Essay on The Cone-Gatherers by Robin Jenkins

“The Cavemen in the Hedges” is a short story that contains many underlying themes of psychoanalytical theory. Themes of the “id,” a selfish, primal, version of one’s self concerned only with physical desires; the “superego,” part of a person’s psyche that is only worried about ideals and morals; and the “ego,” the rational part of the brain that attempts to satisfy both the id and superego natures make up an immense proportion of the breakdown of this story. Repression and other psychological defense mechanisms are also very important in the analysis as well.

Humans’ lives would be drastically different if it wasn’t for the Neolithic Revolution. All the lifestyle changes in this time period made a drastic change in how individuals lived. However, Paleolithic people were nomads in search of food. Also, no one had specific jobs because everyone’s jobs were focused on hunting and gathering food. During this time period, everything was made of stone because it was an easy to find and bountiful resource.

We begin to define the line between good and evil and the way in which it can corrupt human beings. The message portrayed that evil and the misuse of power is an ongoing matter, one in which could affect anyone and is partially an involuntary act – the evil animalistic behaviour becomes engraved into minds; like Goeth.

The malevolent personification of darkness creates the sense that it -symbolising her father, and perhaps the rapist- wants to hurt, cause fear and distress, and is a genuine danger to her.

In the 1930's, V. Gordon Childe proposed that the shift to food production was one of the two major events in human history that improved the condition of human societies. Childe described the origins of agriculture as a 哲eolithic Revolution.But the shift from hunting and gathering to food production was not as advantageous to humanity as Childe believed. Although there were benefits, there were also serious drawbacks, and humans paid a price for the advantages of agriculture.

The first scholars that existed named the whole period of human devolvement the “Stone Age.” The stone age is divided into three periods which are Paleolithic which means the old Greek age, Mesolithic and Neolithic which is the new Greek age. The Paleolithic and Neolithic stone ages have many great differences and has changed greatly between the two periods.

The first beginning we had hunter and gatherers, and that became something that everybody started doing. People would use resources around them, and they would not stay in permanent settlements. Than a new life began and it was called Emergence of Agriculture. People know started having permanent settlements, the population has became bigger, and their health might be becoming shaky. These changes might have been better or worse.

During the story the author often uses foreshadowing to give hints to the reader of things that will happen in the future. When the story starts, a storm is coming on a late October night. The storm symbolizes the evil approaching the town. Usually it seems a storm would resemble something dark and evil, because a stormy night is always a classic setting for something evil. At the

Over 10,000 years ago humans’ lives were spent hunting and gathering just to survive. That all changed when some humans figured out how to capture animals and plant wild seeds so that they could control their food supply. This change in how people lived is known as the Neolithic Revolution and it ultimately led to the beginnings of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution is considered a turning point in human history because it led to permanent settlements, improvements in technology and the development of social classes and job specialization.

Evil is a part of mankind; it is something that cannot be defeated. “One recurring theme in early British literature is the idea that evil characters are directly related to experiences of tragedy, pain, confusion, and sadness” (Herrera). In Grendel, tragedy and confusion is seen throughout the story. The theme in the story of Macbeth is tragedy and pain. This early literature exemplifies evil through these themes. The philosophers whose theories support these themes through British literature are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sigmund Freud and Fred Alford. Throughout the stories of Grendel and Macbeth, evil is displayed differently as well as the theories that contribute to the evil seen. Although their philosophy of the source of evil is different, they all conclude that evil comes from within.

The theme most easily interpreted from the book is the never ending conflict of good vs. evil. Through the conflict we see a recurring theme of good vs. evil. For example, whether it was a good side of a person vs. the dark side, an evil person vs. the innocent civilized society, or a wretched scientist vs. a practical ethical doctor, we see it used in all three previously given examples of conflict. Another example is although there is good in Dr. Jekyll, we see as the book goes on that he cannot hide his dark and evil alter ego. Even through science it is deemed to be impossible to erase the devilish and foul urges the doctor possesses. It seems that evil seems to win more than good which is why the book tends to give off a creepy dark vibe.

All throughout history, humans have come up with innovations that have brought both positive and negative changes to the way people live. This all started around 10,000 BCE, when people developed agriculture. The first nomads started off by moving from place to place, hunting and gathering food… but as people developed agriculture, they saved a lot more time. After agriculture developed, the humans learned many things such as farming and taming wild animals for their own use. This time in history was called the Neolithic Revolution… which lasted about 6,000 years, until 4,000 BCE. The big change in the way people got their food and how they lived, resulted to positive and negative changes of human innovations of the Neolithic Revolution. So,

Approximately 2.5 million years ago humans lived as hunter-gatherers that would move in bands, later on, they would turn into the great civilization of the ancient world due to better technique and a more organized society. Starting from the neolithic age which consists of hunter-gatherers. There were basically early modern humans. Hunter-gatherers had populated a lot of the earth by 30,000 years ago, continued the hunter and gathering way of life. They would feed off of wild plants and animals and move from one location to another. They would also use the fur of their killings as clothes. In a hunting and gatherings economy, they would move from one location to another to secure their food supply. Hunter-gatherers were very self-sufficient.

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of