Denatured Animals

the denatured Animals is a novel written by Vercors and published in 1952. He tells the history of discovered of a Missing link between the Singe and the Homme, named Paranthropus Greamiensis in the honor of his Greame discoverer, and called Tropi. A business man wants to benefit from them to have labor at a cheap rate. The problem arises then: where is located the limit between the animal and the man? Does one have to make these beings of the voters or beefsteak? That mentions the ancient question: Combien does one need stones to make a heap? But also What the man? , set of themes that Vercors will continue in its following novels.

Vercors will adapt this novel to the theater under the title Zoo or the assassin philanthropist .

It will be noted that the novel appears in France at one time when the Science-fiction is there still far from present. It is an important stake in the launching of a movement of science fiction to the Frenchwoman very sensitive to sociological and humanistic dimensions whose other notable representatives are Rene Barjavel, Pierre Boulle, and Gerard Klein.

The choice of Vercors

In the final analysis, it is on the concern of beyond a that Vercors will choose to trace the border between thehuman one and the human one. However what characterizes this new species is that certain of its members shows a concern of this kind, and some not. The problem will thus remain unsolved.

Another possible interpretation of the novel and the answer given by Vercors to the " question; what is what human? " rest on the opposition between on the one hand the group of tropis which prefers to remain in its cave and refuses food brought the men, and on the other hand the group who accepts the parked life and what the men bring to them. Thus, the difference in degree in the humanity of a being would rest on the non-acceptance of the tender to the group and his free will, in other words of his individuality.

The novel contains also a point of humor. When British scientists wonder whether one can reasonably qualify human beings unable to pronounce all the sounds that a man " normal" can make, a fellow-member then points out that the French, though being unable to pronounce the famous " th" English, in spite of is very regarded as human beings! It is of the small jokes of this type, which rythment life of the book.

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