“He was more than a dolphin, but from another dolphin’s point of view he might have seemed like something less.” pg. 15
This may be a fairly insignificant passage, but it seemed like it might have been a representation of some underlying theme within the story. I thought I understood the plot well enough despite the technical terms in the story, but I couldn’t really find any meaning. The only conclusion I could come to was from this bit and the ending comments from the narrator about being a “bucket”. It seems like the story is depicting the loss of humanity (for lack of better word) in people (even though it is a dolphin in the quote), which is worried about today with social networking things like Facebook and such; however, this story obviously heightened that concept by making it a physical loss of humanity in the story, which may be to highlight the mental and emotional changes in people as well as predict an exaggerated version of modern plastic surgery. The story seemed to be condemning this humanity vs. technology issue as the main character decides he wants to be like normal people (even though no one seems very normal), and “Jones” is considered less than a dolphin in the minds of real dolphins because of his altered, technical mental state. Yet, there is still the question of whether this is heightening Jones’ mental state or lowering it–as to humans in the quote, it seems he is “more” than just a dolphin. This might also be a criticism of mankind’s insistence of the higher value of manmade concepts and objects while nature is considered of a lesser value. The author didn’t seem to make any definitive judgment on this nature vs. man issue, but it was pointed out nonetheless as an issue that will keep growing with technology. I am not really sure if any of this is what I was supposed to get out of the story, but I couldn’t really find any deeper meaning.
