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.
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