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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in An Imaginary Life, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Suffering and Personal Growth
Language, Perception, and Nature
Frivolity vs. Practicality
Childhood, Fate, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
Ovid sits with the headman and his family in the main room of their hut. The headman’s mother never joins them. They have eaten dinner and, in the free hour before sleep, the daughter-in-law sews strips of animal hide together. The headman repairs a fishing net, telling his grandson a story while he works. Ovid cannot understand the words, but believes he recognizes the “tune” of it, as if he’d heard it long ago from one of his family’s slaves.
Although neither Latin or the villagers’ language is universally understood, Ovid’s sense of the story’s “tune” and arc suggests that some similarity exists between them, since they are both vessels that human beings use to communicate shared ideas and emotions.
Themes
Ovid thinks of the headman as “old,” but realizes they are probably the same age, not quite 50. He tries to imagine the headman’s life, year by year paralleling his own, but he cannot. The headman is tough and strong like Ovid has never been, with a “stern nobility.” Compared to the hardships that must have produced such a man, Ovid feels that his life “has been so frivolous.” For all his years he’s pampered himself, learned from books, rejected anything that he could not understand, and believed in no gods. By contrast, the headman moves slowly and powerfully, and seems to embody a gentle but almost animal nature, like the spirits of the horses he tames. Tomorrow, Ovid will accompany a group into the birchwoods to hunt deer.
Ovid’s recognition of his own frivolity and weakness signifies a budding self-awareness and personal growth. Initially, Ovid viewed himself as sophisticated and superior, and the headman and his people as barbaric. Ovid’s recognition that the headman possesses a certain “nobility” while he himself feels pampered and weak, indicates that he is beginning to recognize the value of a harder yet simpler lifestyle. Once again, it seems Ovid’s frivolity was enabled by his luxurious and peaceful lifestyle in Rome, and that such frivolity could not develop in a place like Tomis.
Themes
In the morning, Ovid and others gather in the village square and eat a thin soup with curds for breakfast. Hunters armed with bows, as well as the village shaman, arrive. The headman then arrives and greets each man, woman, and child in turn. They begin their ceremony, forming a silent circle while a boy receives a handful of curds, which he carries into the center of the circle. In the midst of the ceremony, Ovid thinks the boy seems more like a “conductor of dark forces” than a person. The shaman leads everyone in singing while the boy walks slowly and throws the curds into the fire. The circle breaks. People talk and laugh as they prepare for their journey. The headman, embarrassed, shows Ovid how to ride a horse without a saddle while the other men politely look away.
Ovid’s rational skepticism sharply contrasts with the villagers’ superstitious mysticism. However, Ovid’s feeling that the boy becomes a “conductor of dark forces” suggests that Ovid finds himself drawn into the spectacle of belief. Like his frivolity, Ovid’s skepticism seems to be a result of his privileged and comfortable lifestyle, where he never depended upon nature for survival or faced any serious threats. Additionally, the headman’s embarrassment at having to teach Ovid how to ride demonstrates how Ovid’s frivolous past makes him ill-suited to his new environment, lacking basic skills.
Themes
Ovid and the other horsemen leave the village, crossing the frosty landscape until they reach a sparse forest by mid-morning. They climb a large hill and reach a circular clearing on a plateau, containing roughly 100 funerary mounds. The skeleton of a horse and rider sits on each, impaled on a long pole, which is the customary way to lay a horseman to rest. The headman unshoulders a sack full of grain and leads his riders weaving among the mounds, shouting and throwing grain onto the graves. He returns and shows Ovid how to shout like them, giving him grain to throw as well. As he rides and shouts, Ovid feels as if the breath he expels carries his fear with it, removing it from himself. Although he still considers himself a “Roman and a poet,” Ovid feels a new sense of freedom as the breaths leave his body.
Ovid’s participation in the funerary procession, which honors the spirits of the dead (thus contradicting his skeptical disbelief in superstition) signifies yet another step in his personal transformation. Ovid not only participates in the life of the village, but takes courage from their mystic rituals, indicating that his skepticism is beginning to loosen. He allows himself to believe, to a degree, in the villagers’ spirituality. However, Ovid’s sense that he is still a “Roman and a poet” suggests that he is resisting abandonment of his former identity as a sophisticated intellectual.
