We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Fern is the chimpanzee that the Cooke parents adopted to raise alongside Rosemary. Although the family believed they were emotionally committed to raising her as a daughter forever, they also got her in order to perform research, and she was owned by a university the whole time. Rosemary and Fern were essentially twins, as their experiences needed to be as similar as possible for the research to be accurate. Fern lived with the family for five years before being sent back to the University and sold to a research lab in South Dakota. Everything the reader knows about Fern is told through human memories and conceptions of her, as she cannot speak for herself. There are many times when the way that Lowell and Rosemary perceive Fern and her intelligence level is quite different than how the Cooke parents perceive it.

As a young chimp, Fern is portrayed as energetic and occasionally troublesome; Rosemary is often jealous of Fern’s physical capabilities. She is given back to the University when her strength and unpredictability become too much for the Cookes to handle. As an adult, Fern is portrayed as a strong female and mother. She is no longer energetic and happy, as her life is lacking the color and variety of the real world. Fern’s character shows the ways in which nonhuman and human animals can learn to communicate and build relationships, as well as the fundamental similarities and differences between human and nonhuman animals.

Rosemary’s father, Vince, is a committed, judgmental, and opinionated psychologist; he often worries about his professional standing and how people perceive him, especially in the wake of Fern’s departure. He views the world though an entirely scientific lens, is prone to going on tangents, and often appears cold or absent in the family setting. For example, he tells Rosemary that they “expected great things,” from her, in the past tense, over a family dinner and is critical of the counselor that Lowell gets to help with his emotions. He does make efforts to help Rosemary and, at times, tries to show her love. Vince views humans as more “animal-like” than most would like to admit and is extremely averse to anthropomorphism. He gives Rosemary psychology-based advice to make people unknowingly more interested in her, showing how he views humans as simple and gullible. Throughout the book, Rosemary grapples with her father’s emotionless relationship to animals. It is difficult for Lowell and Rosemary to trust their father because of the nature of his experiments and the fact that he gave Fern away after promising to love her forever, equally to his human children. The extended family does not like Vince.

Rosemary’s mother is loving, committed to parenting, and experiences strong emotions, including episodes of depression. Vince writes scientific papers on the children while Rosemary’s mother creates baby books. While Rosemary’s father can be cold and overly critical, her mother is a peacemaker. Although Vince is in charge of the graduate students and experiments, Rosemary’s mother does all of the behind-the-scenes work, making sure that the children are fed and properly dressed. Her job as a mother is made more difficult by adding a baby chimp, but she loves Fern deeply. She believes in all of her children and wishes the best for them, often worrying about things like Rosemary’s lack of friends. After Fern’s departure and then Lowell’s, Rosemary’s mother enters a serious depressive episode and is unable to function. After she recovers, she is seen as a fragile woman. Rosemary worries about hurting her mother with the truth, and towards the end of the book she refers to her mother as “broken” by the family. By the end of the book, Rosemary’s mother has found her place in animal rights activism; while Lowell takes direct action, she works to spread public knowledge about the issue and ensures that Fern is able to access basic happiness every day through her favorite foods.

Lowell, Rosemary’s older brother, fits into an outlaw archetype as he follows his values over all else, often leading him to act selfishly and illegally. “Travers” is the name he uses to introduce himself to strangers throughout the book. For the first part of the book, Lowell is missing. As a youth, Lowell loves Fern very deeply, often probing at the work that his father, and others, do with animals. For example, he asks his father why Fern has to learn their language rather than vice versa. Lowell is slightly older than Rosemary during this entire experiment, so his ability to analyze and understand the family dynamics are stronger. He is fiercely stubborn and rebellious, doing things like staying with a friend and refusing to move when his parents do. After running into Matt, the grad student that left with Fern, and finding out about what happened to Fern, Lowell decides to go find her. In a culmination of Lowell’s loyalty, stubbornness, and lack of forethought, Lowell is caught and subsequently spends his life on the run from the FBI while continuing to take action against animal abuse.

He is an action-driven character who has never questioned his purpose. Lowell prioritizes helping Fern, and all animals, over the emotional wellbeing of his family. This is proven when he visits Rosemary for the first time in a decade, choosing to sleep with Harlow when he could be spending time with his sister, and then being upfront about the fact that he only came to make sure that someone would be watching over Fern. Rosemary describes her adult brother as somewhat wild, calling him “unstable.”

Harlow enters Rosemary’s life abruptly during college, and the two of them form an unusual and fleeting bond. A drama major, Harlow moves through life with zest, performance, and white lies. She enjoys pushing personal and societal boundaries as well as people’s buttons. Despite, or perhaps because of, Harlow’s lack of regard for other people’s space and boundaries, she is a seductive and popular character; it often feels like Harlow knows everyone, and everyone is a pawn in her world. When Harlow is interested in someone or something she puts all her energy towards them or it. Once she is done with someone or something, she casts them to the side.

At first, Reg is Harlow’s boyfriend; there is a clear power dynamic in this relationship, as Harlow tosses Reg around when she wants to and he consistently comes running back to her. Although he acts with the confidence that society grants men, it seems that he is not actually confident. Later, he dates Rosemary despite her believing that he is a brute for most of the book. Reg voices opinions loudly and can be rude. For example, he tells Rosemary that she talks too much. Many of the things he says can be seen as subtly or overtly sexist, such as asking Rosemary if she is on her period when she gets angry with him.