What is human identity; is it a characteristic defined by humanism, interpreted in arbitrary degrees of humanity or is it rather the manifestation, or possession of a soul, of divinity? If this defines our identity, then is being human an inherited genetic attribute or is it a state we achieve through knowledge and wisdom? Identity, however, is not always stable; it is an interpretation of the dynamic balance between the divine and animalistic personalities of humanity, a debate on the “natural supremacy” between humans and non-human animals in nature. While philosophers, such as Plato, describe human identity through the possession of a divine soul, Marc Chagall's painting I and the Village highlights how human identity is defined by the ability to think. Self-awareness, however, is a state achieved only through one's own action. , and is neither inherited nor given. Chagall, in his painting I and the Village, contemplates the hypocritical flaws of "human" identity through his use of perception, juxtaposing the animalistic nature of human animals with the anthropomorphic characteristics of non-human animals. Chagall's use of perception, including the representational visions of the sheep and the green man in the foreground, represents a moral allegory between one's animalistic nature and appearance. By aligning the sheep's field of vision with the green man, Chagall criticizes the way in which humans, despite their attempts to separate themselves from non-human animals, are ultimately unable to conceal, or hide, their true nature animalistic. Ovid, in his poem Metamorphoses, makes clear, in his tale of Lycaon, that human animals are prone to the same defects as those of non-human animals. Despite Lycaon's social standing and power as king, his lack of self-awareness causes him to transform into his true self: a wolf. Therefore, Chagall, through perception, conceptualizes the principles of morality in non-human animals and immortality in the human animal in order to contemplate the illusion in which humans are represented as greater than animals due to their morality.