A Report to an Academy

Imagery is the use of visually descriptive language. Red Peter’s report to the Academy includes detailed descriptions of his experience as a captive aboard the ship. These descriptions create striking images that make his experience more palpable, compelling the reader (and possibly the Academy) to have sympathy for his plight.

After being shot and brought aboard the ship, Red Peter woke up inside a cage. He describes the cage in detail:

It was no four-sided cage with bars, but only three walls fixed to a crate, so that the crate constituted the fourth wall. The whole thing was too low to stand upright and too narrow for sitting down. So I crouched with bent knees, which shook all the time, and since at first I probably did not wish to see anyone and wanted to remain constantly in the darkness, I turned towards the crate, while the bars of the cage cut into the flesh on my back (2-3).

By providing details about the cage’s size, it becomes apparent that the captors were torturing Red Peter. The cage’s tininess, along with his shaking knees, make his fear feel tangible. When he describes turning toward the crate (in an attempt to hide) and his flesh is cut, his psychological and physical pain become palpable. These descriptions bring an emotional component to a report that was meant to be scientific.

When Red Peter first speaks, it is a major breakthrough in his quest to become human and find a “way out.” This climactic moment appears in descriptive detail, allowing the reader to see and feel the excitement:

Like an expert drinker, with my eyes rolling around, splashing the liquid in my throat, I really and truly drank the bottle empty, and then threw it away, no longer in despair, but like an artist. Well, I did forget to scratch my belly. But instead of that, 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 sweat-soaked body (6).

Here, through the use of sensory-based description, the story’s action ascends to its climax when Red Peter “break[s] out into human sounds” (6). Despite his dire circumstances, a sense of catharsis arises from the image of his transformative moment. Although he remained caged, this emotionally resonant description foreshadows progress toward his “way out.”

Irony in a story appears when the author defies the reader’s expectations. In the story, irony creates a more complex portrait of Red Peter’s personality. At times, Red Peter ironically expresses thoughts and behaviors that seem hypocritical or deluded. Although these thoughts could arguably be indicative of character flaws, they add depth to Red Peter’s psychological makeup, which makes him seem more human.

When a journalist claims that Red Peter’s “ape nature is not yet entirely repressed” (2), Red Peter is livid. Ironically, he defends himself against this claim of uncivilized behavior by advocating barbaric violence against the journalist. He states that the journalist “should have each finger of his writing hand shot off one by one” (2). The manner in which Red Peter suggests violence is articulate and deliberate, which shows that, like humans, his reactionary impulses rise above primitivism only because they are thought-out.

To become human, Red Peter felt it was necessary to learn how to drink alcohol. In his attempts to imitate his captors, this was his “greatest difficulty” (5). But he persisted because this seemed to be an integral aspect of becoming human and finding his “way out.” It is ironic that Red Peter drank alcohol to gain humanness, while his captors drank to escape it. In his quest to become human, Red Peter’s major breakthrough occurred when he uncorked a bottle, drank down the alcohol, and “cried out a short and good ‘Hello!’” (6). Though alcohol is a common means to escape the depths of human existence, Red Peter used it to better attain personhood.