Themes
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As Ovid rides back down the hill, following the headman’s path, he recalls his older brother’s funeral, decades before. On that day, as Ovid rides next to his father, he realizes that both he and his father wish Ovid had died instead, since his brother was the dutiful one and would have made a better heir to the estate. He finds it strange that, 30 years later, he should be riding with “barbarians” beyond the reach of the Roman law and Roman state to which his father was so committed. Although Ovid performed the funeral rites at his father’s funeral as well, they did not feel significant until this day. Ovid thinks he is finally “free” to begin preparing for his own eventual death.
Ovid’s contemplation of both his brother and father’s deaths, which feel unresolved until this moment, suggests that his modern skepticism and frivolity prevent him from truly reckoning with his grief. Since Ovid links frivolous living with an utter disregard for gods or spirituality, it appears that his skepticism keeps him so focused on fleeting pleasures that he cannot process bigger issues like death and loss.
Themes
Ovid and the hunters reach the birchwoods at midday. They climb down and lead their horses on foot, following the group’s tracker as he points out a wolf in her den and bear tracks in the frost. Among the bear tracks are also small human footprints, which shocks Ovid, though none of the others seem surprised. The headman explains, through hand signs, that they first started seeing these footprints two seasons ago. They belong to a “wild boy” who lives with the deer. Ovid is full of questions, but cannot ask any of them because of the language barrier. By the spacing between the footprints, Ovid reckons the child can keep pace with the deer. They are bare, indicating that the child is naked.
The hunters’ image of a “wild boy” recalls the goatherds’ belief in such a creature, as well as Ovid’s childhood memories of his secret friend. The fact that the child is naked, despite the cold weather, suggests that he is somehow different from humans, since a normal child could not survive naked in such conditions. Additionally, Ovid’s estimation that the child can keep pace with the deer suggests that the boy is extraordinarily fit and strong.
Themes
Ovid touches the footprint, imagining that in doing so he can summon the child in his mind. Looking up, he sees the boy crouched some distance away in the woods, watching them. Oddly, Ovid feels as if he recognizes him. Ovid points and shouts. The boy flees. Some of the hunters try to chase after him on horseback, but come back empty-handed. Ovid wonders briefly if he truly saw the boy or was simply imagining the Child he once played with. For the rest of the afternoon, the hunters weave their horses slowly through the wood, killing one deer. Ovid wonders what they would do if they ever managed to catch the boy.
Ovid does not consider what they would do with Child until after they fail to catch him, suggesting that he does not have any plan beyond the desire to possess the boy. This appears grossly self-interested, since Ovid never wonders whether the boy actually wants to be caught.
Themes
They make camp in the evening. Ovid gathers firewood while another butchers the deer they’ve killed, gathering the entrails and some of the blood in a hollow gourd. Ovid thinks about the wild boy, whom he starts to regard as “the Child,” and thinks that the Child’s survival in such a harsh wilderness is more breathtaking than any fantasy he himself wrote in his poems. Ovid hugs his knees and talks to himself in Latin, until he realizes this makes the other hunters nervous. With no shared language between them, Ovid thinks the only thing that connects him to these other men is their shared “likeness of humanity.”
Although Ovid still does not share a language with the other villagers, his sense of their “shared likeness” indicates a growing appreciation for them. The people he once thought of as barbarians now feel like comrades, indicating that Ovid is developing an ability to appreciate people different from himself. Although Ovid decides that the boy in the forest is the same Child he knew when he was young, the author intentionally leaves the validity of this vague, since Ovid’s childhood friend did not age, while this current “wild boy” does.
Themes
Ovid watches the shaman perform his ceremony, arranging several small items around himself in a circle as he chants in a high-pitched voice. The young hunter who shot the deer approaches with the gourd filled with blood, marks the shaman’s forehead with it, then pours it around the circle. After the ceremony, all of the men set about eating the kill and building shelters for the night. While Ovid sleeps, he dreams that some creature approaches him, a wolf or perhaps the Child, and some inner part of himself rises to meet it. He wakes, but no one is near him, so he sleeps again until dawn.
