The short story “The Large Ant” by Howard Fast supports the idea that humanity is innately violent, however, I believe that we are capable of changing that. Within the story, the fact that humans are violent was proven when all eight of the people who saw the large ants killed them right away. Their first thought was to kill the creature in order to protect themselves. The main character speaks to Dr. Lieberman about it who says, “That is why, so long ago, we at least recognized the injunction, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ even if we never gave more than lip service to it” (Fast 8). He is talking about how people believe that they are not violent even though they often are. A man named Fitzgerald is also involved in this conversation and he says, “What then-panic, hysteria, changes that this is the result of the atom bomb? We can’t change. We are what we are” (Fast 8). He’s talking about what would happen if they told the whole world about these creatures (the large ants), and why he thinks they should not. He feels that it won’t change anything because people can not change their violent instincts. In addition to these points from the story, an example of human violence in the real world is war. Wars have been happening for a very long time and continue to happen today. They stand as proof that many people think that violence is the best way to solve their issues. Many people get hurt or die in this process. Not every single person is violent, but enough people are to make it seem as though humans are as a whole. However, I believe that we have the capability to change this. We can do this by thinking about and reflecting on our actions and by teaching others how to not be violent from a young age, in order to take those tendencies away. Overall, the short story helps people to see that humans are innately violent, but there are definitely ways that we can change that.
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December 2022
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