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Human and Animal Behavior
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Zookeeper Durrell’s primary motivation for acquiring N’Pongo is to do what he can to preserve gorillas as a species, as he believes the political situation in Africa in the late 1950s will mean they are shortly very endangered. When he adopts N’Pongo, he wants to keep him safe and protect him from exploitation. The story points to the importance of zoos as conservation centers and decries the cruelty with which animals are often treated by trappers, hunters, and dealers. This is most clearly evident when Durrell describes the difference between N’Pongo’s and Nandy’s characters when each is first adopted. N’Pongo has been well treated as a baby; therefore he trusts and loves humans, seeing them as his family, and continues to trust them for his whole life.
The way that Nandy has been treated, by contrast, is horrifying. Durrell graphically describes her as arriving in Jersey stuffed into a tiny transport crate and as having a thick white scar on her head from a machete blow. He depicts her in the same way as he might describe a traumatized human. She won’t make eye contact with anyone and hunches away from all sound and movement in the corner of her cage. As Durrell talks about Nandy’s initial responses to life at the zoo and the need to rehabilitate her, the story does two things for the reader. It brings attention to the cruel practices that many exotic animal hunters perpetrate on beings with feelings and memories. It also makes gorillas seem human and sympathetic in an effort to aid in their conservation both in captivity and in the wild.
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Conservation and Animal Welfare ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Conservation and Animal Welfare appears in each chapter of A Gorilla in the Guest-room. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Conservation and Animal Welfare Quotes in A Gorilla in the Guest-room
Below you will find the important quotes in A Gorilla in the Guest-room related to the theme of Conservation and Animal Welfare.
A Gorilla in the Guest-room
Quotes
It was towards the end of the second year that I decided, the Zoo [...] must [...] start to contribute something towards the conservation of wildlife. I felt that it would be essential to gradually weed out all the commoner animals in the collection and to replace them with rare and threatened species.
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[N]ewly emergent governments are generally far too busy proving themselves to the world for the first few years to worry much about the fate of the wild-life of their country, and history has proved, time and time again, how rapidly a species can be exterminated, even a numerous one.
‘I shall get the money from other sources,’ I said austerely. ‘Don’t you realize that this island is infested with rich people who do nothing all day long but revolve from one cocktail party to another, like a set of Japanese waltzing mice.’
‘After all, if breeding colonies of things like gorillas aren’t established in captivity soon, there won’t be any left at all. Surely these people realize this?’
‘I’m afraid they don’t,’ said Hope. ‘I realize it and you realize it, but I’m afraid the average person either doesn’t or couldn’t care less.’
Nandy’s eyes were large and lustrous, and when she looked sideways, she showed the whites of them; but they were frightened eyes [...]. They were the eyes of an animal that had had little experience of human beings, but even that limited experience had given her no reason to trust or respect them.
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She had such a woebegone, frightened face that one longed to be able to pick her up and comfort her, but she had been too deeply hurt, and this was the last thing she would have appreciated.
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