The creature approaching Ovid represents nature, which comes near him but does not consume or attack him. The inner part of Ovid that tries to meet the creature seems to be the same part of himself that communed with the “wild boy” during Ovid’s childhood— a part that implicitly understands his true relationship to nature.
Themes
Soon after, winter arrives, and Ovid finds the season “terrible beyond belief.” Freezing winds whip through the village for seven months. Everyone in Tomis spends most of their time huddled inside in a semi-conscious state, as if they are animals hibernating. Ovid thinks constantly about the Child in the wilderness and wonders how he could survive such harsh weather. He waits anxiously for spring, when he hopes to convince the headman—whom he now calls Ryzak—to send a search party out for the Child. However, for now he keeps his plan a secret. Ovid knows that the Child is the same “wild boy” from his own childhood.
The villagers’ lifestyle closely parallels the natural world: they hibernate in winter and hunt or forage when the weather allows. This contrasts with the sophisticated cities that Ovid knows, where agriculture and modern building allow human beings to keep out the cold and carry on with daily life. Meanwhile, Ovid finally uses Ryzak’s name rather than referring to him as the headman, which reflects his growing perception of Ryzak as an person, rather than just a figure amidst his exile.
Themes
Tomis receives word that hundreds of Dacian horsemen sacked a town to the north, and within days they ride across the frozen river to assault Tomis as well. All the men in Tomis, including Ovid, stand on the palisade walls armed with lances to defend against the attack. Ovid finds it ironic that he, a descendent of warriors and knights in imperialist Rome, spent his whole life deriding ideas like “duty” and “patriotism.” Now, at 50 years old, he stands to defend a small village “at the edge of the world.” When the Dacians attack, they spend all night riding circles around the walled village, shooting poison arrows into it. Eventually they ride away, moving onto the next village. “And now it is spring,” narrates Ovid.
Once again, Ovid’s former frivolous lifestyle seems enabled by Rome’s unusual era of peace and prosperity. Now that Ovid lives in a dangerous environment, he must commit himself to more difficult tasks such as defending one’s home. Ovid’s inability to maintain his former carefree lifestyle in Tomis suggests that frivolity is an unsustainable way to live. As soon as one loses their privileged position or their society moves away from peacetime, one is forced to adopt a more practical philosophy.
Themes
Ovid has now attained enough of Tomis’s language to communicate simple ideas. He presses Ryzak to send a search party out for the Child, Ryzak is reticent, though won’t say why. Ovid wonders if the villagers’ superstition extends to the Child as well, if they believe him to be some sort of god or spiritual creature. Ovid simply wants to know that the Child survived the winter, and perhaps someday to bring him back to live in Tomis. However, the seasonal rituals of spring and summer, especially fishing, take up all their time until autumn arrives.
Ovid and the villagers’ contrasting responses to the Child reflects the difference in their respective worldviews. The villagers suspect that the Child is some sort of supernatural spirit or demon, reflecting their belief in the mystical forces of nature. Ovid merely worries about the Child surviving the harsh winter, indicating that he thinks of the Child as a human rather than a spiritual being, reflecting his rational skepticism.
Themes
The hunters make another journey to the birchwoods. Ovid longs to see some evidence of the Child, but rain washes away all tracks and they leave without seeing any sign of him. Ovid is crushed by disappointment and fears that the Child won’t survive the winters, or that he himself won’t survive unless he knows the Child is alive.
Ovid’s feeling that he won’t survive if the Child does not suggests that he senses the “wild boy” is somehow crucial to his own personal growth and ability to adapt to life in Tomis.
Themes
Another winter passes into another spring. Ovid understands the “crude tongue” of Tomis now. He teaches Ryzak’s grandson bits of Latin, though the boy takes little interest in it. Ovid listens to Ryzak tell his stories and notes how different they are from Greek stories. Ryzak’s language is frank, abrupt, and cruel, speaking plainly and directly about the nature of life in their harsh environment. Compared to Ryzak, Ovid feels his own stories and language are over-embellished and fanciful. Ryzak seems gentle though dignified by his stern strength, while Ovid feels like an undignified “hysterical old woman” by contrast.
