Animal’s People Summary and Analysis

Section Six Summary [Ma’s Apokalis] Tapes 20–21

The people grow incensed when the hearing against the Kampani is again postponed. The lawyers deflect questions from the people and suggest that all issues will be resolved. Zafar and Farouq have gone seven days without food and water and are near death. Animal sits with Zafar, watching him die.

While Animal is with Zafar, a riot breaks out at the factory. Police officers arrive and begin beating the people, including Nisha. Animal is overcome with rage and violently attacks the officer. Suddenly, thousands of others who have heard of the riot arrive at the factory. The police are run off, and Somraj, Nisha, and Animal return to Somraj’s house. Animal tells Nisha that he will marry and care for her if Zafar dies. She sends him away.

Animal confronts Elli about her conversation and kiss with the lawyer. Hurt by the renewed distrust, Elli explains how she had actually been pleading with the lawyer, her ex-husband, to sway the Kampani. Animal checks on Ma, who speaks of the end of the world. He returns to Nisha’s house, hoping to comfort her. When he asks her to marry and have children with him, she rejects him. Animal lashes out that she will never love him because he’s an animal. She tells him to leave her alone and live like an animal, and he runs off.

Animal sits at the bottom of the frangipani tree, mourning his losses. He finds the leftover pills that he was feeding to Zafar and eats them all, one by one. The pills take over, and Animal descends into a hallucinatory breakdown. He watches a crowd of “demons” attack and set fire to Elli’s clinic, as Somraj defends her from the angry mob. Animal hears the Kh�-in-the-jar calling to him and pulls it from the burning clinic. He then returns home to find Ma cooking and chanting in the voice of a madwoman. Suddenly, voices shout that the factory is on fire again. Ma leaves, telling Animal that she loves him and that they’ll meet again in paradise. Shame finally moves Animal forward, and he runs through the streets, clinging desperately to life.

Section Six Analysis [Ma’s Apokalis] Tapes 20–21

The Khaufpuri’s passive acceptance of their plight is destroyed when the Kampani is again able to evade judgment for their role in the deaths of thousands. The people’s responsive riot at the abandoned factory is symbolic; it is a poetic vision of the people fighting back against the very entity that destroyed them. Nisha’s beating symbolizes the destruction of the people’s innocence. Animal’s defense of Nisha, dressed in white, is his most physically animalistic moment.

Animal turns the judgment on himself, feeling intense regret and remorse as he watches Zafar die. He sees, perhaps for the first time, the consequences of his selfish behaviors. In trying to isolate himself as the nonhuman outsider, in excusing his behaviors and focusing solely on himself, Animal has hurt the people he cares most deeply about. His mourning at the bottom of the frangipani tree—where he had spied and acted self-indulgently—may be symbolic of the guilt he feels for, and rejection of, such behavior.

Ma’s nonsensical prophetic visions of the “Apokalis,” of destruction, judgment, and death, seem to be coming true with the deaths and near-deaths of so many people. Animal’s “birth” in the first factory accident—insofar as his identity rests in that accident—is matched by his imminent death in the second gas accident. This “Apokalis” is the final destruction of Animal’s self-constructed world.

Still, the depth of emotion that Animal feels for these events is a marker of his humanity, and the Kh�-in-the-jar’s reminder gives him a purpose as he desperately clings to life.