jealous husband returns in form of parrot
written by robert olen butler
published in the new yorker in may 1995
when i was a sophomore at UCR, i had the opportunity of taking CRWT152: Beginning Fiction, a small workshop class that reads and analyzes outside fiction works to learn more about the craft of fiction and use those findings in our own original writing.
written by robert olen butler, “jealous husband returns in form of parrot” is still one of my favorite short fiction stories to this day.
the story begins with the narrator waking up as a parrot in a Houston pet store, presumably because he’s died. he’s surprised when the first customer that approaches the cage is actually his wife, who doesn’t realize the parrot she’s petting (and buying) is her husband. the husband realizes that his wife is at the pet store with another man, and that the man seems to be her current lover in the story’s reality, forcing the husband to reflect on his own emotions from both his human and parrot life.
upon reading this story for the first time, i was most intrigued by butler’s usage of magical realism, setting, and voice to outline the inner-thoughts of the narrator as he examines his past life and analyzes his wife’s relationship to her current lover. i also had many questions as i continued to read: what happened to this narrator? is he a trustworthy narrator? how did he find himself in this position?
“She smiles at this and she opens the door to my cage. "Up," I say, meaning, Is there no place for me in this world where I can be free of this terrible sense of others?”
i was also extremely moved (to tears, literally) during certain parts where language was simply not enough to convey the narrator’s thoughts, like in the quote above. the limitation of language was relevant to the overall message of the story and how the narrator always felt like he was unable to communicate his inner-thoughts to his wife—human or parrot.
