Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/146

 of soul, she flits from one social function to an. other, taking up every fad, clinging to the coattails of every newcomer, provided he represent station and prestige. She is the slave of fashion, the imitator of ideas, the silly hunter after effect - in short, the parasite upon the labor and efforts of others.

The night birds are the ignorant, stupid maintainers of the old. They detest the light because it exposes their mediocrity and stagnation. They hate Chantecler because, as the old owl remarks, " Simple torture it is to hear a brazen throat forever reminding you of whit you know to be only too true!" This is a crime mediocrity never forgives, and it conspires to kill Chantecler.

The woodpecker is our very learned college professor. Dignified and important, he loudly proclaims the predigested food of his college as the sole source of all wisdom.

The toads represent the cringing, slimy hangers-on, the flunkies and lickspittles who toady for the sake of personal gain.

"Chantecler," then, is a scathing arraignment of the emptiness of our so-called wise and cultured, of the meanness of our conventional lies, the petty jealousies of the human breed in relation to each other. At the same time "Chantecler" characterizes the lack of understanding for, and appreciation of, the ideal and the idealists -the mob