You Shall Know Them by Vercors
"You Shall Know Them" is a thought-provoking narrative that explores the philosophical and legal implications of defining humanity. The story revolves around Douglas M. Templemore, a journalist who finds himself entangled in a murder charge that hinges on the legal status of a newly discovered species known as the "tropis." These creatures exhibit a blend of human and ape characteristics, raising profound questions about what differentiates humans from animals. As Templemore grapples with these issues, he engages in a dramatic act that leads him to court, where the definition of a human being is debated.
The narrative weaves together elements of love, science, and ethics, presenting a rich dialogue on evolutionary theory and the moral dilemmas faced by the characters involved. The conflict escalates as Templemore's actions challenge societal norms and legal definitions, particularly concerning the rights of the tropis and their potential exploitation. Ultimately, the court rules that the tropis are human, a decision that has significant repercussions for all parties involved, including Templemore’s fate and relationship with his fiancée, Frances. This work invites readers to reflect on the complexities of identity, morality, and the essence of what it means to be human.
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Subject Terms
You Shall Know Them
First published:Les Animaux dénaturés (1952; English translation, 1953)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—evolutionary fantasy
Time of work: The mid-twentieth century, after World War II
Locale: New Guinea and London, England
The Plot
The premise of You Shall Know Them is an unlikely situation in which a man is willing to sacrifice his life for the clarification of a point of law. The point at issue is the legal definition of a human being. The question, “What is man?” has been posed or answered many times by poets, scripturalists, anthropologists, and lexicographers, among others, but never by legislators. None of the answers has ever been declared fully satisfactory, much less definitive. Vercors’ story reminds the reader that the identification of what exactly defines a person has been neither legally codified nor put to legal test.
The unnamed first-person narrator (presumably Vercors himself) becomes, after the first chapter, an omniscient third-person narrator. The narrative itself includes a love story, a scientific expedition, a murder trial, and a lengthy but entertaining dialogue on evolutionary theory. All of these derive from the fanciful premise, and all are enlisted in the quasi-humorous cause of a problem in philosophy.
In the novel, Douglas M. Templemore, a thirty-five-year-old journalist, commits a murder of which he can be found guilty only if it can be proved legally that his victim was a human being. Templemore had been part of a paleontological expedition in New Guinea, where the “missing link” conjoining apes and humans was found— not in fossil remains but embodied in a large tribe of living creatures who combine many physiological features of apes and humans. They exhibit furry bodies, beetling brows, liplessness, and quadrumanous limbs, as apes do. Like humans, they use fire, make tools, bury their dead, communicate through language, and, thanks to a thick astragalus (ankle), walk upright. The question of their status immediately arises. Are they ape or human? Father Dillighan, a member of the expedition, is tormented as much by the thought of failing to baptize uncleansed humans as by that of administering the rites of baptism to animals. His religious dilemma parallels the intellectual dilemma of Templemore and others: What is the line over which the animal crosses to become a human?
The missing links are dubbed “tropis,” the term being a contraction of “anthropus” and “pithecus.” The Takura Development Company in Sydney, Australia, wants to use the tropis as slave labor in the production of wool, exploitation that would be legitimate if the tropis were animals and that would destroy the wool market in England. This economic threat constitutes another dilemma.
A number of tropis are taken to London, where Templemore initiates a solution to the various dilemmas by artificially inseminating a female tropi called Derry with his own sperm and killing, shortly after parturition, the son she bears. He expedites his being arrested for murder and willingly risks the death penalty if his son is pronounced legally human. The court eventually determines that the human being is defined by “his spirit of religion.” The domestic tropis do not qualify because they have no taboos or ju-jus (gris-gris in the original French, meaning amulets or fetishes). It is learned, however, that the undomesticated hill tropis smoke meat, not to preserve it but as a ritual. The tropis are declared human. Nevertheless, Templemore is acquitted because the declaration is made subsequent to his killing of Derry’s infant and because the resultant legality cannot be made retroactive. Takura must not enslave the tropis; Father Dillighan may now baptize them; and Templemore is restored to his bride, Frances, whose consistent loyalty to him is somehow not frustrated by her haunting conviction that he is a filicide.