Hosts

The Host by Stephenie Meyer creates a society in which aliens in the shape of small, shining, gel-like creatures are taking over the world. These aliens can live for millions of years, as long as they have bodies to carry them around. See, the aliens by themselves are incredibly weak creatures, brilliantly smart, but physically weak. In order to survive, they are inserted into a human’s body through a small cut in the back of the neck. Once inside the body, they take control of the brain and ultimately live as themselves with a puppet that helps them survive. In the book humans are survival machines for the aliens, much like we are in real life for the genes.

“When we have served our purpose we are cast aside.” (pg. 35) This belief is depressing on many levels. Firstly it takes out all meaning in our silly lives, which aren’t really that grand to start with. In just one phrase Dawkins manages to turn a human being into an object, which can be easily cast off at the first sign of trouble. Secondly, it steals all hope for a better existence, seeing as our purpose is nothing more than full housing service for millions of genes. Thirdly: if this is true of our lives, if it really is as Shakespeare put it “a tale told by an idiot…signifying nothing,” (Macbeth, Act V, scene v), then why is it that we consider ourselves so important?

That is the main weakness of humanity: we like to fool ourselves into believing we are more important than we actually are.  We love to think that the world will change, that something will be altered when we die. The truth is we aren’t that special. In our lives, we may be capable of making a few people smile, hopefully we will have the chance to help some people or to leave a mark on them, but in the end we all walk towards the same door. “In a few generations the most you can hope for is a large number of descendants, each of whom bares only a tiny portion of you- a few genes- even if a few do bear your surname as well.” (pg. 35)

This idea brings me back to The Host, mainly because the meaning of life is also questioned in the book. The way the humans in the book see it, there’s no reason to live if you aren’t controlling yourself, if you mean nothing. The rebellious humans that still remain hidden on earth have various strategies to kill themselves before becoming a host, or as Dawkins would put it: a survival machine.

If we really are merely survival machines for our genes, what do we mean? Do we mean anything at all? Should we still have hope for a better society if The Selfish Gene is managing us? What if we are no more than hosts?

“We should have been wiser; we should have died yesterday” (Stephenie Meyer, The Host)