Tinbad the Tailor killed some flies
Which in the telling grew in size.
When I wrote that couplet in “With?” I had nothing deeper in mind than the story of the Brave Little Tailor, who bragged about killing seven flies at one blow but was misunderstood by his hearers, who assumed he was claiming to have killed seven men or (in some versions) seven giants.
I’d assumed the couplet had some hidden meaning like the others but had failed to discover it. Attempts to connect Tinbad to the Tinleys or to James Taylor led nowhere.
Today I read a passing reference to Sartre in The God Who Weeps, and I had a sudden hunch that this person, whose name presumably means “tailor,” might be Tinbad. I thought I’d search for Sartre quotes having to do with flies or insects, but autocomplete soon informed me that Sartre was actually the author of a play called The Flies. Such was my ignorance of Sartre (whom I have never read, outside of some philosophy-class excerpts) that I didn’t even know that!
Apparently (based on online summaries), the play is about swarms of flies that plague a Greek city after a murder, and the citizens interpret them as a curse from the gods. As a result of their “telling” themselves this, the insects “grow in size,” morphing into the Furies, goddesses of vengeance. Sartre’s point, though, is to “kill” these overgrown flies, insisting (in keeping with his Existentialist stance) that they have no inherent meaning but only that which the Greeks freely choose to give them.
1 comment:
William,
And speaking of Marty McFly and flies
and a Triumvirate Governance, ever hear of William Golding's
book The Lord of the Flies?
copy and paste from wiki ( see link )
"In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a loose ****triumvirate of leaders*****
forms among the boys stranded on the island. This trio consists of Ralph, Jack, and Simon.
1. Ralph is the elected leader, Jack leads the choir boys turned hunters, and Simon,
though quieter, plays a crucial role in the group’s dynamics."
copy and paste: plot
" In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British aeroplane crashes
on an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean.
The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or preadolescence.
A fair-haired boy named Ralph and a fat boy nicknamed Piggy find a conch shell,
which Ralph uses as a horn to gather the survivors. Ralph immediately
commands authority over the other boys using the conch, and is elected their "chief".
He establishes three goals for the boys: to have fun, to survive, and to constantly maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships.
Ralph, a red-haired boy named Jack, and a quiet boy named Simon
use Piggy's glasses to create a signal fire.
The semblance of order deteriorates as the boys grow lazy and ignore
Ralph's efforts to improve life on the island. They become paranoid
about an imaginary monster called "the beast". Ralph fails to convince the boys
that no beast exists, while Jack gains popularity by declaring
that he will personally hunt and kill the monster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
copy and paste:
"The concept of a ****triumvirate**** in Lord of the Flies has influenced
various aspects of popular culture. For instance, the novel’s themes
of leadership, power struggles, and societal breakdown have been echoed
in reality TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother, where groups are
divided and forced to navigate social hierarchies and conflicts."
https://william-golding.co.uk/william-goldings-legacy-enduring-influence-on-popular-culture
https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Lord_of_the_Flies
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