Thursday, May 2, 2013


The Word for World is Forest

                The question of what is man, what classifies one as ‘man’ comes up a lot in the text.  To the Terrans, or humans, in the text, this term is defined as being human.  To Davidson, the Athsheans are not man since they are not like him or other humans from earth so therefore he does not treat them the same.  On the other hand, to Selver who is an Athshean, and other ‘alien’ races, the term man is used to define living humanoid creatures.  This difference in the term causes for there to be distinct differences in the way that races react towards one another.  For the Athsheans, they treat everyone in a nonviolent manner since they view other races as still being like them.  For humans, people like Davidson, treat Athsheans as though they are animals since there is no connection of the ‘alien’ race being men like them.  This coupled with the fact that humans have the tendency to commit violent acts towards each other brings up the question about if humans can really consider themselves ‘men?’

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