A Report to an Academy

“Speaking frankly, as much as I like choosing metaphors for these things—speaking frankly: your experience as apes, gentleman—to the extent that you have something of that sort behind you—cannot be more distant from you than mine is from me. But it tickles at the heels of everyone who walks here on earth, the small chimpanzee as well as the great Achilles.” 

Red Peter highlights the ancestral roots that he shares with the audience members. Through this commonality, he emphasizes a shared humanity, which he hopes will prevent his audience from regarding him as “other.” Though he can speak dramatically through metaphor, he speaks plainly to ensure that no one loses his point. He wants to connect directly with them, as if he were a peer. 

“One [shot] was in the cheek—that was superficial. But it left behind a large hairless red scar which earned me the name Red Peter—a revolting name, completely inappropriate, presumably something invented by an ape, as if the only difference between me and the recently deceased trained ape Peter, who was well know here and there, was the red patch on my cheek.” 

Red Peter disdains his name because he considers himself too cultured for it. He wants to distance himself from the other ape, whom he considers to be “trained,” but not civilized. His criticism is ironic because humans also trained Red Peter. This calls into question the extent to which we are all trained by the civilization in which we live. 

“Recently I read in an article by one of the ten thousand gossipers who vent their opinions about me in the newspapers that my ape nature is not yet entirely repressed. The proof is that when visitors come I take pleasure in pulling off my trousers to show the entry wound caused by this shot. That fellow should have each finger of his writing hand shot off one by one. So far as I am concerned, I may pull my trousers down in front of anyone I like.” 

Red Peter is highly sensitive to criticism of his sophistication. Ironically, he expresses his defense of his civilized manner through a barbaric desire to commit torturous violence. He believes he has earned the freedom to “pull [his] trousers down” as he pleases but doesn’t believe that others deserve the freedom to criticize this behavior. 

“People consider such confinement of wild animals beneficial in the very first period of time, and today I cannot deny, on the basis of my own experience, that in a human sense that is, in fact, the case.” 

Red Peter acknowledges the effectiveness of his captors’ tactics. He expresses subtle admiration of how they broke his wild spirit. His captors treated him in way that was primitive and barbaric, making it ironic that he respects them for their supposed humanity. This passage establishes a pattern in which Red Peter expresses the deluded belief that his captors acted benevolently toward him.

“Nowadays, of course, I can portray those ape-like feelings only with human words and, as a result, I misrepresent them. But even if I no longer attain the old truth of the ape, at least it lies in the direction I have described—of that there is no doubt.” 

Red Peter cannot use human language to accurately describe his feelings as a captive ape. Through language, humans use symbols to abstractly describe emotions, but for apes, there is just the emotion. However, he does know that, upon his capture, for the first time in his life he felt like there was no way out. This feeling was demoralizing and sent him into a torpor. 

“I had no way out, but I had to come up with one for myself. For without that I could not live.” 

Although Red Peter felt demoralized, he clung to hopefulness. To be able to maintain some sliver of hope, he realized he must cease being an ape. Clearly, apes were to be captive, while humans remained free. Thus, he had to do whatever was necessary to become human. Otherwise, he would remain caged until he “die[d] a miserable death” (3). 

“No, I didn’t want freedom. Only a way out—to the right or left of anywhere at all. I made no other demands, even if the way out should also be only an illusion.” 

Because one isn’t in confinement does not mean that one is free. Red Peter understands and accepts this fact. During confinement, his captors treated him as “other.” By becoming human, he could escape confinement and assimilate himself into human society, which carries its own limits on freedom via laws and mores. 

“Today I see clearly that without the greatest inner calm I would never have been able to get out. And, in fact, I probably owe everything that I have to the calmness which came over me after the first days there on the ship. And, in turn, I owe that calmness to the people on the ship.” 

While caged, Red Peter’s wild spirit breaks, which leads to a more domesticated demeanor. He understood that maintaining a tranquil state, both physically and mentally, would give him the best chance possible to find a way out. By complimenting his captors, he shows signs of Stockholm syndrome, in which a captive begins to empathize with his captor. 

“I had the greatest difficulty with the bottle of alcohol. The smell was torture to me. I forced myself with all my power, but weeks went by before I could overcome my reaction. Curiously enough, the people took this inner struggle more seriously than anything else about me.” 

It is ironic that Red Peter drank alcohol to gain humanness, while his captors drank to escape it. Through Red Peter’s commitment to learning to drink alcohol, he became fully focused on doing whatever was necessary to become human. He instinctually knew how to mimic, which enabled him to gain favor with his captors because they found it entertaining. 

“Nonetheless, I’d grab the proffered bottle as well as I could and uncork it trembling. Once I’d managed to do that, a new energy would gradually take over. I lifted the bottle—with hardly any difference between me and the original—put it to my lips—and throw it away in disgust, in disgust, although it was empty and filled only with the smell, throw it with disgust onto the floor.” 

In trying to mimic the sailor’s actions, Red Peter was learning to behave like a rough-edged drunk. Though he couldn’t stand the smell of alcohol, he persisted in attempting to become human. Because he had only met churlish sailors, he learned to be human, but not in the most civilized way. 

“To my teacher’s credit, he was not angry with me. Well, sometimes he held his burning pipe against my fur in some place or other which I could reach only with difficulty, until it began to burn. But then he would put it out himself with his huge good hand. He wasn’t angry with me. He realized that we were fighting on the same side against ape nature and that I had the more difficult part.” 

At the time of his presentation, Red Peter is still in denial about his captors’ barbaric treatment of him, as well as his own worthiness humane treatment. Clearly, his captors were torturing him; however, he makes excuses for them because he has convinced himself that humans are more evolved. Also, he is tolerant of them because he had to become one of them if he was to lose his “ape nature” and find his “way out.” As a means to maintain hope, he deluded himself into believing that his captors were acting compassionately toward him.

“Because I couldn’t do anything else, because I had to, because my senses were roaring, I cried out a short and good ‘Hello!’ breaking out into human sounds. And with this cry I sprang into the community of human beings, and I felt its echo—‘Just listen. He’s talking!’—like a kiss on my entire sweat-soaked body.” 

This is the climax in Red Peter’s story of his capture and transformation. In a drunken, tragicomic moment, Red Peter finally spoke. Though he was still in confinement, he was nonetheless thrilled by this concrete marker of his progress, which would hopefully lead to his “way out.” He didn’t enjoy imitating humans, but he did feel satisfaction in doing the necessary work to become uncaged. 

“I’ll say it again: imitating human beings was not something which pleased me. I imitated them because I was looking for a way out, for no other reason.” 

Red Peter insists that his desire to become human was purely about self-preservation. If he’d stayed caged, he would have suffered grave psychological and physical distress. His options were severely limited, and he took whatever measures necessary (such as imitation) to make the best of a situation that offered no ideal outcomes.