Pain And Love In Matt Haig's The Man

Have you ever wondered about what humans would seem like from an outside point of view? The Humans by Matt Haig is just that. A story about an alien who discovers that humans, although flawed creatures who are burdened with emotions, love and care for each other, learning more about itself in the process. Humans connect with each other on a deeper level than it ever expected, and it soon falls into the trap of love, feelings, and family. Ultimately, it learns that perfection and love do not coexist, but pain and love do, and love is what defines humanity.

The narrator starts off being everything but human. An alien hailing from the planet Vonnadoria where all is known, mathematics and science replace religion, and fear and pain are nonexistent,

At first, the narrator was the one causing others to feel this way, scaring Daniel Russell with its true visage before paralyzing him and summoning enough pain to kill him, only causing the narrator slight head pain and fatigue. The narrator is easily able to shrug off the pain and watch someone else suffer without blinking an eye. However, in the chapter “The violet”, the hosts, or the senior Vonnadorians commanding the narrator, cause it extreme pain because it was deviating from their original plan. The narrator saw it as a warning, to discourage it from becoming attached. In “The possibility of pain”, the narrator discovers that Gulliver is getting beat up when he comes home with bruises. It is not supposed to become attached, but it is. “The warning had failed, you see. Indeed, it had the opposite effect. That’s what starts to happen, when you know it is possible for you to feel pain you have no control over. You become vulnerable. Because the possibility of pain is where love stems from. And that, for me, was very bad news indeed.” It discovers that it does care, and in the following chapter, when Gulliver attempts suicide, the narrator is there, rushing to protect his fall, and using its alien powers to revive him when he dies, going against its orders to kill him. The hosts hurt it, and the narrator learns that family is not supposed to hurt each other. After becoming human, the narrator