Week 5: Enoch and the Gorilla

Some pieces defy analysis. In my opinion, this piece invites it. It leaves all sorts of unanswered questions. One question that occurs to me is did Enoch start off crazy or did something make him snap in the course of the story? His frantic behavior with the umbrella at the start of the story suggests that his mental state may have been precarious to begin with, although this does not become apparent until after one reads through the whole thing. The language he uses to describe the rain, "it came down with a shriek and and stabbed him in the back of the neck", makes it sound as though he attributes malicious intent to the rain's behavior. Once we know that Enoch is unbalanced, we can look at the story in a new light. The story is written from Enoch's point of view, so it is likely to be a warped view of the world. Perhaps the children are not as amused by him as they appear to be. Perhaps the children are not looking at him, it is merely him being paranoid. Perhaps their laughter is simply the laughter of children waiting to see a gorilla, but Enoch's twisted mind makes it seem like they are laughing at him. Enoch's inappropriate reactions to events also indicate is state of mind. When he realizes that there is a human inside the gorilla suit, his first reaction is jealousy. He thinks the man in the gorilla suit is more important than himself because people are lining up to shake his hand. He does not register that the people have been bribed to do so with the promise of free admission. His actions from that point on are quite clearly those of a mentally unbalanced person, from the nervous fidgeting in his apartment to the theft of the gorilla suit. One other thing that the text leaves unclear; did Enoch merely beat the man senseless, or did he stab him with the sharp end of the stick?