The story “The Great Silence” by Ted Chiang is narrated to us by a Puerto Rican bird. The bird goes into great detail about how fascinated he is in regards to how hard humans try to communicate with extraterrestrials. He explains that a tool was even built to send and receive messages between humans and life outside of Earth; this tool is called Arecibo. The bird however, is confused about the ways humans think. He believes if humans were looking for another type of intelligence aside from their own, they would have stopped their search at the discovery of birds since they are able to not only communicate, but also understand human language proving that birds have an intelligence of their own. Since the search for aliens has been ongoing for a period…show more content… He in addition infers that birds of his kind will be extinct in a matter of time and the message he will leave humans with is “You be good. I love you” (BASS, page 69). The Puerto Rican bird is a character who I perceived as charitable. I say this because the bird seems unbothered when he mentioned that humans are the reason for his species going extinct: “They didn’t do it maliciously. They just weren’t paying attention” (BASS, page 72). I instantly felt guilty for being inconsiderate of the species that I don’t appreciate as much as I should. I began to think about the truth behind the idea that their language, rituals, and traditions will also go extinct too (BASS, page 72). While the bird is the protagonist seeing that he is the main character, humans were the anti-hero in
