By cutting herself off from the known, she forces herself to explore the unknown and adapt so that she can survive communicating in a foreign language. Then, instead of focusing on the strict grammatical concepts that guide one in learning Italian, Lahiri went in without the guide of grammar, losing herself in Italian and writing freely in her Italian diary. This forced her to explore and learn, not just about the Italian language, but about herself. Through this trial by fire, she changed who she was as a person and as a writer.

However, her use of the word exile is a strange choice. Generally, exile is used to describe the barring of a person from his/her native country, but in this case, Lahiri is the one barring herself from English and “exiling” herself to Italian. Without the constriction of having a language to fall back on, an opportunity to be easily found in language, Lahiri then completely loses herself in her learning of Italian.

And while I agree with his viewpoint that animals feel emotion and that there is something wrong about killing them, I’m not a vegetarian either, and I don’t feel too remorseful about it. When I am eating my turkey sandwich or devouring a chicken cutlet, I don’t feel guilt for the turkey or chicken that had to die for me to be enjoying my meal; I just think of how tasty it is. And I am hardly alone

The real reason most people are inclined to find Descartes argument sound is more likely convenience. Descartes’ reasoning is convenient in that it justifies generations of human mistreatment of animals and makes our present lives easier. If we considered animals to be conscious creatures with a moral value akin to our own, we would have to reevaluate how we live our lives: what we eat, where we live, and how we treat animals in general. It’s so much easier just to agree with Descartes’ claims and not have to think critically about the implications the actions in our everyday lives have on animals, which is why people are inclined to agree with Descartes, even when science points otherwise.

In the past decade or so, there has been a growing awareness surrounding the emotions that animals feel. In fact, Carl Safina wrote a book about this very subject, titled Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel. In an interview with Simon Worrall of National Geographic titled “Yes, Animals Think and Feel. Here’s How We Know,” Safina laid out his argument for why he believes animals have a consciousness and are capable of feeling emotion. “If you watch mammals or even birds, you will see how they respond to the world. They play. They act frightened when there’s danger. They relax when things are good” Safina said, “It seems illogical for us to think that animals might not be having a conscious mental experience of play, sleep, fear or love” (Safina, in Worrall). By connecting numerous observations of behaviorisms that animals had in common with humans, Safina concluded that there had to be more going on in their heads than mere mechanized reactions. An example Safina uses of elephants guarding a lost old woman from a pack of hyenas seems to indicate that they must feel some kind of emotion. Another example Safina used was a humpback whale pulling a seal out of the water to save it from killer whales (Worrall). If animals were really all just mechanical robots, they wouldn’t show this concern for their fellow creatures, meaning there must be some form of consciousness, some emotions there. According to the article “Animal emotions: Do fruit flies feel fear?”, by Joseph Dussault, some sort emotion was even found in fruit flies in a study conducted by biology Professor David Anderson. “For us, that’s a big step beyond just casually intuiting that a fly fleeing a visual threat must be ‘afraid,’ based on our anthropomorphic assumptions,” Anderson said. “It suggests that the flies’ response to the threat is richer and more complicated than a robotic-like avoidance reflex” (Anderson, in Dussault). Clearly, these advances and scientific observation and studies show that animals as seemingly simple as fruit flies are more than machines, yet for some reason, we are still inclined to see them that way.

After all, we have an inability to speak or communicate intelligently with non-humans, so there is no way of knowing that these animals are anything more than machines. However, since we are human, we know that we have a consciousness and feelings because we experience it. Following this line of thought, animals would then be mere objects, devoid of moral value, and humans, because we have a consciousness and emotions, have intrinsic value. In this way, Descartes’ line of thinking characterizes animals in the same category as a printer or a chainsaw, an object with mechanized reactions based off of a command. I feel like I am speaking for most people when I say that I would certainly value myself above a printer, and by Descartes’ reasoning, it should be no different with animals.

However, due to variation in traditions of different humans, there are no traits that span all humans that would make them superior to animals. For example, humans know for sure that we are the only species on this planet that can communicate with other humans through speech. Other animals lack the ability to speak (beyond merely repeating phrases like a parrot). Yet, according to the World Federation for the Deaf, there are 70 million people in the world who are deaf, many of whom can’t speak (“Home Page”). By a distinction such as language, these people lacking the ability to speak would be considered animals. Surely this cannot be the case; they are obviously human, so language can’t be a distinction.