We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Part I

From when I first began this reading up until about 75 pages in, I had absolutely no idea why we were spending the time on it. Sure, I liked the author's honesty, but what exactly was the point? Consequently, I had to reread the opening to Chapter five of Part II at least three times before it sunk in. Wait, Fern was a what? Oh. Lightbulb.

That being said, I appreciated even more from that point on the honesty of the characters and the author's experiences. However, it did take me a while to wrap my mind around the implications of having a chimp for a sister. Fowler was correct in thinking that, "I tell you Fern is a chimp and, already, you aren't thinking of her as my sister." (Fowler 77) In light of the frankness with which Fowler speaks, I'll attempt to do the same.  At the outset of this course, I was nothing like most of my classmates. I loved animals, of course, but was raised in a very southern household. I'm not a vegetarian, I've hunted on more than one occasion, and I unabashedly enjoy a great cheeseburger. I apologize if that sounds callous, it was simply what I assumed to be normal. In my family and among the majority of my friends back home, I am the "dirty liberal"(as ignorant as that may seem), but here I am something different. Somewhere between their perception and their own beliefs. I have a lot of respect for the commitment of vegetarians, but see no harm in the consumption of meat if I know that the animal has not been treated poorly. Prior to this class-this novel- animals were animals and humans were humans. Yet now I am forced to rethink. After reading that Fern was a chimp, I had to go back and reread certain points. "Anyway, Fern was not dead. Still isn't." (Fowler 67) Obviously at this point I was very confused about Fern's situation, because it seemed like if she wasn't dead, she'd run away. Yet Fowler had already stated that Lowell had done so. Why wouldn't she have done the same for Fern if that was the case? Because Fern was a chimp. A chimp. The world inverted, and suddenly I understood everything. Why she refused to connect with her father, why this was so invariably connected with his profession and why Fowler's education was "wide but not deep". Fern to her was a sister, but to her father was an experiment, and thus she became an experiment as well. Her ENTIRE life up to the point of Fern's disappearance was studied for the purpose of science. Not just her life, but Fern's as well. To Fowler, her sister was taken from her. My previous self would have thought, "she wasn't her sister". But she was; not only a sister, but a companion in growth and self exploration. I cannot describe how drastically this altered my perception of what once was the definitive line between human and non-human. Both parties were equally traumatized by the separation (or so it would seem thus far), and having a father that reacts with cool detachment and objectivity, such as in an intellectual exercise, was degrading and hurtful. It made me angry. Never before have I felt such emotion for an animal I'd never met. And this drew me to the obvious next step: that all life, human or animal, deserves the same respect I wish Fern had been given. I'm sure this is the desired effect, dammit. No one should be subjected to a lifetime of observation, and to relegate another's being to that purpose alone is to value one's own life above all others. No. Veil lifted, perception altered, I''m done.