Human and Animal Behavior Theme Analysis

In Gerald Durrell’s “A Gorilla in the Guest-room,” the elements of a comedy of manners are adapted into a context that juxtaposes N’Pongo’s animal behaviors with those expected from humans in social situations. While a traditional comedy of manners focuses on misunderstood or poorly chosen interactions between people, Durrell uses his unusual position as a human who adopts and works with animals to make a comedy out of the behavior of his gorillas. When N’pongo arrives, Durrell is astonished by how well-behaved and intelligent he is; better than some of Durrell’s human guests, and certainly an improvement on the chimpanzees he’s hosted before. Indeed, it’s often the humans who come off as the fools in interactions with the gorilla. When zoo visitors try to take photos with N’Pongo as he lazes on the grass, he allows them to get very close before cheekily pulling a leg out from under them so that they crash to the ground. In fact, for most of the story, Durrell writes about the gorilla as if he is an eccentric human rather than a wild animal.

N’Pongo moves around the rooms of Durrell’s house and the areas of his own cage with the grace of an elderly gentleman, breaking nothing, glibly teasing his keepers, and solemnly inspecting everything before making unpredictable, often hilarious choices. He’s treated as an intelligent, thinking being, but one with very different cultural expectations than his human counterparts. For example, he doesn’t know he shouldn’t pee on the rugs of Durrell’s house or draw maps of Japan with raspberries on the guest room walls. When the zookeepers introduce N’Pongo’s mate Nandy to him, Durrell describes their early interactions as if he were writing about a romance between two socially maladapted humans. The two apes sidle around each other like children at a school dance before eventually forming a close and loving bond. Durrell describes their relationship as being very affectionate and charming, even if N’Pongo does regularly play pranks on Nandy that cause her to chase him around the cage screaming. By appealing to readers using the humorous conventions of a comedy of errors, Durrell suggests that gorillas aren’t so different from humans. Though they’re not exactly the same as us, they’re intelligent and feeling enough to appreciate and reciprocate love, respect, and empathy.