. In their strength or color or brilliance is something that could describe the tree branches and the tree itself. Similes were also used such as “She opens her coat like two wings and I step into her cloth heart, her cleft of matted fur”. This line describes how the wolf was her shelter and how she was sheltered and taken in by the wolf’s “wings” almost like an angel. The wolf was the childrens savior and was something they knew and trusted. There was also a lot of description and mentioning of colors. For example, “intensely white in the pale pink day” in order to provide more description and images of how everything seemed to be.

There is also small and short syntax and a lot of flashbacks throughout the book. The author goes on to describe things and state them each in very small sentences in order to emphasize. An example that demonstrates the use of short syntax is “This is waking. I want to. All branches fear life. It pushes and pushes: life.” This also incorporates personification when stating that the “branches fear” because that is a human characteristic. There are flashbacks in the work recalling to the girls point of view or experiences but these point of views come from the author. These flashbacks recall when they were fed by the priest, shaved, them escaping, and a lot of other things. These flashbacks allow for us to have more knowledge on the situation and how the young girls felt.

This book was very well built and allowed for their to be a well organized and described way in which the young girls suffered and how they were transformed. Their life changed drastically and this was well perceived by the author very well. The imagery and descriptions were superb and other use of figurative language helped complete the story and there was a lot of meaning behind it all.

FINAL ESSAY

3-5 PAGES IN LENGTH

WORKS CITED PAGE CONTAINING 1 PRIMARY SOURCE AND 2 SECONDARY SOURCES MINIMUM

APPLY ALL YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF COHERENT ESSAY WRITING, ATTENDING TO GRAMMAR, SYNTAX, ORGANIZATION, TOPIC/SUPPORTING/CONCLUDING SENTENCES, THESIS STATEMENTS, ETC. IN YOUR DECONSTRUCTION OF 1 OF THE FOLLOWING ESSAY TOPICS.  

*I AM OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS IF YOU ARE INSPIRED IN ANOTHER DIRECTION.

JARNOT

HOW IS LANGUAGE USED IN A WAY THAT ECHOES THE MIND’S OWN PATTERNS OR HABITS OF THOUGHT?

BECAUSE JARNOT’S WORK RELIES HEAVILY ON CADENCE AND REPETITION, HOW MIGHT WE LOOK TO MUSIC TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS PUZZLING ABOUT BLACK DOG SONGS?

HOW IS JARNOT’S WORK, SPECIFICALLY “MY TERRORIST NOTEBOOK” AN ATTACK ON POST 9/11 AMERICAN POLICY?

ANALYZE ONE OF THE SECTIONS OF HER WORK AND DECONSTRUCT IT FOR CRAFT, FORM, CONTENT, AND MEANING

KAPIL

EXPLAIN CHRISTINA HUME’S QUOTE THAT “THE BOOK [HUMANIMAL] IS NOT AS MUCH CONCERNED WITH TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS AS IT IS WITH THE CREATION OF AN ATMOSPHERE”.

EXPLAIN WHAT CHRISTINE HUME’S CLAIM THAT “HUMANIMAL OFFERS THE BODY AS A MODEL OF ARTICULATION, MAKING A CASE FOR EXPERIENCE AS A DISTINCT FORM OF MEANING”.

ANALYZE AND INTERPRET KAPIL’S WORK FOR CRAFT, FORM, CONTENT, AND MEANING.

SIKELIANOS

DISCUSS THE FORM OF THE BOOK OF JON, AND THE NECESSITY OF LAYERING, DENSITY, AND MOTION.  HOW DOES FORM ADDRESS THE UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR RELATIONSHIPS TO INTIMATE STORIES?

HOW DOES THE BOOK OF JON ACT AS AN IMMACULATE COMPLIMENT IN ITS CARTOGRAPHIC INSCRIPTION OF A NATION’S ADAM?

COMPARE ANOTHER MEMOIR/AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF YOUR CHOICE WITH THE BOOK OF JON.  WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN CONTENT AND FORM?

Rebecca Moore - Humanimal analysis

Rebecca Moore

Joseph Cooper

CRWR212Y

4/21/14

Analysis of Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal

            Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal is a tale her travels to India in order to create a movie that tells the story of two wolf-girls found in India who, when rehabilitated to be more humanized, suffered greatly and died. Kapil uses many literary devices throughout this work to tell the girls’ story. The book is more than just the telling of the two wolf-girls, it is Kapil’s way of conveying that every person has a little animal inside.

            Throughout the piece there is a visible difference in the stanzas. The stanzas are written in one of two ways. The first way in is a font that’s sans serif, such as Arial. The second way is a font with serifs, such as Times New Roman, and is labeled with a number. This visual difference contributes to the juxtaposition Kapil creates between the wolf-girls and humans. This juxtaposition mostly happens between the human stanzas and the wolf-girl stanzas through point of view.           

            The human stanzas are written from various points of view of different humans. Some stanzas are written from the author’s point of view as she goes through the film process, such as stanzas 20 on page 26, 25.i on page 29, 60 on pages 64-65, and many others. Other stanzas are written as though they are from the point of view of someone in the past watching and recounting the happenings of the two wolf-girls. The beginning of stanza 31.i on page 36 tells of a scene at the orphanage where a priest, Joseph, had taken in the wolf-girls. Joseph is cutting the hair of Kamala, the oldest wolf-girl, and his wife is dressing her. They then seem to baptize her though it is not plainly stated.

