The short story “The Mind of a Pig” by Ekaterina Sedia was published for the first time in 2009.
Joel would like to be understood by Cassie and her family but he’s a pig and can’t speak. He’s unique thanks to genetic engineering so his brain is human. How can he make humans understand that he’s a sentient being before part of his brain is used for a transplant?
In this short story Ekaterina Sedia introduces Joel, a very special pig because he has a human brain. He was created to be able to undertake transplant of parts of that brain on humans who suffered accidents or illnesses that maimed them. For this reason, Joel is a sentient being but can’t make the family he lives with understand it.
The basic concept of the story is that of xenotransplants, which means the transplant of organs donated by an individual of a different species. Pigs are in many ways similar to humans so there were various experiments of xenotransplant. With some genetic modification those would be safer, with fewer rejection risks.
According to one of the characters, using organs from a pig would eliminate controversies linked to human cloning. In the case of the transplant of brain parts, that kind of solution would allow to obtain a part compatible under all points of view.
“The Mind of a Pig” is focused on Joel’s feeling as he realizes he’s different from his owners and doesn’t know how to communicate with them. His intelligence becomes a negative factor because it causes him frustration for his inability to make humans understand him and, even worse, because it allows him to understand what’s coming for him.
The setting of “The Mind of a Pig” is focused on the emotional side of the story, which is not necessarily the best way to treat this type of subject. On the other hand there’s not a willingness to discuss the pros and cons of xenotransplant or genetic engineering but to push the reader to wonder where’s the boundary between sentient and non-sentient and how we might recognize a sentient being. You can find it also in the anthology “Citizen Komarova Finds Love”.
