The Metaphor of the Cage in Contemporary American Novel

Abstract

The prison -cage image widely recurs in Western secular and religious literature with a prime target signifying man's predicament of captivity. The controversy whether he is a free agent responsible for his deeds or a slave to certain personal, psychological or social limitations that inhibit his freedom and shape his fate has been constantly a moot point open for discussion. Moreover, man's entrapment results in a highly ambivalent situation ; it dissociates him from the rest of humanity in a realm by himself- a probably safer but very agonizing condition .