In the Herd vs In the Cage
So, the title of the novel that we are reading is In the Cage. The title itself suggests something other than human. When we think of cages, we think of humans. However, the beginning of the novel starts with the narrator explaining how the girl compares herself to a caged pet: "It had occurred to her early that in her position-that of a young person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a magpie..." (117). Her position in the P.O. keeps her separate from everyone else in the world, like an animal in a cage.
A couple of pages later, the girl is thinking about her work compared to Mrs. Jordan's work. As she was thinking to herself about it,the narrator state that "the only weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with the human herd..." (120). We see the use of herd used again some pages later when the narrator says, "What virtually happened was that in the shuffling herd that passed before her by far the greater part only passed..." (132). From these two passages, the narrator or the girl-which I am still not certain on who- is referring to those not "in the cage" as a herd. A herd is a large group of animals that typically has a big space to move around in. I am anxious to see how the rest of the novel plays out so that I can fully decipher how her being in a cage and ideals about the herd play out.