Symbols

The Cage
Mireille refers to the small room that she was locked in for the majority of her thirteen days in captivity as "the cage." Typically a cage is where an animal is kept. This reflects Mirielle's interpretation of this isolated room. In the cage Miri is physically abused, sexually assaulted, and starved by a group of men led by the Commander. It is here where Miri suffers from fatal injuries which result from torment and confinement in this cage. Being locked in this room alone pushes Miri’s thoughts toward her “previous” life with her loving husband and son, who she missed so much. She realizes that her chances of ever seeing them again are very slim and unlikely, which only made her situation worse. Miri figured that the only way to survive would be to forget the woman that she used to be, and to become "no one." This room serves not only a place where Miri suffered physically, but also as a mental barrier as she continues to feel confined to a cage even after her release from captivity.

Being "No one"
Towards the end of the Mireille's captivity, she faces the reality that she may never be rescued by her family. In order to forget all the memories of her life before the kidnapping, she repeatedly tells herself that she is "no one," that she is of no importance and has no connections to the outside world. When the men holding her captive take advantage of her physically, she reminds herself she is nobody to mask the pain of the assault. She thinks back on the situation, saying, "I was no one. My death would not matter" (Gay 150). By telling herself she is no one, she believes she can better get by the struggles, for she no longer is a woman with a husband, a son, a family, and a job. She is no longer a woman that lives a privileged life. Through this facade that she establishes, it helps save her from the agony of another heartbreak and of the cruelty. Even after her father pays the men who held her captive and she returns to them, she has a hard time remembering who she was before these thirteen days of hell. She refuses to open up to her son and husband, and continually repeats that she is “no one.” One night after the kidnapping, Michael looks at Miri as she sits on the floor, shaking. He asks her what is wrong and she says, "I don't know what the hell I am...It's like I can't remember my name or my life but . . . I can. I mean, it's all there but I can't quite reach myself" (242). The "I am no one" motif repeats throughout the majority of the novel, and shows the readers that Mirielle is not progressively healing and reconnecting with her sanity prior to the kidnapping, but she is at a stand still, locked in the visual memories of the abusement.

(Source: Gay, Roxane. An Untamed State. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.)