Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

by Jane Goodall



A book, full of inspiration and admiration, like Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall, tells an adventure of Jane Goodall throughout her life. She starts off with her childhood in 1930 in London. She was born to love nature and animals. She was a curious little scientist at a very every age. She would observe how hen had laid eggs, how squirrels gather beechnuts, how weasel hunted mice, etc. Anything that had to do with nature and animals, she felt in love. Not only she’s into nature and animals, she loves the bible and Jesus. As she grows up, she wanted to travel and works with animals. Her dream is to go to Africa, which she eventually did. Even though she can’t go to university, she was encouraged to go to free class that was provided by London School of Economics, and worked with her aunt Olly, a physiotherapist. One day, a great opportunity came up for her, her friend Marie Claude Mange, had invited her to visit her and her family at their farms in Africa, which was filled with elephants and giraffes. Jane was more pleasant than ever! She started to save up money for this exciting trip. At age of 23, she began her trip to Africa at a farm in Kinangop. At her stay at Kinangop, she meets Louis Leakey who was a famous paleontologist. He influenced her with his love of chimpanzees and taught her much about animals and fossils. He was the man who gave her a great opportunity with the chimps and the nature. He allowed her to go to Gombe for 6 months and stay with the chimps, even though this idea was highly rejected. On July 16, 1960, Jane sets out to Gombe with Vanne, her mother. Jane observed a lot of wild animals in the nature, such as buffalos and leopards. Jane found a peak where she can observed chimpanzees and ought to give each one a name. She saw how one of the male chimps, whom she named David, had made “tool” out of twig and leaves to pick out termites. She also stated that each of the chimps had its own personality and is unique from each other like us human. One of the chimps, David, helped her around and taught her more about chimp’s habitat. She observed the way they swing from tree branches, how they communicate with each other, how they take care for their infants, etc. From 1964 to 1974, her career ranges from being a PhD in Cambridge University, professor in Standford University, and then being a human biology teacher. Later on, she began to lose her job because of rumors spreading around. Her study in chimps still continues, she observed how chimps and human community had differed and how it’s similar. She had qualified that chimps’ community was more peaceful and involve in less violence act unlike humans. Though, later on, chimps was known for killing and eating chimps’ infants and attacking female chimps for their babies. This was fortunately ended. Also, she had compared their emotions with humans: she said that when their infant passed away, the mother still take care of it, though she knows it’s dead. For humans, when one is passed away, we grief about it. Chimpanzees are human ancestor, according to Jane. Chimpanzees are animals with intellectual minds and ones that had survived long enough to pass on their genes. They can make tools and more surprisingly can interpret human languages, like the sign language. As technology had invented and more diseases had come upon, more and more animals are being killed. Chimpanzees are being captured into lab testing, humans cut down forest and animal’s habitat to build factories, and environment is starting to damage. Jane had noticed how orphan chimps are being treated and unfed. This had disappointed her a lot. Thus, she had opened a workshop to help the chimps and other animals after her visit at the lab. Jane, throughout her life, had hugely impact on chimpanzees and science.

Of course, science is everywhere, especially in this book. Science terms and science concepts evolved throughout the whole novel, ranges from when Jane was little, to when the novel had end. For example, Jane talked about animals in their habitats and adaptations, fossils and bones, ancestry and reproductions, environmental damaging, “pseudo-speciation,” and many more. Like on chapter 2, Jane had talked about her obsession with chimpanzees and is highly affected with insects and animals in the nature. She, as about 12 years old, tried to observed animals in her backyard in their habitat. She even hid in a chicken cage and observed how it had laid an egg. This was a source of reproduction. Another example was her observation when a squirrel was gathering and burying beechnuts. This is a science concept for survival and environment changing. Squirrel eats beechnuts as a source of food in order to survive, so they gathered beechnuts in time for winter and for hibernation. Another example is when Jane observed how those chimpanzees had built and uses tools. They also have emotions and much of the similarities that can prove chimps and human are from the same ancestry. This is a source of science because it traces back to the ancient times and dealing with anatomical bones structures that ranges from chimps to human. “…how our stone age ancestors may have behaved. And this would provide another strand in his lifelong quest…our DNA, differs from that of chimpanzees by only a little over 1 percent…” (page 52-53). Jane also talks about a scientific term “pseudo-speciation” or “cultural speciation”, which is the transmission of individually obtained behavior from one generation to the next within a particular group. This can be shown with an example of chimpanzees. Through the friendly relations and close member that the chimps had interacted in their area, they are able to recognize one and another, and are able to tell those intruders who comes into their area. Pseudo speciation separates organisms from each other ranging from different social groups and diversity in population. Another example of science concept was when Jane talked about ozone layer and greenhouse gases that are produced by humans which caused destructions.

Every book must have a purpose or a point that is made for the reader. As for Jane, her purpose is to tell all the reader about her point of view and what we should do, as a community, to help improve the environment for us and for those innocent animals. She explained and showed us of how animals were being used and treated. Even if those animals aren’t “human”, they are living organism and should have the right to live freely. Human and chimpanzees are from the same ancestor, but we had killed them and use them for scientific experiments and for laboratory, this is like killing our grand-ancestor for our own use. Isn’t that selfish? As for Jane, she tried to decrease the number of animals, such as chimpanzees, from being killed for human’s own use and for laboratory testing. She also builds a workshop to help these animals survival. “ The shame I felt was because I was human” (page 217), this quote tells us how she felt about human and how disappointing it is to be human because we had done a lot of sins to other organisms and so much more. She also encourages the reader to be wise about their surroundings and natural resources that are being used. She warned us about global warming, and how a lot of sources are disappearing so quickly which may cause major damage to our planet. Not only she had influenced her society and science with her encouragements, she took an opportunity to go to Gombe for 6 months to stay with the chimpanzees and to study them in their habitat. This was significant because she was an unskillful scientist and is a young naïve untrained girl who is untaken this utmost opportunity. “Jojo had lost his world long, long ago…. Jojo has committed no crime, yet he was imprisoned for life.” (Page 216-217). This passage from the novel shows what we human had done: we had shut down all the life of innocent chimpanzee, like Jojo’s, for ourselves. Jojo could’ve lived with his family, like us, instead of having to be imprisoned and trapped in a world with nothing at all. How would YOU feel if another organism did that to us? Humans are just another kind of organism living in this ecosystem.