Annie
The narrator of the story is the girlfriend of the man who is traveling back through evolutionary time. She wakes up one day to find a large ape on the patio after having gone to bed the night before with Ben telling her he wanted to sleep outside. Ben’s regression to a more primitive state was preceded with an observation that the bigger the brain gets, the small the capacity to feel gets. Annie’s consultation of experts to get determine Ben’s rate of backward evolution situates her as an example of what he is complaining about. Her reaction seems to Ben’s condition is marked by intellectual attention rather than empathetic, although she never comes off as a cold fish.
Ben
Ben is also a thinker rather than a feeler otherwise it would never occur to him that evolution increases the capacity of the head while reducing the capacity of the heart. He is one half a couple that actually analyzes the sadness they are feeling when they get sad. Ben is portrayed as having made attempts to feel more and think less only realize he just can’t do it. He can’t stop being a thinker and start becoming a feeler. The suggestion is that his de-evolution is brought on by a desire he cannot meet otherwise.
