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.

To be, or not to be

In the very first line of Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be, or not to be”, is summarized the conflict which is tearing him apart: he has to decide whether to revenge his father’s death or to go on living pretending he does not know the truth, thus behaving like a fool. However, Hamlet’s words do not refer to any particular event or circumstance in his life, so they assume a general meaning and symbolize all the conflicts, or “natural shocks”, that have always tormented mankind.

Once human beings are aware of the unjust features of life and decide not to cope with them, the only solution seems to be suicide, thus ending the “sea of troubles” life involves. Committing suicide, however, is making a decision itself and compels to act, which makes the same dilemma arise again. Moreover what prevents people from killing themselves is also the fear of the beyond, because it is an unknown world. Hamlet actually softens death’s terrible image by comparing it to sleep or using some metaphors: “shuffled off this mortal coil” (l.12), “quietus make” (l.20). In line 28 Hamlet states that what makes all of us “cowards” is conscience and that the doubts it arise prevent our thought from turning into action.

The Tempest: a coloniser and a colonised

In this passage, taken from the second scene of the first act, Caliban and Prospero curse each other using the power of language more than the magic’s one. Caliban cannot stand his state of slavery any longer because he reminds Prospero that when he arrived on the island they established a relationship based on mutual help and learning : Prospero taught him his language while Caliban showed him the “qualities” of the island. Unfortunately Caliban’s gratefulness did not lead to friendship but to slavery because, thanks to the power of his magic, Prospero overwhelmed Caliban confining him in a “hard rock”. This kind of relationship recalls the one between powerful colonisers and weaker colonised people who are obliged to learn and accept the invaders’ culture and language and to give up the control over their own lands. A modern example can be the way Native Americans were confined in reservation. On the one hand Prospero justifies his spell on Caliban as the only possible way to protect Miranda’s chastity from Caliban’s savage instincts, on the other hand Caliban had behaved spontaneously like any human being trying to preserve the species. The Elizabethan perception of the natives of England’s new colonies was the belief that they were savages without any values and culture so it is easy to understand why from Prospero and Miranda’s point of view it was inconceivable that Caliban could be Miranda’s partner, thus putting a coloniser and a colonised on the same level.

Shakespeare’s opinion was probably the same as Prospero and most English Elizabethan people’s but we can also think that Shakespeare’s position as an artist was the same as Caliban’s in verse 59 when he says “I must obey” because the sovereign’s power is so strong that he could be defeated.

Othello: Algid crystals and red roses

This is a fundamental passage of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello”, where the protagonist is about to kill his wife Desdemona that he thinks unfaithful. The scene is characterized by Othello’s soliloquy, which is like an ode to Love and Justice. He has to decide whether to extinguish Desdemona’s vital light or let his love for her prevail thus allowing the shadows of Injustice to darken life’s harmony.

Literature is full of works in which the struggle between good and evil is shown through the opposition of light and darkness. An example of images of light and darkness can be found in the Italian writer Tasso in his “Gerusalemme liberata” (“Jerusalem delivered”) in the stanzas here he describes the battle between Clorinda and Tancredi. The night images are associated with fight and violence, whereas dawn is followed by the spiritual rebirth of Clorinda’s soul. Following my instinct I would say that light is linked to safety, positiveness and optimism, while darkness usually makes me feel insecure and afraid of the unknown. However I realize that some people prefer darkness to light because they consider it as a shield against anything that can harm them.

In this passage two contrasting colours emerge: white and red. White is linked to the words snow and alabaster, while red is suggested by the words blood, heat, light and rose. Even if white is usually the symbol of pureness, chastity and recalls a vital shine as it is a perfect colour, here it is used to create an image of cold death because both snow and alabaster are as gelid as a corpse. Inversely red keeps its usual symbolism as it represents some animated elements of life. However even a red living rose, if “plucked”, can die as a body drained of its blood. What can seem contradictory is justified by Othello’s urgent need to restore Justice which can be compared to something as perfect as an algid crystal of snow or a “smooth monumental” alabaster. For this reason the repeated word “cause” in Othello’s soliloquy has to be considered with its legal meaning. This is shown by his words: “Yet she must die else she’ll betray more men”. This momentary vacillation “to break” the sword of Justice is eventually overcome because he smothers Desdemona.

The human condition

Thanks to Renaissance dramatists, English drama changed dramatically. The main protagonists of this turning point were Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare. Through their works they sounded the deepest aspects of human soul and exalted the glorious moments of English history, criticising its most dreadful episodes as well.

Characters like Marlowe’s Faustus enhance the power of knowledge that enables human beings to act free from God’s influence and be aware of their own intellectual capabilities and human miseries.

As many past and contemporary critics wrote in their essays – e.g. F. Hegel and Harold Bloom – William Shakespeare can be considered incomparable and unequalled because his plays range over almost all aspects of human life. For the first time in English drama the characters of Shakespeare plays in addition to acting, are also able to analyse their behaviour from an alienated perspective as if they were the spectators of their own life.

Falling into a dream...

