Khalil Gibran and Slavery

It's amazing how Khalil Gibran can say so much in so few words-- carefully chosen and melodic in nature. And in Gibran's book "The Storm", it's easy to find stories that reveal some wise truths. His short story on Slavery is a great example of that. 

"Men are but slaves of life. This slavery hedges in their days with misery and debasement and floods their nights with tears and blood." (Gibran 30)

The very first sentence dramatically sums the whole idea up, but seems a little abrasive.  A lot of people(or maybe just a few) don't share this view, but as you read on Gibran gives unnerving examples of slavery (or slavery of the mind to be more accurate) that are rampant all around us.  Gibran gets into the specifics: slavery to "holy laws", slavery to patriotism, slavery of women's will. The list goes on, but Gibran points to the disguises slavery wears. Sometimes its called wealth that enslaves a person, or sometimes its called fraternity. And although Gibrans story was written in the early 1900's, his writing still clearly speaks to the contemporary world. Maybe it is blind slavery that has in so many ways kept us stagnant for so long.

" Blind slavery, the slavery of men of the present trusting in the past of their fathers, kneeling in blind imitation of the customs of their grandfathers, making themselves new bodies for old spirits, whitewashed tombs for bleached bones."(32)

Imagine a world that doesn't thrive on the past. Khalil's story points to this necessity. Old blind revenge that has been the fuel of war and brutality in all of its forms. The slavery of our minds through the egoic state rationalizes our hatred and give it noble names. Gibran's romantic procession of writing not only speaks to the important issues, but does so with the gentle, exalted craft of an artist.

Works/Cited

Gibran, Khalil. The Storm: Stories and Prose Poems. London, England : Penguin Books, 1997.