From what I can understand from the posts of my peers, this
past Friday’s discussion was based off of the narrator’s self-image as “the
mouse under the floorboards”. I am not sure where the discussion actually led
to, but it reminds me of another similar topic that I would like to write
about.
The narrator often describes himself as wanting to be like “an
insect” (Kafka? Are you there?), which I interpret as his yearning to be one of
the many, a part of the whole, an identical cog in the machine of society, a
copy- though, I like his use of the word insect much more.
When you look at an insect, let’s say, for example, an ant,
you may notice that you are not observing but one ant, but a line of ants. They
walk in a single line, one after the other, usually carrying food for the queen
who will in turn produce more ants to do the same job, and the cycle continues
until one unlucky kid trips on the ant pile and disturbs the mechanism. I think
it is an obvious plea for the narrator to be an insect, because then he would
not have to bear the burden of being such a high intellectual, a superior
being.
And yet I must believe he is
somewhat content with being a mouse rather than an insect. I believe that he
has a superiority complex and an inconsistent self-esteem; the man goes from
hating himself, to thinking himself above all others. Then again, we do the
same thing. So what does that make us? Mice, or insects?
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