Nature versus Society - a symbolic challenge

Part IX: Review of Sam Garton's I am Otter by Béatrice Dumiche

Exploring Love & Evolution in I am Otter

Playing and reading are – if used to cultivate and brighten life – representative of actual social existence because they restore the nexus between love and imagination which serves a double aim - it prepares to fit real living conditions, yet relates their absolute power on each individual who is still able to negotiate the adaptation because he received enough self-consciousness to not accept them passively and retract into anger and frustration. It gives the intimate strength based on personal conviction to express social criticism on the behalf of humanity and their preservation for the unequaled degree of development they represent and not for partial political reasons which only advocate material adjustments and thus, aggravate conflicts and jealousy as they are only oriented towards an immediate and collective satisfaction. They will only increase the demand for more since they can’t compensate the individual need for recognition of personal qualities which makes everyone unique. Sam Garton’s perspective underlines the necessity to separate at last the amalgam between materialism and well-being which had been made in the 19th century to find back to a more philosophical and universal conception of mankind which encourages critical sense and freedom: both indeed are at the service of reciprocal understanding since they are based on self-preservation which paradoxically implies the respect of the other in the interest of the species’ own survival which is essential for the diversity of life. As a mental prevention from the enrollment in collective movements, self-consciousness helps therefore preserve the other’s freedom as it is indispensable for a society to evolve with the consent of those who make it a structure which everyone feels good to live in. It let's us find symbolic compromises supporting the change of mentalities instead of revolutions which are the result of authoritarian socializations where the efficiency of life has already been alienated by an education which didn’t respect personal freedom and autonomy because they try to create an actor of everyone - responsible for his own life.

That’s why Otter’s great educational challenge is to admit Keeper’s independence when he gets to work since she can’t guess that what she perceives as his personal will corresponds in fact for him to a social necessity which he must accept to be free to live with her at home. She must acknowledge that she isn’t able yet to figure out what his life without her looks like and that there is an age for everything so that she can’t skip a stage in her evolution whilst Keeper is able to look back and to sympathize with her in order to help her integrate constructively her own childhood experiences in an attractive vision of being adult which let her grow up happily. Hiding her a part of his own reality is part of his wisdom since knowing too much about it would hinder her evolution: it would confront her with problems she wouldn’t be able to understand and generate useless anxiety of getting autonomous. What he doesn’t deny however, is that, unlike her, this awareness enables him to join her games doing as if he would share spontaneously her innocent pleasure while relating her own excitement since she hasn’t experienced anything else yet and is curious of anything new. This strikes his empathetic discernment because he shares her emotions appreciating what they mean to her as he revives his own more consciously through hers. He treasures these moments which offer him the opportunity to live a symbolic pleasure from childhood and enjoy as a gift the total gratuity of her unconditional love towards him which he must thwart nevertheless for her own sake to get autonomous as he also knows it is the best he can do for her.

Sam Garton’s merit is to stress, through the dialogue his drawings initiate with his public, that Keeper’s attitude represents an evolution signifying a refinement of love from one generation to another and the best example for it remains the concert for which Otter extends an invitation. While the text reports her own impressions: “Now I love Otter Keeper and Teddy very much. We have much fun together, you wouldn’t believe it! Especially on the weekends”, the drawing commenting upon this last sentence features an Otter Keeper who had surrendered to an over-excited Otter who had organized a show for him with Teddy and who was eventually singing for him after having played all kinds of instruments which were already lying under the table.

Children who become able to compare both point of views and evaluate Otter’s limited consciousness guess that there is an age for everything and that, when grown-ups participate in their games, which they know are the real existence for them, they do it because of an empathetic memory based on their own experience and maybe even rather more on what they have missed during their own childhood: the interest and the recognition of their own parents which wasn’t evident a few generations before when adults – especially men - didn’t enter their children’s imaginary world because it was unusual and psychological knowledge wasn’t grown so far to consider it important for their later development. Yet, this doesn’t mean that they now enjoy it at the same primary level as they do because they have different priorities in their lives: they accept to postpone them for a while even if they might look a bit ridiculous and displaced, like poor Keeper in this sequence, because they love them and know that they need their support for whatever creative they do, so far it expresses their faith in life, to get more self-confident until they become autonomous and can do without their actual presence.