The frankness of Ryzak’s stories suggests that, within the frame of their language, the villagers simply observe and accept their life and its hardships, rather than analyze or explain them with philosophy or aesthetics. Ovid’s feeling that he is fanciful and “hysterical” next to Ryzak suggests that Latin’s sophisticatio, feels excessive and out of place in the straightforward brutality of life in Tomis.
Themes
The year passes into autumn. Ovid spots the Child among the birchwoods. He appears while Ovid sits with the other hunters, sipping gruel from their cups. The Child is older and taller now, perhaps 11 or 12 years old. Ovid and the hunters freeze. Ovid realizes the hunters are terrified by the child, even though they are fearless in the face of mortal danger and raiding horsemen. Ovid only fears that the Child will flee again. That night, Ovid leaves a bowl of gruel sitting out. The bowl is empty by morning. Ovid knows the Child must be seeking them out while they search for him, and wonders if the “wild boy” now recognizes his similarity to these strangers in his woods. Ryzak thinks Ovid’s obsession with the Child is foolish, perhaps even dangerous.
Although the villagers believe the Child is not a normal human—and the narrative doesn’t confirm or deny this—the fact that the Child is older and taller suggests that he has normal biological functions despite his unusual lifestyle and affinity for wildlife. Ovid and the hunters’ differing responses to the Child again typifies their respective view of the world. The hunters are physically capable, but fear things they do not understand, such as the Child. Ovid, by contrast, fears physical dangers like the raiding tribes, but tends to ignore spirits and anything he does not understand.
Themes
The next day, the hunters kill five or six deer and spend the rest of the day butchering and preserving the meat. At night, Ovid sets out another bowl of gruel, determined to wait awake all night to see the Child. He falls asleep. He dreams that he and the other hunters are watching the Child, but they are all stones and mushrooms rather than humans. Ovid dreams that he is a pool of water in the dirt, part of the landscape, and fears his vulnerability. A deer approaches and drinks cautiously from him, and Ovid feels “tenderness” as the deer drinks him in and makes him a part of itself. He fears that a wolf may come and consume all of him. Instead, the Child approaches and drinks from Ovid.
Ovid’s dream of being a pool of water that a deer drinks from suggests that he is gradually becoming one with nature and interconnected with everything else in the universe. The vulnerability Ovid feels as a pool of water represents his fear of losing his sense of self as something separate from his surroundings, while the tenderness he feels as the deer nourishes itself with him represents the emotional reward of embracing his unity with nature. Further, the Child’s approach to the pool of water suggests that he will be integral in leading Ovid to this view of himself and the world.
Themes
Ovid wakes in the dark. He sees the Child putting down the soup bowl Ovid left for him, unsure of whether to run back to nature or stay in the human world. The Child has eaten food made by humans, entered into their realm. As Ovid and the Child stare at each other, Ovid feels they have communicated in a “language beyond tongues.” The Child edges away into the darkness, but Ovid believes that next year, the Child will seek them out.
The Child’s choice to stay with or run from the humans foreshadows his choice of remaining in human society or rejecting it for a more naturalistic life. This is the first formal mention of the “language beyond tongues,” the universal, unstructured language that the story suggests exists and unites all living things.
Themes
The next year passes. Ovid grows strong and sturdy and embraces his life in Tomis. He goes on long walks and examines every living thing he can find, enjoying the village’s wildness rather than criticizing it for its lack of human development. Ovid feels as if he is being transformed and entering into his new self. Ryzak is now the closest friend Ovid has ever had. He teaches Ovid more about Tomis and how the villagers’ different customs fit together, and Ovid thinks the interplay is a “kind of poetry.” He starts collecting wildflower seeds and planting a simple garden near his hut.
