Outside Reading:3

In Hesse's book Journey to the East, he touches on an encounter he had with a peacock. In his encounter, he treats the peacock an a thou versus and it: "the peacocks' tails shimmered when the moon rose amongst the tall tress, and on the shady bank the emerging mermaids gleamed fresh and silvery amongst the rocks" (30). He admires the peacock and takes time to stand in awe of the animal's beauty instead of taking a quick glance on the way by. In admiring the animal, he takes into account the animal's feelings and realizes that the peacock deserves to be admired. He does not interrupt the natural occurrences by taking pictures or getting too close to the peacock, but lets his memory of the encounter be sufficient. If he would to treat the peacock as an "it" he would have not taken the time to admire how the peacock looked against the sky and he would have bombarded in on the animal's space to fulfill his project. He even admits that his description of the moment cannot truly capture what happened: "My description of them seems poor and perhaps foolish"(30). When treating someone as a thou, we accept that we cannot contain them into a certain space. We cannot describe every aspect of them nor limit them to our description or knowledge of them. Hesse doesn't just experience the peacock, but he encounters it.