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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in No Longer Human, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Isolation and Alienation
Compassion and Mutual Suffering
Depression, Mental Health, and Stigmatization
Self-Expression, Privacy, and Art
Summary
Analysis
An unnamed speaker describes three pictures of someone he simply refers to as “the man.” The first picture is from the man’s childhood, and though many people might think he looks extraordinarily cute, the speaker insists that the boy in the picture is “ugly.” The speaker is certain that if people studied the picture closely, they’d soon realize that the smiling boy in it isn’t actually smiling at all. His fists are balled tightly, and there’s something deeply unnatural about his facial expression, even if it seems happy and cute at first.
Although it’s not yet clear who the unnamed speaker is describing (or, for that matter, who the unnamed speaker is), it’s reasonable to assume that the person in the three pictures is a central figure of No Longer Human. The fact that this person is presented in such disconcerting terms sets the stage for the novel’s exploration of what it means to be human. There’s an unsettling hint in the opening of the novel that simply existing as a human being doesn’t necessarily mean people are entitled to a sense of humanity or personhood. Rather, the subject of the pictures is somehow different from the average person, as if something about his nature has cut him off from humanity and turned him into something else entirely.
Themes
The second picture is from when the man was either a high school or college student. Again, his face makes him look like he’s a “living human being,” but the speaker insists that his supposedly smiling face is actually lacking in “substance” and the “solidity of human life.” There’s an emptiness to the face, and though the young man in the picture is objectively handsome, the speaker can’t even find the slightest sense of humanity in him.
The prologue of No Longer Human taps into the fact that it’s possible for some people to move through life wearing a mask of sorts—a mask that hides their true nature. The subject of these pictures, it seems, is nothing like the person he appears to be. Although he might seem handsome and vivacious, for instance, the unnamed speaker insists that he’s hardly even a human being, ultimately suggesting that there’s something deeply unrelatable about his fundamental nature.
Themes
The third picture is the worst of all. It’s of the man as an adult. He’s in a dirty room, and this time he has no expression on his face at all—it’s so blank, in fact, that it would be impossible to remember the image of his face even a mere moment after looking at the picture. There is nothing unique or individual about the expression. The entire thought of the picture creeps the speaker out, making him feel extremely uncomfortable, but he can’t say exactly why—there’s just something indescribable and unknowable that makes looking at it a very unpleasant experience. Never before has the speaker seen a more unsettling, unfamiliar look on a human being.
It's worth noting that the prologue of No Longer Human is somewhat ambiguous. It’s not clear why, exactly, the unnamed speaker is so repulsed by the person in the pictures, nor is it all that apparent why he sees him as somehow unhuman. And yet, the mere fact that he feels this way hints at the kind of isolation and alienation the novel will go on to explore in greater detail. In other words, it’s difficult for the speaker to put his finger on why he’s so unsettled by the person in the pictures, but the mere fact that he feels so disturbed invites readers to consider the ways in which people ostracize those who seem different.
Themes