Ovid’s personal growth is a direct result of living in the harsh environment of Tomis. More than physical strength, Ovid grows in his ability to appreciate nature and form relationships with other people. The direct connection between Ovid’s suffering and personal growth suggests that hardships, though painful, strengthen and refine a person’s character.
Themes
Ovid drills with the village soldiers and marvels at what a change has come over him. He is fluent in Tomis’s language and begins to see how one’s language influences one’s perception of the world. Latin focuses on distinction, categorizing all the things of the world differently. The village language, by contrast, embraces “the raw life and unity of things,” and Ovid reckons that by learning their language, he now sees a “different world” than the one he always knew. He appreciates the “narrower range of colors” and severe aesthetic of his new home. Spring is no longer just the blooming of flowers and leaves, but the time when his own spirit begins to thaw and “loosen and flow again, reflecting the world.”
Ovid’s sense that a new language presents a new world suggests that the structure of each language affects the speaker’s perception of the world around them. Ovid’s realization that the village language teaches him to see the unity of life—viewing spring as the time when his spirit thaws, like the landscape—lays the groundwork for the story’s argument that learning a new language can bring about a perspective change and teach people to see the world differently.
Themes
Over the winter, Ovid convinces Ryzak to bring the Child back to the village next time they see him. Ryzak asks the shaman for assurance that whatever nature spirits raised the child will not haunt them for stealing him away. Ovid argues that the Child is merely a boy, and Ryzak claims to agree, so as to seem as sensible as Ovid. Secretly, Ovid believes the Child is more than an “ordinary boy.”
Ryzak desires to emulate Ovid, just as Ovid desires to emulate Ryzak. This suggests that not only is the difference between them educational for Ovid, revealing an alternative way of life, it is also educational for Ryzak, presenting a more rationalistic and modern way of living that he finds intriguing.
Themes
Ovid’s garden of wildflowers blooms in the spring and he spends time tending and feeding them, making them stronger. The women in the village think he is a fool, wasting his time on something that has no utility. The women don’t wear ornaments or jewelry; everything they do and make serves a purpose. Ovid regards his flowers as his sole form of “play,” but realizes this concept is entirely foreign to the villagers. While play and frivolity were the mainstays of Ovid’s former life, the villagers have no concept of something being free of utility, ungoverned by “its own nature.” Ovid thinks, “My little flowerpots are as subversive here as my poems were in Rome.” He imagines they will bring change, that someday one of the women will stop to smell them and see that she enjoys them.
Ovid’s garden represents playfulness as the healthy form of frivolity. Although the village women are hardy and good at survival, their practicality robs them of their ability to enjoy life, thus condemning severe utilitarianism. Although Ovid gives up his former utterly frivolous lifestyle, the small practice of planting flowers remains an important way for Ovid to recognize beauty and foster a sense of enjoyment. Ovid’s playful flowers don’t stop him from doing his duty or being productive, but add a touch of beauty to his work instead, thus representing a healthy balance of playfulness and practicality.
Themes
Summer ends and the hunters go searching for the Child in autumn. Ovid remarks that he is too cowardly to participate in the capture. The men chase the Child through the birchwoods on horseback until they exhaust and corner him. He looks terrified. When they take the Child, he kicks and bites so they have to bind him, and he lets out an inhuman howl.
Ovid’s inability to participate in capturing the Child—since doing so seems ruthless, even if it is Ovid’s own idea—and the trauma it seems to cause the boy suggests that bringing the Child into human society may not be a good idea after all.
Themes
No one can touch the Child without him shrieking and thrashing, so they leave him bound beneath a tree while the shaman performs a ritual and sings. Ovid thinks the shaman’s voice quiets the Child, as if it draws out the his “wildness.” When the shaman finishes, the Child sleeps for several days straight while Ryzak carries him back to Tomis, slung across his horse like a deer. The villagers watch in awe as the hunters bring the Child into the village. “It is all to begin,” narrates Ovid.
The image of Ryzak carrying the Child like a deer they’ve just slain reflects the inhumanity of stealing the Child away from his home to bring him back to Tomis. Just as the hunters shoot a deer to feed themselves, Ovid’s request to capture the Child seems more for his own interests than the boy’s.
Themes
