Rosseau talks about how the savage man is smarter than animals. He says that the savage man will sometimes be in a situation where he is comparing his strength to that of the wild beasts. After the comparison, assuming the savage man is indeed stronger, he will learn to no longer be afraid of the beast. He also goes on to say that the wild beasts will learn that the savage man is as strong as them and will not attack the man,
I think this is true for Jake Sully when he first gets to Pandora. At the start, he is a little timid and he is trying to get to know the land and the animals that live there. He gets attacked by the wolves and somehow makes it out alive. Then he goes to Home Tree and tries to fit in with the savage men that live there. Neytiri's brother definitely compares himself to Jake and at the start, probably thinks that he is stronger than Jake, which he is. It is also pretty obvious that Neytiri's brother thinks that Jake is never going to make it and is kind of an idiot. After Jake gets used to Pandora, he turns out to be a pretty good warrior. When he flies in on Taruk Macto, there is no way that Neytiri's brother would ever think of attacking Jake. He has learned that Jake is just as much of a 'wild beast' that he is.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a great comparison. It's an interesting way to view the relationship between a savage man and a human man, rather than a savage man and an animal. It's kind of like a step up/down the food chain. A savage man is smart enough to consider abstract concepts and reasonings that would likely bring him to deciding not to attack the animal, regardless of the animal's strength (unless specifically hunting for food). In this sense, it is almost always up to an animal to decide whether or not there will be a battle. A human and savage man both have this base intelligence and understanding, so it makes the interaction a little more interesting. Or maybe more boring, since there's less opportunity for an awesome fight scene.
ReplyDeleteThere's a kind of proto-evolutionary claim here: animals, collectively, figure out what the 'men' are up to. Seems absurd at first, but beavers were not nocturnal in North America until men started trapping them. Hmnmnmnmn?
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