Humanity in the Face of Primal Instincts

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Humanity in the Face of Primal Instincts
Human beings tend to exhibit primal traits that they deem desirable in the circles they find themselves. Hate, love, passion are among the primal characteristics that humans, notwithstanding the nature of the occurrence, exhibit depending on who is within their company. In ‘’The Dead” by Michael Swanwick, the greed of human nature comes to light; the rich ‘zombify’ the dead so that they can serve them in their various quests to maintain the economic status quo (Swanwick). The nature of humanity extends beyond the living state. In “Dust Excerpt” by Joan Frances Turner, the undead despite being monstrous creatures, they exhibit the daily struggles of human life (Turner). Humans would always wish to see the positive part of something no matter the situation at hand. In ‘’This Year’s Class Picture’’ by Dan Simmons, when the children become zombies, Miss Geiss continues to teach and care for the child zombies as if they were her students, all in an attempt to show compassion and survive in the process (Markov). The three writers take different paths in elucidating who humans become when controlled by their primal nature.
There are limited things humans can abstain from if any when it comes down to prolonging their lives and living comfortably as an individual. In ‘’The Dead”, the dead get raised so as to provide cheap labor in addition to helping serve the very crude primal wants of the living, and they include serving as prostitutes (Swanwick).

Given the necessary resources, humans tend to lose what constitutes humanity as the very primal and mean nature of primates becomes a daily exercise. The writer shades light on the extremities humans can go in an attempt to live a ‘luxurious’ life as exhibited in the short story.
Also, beyond death there is life as per the ‘’Dust Excerpt”, those that take the form of zombies group themselves into gangs and families as does the humans before death (Turner). Even in the zombie world, good gets associated with groups. It is the nature of primates to come together for security and protection as does the zombies. Beyond death, zombies live in tight-knit families where there may be or lack blood relations (Turner). In the life after death, families do not get defined as in the human world where the family gets defined by blood relations. A family is beyond blood; it is never about blood once in the zombie world, but, who is there to hold one’s back (Turner). Society may abandon a person, and when that happens, it is the friends and colleagues that stand to protect the forsaken. One should not harm the family and their daily encounters.
Lastly, human tribulations push persons to do things beyond their imagination. Not only are afflictions attributed to exposing the hidden strengths of a person but also is compassion a reason. Humans have a weakness of trying to find positivity in every situation. However, it cannot be entirely labeled as a weakness as it takes a lot of courage to face some cases like the one Geiss met (Markov). The story of Geiss helps shed light why the dead are held dearly despite the fact that they are not humans anymore and they soon will rot in a grave or get cremated. Once people die, their loved ones cling on to the remains just because they cannot imagine losing such a noble soul. Desperation, love, and fear make the society keep going in the face of adversities.
The primal nature of humans makes them desire to achieve more in a world where the best are destined for success. Some people go to extremes to achieve their goals in life while disregarding the worth of human life. Primal instincts never abandon rational thoughts no matter what form they occur in, either zombies or human. Survival tactics push humans to do what they least expect themselves to accomplish in the ordinary course of life.

Works Cited
Markov, Harry. ““This Year’s Class Picture” By Dan Simmons: Story 1.” Templelibraryreviews, 2018, http://templelibraryreviews.blogspot.co.ke/2008/12/this-years-class-picture-by-dan-simmons.html.Swanwick, Michael. “The Dead.” Tor.Com, 2011, https://www.tor.com/2011/10/25/the-dead/.Turner, Joan. “Dust (Excerpt).” Tor.Com, 2010, https://www.tor.com/2010/09/14/excerpt-from-dust-by-joan-frances-turner/.