The Cage

Locked In: An Analysis of the Environment in “The Cage” The wire of the fence bounds the man within its clutches. Escape seems to be in sight, but is lost when he seems to have reached it. “The Cage” by Heinrich Boll is a short story about a man who is closed in by the boundaries of metal wire as a prisoner, looking for relief. The man ends up getting a miserable fate. In Heinrich Boll’s “The Cage,” the author signifies how a person can change due to miserable environmental conditions and loss of hope through literary devices and a pitiful mood. Boll uses literary devices and details to emphasize the fact that the soldier within “The Cage” feels trapped symbolically within the boundaries of metal wire. Throughout this short story, the main
Through the narrator’s words, there is a portrayal of the fact that “the man” is observing “horribly systematic tangle of wires- then some scarecrow figures staggering through the heat toward the latrines” by the author through the narrator (1). Additionally, the narrator depicts different details the character is observing, and through details such as the one of these given- it shows the depth of the character’s feeling. The wire of which the narrator speaks of is a symbol of the character being trapped and the scarecrow figures the narrator mentions further supports the conclusion that the “man” feels trapped and lost within the environment he is currently within. In the same way, the wire also shows the readers that the man is losing hope, thus showing that the man is a person who seems to be going insane. More importantly, in every moment of his life the man seems
The man had seen the wire like the “fine tracery of intertwining branches, frail and beautiful” (2). This represents the man’s behavior because of the environment he lives in. The area in which he is dwelling in currently, as described by the narrator is “sheer horror” because of the things the main character was faced with such as the “impassive face of the blanched blue sky,”the sun floating “just as pitilessly” and “those others” that were “packed side by side”(1,1,2,2). The author conveys the message that the environment in which the man is residing is a metaphorical representation of his life. He is in a situation in which he wants to leave, but is unable due to certain circumstances. In this environment, that circumstance is the wire that holds him in. Yet, to get out of this situation, he risks his very life by carefully reaching “between the wires to pick up one of the pretty branches” and is escaping to get to his “paradise” (2). The wire represents a chance at a new life for him which, instead of turning his life around in a better direction, makes it worse for him in the end. The wire, instead of allowing him to escape, instead causes his pupils to dilate “as if about to burst out of prison of his eyeballs” and “with a shrill cry he plunged into the