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Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

Decent Essays

The first topic addressed in this book that I will focus on is the social behavior of apes, specifically on courting rituals and mating behavior, such as the love dance performed by the “humans” in the novel. The second topic is the (in)capability of apes to produce human speech. In the novel, the apes all speak human language, but in reality, this is not a likely possibility. To elaborate on the first topic, when the “humans” in the novel are taken to the research facility, Ulysse soon realizes that they were brought there so that the apes could “study in captivity the amorous practices of men, the methods of approach of the male and the female, [and] the manner in which they copulate” (Boulle 39). To put it simply, the apes wanted to study the mating behavior of these men. Ulysse discovers that before copulation, the man engages in some sort of courting act that resembles “a sort of slow, hesitant dance consisting of steps forward, backward, and sideways” (Boulle 40). He circles around the female while she also pivots around, watching the male, and this display of love is concluded with sexual intercourse.
I decided to look at the sexual behavior of bonobos because they are known for their frequent sexual behavior. Though they are not one of the types of great apes mentioned in the book, a bonobo is nonetheless a great ape that belongs in the same genus as the common chimpanzee. Furuichi et al. observed bonobos in their naturalistic habitat in Wamba, Democratic Republic

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