One of the stories in this article was written by Flaum's friend when they were both in 5th grade. The story was about a tiger trapped in a zoo, and his sisyphean task of trying to escape his cage. Every night the tiger tries to jump over the fence of his pen, and makes the leap, only to land in another cage in an adjacent zoo. The tiger does the same thing every night with the same results, no matter how high or where he jumps, he always lands in another cage. The story fittingly ends in an ellipsis, suggesting that the tiger's toil continues on for eternity.
Pretty insightful for a 5th grader. Flaum suggests that this allegorical tale represents a person's struggle to escape their own confines. The cage in the story represents the walls each individual subconsciously erects around themselves with their own prejudices and limited perception about themselves and the world around them. Trying to hop over these walls may give one a sense that they are achieving some goal, but this is false progress; treating the symptoms of the situation instead of treating the source of the problem. To really escape this construction, Flaum proposes, one must look inward and explore oneself, instead of exploring the confines of your own personal cage.
NOTE: I tried uploading the audio bit for this post but I feel there is something wrong with blogger, because I tried multiple different file types and nothing uploaded even after an hour apiece to do it. I emailed this part to my TA to postdate it and show I completed the assignment on time.
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