The wolf-girl stanzas are written from the point of view of one of the two wolf-girls. On page 11 this is obvious is stanza B. The first two lines are “I want to stand up but I can’t do that here. They would know I am a wolf by my sore hips, the look in my eyes.” The wolf-girl stanzas continue capturing the observations of the wolf-girls on the human world.

The author further juxtaposes the human stanzas and the wolf-girl stanzas through sentence structure. In the wolf-girl stanzas, the sentence structure is very simple, if present at all. The stanza G on pages 22-23 exemplifies this in these lines: “The nest is brown. Best is brown next to yellow. Best is blue then brown. Best yellow.” It represents the thought process of the wolf-girls, though there and forming, it is not complete. The sentence structure of the human stanzas is almost always complete, except when trying to make a point. Not only are the sentences complete, by some are complex in structure. Stanza 32 on page 39 is a good example of the human sentence structure in the lines “The cook left a dish with a bloody sauce outside them, glancing up from her work, until, like one big eye, Amala crawled out to get it.” The complete and more complex sentences represents the thought process of the humans as being further evolved, more humanized.

Dialogue is used frequently throughout this work from both the wolf-girl and human perspectives. The dialogue adds to the scene, as if the reader were present. In stanza 40 on pages 47-48, a human stanza, there is dialogue between Kapil and her film crew and the District Forrest Officer (D.F.O.). The manner in which the D.F.O. speaks is through broken English and not grammatically correct. The dialogue in the wolf-girl stanzas are usually from adults working at the orphanage who are trying to humanize them. Examples such as F page 19 and J page 32-33. There is one example, L page 38, which is of the wolf-girl. It is a list of her version of a word, followed by the Bengali word and the English translation.

The literary device that perhaps most clearly conveys Kapil’s point is metaphor. The first example is “The Mother brought the doctor a plate of buttered chicken and chilies, which he ate quickly and sloppily, like a dog” on page 25 in stanza 18. The author blatantly compares the doctors eating habits to a dog, an animal. Another example is in stanza 29.iii on page 35 in the line “Barefoot, his feet resembled those of a goat’s: hard, rough, and smooth.” This compares the physical attribute of a human to those of a goat. In both examples, a human is similar to an animal. She refers to these as “humanimal,” which is the title of the book.

Kapil’s Humanimal story compares two wolf-girls with humans, showing that though most humans view animalistic as bad and as something to be rid of, the wolf-girls embraced it in order to survive. She reveals animalistic characteristics in the humans proving that all humans have a bit of animal in them regardless of humanization.

Humanimal analysis

Kaitlin Dixon

Prof. Cooper

CRWR 212

4/22/2014

“Humanimal”

Honestly, this book was by far the most interesting to me in this semester. The fact that it is a true story, and that it shows both the inhumane and humane aspects in human society is interesting. In many parts, I found myself sympathizing for the two young girls as they were treated brutally in order to make them more human. Disturbing measures were taken in order to correct their form and behavior from that which they had grown to be accustomed to. While reading this, I discovered many disturbing things that caught my eye.

            The major point that really made me cringe was when the doctor broke the girl’s thumbs and then wrapped them in gauze. This disturbed me because the thought of a doctor, who is supposed to heal afflictions instead causes this innocent girl pain. A related moment in the text that bothered me was the breaking of the girl’s legs in order to set them straight. In these moments, the tone is so intense that the bones breaking became an almost palpable sensation. It brought me a sense of physical pain to read about how these girls were treated, and how they reacted to this treatment.

The theme of ‘human-animal’ mash ups is interesting and slightly awe-inspiring although the truth of these relationships can be disturbing and dangerous. This theme also introduces an interesting symbol for humanity, one that represents the darker side of human nature. I read this book and interpret it as a cry for help and reason in a world that humans have been known to destroy and conquer. I feel that this book was written to signal recognition within society about how judgmental and harmful the human race can be, especially to those different from ourselves. We seek approval from other humans, even if approval is gained through tearing down or harming other human beings, no matter how strange those may be. We as people have been known to gain social status by taking away from others. This book was written to express a theme of non-existent humanity.

The imagery in this book expresses emotion as well as natural elements. The author displays images of brutality through not only flashback images of different events, but through colors and photos. An example of a particular event in which imagery is used to depict brutality is when the Reverend is taking a picture with the orphans, and kicks the wolf-girl when she howls in pain like a dog (p 32). In this book there are many different images of pain and other images are used to contrast the caring personality of nature to that of the controlling personality of humanity. In this book, the author not only brings to light what was done to these girls, but also that in order to get them away from the family they had grown to know, the wolves had been killed. Not only was this inhumane to both the girls and their wolf family, but it was also unfair and forced upon those who didn’t want to become ‘human’ again. These girls never wanted to be taken from what they had known, and didn’t deserve to have someone else’s choice thrust upon them.

In many ways this book gave me a moment of recognition about how humanity raises its young. It symbolized to me that although humanity over all can be a powerful force, it does no always use its strength for good purposes. Humans over all have the most potential for good works, but drown out that potential because we want power. As the human race, we strive for power to control others. This is the reason that the human race will eventually fail where other species will strive on. Our most common desires are the worst things possible for us.