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns… To the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. [Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)]

The inception of this paragraph recalls the famous play “La vida es sueño”(i.e. “Life is a dream”) by the 17th century Spanish dramatist Calderón de La Barca. Conrad states that when you are born you fall “into a dream” which means that life is a dream. Dreams can be rough or smooth like the sea in which you can swim peacefully or get drowned in despair: it all depends upon the way you move in it. If you fight against the natural elements that life offers you, you risk hurting yourself seriously, but if you second them your life can be more joyful and serene. From a psychoanalytical point of view both nice dreams and nightmares can help you live your life better because, by analysing them, you can learn what your problems and fears are and how to overcome them. Therefore even if you have reached the bottom of the darkest sea, the sea itself will help you come out into the air in a natural and comfortable way.

Love and hate, pleasure and despair… the essence of humankind

 Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. [Catullo, Carme 85]

I hate and I love. Why I do this perhaps you ask.

I do not know, but I sense that it happens and I am tormented. [Catullus 85]

The feelings human love generates are always the same, but the way they are expressed have changed down the ages. If in the past love sentiments were usually revealed through the verses of a poem, nowadays they are often shown through the lyrics of songs.

As soon as you fall in love you feel joyful, excited and in emotional turmoil, but when you realize that your love is unrequited or unattainable you suddenly fall apart: you think you are the only obstacle to your love fulfilment as you feel inadequate for your angel-like beloved who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world” you can’t reach.

When you are in love you have a distorted view of reality, thus seeing only the positive but often unreal features of things. You are like the people Plato describes as trapped in a cave where they could only see the shadows of things and not their essence.

In these unfavourable circumstances you tend to detest yourself until you hate yourself. This kind of feeling can be found both in classical poems of literary tradition, like Petrarch’s Sonnet number 134 or Wyatt’s Elizabethan sonnet “I Find No Peace”, and in Radiohead’s song “Creep”: “Odio me stesso”, “I hate myself”, “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo”.

Even if it seems to be paradoxical and unexplainable, as in Catullus’ “Odi et amo”, sometimes people like suffering for love as we can read in many poems and songs (”And my delight is causer of this strife”). However this masochistic pleasure has been and still is the source from which many unforgettable lines spring up.

“Happy Degrowth”

The French scholar Serge Latouche is one of the most important leaders of the movement called “Degrowth” which should be carried out giving people a sense of happiness and fulfilment. This political, economic and social movement bases its ideas on ecological economics, anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism. Its main aim is to reduce consumption without decreasing human well-being. In order to get that, all the humankind on the Planet Earth should start thinking and behaving differently. That was also the utopic desire of Thomas More in the 16^th century when he wrote his famous work “Utopia”. He thought that if all able-bodied people worked six hours a day, we could produce all the essential goods for everyone, thus leaving many hours for free time activities. However leisure time should be devoted to improve your education level or to give cultural and artistic contributions to your community; nonetheless people who cannot do it, could spend more time on their working activity.

The utopic aspect of these ideas is the difficulty of convincing rich people – landowners in the past and capitalists nowadays – to give up all their non-essential material goods.

In the past few decades some countries tried to realized a government ruled this kind of ideas but unfortunately they failed, even because they often turned into dictatorships.

These days a happy Degrowth would be desirable because what we actually produce and consume exceed the Earth’s ability to regenerate its resources. Moreover acting this way people would be less stressed and more careful about conserving and protecting the environment against excessive exploitation.

Albatross

I think that most teenagers have felt like an albatross once in their lives. Adolescence is the strange period when everything seems uncertain and the mirror you are looking at reflects a brumous image of yourself: your arms look like two long and white wings unable to fly in the sky of your skills and feelings. Unfortunately this feeling of inadequacy is spreading more and more in the world of adults too. Probably the indifference to our neighbour’s problems and the inability to communicate is making our daily lives meaningless and aloof from the rest of the world. We feel as if we were the only survivors of a wrecked ship, walking alone on a desert island. However as soon as we start to socialize or make friends, we succed in finding our real identity because we find out that the others too often feel clumsy and inadequate like an albatross walking on the deck of a ship.

Polluted ink

The black ink of our polluted warmongering world turns the positive lexicon of our life into dark words of despair and death. After listening to “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan I have tried to summarize it through this picture of mine.

"... on a Snowy Evening"

I’m back again at last. Here is a new fascinating post, a poem and my comment on it, that can help you overcome your difficult moments in life.

Enjoy it.

After reading this poem for the first time, you think that all the four stanzas merely describe a man stopping near a wood to watch a familiar landscape around him while it is snowing. However, after a second and more profound reading, we realize that all the elements of the poem have got symbolic values  that, once understood, reveal a tough aspect of human life.

As in the most famous soliloquy of English literature, i.e. Hamlet’s one, human beings often stop and wonder whether it is better to stop and “suffer” the painful darts of life passively or face them until the final sleep.

The woods and their owner represent God and what he created. The man on the horse could be any human being who is living a difficult moment in life. He stops and, unable to go on, starts wishing to surrender and accepts the sad events of life without reacting. The snowflakes slowly falling around him are like the grains of sand falling in an hourglass and make us think of time passing by. The horse is the rational element that awakes the man so that he can understand that it is useless stopping before reaching a goal, the farmhouse in the poem.

In the final stanza the man is finally conscious and aware: he realizes that even if it would be easier to give up fighting for life, thus living carelessly, it is always better to go on and try to achieve an aim until the very last day of life because living is always worthwhile .