Chiaroscuro
One Student’s Reaction to Cages, Time, and Animals
Ruth Sarah Lee HA&S 253C April 2007
I’m sitting very still on a sun-warmed rock; barely breathing. About twenty feet away from me, a shadowy creature lies stretched out on the freshly cut grass, panting slightly. His large, muscular body rests lightly on the ground, and his legs are placed almost delicately behind him, in a way that accentuates the length and elegance of his lean body. He lifts his head and looks around slowly, leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. For a moment, he looks straight at me, with his dark, liquid eyes. His snout is black and bare; creating a canine-like contrast between his face and the rest of his body, which is covered with scruffy, gray fur. A sign rests between us; a sign that reads, “Common Wallaroo.” I pick up my pencil and paper, and being to copy down the words on the sign. He is from the mountainous pastures of eastern Australia. He prefers rocky outcrops and stones. I look up briefly; he is still lying in the grass and there are no stones in his exhibit. I continue reading—wallaroos live relatively solitary lives. They are very agile. They can dig for water. I look back at the wallaroo and sigh; it’s a shame that I can learn more about him by reading about him rather than by meeting him. His ears are like a rabbit’s; they stand straight up and twitch. I look closely at him, and his ears do not stop moving; they move subtly and continuously. I wonder if this is his way of connecting with his surroundings; even as he rests. When I rest, I dream; I become dead to the world. But he remains alive, open, and in motion. “Your ancestors are from Australia,” I told him softly, “They used to dig for water. You want to dig for water?” He ignores me; perhaps my voice blends in with the shrill cries of children in the background. “I know that you can hear me,” I continue, “Your ears are better than mine are.” But he doesn’t respond; continuing to stare off into space. “We speak different languages,” I say, this time talking to myself, “Though my ancestors also dug for water.”
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I am a college student; I can afford clothing and shelter. I’m an adult, I’m free, I am capable of calculating advanced integrals in abstract mathematics; I am capable of buying a plane ticket and flying around the world. He, on the other hand, is in a cage. The concepts of complex math are beyond his grasp; he can not speak to his captors. But for a moment, I feel a spasm of panic, because he is ahead of me in some ways. He is ignoring me; possibly because he finds something else more interesting, more important, more attention-worthy. My mind might be far head of his, but physically, that doesn’t matter. Physically, all I am is a lump on the rock. He stirs a little bit, moves his muscular back leg so that it’s closer to his body, and brings his tail around. It’s a beautiful tail; thick and strong, covered with fur the color of granite. I read somewhere that wallaroos use their tails as a “third leg.” 1 What use would I have for a third leg, I wonder. But then I realize that the wallaroo’s physical capacities far outstrip mine. He opens his mouth, panting like a puppy, and glances quickly at me. I’m starting to feel that he knows something that I do not know.
We have all been waiting a long time for the 1889 Parisian World’s Fair; or at least about 28 million of us have. The Fair is an explosive juxtaposition; it exhibits the rise of man, from natural to glorified. The Eiffel Tower, soaring above us, serves as the entrance arch. It is made of iron—strong and sturdy; as an element, one of our older ancestor’s greatest achievements. It is styled with perfect symmetry and geometry; a sturdy symbol of order and organization. The main attraction of the fair, however, is a “Negro Village”—some four hundred indigenous people from Africa that represent who men used to be, before evolution and all that.
1
http://www.scz.org/animalinfo.asp?aid=124
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I wonder around the Exposition for a bit, pushing through the crowds and avoiding spilled food. Over the cries of the crowd, I hear a strange melody and follow it to a small musical ensemble, playing unfamiliar instruments of sorts. “Who are these people?” I ask a man standing next to me. He smiles and replies, “They’re from Java; that’s halfway across the world. They play from the ashes of volcanoes and their hearts.” “They’re mesmerizing,” I respond, breathing in, “This entire Exposition is.” “It’s chiaroscuro,” the man muses, “The juxtaposition of light and darkness. The entire fair is about that; the Eiffel Tower glimmers with the light of knowledge and art; the Negro Village represents the Dark Countries of the world.” Suddenly, I want to see the famous Negro Village. I leave my husband listening to the musicians in a small gesture of rebellion, and make my way to the exhibition. There are metal cages, gleaming, side by side. I stop at one, and peer inside to see a young boy, huddled in a corner. His skin is dark and dusty, his eyes are huge and white. I outside the cage and stare. Next to me, a woman waves a handkerchief and marvels, “So this is what it means to be natural!”
“So this is what it means to be natural!” a woman pokes her husband, “Look at how the kangaroo just lies in the grass all day. He does not have to worry about paying the bills or pleasing people. He just does what he pleases.” “He’s a wallaroo,” I mutter, but the couple ignores me. The wallaroo still hasn’t moved from his shady spot in the grass. I wonder if he’s feeling alright. I remember a professor I had, for a seminar titled “Law and Community”, who taught me that humans are adverse to idleness.
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Policemen are suspicious when you hang around with no apparent purpose; you need to either be buying, sleeping, eating, reading, or doing some other activity. Even animals are not entitled to idleness, I realize, as two kids run by, screaming, “Make it do something! Get up! Jump! Jump!” The wallaby flicks its ears in annoyance, and makes a snorting sound. Then I think—how do I know he’s annoyed? I’m annoyed, but he’s different. I stare at him intently, trying to read his mind.
I wonder what runs through the child’s mind, as he crouches in that metal cage. Does he realize that he’s not in Africa anymore, that he is sitting in the heart of civilization? Two children run up to the cage and shout, “Move! Move! Don’t just sit there!” The caged child responds by crouching against he far wall. The children find a stick and force it between the metal bars, trying to prod the prisoner. They squeal and laugh, and I feel sickened. It’s chiaroscuro: but what is dark and what is light?
