Human-ness and Grass

Today's class went around in circles discussing what defines "human-ness" and how this applies to the various species we've encountered in the novels so far this semester as well as to the bons in Grass. This started with the statement that the bons seem to be inhuman because they do not seem to care about what happens to the rest of humanity or, towards the end of the book, to themselves. In my opinion, I think they only lose their humanity when they become completely and utterly controlled by the Hippae; before this they still had the characteristics which, in my mind, are representative of human beings. I guess that this is because, in my mind, human-ness presents itself as an entity that has the ability to control its decisions while also having some other motivations behind their actions other than basic needs. Of course this definition is my own thinking and some of you may disagree with me but I'm going to go along with this theory to assess what we talked about in class.

So taking this idea into the discussion of the other species in Grass (multiple species or one?), I see the Hippae and the foxen as on the same level as humans (I don't want to say that they're human because, as Ryan pointed out in class, that word is too closely associated with homo sapiens...so I suppose the best term to use is ramen). Both species (or are they the same? oh, forget it) are ramen because they have a higher level of thought than animals (varelse). The proof of this is in the fact that the Hippae show "malice" and the foxen feel guilt and have philosophical debates. These two species show the extreme opposites of the motivations that could possibly be behind human-like actions. Just as there is good and evil in human society, the Hippae and the foxen represent the worst and best of (for lack of a better phrase) human nature. There are people out there who enjoy hurting others for the sack of hurting them, just as there are people who feel guilt over things that they can't really be held responsible for.