You must strive to be normal
The Humans“You must strive to be normal” is a repeated instruction to the Alien narrator to pass among humans without drawing attention. First given as a compact command, it returns alongside the related demand to imitate them and later guides his decision to stay in police custody. The phrase makes normality less a description than a survival strategy: outward conformity buys time for a stranger who must keep his identity and purpose hidden.
The Instruction and Its Refrain
The command appears in an exchange in which the Alien narrator acknowledges that he is already failing to avoid notice. It is paired with “You must try to be like them,” making the aim explicit: he is to imitate human behavior, not simply remain inconspicuous. His brief replies—“Yes” and “I know”—register his awareness of the instruction, though not ease in carrying it out.
The guidance also comes with a warning against leaving too soon. The narrator is to stay calm, follow where humans direct him, and conceal who sent him. He is reminded that the professor he seeks is no longer among the humans, that humans die and are impatient, and that his own life is longer. In this context, striving to be normal is part of a larger discipline: resist panic, use his gifts carefully, and let the short-lived humans set the immediate pace.
Putting Normality into Practice
The police station exposes the gap between the command and the narrator’s instincts. He finds it absurd that being unclothed has broken the law, and he regards the cell as merely another room, not the special punishment the officers intend it to be. His reactions reveal how little his assumptions match theirs, even as he tries to understand and comply with their rules.
When told to cover himself, he puts on the clothes after working out which limb belongs in which opening. He then waits for an hour, despite recognizing that he could escape. Staying is not passive obedience: he judges that the police and their computers may help him find what he needs, and recalls the instruction to use his gifts wisely. The command thus becomes a practical choice to remain inside a human institution he finds strange, rather than drawing further attention by fleeing.
Narrative Function
The phrase links the narrator’s mission to the everyday performances of human conformity: wearing clothes, following orders, and suppressing the impulse to escape. Its recurrence marks the effort required to appear ordinary when even basic social conventions seem arbitrary to him. At the police station, normality does not mean understanding human life or accepting its assumptions; it means behaving plausibly enough to preserve his cover and continue his task.
