Feedback from Noah

This is interesting stuff. Once I read the book I could probably be of more help, but, from what you've told me, it seems like this would be ripe for a post-colonial interpretation. For instance, the patriarchal notion that a Gorilla (third world) must be educated in the way of humans (first world) - that it must be saved from its primitive nature - smacks of imperialism. And yet, the gorilla doesn't use human means of communication, but instead employs a unique medium, telepathy, to demonstrate its worth. This mirrors one of the big themes in post-colonial literature. That is, the idea that the formerly colonized people of the world need to find a voice independent and free from the influence of remnant imperialist ideologies. Rather than shifting from an imperialism perpetrated by the threat of physical violence to one of cultural, intellectual, and economic violence, the idea is that the people's of the former third world should and are developing a new paradigm.

Anyway, that's the lit theory perspective. I don't really know about rhetoric stuff, though.