Wednesday, February 3, 2016

feeling guilty about ants

Okay so just now in Civics there was an ant on my desk. I tried to touch him with my pen and I accidentally broke one or two of his legs. :( I then felt super guilty and tried to help him move around by unsticking his broken legs to the desk, but it wasn't working. I was watching him struggle and was thinking about Gregor and how bad I felt when he was gravely injured and how he apparently healed faster than a human. I figured if the little ant could just survive for a few hours that he could continue to get better and survive!! However, Nick saw me watching this poor little guy and thinking that I was just too scared to kill him myself, just crushed him. :( RIP Gregor, RIP little ant.

6 comments:

Jack Zheng said...

I definitely understand this. Sometimes, especially if I'm emotional, I tend to get very upset about killing a bug. Especially bugs such as sugar ants, like what did they ever do to me? So many people kill bugs without thinking twice but after thinking of the humanistic Gregor as a bug it has made me personalize all bugs much more. I feel like I have really gotten to know Gregor and what if all bugs are actually full of personality and a soul. It's weird to think about...

-Belin Manalle

Abbey Sims said...

The other day I became instantly terrified as I saw the outline of some bug crawling over near my dog's food bowl (the only light in the room was the faint glow of the television). At first I thought it was a cockroach, but it was actually a very large spider. I had to get my dad to come over and step on it, but I didn't feel bad at all! Roaches and spiders have such bad reputations because they're disgusting and harmful, respectively. I know a little ant such as the one you hurt/Nick killed is vulnerable and I understand why you felt bad for its death--you knew the harmless ant wasn't going to hurt you. When I see a spider or roach, I immediately think it is going to attack me so I have no remorse in ending its life. What if the spider had bitten my dog?! Most spiders are just known for being dangerous. (I just realized while typing this that I'm trying to justify why it is okay to kill one bug species and not another... Perhaps I shouldn't judge a bug based on its past haha). Maybe when the Samsa family saw Gregor as a large bug they thought he was going to harm them, too, because I think we all have that same idea about bugs, and that is why they didn't feel bad about killing him.

Unknown said...

Going off what Abbey said, I do think that Gregor's family thought that he was going to harm them, when in reality that was not his intention at all. They didn't really give him a chance to prove them wrong. While reading the book it made me feel bad for Gregor, and I got frustrated with the family's lack of patience and the fact that they automatically assumed Gregor would cause them harm, each time they saw his as a bug in person. But I guess I am guilty of that too because I also freak out every time I see a roach or spider, because I just assume they are nasty and are going to cause me some type of harm.

Unknown said...

I feel as though after reading Metamorphis I have a greater appreciation for animals. Though Gregor wasn't actually a beetle, but a human transformed to a bug. Almost as though I've taken a jadist perspective, I've learned to take in the souls and lives of animals. This whole semester has made deer hunting a little bit harder for me

master123 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
master123 said...

Ever since my first ant bite I have started my war against their kind. I have this innate urge to kill every ant that crosses my path. Jaclyn, I saw you playing with that ant and I wanted to kill it, I didn't because I didn't want to seem weird. On the topic of Gregor, if he wasn't my family member (assuming if I was in the story I would be his sister or grandmother, some female blood relation) I would have definitely tried to kill him, maybe not with my bare hands, but my guess a fumigator.

As a side note the black horned rhino has now been declared extinct.