Carnal Knowledge

It is our human spirit that separates us from animals. Because animals lack a spirit of their own, they have no conscience to guide them with the inner sense of right and wrong. T.C. Boyle’s “Carnal Knowledge” portrays two people, Jim and Alena, who live as if they lack a human spirit. Like animals, they act as they please, satisfying their own wants with no sense of morality. From Jim’s lies of …

…being meat. Although each character seemingly gets away with being conniving and dishonest, neither can hide from the fact that they are only empty human beings. A human with no content is only flesh. As a lesson, Him and Alena show how any human being who does not act according to one’s conscience is an empty vessel, with no content, no life. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing…” –John 6:63.