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Natural Histories

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Nature that has had a profound impact on human culture and society across history.

Nature that has got under our skin and profoundly impacted human culture and society across our history.

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Natural Histories: Cockroach

Factual: Science & Nature

Cockroach

BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories, Cockroach

Brett Westwood explores how the cockroach has influenced society, satire and tourism

For as long as humans have been around, we’ve had the cockroach as an uninvited house guest. No other creepy-crawly has the power to elicit such strong feelings: the horror of uncleanliness and the involuntary shudder that only a scuttling cockroach can bring, as it vanishing behind the bread bin.
 
But they’ve entered our imaginations as well as our living spaces. We may have given the cockroach its dark reputation, but this insect is a survivor. Disgusting and revolting are some of the more polite descriptions we use for cockroaches. Is that because we associate them with squalor and poor hygiene, or because they hold a mirror up to the less savoury side of human nature?

But there is a different side to this great survivor. Probably the most famous cockroach in literature is Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis.  Films such as Men in Black use the cockroach as a metaphor for alien arrivals. The cockroach can feed our imagination in other ways too. Its reputation can also be turned inward to explore humanity, satirically described by Archy the cockroach early in the last Century. 

This episode is a shortened revised repeat of the 2015 episode

Original Producer Andrew Dawes
Archive Producer Andrew Dawes

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