Introduction
Nature refers to life in general and the ways living things exist and change out of their own will, while nurture is the care given in bringing up a young one. The novel “We are All Completely Alone” is about Cooke’s family with the narrator being Rosemary Cooke. It shows the nature and nurturing that can take place between two different species. In the novel, Rosemary was a talkative child who stopped talking when she became a young woman as all she did was wrap herself in silence. It was the kind of silence that one wants to intentionally forget or the kind that builds a protective cover. Something awful happened to her to the extent that she preferred to keep it in her mind’s recess. This thing changed Rosemary and destroyed her family because her once lively mother was now only a shell of who she once was while her elder brother was a wanted FBI fugitive of domestic terrorism. Meanwhile her father turned out to be a distant and broody man while her twin sister, Fern, an endearing chimpanzee who shared in her childhood mischief, had a worse fate than their family could imagine. This essay tries to show ways nature and nurturing played out in the novel when Cooke’s family decided to raise a chimpanzee in the same setting as a human family.
Relation between Nature and Nurture
Nature was in play when Lowell, who is Rosemary’s brother noticed that their father, who is a psychologist assumed Fern to be different from humans based on his scientific work. This pushed Fern to try prove herself at every point. According to Lowell, it would have been still scientific if the father looked at Fern in terms of her similarity to the children. It was natural for a sibling to notice another sibling being picked on as that is what Fern was to them. A sister. The goal of Rosemary’s father in nurturing the children and Fern together was to study their interactions especially in terms of language. He wanted to find out if it was possible to have a human talking to chimpanzees or vice versa. However, the lesson learnt out of the nurturing is that the chimpanzees developed much quickly than the humans and were more advanced in every imaginable way until the age of two. Another interesting lesson from nature and nurturing was that Rosemary had acquired some traits of the chimp. This is evidenced in the way she swung through trees until she went to kindergarten where she had to be reminded to stop putting fingers in other children’s mouth as well as stop jumping on tables when excited. She couldn’t keep her hands to herself and viewed the space around her horizontally as well as vertically. This is because despite not being able to climb like her sister the chimpanzee, she viewed the world as climbable. Therefore, it was natural for Fern to climb vertically but since they were nurtured with Rachael, she tried to mimic her skills.
As for Lowell, having been natured with Fern made him become an animal activist after losing a sister to the animal study institute. Fern could use sign language to communicate but it gets tough when it comes to complex matters because as much as she and Rachael understand each other, it’s hard to know how much is being imposed and imagined by Rosemary. Therefore, in the end the nurturing did not stop the natural because Rosemary talked and went to school while Fern didn’t. Moreover, chimps are much stronger than humans in their adolescent so cannot be easily managed or controlled as compared to when they are children. Therefore, in the long run, chimps cannot live with humans and it would be cruel to raise them as humans as they live in captivity for about 50 years but at 10 years or earlier they become uncontrollable. Nature should therefore be allowed to take its course and the chimpanzee should be left to be nurtured by their mothers.
Conclusion
Therefore, the novel “We are All Completely Alone” is about Cooke’s family with the narrator being Rosemary Cooke. It shows the nature and nurturing that can take place between two different species. In the novel, Rosemary was a talkative child who stopped talking when she became a young woman as all she did was wrap herself in silence. Something awful happened to her to the extent that she preferred to keep it in her mind’s recess and destroyed her family. This essay tries to show ways nature and nurturing played out in the novel when Cooke’s family decided to raise a chimpanzee in the same setting as a human family. Therefore, in the end the nurturing did not stop the natural because Rosemary talked and went to school while Fern didn’t. Moreover, chimps could live with humans and it would be cruel to raise them as humans as they become uncontrollable after childhood. Nature should therefore be allowed to take its course and the chimpanzee should be left to be nurtured by their mothers.
Reference
Fowler, Karen. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. New York: Putnam's sons, 2013. Document.
