The Cream of the Jest · Chapter
Of One Enigma That Threatened to Prove Allegorical explained
Kennaston, as an aged king in a dream, reflects on the futility of love, power, and wisdom, concluding that all which has known life must suffer death.
What happens
Kennaston, as an aged king in a dream, reflects on the futility of love, power, and wisdom, concluding that all which has known life must suffer death. He is visited by Ettarre, who appears as death itself, offering a moment of sweet terror and happiness.
Themes in this chapter
Dream vs. Reality
Kennaston's dream blurs the line between waking life and fantasy, presenting an allegorical encounter with death.
The Limitations of the Flesh
The king's physical decay and the inevitability of death underscore the frailty and transience of the human body.
Disillusionment and Cynicism
The king's despair over love, power, and wisdom reflects a deep disillusionment with the possibility of happiness.
Characters to notice
- Felix Kennaston
Appears as an aged king in the dream, lamenting the inevitability of death and the emptiness of worldly pursuits.
- La Beale Ettarre
Appears as death or the ghost of a dead loved one, offering Kennaston a moment of poignant emotion.
Key passages
“I want to be happy. And that is impossible, because there is no happiness anywhere in the world.”
The king declares that happiness is unattainable anywhere in the world.
Expresses the theme of disillusionment.
“For there are but three desirable things in life—love and power and wisdom: and I, the king, have sounded the depths of these, and in none is happiness.”
The king has explored love, power, and wisdom, but found no happiness in any of them.
Highlights the futility of worldly pursuits.
“all which has known life must suffer death.”
Everything that has lived is destined to die.
Recurring refrain emphasizing mortality.
“You have come, then, at last. ... To you at last I have come as I come to all men, in my good hour.”
Ettarre announces her arrival as death, which comes to everyone in due time.
Climactic moment where death is personified.