Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot by Robert Olen Butler Essay

A coward, by definition, is a some iodine who lacks courage, especially one who is shamefully otiose to control his fear and so shrinks from risk or trouble. In the short fable, desirous Husband Returns in Form of parrot, Robert Olen pan listenman makes the point that afraid expression burn down eventual(prenominal)ly lead to ones obliterate through his use of plot, causaization, symbolisation, and irony. In this story, butler portrays a green-eyed economises poltroon mien when dealing with his supposedly cheating married woman, which leads to his death. He then returns in the form of a parrot to endure the pain of his closings. As demonstrated by the hubby, who is the main char do worker in this story, timid behavior arouse be caused by weaknesses as comparatively common as uncontrollable sense and in-the-moment compulsion, combined with an aversion to attacking disembodied spirits problems head on. However, in this story the cause of this behavior is even to a greater extent devastating and titty-breaking it can be the ultimate demise of what could have been a dogged and otherwise meaningful life.The story takes short letter in Houston and begins with the economise already in his bird form. He is in favorite store with other parrots and his married woman walks in. She does non make love its him tho she immediately picks him let step up over the other parrots. When he gets colonised in his juvenile cage at home, the economise begins reminiscing ab give away his past yellow-bellied kneadions that got him into his current turn onuation. His insecurities began when his married woman continually mentioned the new guy at her work. His afraid sufficeions hail soon after when he states that my stopping point was to hold my tongue about half the time (Butler, 188). sort of of watching her with his allegations, he locks him ego up to keep quite. Later he finds the get word and address of the man he suspects his married wom an is sleeping with. Still in benevolent form, he makes the most cowardly decision yet and decides to spy on his wifes possible lover. He goes to the family unit on a sit downurday afternoon and the realm is empty. He heard sounds from the second al-Qaida window so he c subdivisions a tree to get a emend look. His desperateness for answers bring him perilously close to the end of the tree branch, bring him to his final moments as a kind-hearted. He feel from the tree, smasher his head and ending his human life. His cowardly behavior ultimately lead to his death. no(prenominal) of this would have happened if he confronted hiswife. He was so sc bed that she would leave him that he neer utter a word to her. correct from the start, Butler characterizes the husband and his lack of courage. The husband starts off by stating, I never can quite vocalise as much as I k in a flash (187). Throughout the story, the husbands continues to generate this cowardly behavior by never con fronting his wife about any of his accusations. Instead he suffers from his bottled-up feelings of deficiency, low sense of ego worth, and fear of losing his wife if he were to confront her with allegations of having extramarital affairs. Butler continues to shows the cowardly characteristics of the husband when he goes behind his wives back to try and find answers.He described the event, stating, I was holding on to a weapon with arms and legs wrapped around it analogous it was her in those times when I could pull up stakes the others for a little while. But the bring out in the shade was just out of view and I crawled on along till on that point was no weapon left and I fell on my head (188). Instead of confronting his wife or her lover, he engaged in an act of snooping, which ended his human life, and turned him into a parrot. As a result of the husbands cowardliness, he endured a goddam existence as a parrot. blush in parrot form, he act to express his feeling of jeal ousy and inadequacy as a husband. His emotional problems, however, did not stop at feeling of macrocosm an inadequate husband. He also showed atrocious signs that he lacked a sense of self worth as a soulfulness. He seems to base his worth on his wifes affection toward him, and expressed closely a feeling of helplessness without her. He belittled himself and his role in the relationship, stating, When we held all(prenominal) other, I had no past at all, no present still her body, no future but to lie there and not let her go. I was an glob hatched beneath her crouching body, I entered as a chick into her wet pitch of a body, and all that I wished was to sit on her shoulder and fluff my feathers and go down my head over against her cheek, my neck exposed to her expire (189).By comparing himself to a chick, the husband expressed an inherent need to be cared for, and showed no sign of capability in coping with life on his own. In the end, the jealous husband (in the form of a parrot) committed his final cowardly act he made the decision to designedly fly into the window and kill himself.This act was the most absolute and appalling transaction of his cowardly ways. The last lines of the story are an insight into the husbands suicidal thought process. He said, And I spread my wings. I will fly now. Even though I know there is something between me and that blank where I can be par put on of all these feelings, I will fly. I will throw myself again and again there. Pretty bird. Bad bird. Good shadow (191).A huge potential for catastrophe in the husbands nuptials was symbolized as he displayed a dreary lack of assertion. He was more than mindful that his wife was engaging in an affair, but fear of losing her kept him from confronting her the way he could have. He described his cowardly dilemma, stating, Hey, Im not stupid. She said some other thing about him and then another(prenominal) and right after the third one I locked myself in the bathroom because I couldnt rage about this anymore. I felt like a goddamn fool whenever I actually said anything about this kind of feeling and she looked at me like she could start hating me real palmy and so I was working on give tongue to nothing, even if it meant locking myself up (188).By locking himself in the bathroom, he is taking the cowards way out of confronting his wife. This is a great use of symbolism, as he is metaphorically locking up his emotions and problems when he should be dealing with them and his wife. This is the same cowardly behavior that led to the husbands demise, and is consistent with the symbolism of his life as a parrot, in which he was locked in a cage, just as he was locked in the bathroom as a man.The most heart-wrenchingly part of the husbands story, however, is not just that he had his heart broken daily it was the simple point that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it because he is now a bird. Butler displays irony when the husband, in his parrot life, compares his lack of communication in his marriage to his absolute inability to say what he thought as a parrot. In his human life he bottled up his emotions and feelings but now that he is a parrot he has a lot to say but no words to express them. He sat in a cage, wanting urgently to speak his mind, and express his love to his wife, but he couldnt. He made the thought-provoking statement, I can never say what is in my heart to her. Never (190).The effect of his cowardly behavior, by not saying what was in his heart in hishuman life, had made it even more impossible to communicate after he had locomote out of the tree and died. The husband states that the fall in in the shade was just out of view and I crawled on along till there was no limb left and I fell on my head (188). The fact that he had travel out of a tree and is renewd as a bird is also alone irony too. Butler could have reincarnate the husband as any puppet and he chose a bird and birds dont fal l out of trees.With this story, Robert Olen Butler clearly demonstrates that cowardly behavior can lead to ones demise with his use of plot, characterization, symbolism and irony. As a result of uncontrollably strong emotions, insecurities, desperately compulsive actions, and bankruptcy to engage in direct opponent with his offenders, the husband died a sudden and cowardly death, only to return as a parrot, and suffer the intolerable pain of witnessing his wifes heart-breaking promiscuity.The ultimate result of his cowardly behavior was his suicide, which closed this cowardly write up with an appropriately cowardly ending. This story could be interpreted as a volition of failure to challenge a persons own fears. This story is relevant to life because it is likely that devastating consequences, such as the ones experienced by the jealous husband, can be avoided by set about fears with courage, and standing up for ones self with conviction, in spite of danger or trouble.