A Golden Cage

Emancipation: a Life Fable (by Kate Chopin)

Summary

There was once an animal that was born in a cage. An invisible hand looked after him providing for all his needs. The animal felt comfortable in his cage and grew up strong and handsome, but he was unaware of the world outside.

One day the door of his cage was opened accidentally. First the animal was scared and would have like to be able to close it, than, after several stays on the border of the cage, he rushed out of the cage with a jump. Paying no attention to the wounds on his sides, he saw, smelt and touched many things, the noxious ones too.

Out of the cage the animal had to seek and fight for food and water. So he decided to seeking, finding, enjoying himself and suffering because he preferred enjoying himself and suffering because he preferred freedom to comforts in a cage, a golden prison anyway.

This short story by Kate Chopin has got a title which anticipates its main theme and style as it is called “Emancipation: a life fable”. The reader immediately understands that the protagonist is going to “emancipate” his/her condition and the story will be told as a “fable”. Since the first lines we realize that you have a third-person narrator telling a story whose style is like an old-fashioned fable or fairy tale, as “There was once an animal(...)” reminds us the well-known “Once upon a time…”.

The protagonist, an unidentified male animal, is set in a well described place, a cage where all his needs are fulfilled by an “invisible protecting hand”. This make us understand that he is happy with his own little world. As in any fable we can compare his life to people’s ones living in their own happy microcosm. Anyway, our daily routine can be suddenly changed by accidental occurrences. When the animal finds the door of his cage opened he has to decide whether to stay or to leave. The former choice guarantees him a safe, comfortable life even if depending on “the hand’s” will, while the latter will oblige him to seek his own food and shelter day by day for the rest of his life. He chooses the second one because he wants to be free.

The moral we can draw from this fable is that freedom has its price. For instance, you realize you are not a teenager any longer when you have to make your own decision for your future life without counting or relying on anybody’s help, even if that means you have to give up some or all your previous comforts or advantages.