Chiaroscuro; I think. I’m trying to sketch the image of the wallaroo for my notes; I think that it will help me describe its physical appearance later. His snout is black, and lightens across his face, to a soft gray for his coat. Then, on his lower parts, it lightens into a beige-white. Chiaroscuro is the contrast between light and dark; but sometimes the contrast is not sharp, but soft. You hardly notice it at all.
The child looks at me, and I look back. "Confined in triple walls, art thou so much to fear, That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here?"”, I murmur, quoting Emily Bronte; words from half a century before.
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“He can not understand you,” an old man standing next to me says. “Do you understand me?” I ask softly, “Do you understand how it feels, to be bound down and fettered? I think he understands me perfectly.”
I’m still sitting on the same rock, and the sun feels like hot iron on my face. I look at the wallaroo, with its heavy coat, and wonder how he must be feeling. He looks relatively calm, unlike the kids emptying water bottles over their heads nearby. I shrug; I may be intellectually superior to the wallaroo, but he is biologically superior to me. He can jump as far as thirty feet; I’d be lucky to make three. If we were to wrestle, then I’m sure that he’d win, with his sleek, sinewy body. In a corner of my mind, I wondered whether being able to multiply numbers, or spell words, made up for my athletic limits. I remember Sam telling me that he was going to see the river otters. I consider meeting him halfway up the trail, but change my mind. The wallaroo has not moved yet, and I will not either. I take out a book out of my backpack, and impulsively begin reading aloud: “He pointed to the little goat. So, she stood on her hind legs, and imitated as well as she could, with her forefeet and bearded head, in pathetic pantomime, the king’s attorney in the ecclesiastical court. If was, if you remember, one of her cleverest tricks.”2 The wallaroo ignores me as I continue reading, as if French literature and politics do not matter. And maybe they don’t. Three little boys come running, and one of them pokes me. I look up in surprise. “What are you reading?” he asks in a high-pitched voice. “It’s called The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” I tell him. “It’s about a man caged by his own body, a man caged by science and education, and a man caged by pride. They all fall in love with the same woman.”
2
Hugo, Victor, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (314)
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“Is the woman caged by something?” the boy asks, his eyes bright. The sun glimmers off his dark hair, which gleams like the wallaroos’ fur. I shrug, “It was the fifteenth century. Women were always caged back then; by society and misogyny I guess. They were very much oppressed.” I look into his face, to see if he understands me. He blinks. I probably lost him at the word “misogyny”; I’ve never been good with children. “Well, why are you reading a book like that?” he asks, “I hate reading.” “You’d better get used to it,” I smile dryly, “You’re going to be doing it for the next ten years. Because we live in a society that revolves around education. You’ve got to jump through the hoops.” As the boy turns his attention to the emu, and then the kiwi bird, and then leaves me alone on my rock again, I sigh. I feel lonely; I should have left with Sam and Ethan instead of staying with the wallaroo. It’s almost as if there’s a rope fence around me, with a sign: “College Student Studying. Please Do Not Disturb.” Or maybe the sign should say, simply: “Born and raised in captivity.”
This Negro Village is not novel at all; I’ve been hearing about human zoos for my entire life. My father had been a fan of P.T. Barnum’s entertaining circuses, and they had public human exhibitions. I remember hearing about human zoos in Hamburg, Barcelona, London, and New York. The caged child looks up at me, and I realize that I have been standing there longer than anyone else. Confused, and at a loss for words, I say, “Hello.” He remains silent.
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“It was like a layer of living monsters crawling over the stone monsters…” I recite, and the wallaroo looks at me. Perhaps it is because of the wallaroo’s notoriously unpopular cellmate, the emu, that there is no one around. Literally, I am the only person at the exhibit, which is why I am reading aloud without much embarrassment. He’s looking at me, I think, and I freeze. Maybe he likes the idea of stone monsters? Wallaroos come from stony regions, and they’re supposed to be very adept at rock climbing. Or maybe he’s looking at me because I have been sitting here longer than anyone else. I’ve been almost motionless. Maybe he thinks I’m a rock.
“Hello,” I repeat, and step closer to the cage. The child looks at me wordlessly, his eyes the same as mine, but a shade darker. He tugs at his loin-covering, his only article of clothing. He is supposed to represent brutality, the savagery of natural living; the fear of domestic housewives and the ancestor of masculine businessmen. “Hello,” I say. “Hello,” he replies, imitating me. Then he turns away. He does not have any desire to greet me; he is not trying to connect with his long-lost relative. He is merely letting me know that he has a voice. He has a voice in the same way that women and children have voices; they can sing and talk, but no one listens.
The wallaroo pauses, pushes his muscular forelegs against the ground, and lifts himself up into sitting position. His spine uncurls like a shell, and he is resting on his back legs; his tail forming a perfectly straight “L” behind him.
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I also stand up, overjoyed that after forty minutes, he has finally decided to move. Then, as I watch, giving him a silent standing ovation, he lumbers off into his shelter. I feel like a student, standing in the presence of her professor, or a businesswoman, standing as her CEO leaves the meeting room.
I feel haunted, sick, dispirited. I think back to the Javanese music. Why do they play from the ashes of volcanoes? Sometimes we cannot escape the demands of the land, or of people, but we do not have to embrace it. We certainly do not have to celebrate it.
Chiaroscuro, I think, as we leave the zoo. I sit in the van, sandwiched between two other students, reviewing the notes I have taken. Chiaroscuro is not about seeing everything in black and white, it is about recognizing their existence. Suddenly, I feel nostalgic. All the way back to campus, I think about the wallaroo. Then I think about me; me going back to school, me going back home. It is me, going back to the light—or else the dark.
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