Incarceration in the form of human and parrotIn the short story "The jealous husband returns in the form of a parrot", Robert Olen Butler tells the story of a man reincarnated as his previous wife's pet parrot. The man's strange situation, which well describes the life of a prisoner, demonstrates the negative effects that incarceration can have on people. While much of the man's situation is of his own making and under his control, he still lives a life feeling trapped and constantly wanting to escape it. Because man never fully understands that he is the only reason he is “imprisoned,” he can never be free. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The man, forced to live with his wife from a past life in the form of a parrot, finds himself in his own idea of prison. He illustrates his experience from inside the cage: "When he holds the bedroom door open I can see the space at the foot of the bed but not the bed itself... I watch the men enter and hear the sounds but I can't see clearly. And they drive me crazy” (Butler) Forced to live with his old wife and watch her bring home a different man every day, there aren't many worse places for the old husband to find himself trapped voice to express himself, where his wife cannot and “does not understand everything behind [his] 'hello'” (Butler). like the widow's pet parrot, he feels imprisoned by his emotions and fear of expressing himself to his wife. Due to endless paranoia, the man lives a miserable life believing that he has an unreliable wife who has no love for him. Also mentions his suspicious and jealous tendencies, always “[looking] for little black hairs on the sheets when [he] came home one day with someone else's smell in the air” (Butler). Adding to his problems, he refuses to face her for fear that she will leave him. The man mentions his defiance on a few occasions, and then immediately feels "like a damn fool [for] saying anything" (Butler). In addition to being too awkward to express himself to his wife, the man also rejects the idea of leaving his wife because "[he] has integrity with her"; without her, he believes he is worthless (Butler). When the husband finds himself locked in a cage in his old wife's house with wings and a beak, he describes his feelings about the situation, stating, “But now all I can do is try to let him go. I climb down to the other side of the cage and look out at the back yard through the large sliding glass doors. It's a nice courtyard. There are large, placid maple trees with good places to perch. There is a blue sky that plucks the feathers on my chest. There are clouds. Other birds. Fly away. I could just fly away. (butler) The thoughts and emotions of the man in the song perfectly represent imprisonment. As with most prisoners, freedom can seem so close, yet so far away. Having all the time in the world to think, there is not much that man thinks about other than his own misery and his strong desire to be free. When man is human, he feels trapped just like a parrot, even though he is as free as a man can be. He creates the prison he lives in as a man, mentioning how he “was working to say nothing” to his wife about his real concerns “even if it meant locking himself away” (Butler). However, it is necessary for him to be reincarnated as a parrot and.
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