Love, Indifference and Alienation - Essay Example

Love, Indifference and Alienation Love is intrinsic. Every human being is capable of loving. People of all ages can feel love or affection for others. Even animals are capable of demonstrating love. Infants cling to their mothers for milk and protection, and these are signs of their need for love and the ability to feel affection. In Millet’s story titled, “Love in Infant Monkeys,” the author uses a metaphor to compare between human beings and monkeys. Ironically, monkeys appear to be more capable of love than the main character, Harry. Mainly, the experiences of the main character lead him to feel indifferent towards his subject and the people around him. As the story reveals how he became indifferent towards others, it makes me ponder on my own experience of indifference. Indifference is fairly common to all. According to Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary, indifference is the “lack of interest in or concern about something.” This feeling could arise and vary from one person to another based on the person’s experiences. People who undergo too much pain are more likely to feel indifferent. Everything depends on the emotional wound that they sustain. If a person sustains too much pain, there is more possibility that he will be more indifferent. In the story, Harry shows indifference as he does his experiments without pity on the newborn monkeys and their mothers. He conceals his emotions by not responding to affection from his colleagues. Also, he avoids visiting his wife who is suffering from cancer. Like Harry, I also feel indifferent from time to time. Most people do when they need to. If I think that something will not do me any good, I usually avoid such situation. There are times when I have to decide whether to go with my friends or stay at home, doing nothing. Surprisingly, I would choose staying home not because I am busy but because I do not feel like I am about to lose anything if I do not go. I seem indifferent to my friends and sometimes even my family by not caring if they have fun or not. I just feel like it is none of my business to care about them all the time. In contrast, Harry has serious reasons to feel indifferent. His indifference is understandable although it was not directly stated in the story. Millet simply implies that all of Harry’s experiences could have led him to be indifferent. Harry indulges too much on work and avoids affection because if he allows emotions to occupy him, he will be preoccupied with it and will not function the way he should. Mainly, Harry is led to indifference by his profession. He experiments with animals; monkeys are mostly his subject. He kills, isolates, deceives but most of all, teaches them to be indifferent and emotionally strong. He efficiently discovers everything about monkeys behaviour because he has learned to distance himself from them. If he submits to affection and pity, he will not be able to pursue his experiments. In his work, Harry confronts the need for affection of the monkeys with a stiff heart. He separates a newborn from its mother, taking them literally away from the mother’s arms. He also fakes them with a bad surrogate mother in order to take note of how they will react. In other words, he is exposed to indifference everyday, hence he has become too indifferent. As the story demonstrates, the monkeys are different from humans. They cannot survive without love. Unlike Harry, the infant monkeys die without a mother or a loving companion. In contrast, Harry survives without minding affection although he also suffers from physical fatigue. The contrast that the author establishes in the story emphasizes the theme more. By showing the response of the monkeys to Harry’s experimentation, the author implies the severity of Harry’s character. Harry resorts to indifference to avoid feeling weak for his wife. His second wife is suffering from cancer but instead of staying beside her to make her feel strong, he seldom visited her. In his recall, he last visited Peggy “since…Tuesday” (23) and “hadn’t seen her for more than five minutes” (23). This means he does not visit her everyday. This is a weird behavior because people I know who take care of cancer patients usually live with the patient. Instead of staying with her all the time because she is dying, Harry chooses to work and convinces himself that “she understood perfectly” (23). There is nothing else said about Peggy in the story especially with regard to her reactions to Harry’s absence but it is self-explanatory that a cancer patient needs more affection and concern from a husband like Harry. Nevertheless, Harry fails to spend even more than five minutes with her. Harry’s way of coping with problems is different from mine. I agree that there are times when we need to be indifferent in order to get a job done. Sometimes, we need to be very professional so that friends and family will know how serious we are in completing our task. However, I will never make myself unavailable to my family, especially when they are dying. I actually feel pity towards his wife because I can imagine how difficult it is to be suffering from cancer and to be in deathbed without a loved one. By the way he behaves, Harry does not only undergo indifference. He could have been led to alienation. He manifests inability to sympathize with others, even with Jim, who has been a friend to him for years. When reminded of Jim’s plagiarism case, he simply thinks, “couldn’t get in the middle” (23) and just shrugs his shoulder. When his colleagues are having a party, he sees people as animals. In particular, he sees the payroll officer as one resembling a water buffalo or a baby bird. He could also imagine mermaids in the fountain. This behavior proves one thing: Harry has become too engrossed in his experiments with animals that he sees people as animals. This idea suggests the character’s alienation. Based on Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary, being alienated means “withdrawing or separation of a person or a persons affections from an object or position of former attachment” Harry is not only disinterested in other people. He also withdraws from his colleagues’ company. During the party, he chooses to lie down and rest while all the others are having fun. He does not recognize the suffering of his wife or purposely avoids caring about it by convincing himself she is alright. Moreover, he ignores the suffering of the mother of the infant monkeys. All he wants to do is to finish his experiments. The nightmare at the end illustrates the guilt Harry feels in separating the mother from the infants. Such mention of how the mother monkey feels towards her babies suggests that Harry is aware of the suffering. However, as the final part states, “He knew the feeling of loss that would last till she died. He knew it the way he knew a distant country. They had their own customs there” (25). Harry is aware of the mother’s feelings and suffering but only on the knowledge level. He knows such feelings exist but cannot sympathize with them, thus the author compares his knowledge of feelings to knowledge of other culture’s customs. It is very ironic how feelings can be equated with mere knowledge. Alienation for me is not unusual. I experienced it once when I was very tired from a badminton game. I joined a tournament once and ended up losing and feeling very exhausted. Before the game, I practiced really hard for weeks, did my school projects alongside, and helped in house chores. When it was time for the tournament, I admit I was not totally prepared. Nevertheless, I exerted my best efforts and when it was my time, gave my best to win. Unfortunately, I lost and at the end of it, I felt physically and emotionally drained. When we were about to go home, I could not say a word. I was very silent all the time while my friends celebrated their own winnings. I think that was the saddest part of it; I was the only one in our circle who did not bag a medal that day. I felt truly ashamed and physically exhausted. When I went home, I did not feel like eating or telling my mom about what happened. I almost forgot it was my brother’s birthday and we had a small party at home. Most of our neighbors were in the party. Some of them are my friends but I could not even smile when I saw them. I felt too numb and void, as if I was incapable of feeling. I guess this was alienation. I looked in the mirror that night and cried out loud for the loss. That was how I recovered. The next day, I was still feeling sad about the tournament but not as alienated as before. In Harry’s situation, it would be difficult to shrug off the feeling because he has to live with the suffering for a long time. Likewise, he will continue to be numb unless he changes his profession. Work Cited Millet, Lydia. “Love in Infant Monkeys.” In Editor’s Name. Book. Publisher, City, year: pp.19-25. Read More