Sam Garton points to children that adults make an effort of real understanding when they play with them and he highlights that they aren’t childish however they might look so. On the contrary, he underlines that they are aware of what it consciously means to play since they plainly guess that it is an essential need for the transmission of a survival instinct they have already experienced and refined to a kind of wisdom which helps them evaluate a situation from different perspectives and accommodate their own action with a life-serving dynamism. This way, thanks to the mediation of the author, Keeper appears even to the young readers an unquestionable authority who educates them as well as Otter – the only difference between them and Otter is that they understand a bit more what he is doing. Yet, as they observed that he accepted to enter her game, even if he looked risible, just not to spoil her pleasure, they have no reason to feel superior to her or maybe even to mock her as they realised that behaving like that would let them fell off the circle of love which protects all those who participate in in her life and automatically exclude them from the story itself.

He sets an example which lets them understand that nobody acting because of uninterested love should be considered ridiculous, as he intends to do the best for the other, which doesn’t mean to be uncritical towards him. So, Otters’ exaggerated mimic, when she is singing, as well as the obvious difference between an actual concert and the perception of it she reproduced with the modest means she has at her disposal can’t but conjure a smile at the readers’ face. Yet, at the same time, they will sympathize with Keeper who accepts to play his supportive role and credit her imaginary world so that she can feel as if it was real and plainly enjoy the success of her performance. The drawing indeed shows how entering someone’s perspective by imagination transforms a possible feeling of superiority, the readers – adults and children both - might feel incline to, into tenderness towards Otter and Keeper through a sort of associative chain reaction: it creates sympathy for Keeper’s thoughtfulness who knows that he would hurt and discourage her if he judged her from his adult point of view and according to the completely unrealistic scale of objective reality which would be even more ridiculous given the fact Otter guesses that her performance is something very special only for Keeper. This can’t but touch the readers who must sympathize with both the protagonists since they realize that they are only motivated by love and gratefulness to have each other.

Reciprocal love reveals indeed the source of vital energy which allows evolution as it doesn’t discredit any attempt to refine its process. That’s why it is only based on self-irony as a way to learn from the other’s experience without any prejudice and without any fear of losing his self-esteem: if someone finds you ridiculous whilst trying to make the best of your life by exploring different possibilities, he himself hasn’t guessed yet what matters for him because he is still unconscious of his abilities he hasn’t learnt to use in his own interest and reveals therefore more immature than you.
This way, the author teaches both categories of his readers a lesson without any pedantry as he does it implicitly by inciting them to improve their observation and associate their impressions to relate them to each other and get the most nuanced appreciation of the situation as a whole to include it at its best in their own perception of life, which, at last, can’t be but an individual evolution to more self-consciousness and awareness of others. To the younger ones, he points that grown-ups are tolerant with them because they know they have to learn by experience and that the credit they give to their games develops their faculty to imagine oneself at the other’s place which is essential for their own survival as unconditional love might be touching, however it didn’t stand evolution, creating too much trouble due to its excessive expectations, like Otter’s example shows it. Yet, while he underlines her cuteness, he requests the adult’s attention for taking their children’s games seriously as they are decisive for their evolution and need their implication to be plainly efficient. He makes them get aware of their importance for the development of their intelligence as they valuate their instinct which attracts them unconsciously to others and prepares them to interact with them in a creative process to elaborate a symbolic balance between their individual interests.

That’s why he insists so much on the constructive role of love which transforms the readers’ consciousness of Otter’s awkwardness into deep sympathy for her cuteness as they realize that she can believe in herself despite being still like a child because Keeper supports her faith in life and in the improvement of her talents, when he plays with her. Although he is an adult, he enjoys to do so as he loves her and feels responsible for her future: for that reason, he strengthens her perseverance and her independence towards inappropriate judgments which could harm her whilst he lets her experience that clever adaptation to better understand others is an advantage for self-preservation and tolerance as well. He lets her find out on her own that she can’t participate in his world because she isn’t ready for it yet and not because he wanted to deprive her of an experience she should be jealous of. This way, he gives her a life lesson as well as the readers so far they will feel like reacting at what she does. He never judges the failure of her toast business, the mess of it she has just to clean up with him, because he doesn’t turn his superiority against her at any time and thus, behaves like an adult should towards a child or like older children should towards younger: he tries to let her realize that what helps conciliate different experiences and the different perspectives which result of them is thoughtfulness as it solicits reciprocal adaption at an individual level to preserve everyone’s self-esteem and freedom whilst fortifying the symbolic authority of the fittest. His behavior, which appears always well adapted whilst preserving Otter’s space at his home, underlines that love is not an easy going feeling, it is a permanent challenge for everyone’s autonomy which must be accepted to become able to do the best of one’s life. So, the readers of the book can’t but be in the disposition to learn from their relationship since, although Otter’s mischievous innocence puts a smile on every face, she must as well as Keeper been taken seriously because she believes in herself and in the world she lives in thanks to his understanding love which will let her evolve mentally according to her growth without being bothered by his expectations.

To be continued....