Aaron the Emotional

I mistakenly read ahead and forgot that we were still on Act IV on Monday, so I am now going to post about Act IV for Wednesday. My apologies. 

Chiron: "It shall not live."

Aaron: "It shall not die."

Nurse: "Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so."

Aaron: "What, must it, nurse? then let no man but I Do execution on my flesh and blood." 

(IV.2.80-84)

There are a few interesting ideas involved in the dialogue between Aaron, the nurse, and Chiron. I found it peculiar that Aaron, a  man who has really shown no mercy within the text thus far, is now softening up. He is actually showing signs of possessing humane characteristics that I formerly presumed he completely lacked. On the contrary however, while he is defending the black race of the son, he is referring to the child as "it." Now I may be reading too much into the text but I thought it was odd that there are multiple instances in the above passage using the term "it" as though the son wasn't even a human at all. In common vernacular, when one refers to something as "it" (especially a living being that has an identifiable sex) he/she degrades that person into nothing more than an object. When reading this particular passage, Aaron in my opinion defeated the entire purpose of defending this son. And upon reading the last passage I was relieved to see that Aaron would continue his usual antics and commit another act of villainy by killing the nurse.