A coward, by definition, is a person who lacks valor, especially one that is shamefully unable to control his fear and so reduces from threat or difficulties. In the short story, “Jealous Husband Earnings in Form of Parrot, Robert Olen Retainer makes the stage that cowardly behavior may ultimately result in ones demise through his use of storyline, characterization, meaning, and irony. In this account, Butler shows a envious husbands cowardly behavior once dealing with his supposedly cheating wife, leading to his death.
He then returns by means of a parrot to go through the discomfort of his decisions. Since demonstrated by the husband, that is the main persona in this story, cowardly tendencies can be brought on by weaknesses as relatively prevalent as unmanageable emotion and in-the-moment compulsion, combined with a great aversion to attacking life’s problems head on. However , in this story the result of this behavior is even more damaging and heart-breaking; it can be the best demise of what could have been a long and otherwise significant life.
The story takes place in Houston and begins while using husband previously in his bird form. He can in pet store to parrots great wife strolls in. She does not understand its him but the girl immediately selections him out over the various other parrots. When he gets completed in his fresh cage at home, the husband begins reminiscing about his earlier cowardly activities that acquired him in his current situation. His insecurities started out when his wife continually mentioned the brand new guy in her operate. His cowardly actions comply with soon after when he states that “my goal was to keep my tongue about half the time (Butler, 188).
Rather than confronting her with his accusations, he locks himself up to keep quite. Later he finds the name and address with the man he suspects his wife can be sleeping with. Still in human kind, he the actual most cowardly decision yet and decides to track his wife’s possible enthusiast. He goes to the house over a saturday evening and the area is clear. He read sounds from the second ground window thus he climbs a shrub to get a better look. His desperateness for answers take him dangerously close to the end of the tree branch, take him to his final moments as a human. He feel in the tree, reaching his brain and ending his man life. His cowardly behavior ultimately bring about his death. None of them of this would have took place if this individual confronted hiswife. He was so scared that she would leave him that he hardly ever said anything to her.
Immediately, Butler characterizes the husband and his lack of valor. The husband starts off by stating, “I by no means can quite say just as much as I know (187). Throughout the story, the husband’s continually show this kind of cowardly patterns by by no means confronting his wife about any of his accusations. Rather he is experiencing his bottled-up feelings of inadequacy, low sense of self worth, and anxiety about losing his wife if he would have been to confront her with accusations of having extramarital affairs. Butler continues to displays the cowardly characteristics of the husband when he goes at the rear of his spouses back to attempt to find answers.
He described the event, stating, “I was holding on to a limb with arms and legs draped around it like it was her in those times when I could intercontinental others to get a little while. But the crack inside the shade was just out of view and I crawled about along right up until there was not any limb kept and I chop down on my head (188). Instead of confronting his wife or her mate, he engaged in an work of snooping, which finished his individual life, and turned him into a bird. As a result of the husband’s cowardliness, he endured a hellish existence as a parrot.
Actually in parrot form, he continued to show his a sense of jealousy and inadequacy like a husband. His emotional concerns, however , did not stop at a sense of being an not enough husband. He also demonstrated serious indicators that he lacked a sense of self really worth as a person. He seems to base his worth in the wife’s affection toward him, and portrayed almost a feeling of helplessness with no her. This individual belittled him self and his part in the romantic relationship, stating, “When we kept each other, I had fashioned no previous at all, zero present although her body, no upcoming but to lay there but not let her go. I had been an egg hatched beneath her crouching body, I entered as a girl into her wet heavens of a human body, and all which i wished was to sit on her shoulder and fluff my personal feathers and lay my head against her cheek, my own neck encountered with her hand (189).
Simply by comparing himself to a chick, the husband stated an inherent should be cared for, and showed zero sign of capability in coping with life on his own. In the long run, the envious husband (in the form of your parrot) committed his final cowardly action: he made the choice to specially fly in to the window and kill himself. This act was the most absolute and appalling effect of his cowardly ways. The final lines in the story could be an insight into the husbands suicidal thought process. He said, “And I pass on my wings. I will take flight now. Despite the fact that I know there are some things between myself and that place where I can be totally free of all these emotions, I will soar. I will toss myself again and again there. Quite bird. Awful bird. Good night (191).
A huge likelihood of disaster inside the husband’s matrimony was represented as he displayed a pitiful lack of declaration. He was more than aware that his wife was engaging in an affair, although fear of burning off her retained him from confronting her the way this individual could have. This individual described his cowardly dilemma, stating, “Hey, I’m not stupid. Your woman said one more thing about him after which another and right after the third one I locked me personally in the bath room because I couldn’t rage about this anymore. I felt like a darn fool anytime I actually stated anything about this sort of feeling and she checked out me like she may start disliking me real easy and therefore i was focusing on saying nothing at all, even if that meant locking myself up (188).
By locking him self in the bathroom, he is taking cowards way to avoid it of dealing with his wife. This is an excellent use of meaning, as he can be metaphorically locking up his emotions and problems if he should be dealing with them fantastic wife. This can be a same cowardly behavior that led to the husband’s demise, and is consistent with the symbolism of his lifestyle as a bird, in which having been locked within a cage, as he was locked in the bath room as a man.
The most heart-wrenchingly part of the husband’s story, yet , is not just that he had his heart cracked daily; it had been the simple fact that there was practically nothing he could do about it because he has become a chicken. Butler exhibits irony if the husband, in his parrot life, compares his lack of communication in his marriage to his absolute lack of ability to say what he believed as a parrot. In his human being life he bottled up his feelings and emotions but now that he is a parrot he has a whole lot to say nevertheless no terms to express all of them. He sitting in a competition, wanting desperately to speak his mind, and express his love to his wife, yet he could hardly. He made the thought-provoking statement, “I cannot say precisely what is in my heart to her. Never (190).
The result of his cowardly behavior, by not saying the fact that was in his cardiovascular in hishuman life, experienced made it even more impossible to communicate following he had dropped out of the forest and perished. The husband states that “the crack inside the shade was just out of view and i also crawled on along until there was zero limb still left and I droped on my head (188). The very fact that he had fallen out of a forest and is reincarnated as a fowl is also totally irony as well. Butler could have reincarnate the husband as any dog and he chose a parrot and parrots don’t drop out of trees and shrubs.
With this story, Robert Olen Retainer clearly shows that cowardly behavior can lead to ones decline with his use of plot, portrayal, symbolism and irony. Due to uncontrollably strong emotions, insecurities, desperately addictive actions, and failure to interact in direct confrontation along with his offenders, your spouse died a rapid and cowardly death, simply to return as a parrot, and suffer the intolerable pain of watching his wife’s heart-breaking promiscuity.
The ultimate reaction to his cowardly behavior was his committing suicide, which shut down this cowardly tale with an properly cowardly finishing. This tale could be interpreted as a testament of inability to concern a person’s very own fears. This story is pertinent to life since it is likely that devastating effects, such as the ones experienced by the jealous hubby, can be averted by facing fears with courage, and standing up for one’s self with conviction, in spite of danger or trouble.
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