Never Take Anything For Granted

Bonjour!

I'm glad you decided to come back and read more of my blogs. This time, I want to take a close look to "The Man who Walked Through Walls, Or the Life of an Unremarkable Person" by Marcel Ayme. But before going into the story, I would like to give a special thanks to Dr. Sears for translating to text from french to english.

Now, lets begin!

The short story revolves around a man, Dutilleul, living in Montmartre possessing a special power. This power enables him to physically walk through walls. Yes, walk through walls! Now who wouldn't want a power like that? Anyways, after discovering he could walk through walls, Dutilleul immediately sought a doctor to explain this behavior. The doctor had explained to him why it was happening and recommended him to do tiring exercises and to take a prescribed tablet twice a year.

Dutilleul's ability did not seem to be going away but Durtilleul did not find any use of it and avoided it. He did everything like a normal person for the first year but that changed when his boss was transfer to a new position. The new assistant director at the Ministry of Records, Monsieur Lecuyer, did not appreciate Dutilleul and treated him in a bad manner. Dutilleul did not like the changes Monsieur Lecuyer had made in such a short time and did not like the way he was being treated considering he had been working there for 20 years.

Dutilleul grew a hatred for the new assistant director and to get revenge, he used the special power he obtained. He started to scare and frighten Monsieur Lecuyer by popping his head through the wall in Monsieur's office. Dutilleul repeated this process over and over until Monsieur started to lose his mind and was sent to  mental hospital. After what he had caused to Monsieur Lecuyer, Dutilleul wanted to do more and fill his satisfaction.

What was it that Dutilleul did with his power to feel better? He began to rob banks! He would walk through the walls and fill his pockets with money leaving his signature of "Garou-Garou". Instead of the public becoming angry at this thief for stealing their money, they saw Garou-Garou as a hero. Even though Garou-Garou was seen as a great man, not everybody thought the same about Dutilleul. When Dutilleul tried to confess he was the thief, everyone laughed at him. He was a rich man who no one thought he could be Garou-Garou. After getting caught by a night guard, everything seem to be unsatisfied for Dutilleul.

After getting caught, Dutilleul became careless and did everything without having a consequence. He escaped jail many times leaving everyone to wonder how in the world he was doing it. Dutilleul continued to rob places and started to not hide his identity. Dutilleul became arrogant. He did not care if he was caught because he could simply walk through the jail walls and get out. Dutilleul then planned to escape to Egypt and therefore change his appearance so no one could be able to recognize him. Before leaving for Egypt though, he fell in love with a woman.

This woman though was married and her husband locked her up, leaving her alone for a long time. Dutilleul found getting into the house a challenve and so every night, he went in her room through the walls and made love to her. After the first nighr, he had a headache and took a pill he had found in his drawer. Now, remember in the beginning how his doctor gave him two prescribed tablets? Well, he made the mistake of taken the second tablet thinking it was going to help him get rid of his headache. Instead of getting rid of his headache, Dutilleul no longer was able to walk through walls. Though he did not find out until after going to have his night with the woman. As he was leaving in the morning, he all of a sudden felt he could not move as he was going through the wall and was stuck in it forever.

The end of the story was actually funny  and unexpected. It seemed like the story was going to continue with Dutilleul doing whatever he pleased withought gettinv into a major problem. The story is a fable and like many fables, Ayme wantdd the reader to learn a lesson. What is the lesson learned here? There can be many different lessons, but the lesson is one should never take anything for granted. Cherish the things you have and never put them at risk of losing them. If you lose them, you can lose yourself as well. Also, one must not take the easy way out. It will only bring bad consequences just like it happened to Dutilleul.

Until next time!