A Report to an Academy

In the opening sequence, Red Peter appears before a scientific community to give a presentation about his earlier life as an ape. At this point, he has spent years attempting to assimilate himself into human culture. However, by going before this audience, he continues to highlight his status as an outsider status. Though he has “attained the average education of a European man” (7), society still regards him as a spectacle.

Red Peter can hardly recall his years as an ape, which illustrates how hard he has worked to relinquish his ape identity. While he does regard himself as human, in the eyes of others, he exists in a liminal stage. This relegates Red Peter to perpetual “other” status, despite his persistent and overachieving efforts to become assimilated. When considering historical context (this story was published during WWI), it could reasonably be interpreted that Kafka is criticizing, or even satirizing, European nationalism that resists immigration and alienates people who could be deemed “other.” 

During his presentation, Red Peter reflects on being shot, captured, and imprisoned aboard the ship. In some instances, he compliments—and even expresses gratitude—toward his captors. He notes, “People consider such confinement of wild animals beneficial in the very first period of time, and today I cannot deny, on the basis of my own experience, that in a human sense that is, in fact, the case” (3). In this passage, he commends his captors for their ability to break his wild spirit, even though they are using barbaric means.

Later, one of his captors tried to teach him how to drink alcohol. Red Peter struggled to learn and states:

To my teacher’s credit, he was not angry with me. Well, sometimes he held his burning pipe against my fur in some place or other which I could reach only with difficulty, until it began to burn. But then he would put it out himself with his huge good hand. He wasn’t angry with me. He realized that we were fighting on the same side against ape nature and that I had the more difficult part (6).

Here, Red Peter appears to be thankful that his captor is doing what is necessary to rid him of his ape nature. By considering them to be “on the same side,” Red Peter expresses a sense of solidarity that his captor likely doesn’t share. His captors’ compassion seems to delude him, as if to persevere he must tell himself that they have good intentions. It is ironic that his captors treat him inhumanely, but he covets their humanness.

Red Peter often speaks of finding a “way out.” This, in his view, is different from attaining freedom. He notes that “people all too often are deceived by freedom” (3). This speaks to the paradox of living in a free human society: though one is uncaged and feels like they’re in full control of their actions, their society’s laws and mores still govern them. Red Peter seems to understand this and doesn’t seek this abstract notion of freedom. Rather, he seeks a “way out,” in which he will be physically unrestrained and permitted to live a freer (albeit not free) life. 

To gain his “way out,” Red Peter imitates humans, which, in his view, allows him to become one of them. However, he doesn’t enjoy this process, noting that he “imitated them because [he] was looking for a way out, for no other reason” (6). Ultimately, his pragmatic approach does gain him a greater degree of freedom, though he is still somewhat haunted by his apish past, as his inability to look at his “half-trained” (7) chimpanzee lover in the daylight indicates.

As Red Peter concludes his report, his speech conveys a bureaucratic tone. In closing, he notes, “I only want to expand knowledge. I simply report. Even to you, esteemed gentlemen of the Academy, I have only made a report” (7). Here, Kafka satirizes bureaucratic behavior, and how it strips people of their humanity. Though Red Peter has struggled mightily to transform himself into a human, this bureaucratic event illustrates how the institution minimizes his humanity.