Evil Robot Monkey

By: Mary Robinette Kowal

The science fiction short story “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal was
released in 2008 and was nominated for Hugo awards for short story. The story is
about a chimpanzee named Sly. He loves pottery and is not like the others for he is
far more intelligent than other chimps but still just an animal to humans. One day
Sly was peacefully enjoying his pottery wheel and making a vase. A group of school
kids came and banged on the window. Sly-unaware of visitors was startled and
screamed as the vase collapsed. He threw and hurdled the clay to the window as the
kids make fun of him. Knowing that the letters outside would be reversed he wrote
S-S-A. The school teacher saw this and told Vern- Sly’s handler that he should be
disciplined. And for that Vern took his bucket of clay as a punishment and made Sly
clean his mess-the clay he threw on the window. He waited for Vern to leave then he
scooped the clay which was the only clay he have for now.

This kind of work is important because it opens the mind of the readers and makes
us think about the things that we don't usually think about. We are going to
analyze the story to deeply understand it and its purpose.

As I start to read the story I can easily picture and imagine the setting and what
is happening because the author wrote the story in a very detailed way that is easy
to understand. And the conversations of the characters sound authentic and we can
feel emotions just by reading their dialogues.

The setting and vibe of the story were similar to the movie “The Planet of the
Apes” as both the story is about a smart monkey and in a facility of scientist to
study them and both of the stories shows how human treat animals badly because they
are different from the other animals and human.

The characters’ personalities were shown easily in the story through the way they
talk and act. Sly the main character was a smart chimpanzee who can communicate
well through sign language and enjoy shaping clay to his pottery wheel which
according to the author he loved by the Earth and Trees. And pottering is the way
to make himself calm down when he is angry. Another important character in the
story is Vern. He is the handler of Sly and he is the only person who can get
closer to Sly and not be afraid because he understands him emotionally. He was also
the one who gave Sly the pottering wheel. Other characters were the teacher and the
school kids that visited Sly.

The story shows that when someone is different from us we tend to treat them badly
just because they do not fit it. And when the teacher told Vern that Sly should be
disciplined but her students were the ones who started making fun of Sly and
although he only stood up for himself he was the one who was punished, this is one
part of the story that stayed on my head because I can see it happening in real
life. The story also shows how sometimes although humans are way smarter than
animals we tend to act more ignorant and unkind.
To sum up, I think the story is good to read and the way the author wrote is very
detailed and showed a lot of different emotions in the characters which made
fictional characters more real. The story also how Sly expresses his emotions and
calms them with pottery. Just like how humans cope with their feelings and
emotions. And reminds us to be kind to animals because although they are different
from us they also have feelings. Last, even though the story is fictional sadly
many animals are in facilities for experimentation and human entertainment like
animal zoo instead of living their life outside where they are free as like we all
should be.