A Dinosaurs identity

Thesis: Throughout the story of “The Dinosaur” by Italo Calvino, Q the last dinosaur finds out his true identity.

Q was not truly a dinosaur at the beginning of the story. After surviving the most treacherous environments, Q came to meet the New Ones. They did not see Q as a monster but rather as a normal creature. This caused Q to think “nobody suspected who I [Q] might be.” (pg 99). This shows that Q no longer looked as dangerous as he once did. The New Ones had great fear of dinosaurs but no fear of Q. Besides a lack dinosaurian appearance, Q also lost a lot of this strength. Zahn, one of the New Ones, saw Q and offered a match with him. Q’s luck in the fight was not good at the start. He even expericed  “I [Q] felt I was about to give up” (pg 102). Q not only was losing his appearance as a dinosaur but he also was becoming weak. A New One was thought to be weaker than a dinosaur, and yet he was able to defeat Q. If it was not for the tail weapon, he would have lost the match with Zahn.

As the story went on, Q became a different creature. Originally, a dinosaur is not become friends with a New One since the New Ones are usually a dinosaurs side dish. The New Ones treated Q differently and Q accepted it. After Q’s victorious fight with Zahn, Q “became the most respected of all” (pg 103).That kind of relationship Q had with the New Ones is like a relationship between predator and prey. This shows that Q was becoming more harmless, the opposite of what a dinosaur is to be.

However, Q’s new personality did not last forever. As time went by, Q found out that he was truly a dinosaur. As the days with the New Ones added up, eventually some dinosaurs came back. The New Ones asked Q to lead the campaign against the dinosaurs, but this placed Q into a very difficult situation. He had to decide whether to help his friends fight off the dinosaurs, or rejoin his fellow race. This brought stress upon Q making him to have “nothing to do on either side” (pg 106). Joining either side would bring negative and positive effects for Q. if he helped his New One friends, he would be betraying his own dinosaur race. If he joined the dinosaurs, he would betray his friends that caused a great impact on his life. Because of the difficult situation, Q told the New Ones something he should have at least tried to of told. He “allowed the truth about me [dinosaur identity] out” (107). His statement of truth shows the identity Q decided to go by; dinosaur. No longer did he wish to stay around the New Ones as the “ugly one” (a name they gave him) but rather the dinosaur. So Q left the New Ones (maybe to prevent them from being his meal) and lived on his own. But this time of loneliness was not like the previous one. Now he did not fear being who he really was because now he knew that he was truly a dinosaur and there is nothing anyone can do about it.