In the third and last section of Half Brother, the plot should have started heavily picking up, but even at the end of the book, the plot progresses at a snail's pace. There is an argument to be made on how slow plot progression is a characteristic of a well-written book, but when it’s consistent throughout the entire book it just makes for a dull experience. The main progressions are that Zan gets sent away, brought back, and then sent away again. This is just sloppy writing.
During the third section of Half Brother Zan gets sent to a family who looks over chimps in mass numbers. After learning that the owners are planning on selling Zan to a medical research facility, Ben, and his mother kidnap Zan and bring him home, only to render the …show more content…
It’s a simple conflict, without much sustenance but it's a conflict nonetheless. Ben’s father makes an executive decision to give away Zan after discovering that Zan is not learning language, but merely mimicking actions to receive rewards. In ways, I can see this being the case. Language is far more complex than just words. When Zan uses signs, it's in order to gain something or to make something happen. Throughout the learning process, all Zan has learned is that if he does certain signs he will get certain things. That in itself is a form of intelligence, but not the type that Ben’s father wanted. What Ben’s father wanted is a form of intelligence that allows for Zan to do things such as express feeling and construct full sentences without the intention of causing something to happen. On the contrary, Zan shows minimal amounts of this form of intelligence in the form of comforting Ben after his break up with Jennifer. Zan’s action was selfless, and a use of sign language, without the intention of causing something to happen. It showed that Zan was understanding emotion and was able to convey that knowledge with sign language. The only problem is that Ben never mentioned this information to his father, allowing for him to continue thinking Zan was not learning. Although even the with the addition of this knowledge, Zan would most likely still have been sent away as a cause of him not learning fast enough. In
During the third section of Half Brother Zan gets sent to a family who looks over chimps in mass numbers. After learning that the owners are planning on selling Zan to a medical research facility, Ben, and his mother kidnap Zan and bring him home, only to render the …show more content…
It’s a simple conflict, without much sustenance but it's a conflict nonetheless. Ben’s father makes an executive decision to give away Zan after discovering that Zan is not learning language, but merely mimicking actions to receive rewards. In ways, I can see this being the case. Language is far more complex than just words. When Zan uses signs, it's in order to gain something or to make something happen. Throughout the learning process, all Zan has learned is that if he does certain signs he will get certain things. That in itself is a form of intelligence, but not the type that Ben’s father wanted. What Ben’s father wanted is a form of intelligence that allows for Zan to do things such as express feeling and construct full sentences without the intention of causing something to happen. On the contrary, Zan shows minimal amounts of this form of intelligence in the form of comforting Ben after his break up with Jennifer. Zan’s action was selfless, and a use of sign language, without the intention of causing something to happen. It showed that Zan was understanding emotion and was able to convey that knowledge with sign language. The only problem is that Ben never mentioned this information to his father, allowing for him to continue thinking Zan was not learning. Although even the with the addition of this knowledge, Zan would most likely still have been sent away as a cause of him not learning fast enough. In