“In The Desert” is a metaphor of the human race’s actions to itself. The heart is the core of the creature’s being; it is his essence. When he eats his heart, he does so because he enjoys it. Why does the creature like the heart? He gets pleasure from it because “It is bitter, / And because it is my heart” (9-10). However, he is in a desert. If there is nothing left to eat because his environment is barren, he has no recourse than to eat his own heart. He eats to sustain himself; moreover, he must enjoy it because he has nothing else. He enjoys the bitterness because it is his own. Therefore, he likes tasting the bitterness because he would not exist without it; he identifies himself with the bitterness. The narrator, however, asks the creature to see the futility of his self-destruction with the sarcastic question “Is it good, friend?” (5). The creature sees only the surface of the question and answers in the same fashion “It is bitter—bitter” (6). The creature is not blind to what he is doing to himself; in fact, he embraces his hunger for his heart, protecting it from others who would seek to challenge that illusion. It has had no alternatives to feast upon, so it feeds on the one thing that will fill him physically and empty him emotionally, his heart. The creature likes to hurt himself. “In The Desert” proves that the human race likes to hurt itself as well.