Short Fiction · Chapter
The Clown explained
The narrator recalls a familiar face from the street and later sees him on stage as a clown.
What happens
The narrator recalls a familiar face from the street and later sees him on stage as a clown. This triggers a memory of the man as a schoolboy who was bullied and forced to perform humiliating acts by his peers. The narrator reflects on the cruelty of children toward those who are different and suggests that the boy's path to becoming an actor was a natural outcome.
Themes in this chapter
Suffering and Injustice
The bullying of the young boy, forced to humiliate himself and endure physical abuse, exemplifies the suffering inflicted by the cruelty of children and the injustice of mob mentality.
Identity and Self-Deception
The boy's transformation into a clown on stage suggests a performance of identity, where his true self is hidden behind a mask of comedy, echoing the theme of self-deception.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“The exceptional, the divergent always irritates children and mobs. A schoolboy’s eccentricities are punished by the teacher with a well-intended monition or a dry satiric smile; but by his comrades they are punished with kicks and cuffs and a bloody nose, with a torn jacket, a cap carefully laid under a rain-spout, and his best book thrown into the gutter.”
Children and crowds are always annoyed by those who are different. A teacher might scold a peculiar student gently or mock him, but his classmates will beat him, tear his clothes, and ruin his belongings.
The narrator reflects on the harsh treatment of those who stand out, contrasting the mild punishment from teachers with the brutal bullying from peers.