The Cream of the Jest · Theme
The Limitations of the Flesh
How The Cream of the Jest develops The Limitations of the Flesh.
Kennaston's physical body—fat, aging, and awkward—is portrayed as a prison that hinders his spiritual and artistic aspirations, emphasizing the gap between human frailty and the soul's desires.
Where it surfaces
- XV: Of Vain Regret and Wonder in the Dark
Vanringham laments his base deeds and the flesh's frailty, yearning for a clean life he cannot attain.
- XVI: They Come to a High Place
Kennaston's inability to touch Ettarre highlights the boundary between the dream world and physical reality.
- XX: Of Divers Fleshly Riddles
Kennaston meditates on the isolation imposed by the five senses and the physical brain, questioning the possibility of genuine communication.
- XXV: Byproducts of Rational Endeavor
The alchemist's quest for eternal life underscores humanity's struggle against mortality, a central limitation of the flesh.
- Book Fifth
The soul's inability to partake in the 'large lordship of the light' suggests the limitations of mortal existence.
- XXX: Cross-Purposes in Spacious Times
Fleshly passion is described as flickering out inevitably, while the dream's law enforces the impossibility of physical union with Ettarre.
- Horvendile to Ettarre: In the Conciergerie
Horvendile laments being unable to touch Ettarre and the prison of the flesh that separates humans from true beauty.
- Of One Enigma That Threatened to Prove Allegorical
The king's physical decay and the inevitability of death underscore the frailty and transience of the human body.
- Considerations Toward Sunset
Kennaston celebrates the sanctity of flesh-and-blood bonds, finding meaning in the physical and domestic.
- One Way of Elusion
The physical, everyday life with Kathleen constrains Kennaston from speaking of the sigil, illustrating the flesh's inability to accommodate the transcendent.