Cornélius, a great chimpanzee scholar, was the fiancé of Zira, the chimp who had found an astonishing human called Ulysse Mérou, who could talk and claimed to be from another planet.
History[]
A brilliant chimpanzee scientist of the Academy, who was engaged in research on man, though his project was focused on curious vestiges of human-made tools.
He was informed by his fiancé Zira of the existence of an intelligent man in her care. The two scheduled a secret meeting at the park in the city so as Cornélius could see this man for himself. He was interested and initially skeptical, thinking it was some kind of joke or hoax, but upon meeting the human he was enthralled to learn that Ulysse came from a world where man ruled, whereas apes were savage animals.
During the walk throughout the park, the chimp lovers carried a discreet conversation with Ulysse at the end of his leash to avoid attracting undue attention. However Cornélius often found hmslef doubling back to speak directly with the man, on various scientific concepts.
He was particularly interested in the account of how homo sapiens aroused on Earth, as he had been trying to research the origins of simian society. Sympathising with the unusually intelligent human, he agreed to help Ulysse regain his freedom at the Ape Council. He schooled Ulysse, helping prepare his speech during a scientific conference. After Zaius was ousted as head researcher of the Institute, Cornélius assumed his position, taking Ulysse as a fellow collaborator. Ulysse ultimately needed to return to his own planet, and so it was Cornélius that secretly arranged for Ulysse to return to his spacecraft.
Personality[]
Cornélius was a intelligent ape who valued knowledge and science. He had a great interest over the origins of the simian evolution and civilization. Thus he did not agree with the generally accepted theories or notions that there is no mystery to the emergence of simian society. He had the keenest of brains to discover the truth and was often tormented by engimas.
Like all apes he initially though little of humans of being more than simple animals, as evidence when he doubted Zira's claim that there was an intelligent man in her care. Despite this he agreed to meet her, mostly out of good humor. But when confronted with a reality and not a fantasy, Cornélius was surprised rather than fearful. And although acted cautiously when Ulysse reached out to shake his hand due to his prenotions of Ulysse being a wild animal, he got over the strangeness and quickly accepted the man to be a rational being.
However he was not without his faults and prejudices. One of his motivations for freeing Ulysse was so that the chimpanzee could study the man more closely, showing he sometimes thought him to be an object of study rather than a being, though quickly corrected himself that he wanted to collaborate him. The chimpanzee was troubled by certain characteristics of his kind such as their innate mimicry which he learned on Earth was the same, caused him to draw a realization his own civilization were products of mimicry. Upon uncovering archaeological evidence that humans reigned before apes, Cornélius was frightened by the disturbing impressions and had regrets on his work especially when they were witnessed by Ulysse, the living embodiment and proof of man's intelligence in stark contrast to simian imitative behavior.
Cornélius was also quite adamant on chimpanzees being intellectually superior as noted he was proud of the idea that the first ape who spoke thousands of years ago was of his species. On humans Cornélius, while not overtly looking down on the species, still regarded them as animals, though was obviously disturbed that they were the original masters of his world. He took some solace on the fact that humanity's fate was of their own design in that they willingly allowed themselves to be replaced by the apes in the distant past.
Notes[]
- The character "Doctor Cornelius" from the movie adaptation, Planet of the Apes, was based on Cornélius.
- He is the only intelligent ape whose name does not begin with a z in Le planete de singes.
