The Knight in Rusty Armor

“We’re all stuck in armor of a kind.

Yours is merely easier to find.”

This is a couplet—two rhyming lines—said by Gladbag, the king’s jester. In classic literature, especially in plays like William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night or As You Like It, fools are characters who can speak truth and wisdom to powerful characters of a greater social station than themselves. Gladbag immediately understands the symbolic importance of the knight’s armor, though the knight takes much longer to understand.

“‘I’ve been lost for months.’

‘All your life,’ corrected Merlin, biting off a piece of carrot and sharing it with the nearest rabbit.

The knight stiffened. ‘I didn’t come all this way to be insulted.’

‘Perhaps you have always taken the truth to be an insult,’ said Merlin, sharing the carrot with some of the other animals.”

This quotation characterizes both the eponymous knight and his mentor, the wise wizard Merlin. At the beginning of the novella, the knight is resistant to accepting that he needs to work on self-improvement. He takes simple observations as attacks on his character, illustrating his characteristic defensiveness at the beginning of the narrative. Merlin fulfills the wise man archetype, providing gentle corrections to the knight’s assumptions. As he feeds the animals, he also exhibits the type of interconnectedness with multiple species and people that the knight must eventually also achieve.

“The knight stood there for a moment, stunned, then groaned and slowly sank to the ground. He tried to choke back the tears, for knights in shining armor simply didn’t cry. However, his grief soon overwhelmed him.”

This quotation highlights the knight’s relationship with the theme of The Struggle With Personal Fears and Doubts. He has certain assumptions about what knights do and don’t do. His fear about transgressing those supposed ideals prevents him from freely feeling and expressing his emotions.

“‘Do it for yourself,’ suggested Merlin. ‘Being trapped in all that steel has caused you a lot of problems, and things will only get worse as time goes on.’”

This quotation introduces an important paradigm to the knight’s character growth and internal conflict. This is the first moment a character introduces the idea that the knight should shed his armor for his own sake, rather than just the ultimatum Juliet gave him. It also expands on the symbol of the armor, a physical barrier that represents emotional and mental barriers that harm himself and others.

“‘The fight will be learning to love yourself.’

‘How will I do that?’ asked the knight.

‘It will begin with learning to know yourself,’ answered Merlin.”

This quotation establishes a goal for the knight as he embarks on his physical quest up the Path of Truth and emphasizes The Importance of Introspection for Self-Improvement. This goal clarifies the symbolic journey that parallels the knight’s physical journey, establishing the character’s journey that underpins the allegorical framework of the story.

“One never finishes travelling the Path of Truth. Each time I come here, I find new doors as I understand more and more.”

With these words, the king teaches the knight an important lesson about self-improvement. The knight set off with a discreet goal: to shed his armor so that Juliet and Christopher wouldn’t leave him. The king’s words show that self-improvement doesn’t have an identifiable endpoint but demands a lifetime of work and conscious effort.

“His own pain and loneliness welled up in him. Soon he felt Juliet’s pain and loneliness, too. For years, he had forced her to live in a castle of silence. He burst into tears.”

The knight embraces the importance of introspection for self-improvement in the Castle of Silence to have his first big realization. He realizes how his actions from within the armor have harmed Juliet, contributing negatively to the events of her life. This quotation also demonstrates the type of realization that leads to tears of true emotion, which free the knight from the armor.

“As he pushed the door open, he asked Rebecca and Squirrel if they were going to leave as they had done before.

‘No,’ Rebecca replied. ‘Silence is for one; knowledge is for all.’

The knight wondered how the word pigeon had come to mean an easy mark.”

This quotation characterizes the knight’s animal companions, Squirrel and Rebecca, and develops the theme of The Role of Friends and Family in Personal Development. They stick with him through his journey, supporting him, but they also recognize the difference between what they can help with and what the knight must do alone. They also help him open his mind and shed his preconceived notions about various people and creatures, as the knight’s reflection about the colloquial use of the word pigeon illustrates.

“Then, a dreadful thought occurred to him: He hadn’t wanted to blame Juliet for all her wine drinking. Indeed, he needed her wine drinking so that he could say that everything was her fault—including his being stuck in his armor.”

This quote offers an example of the type of realization that comes with contemplation, emphasizing the importance of introspection for self-improvement. The knight realizes the depth of the harm he has caused Juliet, in which he enabled her destructive habits so that he could continue to avoid accountability for his behavior and its effects on the family.

“He studied the apple tree flourishing before him. He looked from it to Squirrel to Rebecca to Merlin. Neither the tree nor the animals had ambition, and Merlin’s ambition was obviously from his heart. They all looked happy and well nourished; all were beautiful specimens of life.”

This quotation illuminates another aspect of the theme of the role of friends and family in personal development. Though they cannot tell the knight what to do to improve himself, Squirrel, Rebecca, and Merlin can model positive examples of behaviors that the knight can observe and draw inspiration from.

“The knight, not knowing what to do next, stalled for time. ‘What are you doing in the Castle of Will and Daring?’ he asked.

‘Can you think of a better place for me to live? I’m the Dragon of Fear and Doubt.’

The knight had to admit this dragon was well named. Fear and doubt were precisely what he felt.”

Though the knight deals with The Struggle With Personal Fears and Doubts throughout the novella, it is realized most fully as he battles with a dragon, an allegorical representation of fear and doubt. This quotation illustrates how both will and daring are required to confront and vanquish fear and doubt.

“I’m tired of figuring out what things mean. I’d much rather just sit here in this brook and relax.”

This quotation characterizes the knight’s struggles as he ascends the Path of Truth and admits that it is much easier to give up than to keep going on a difficult path. Getting to the “Summit of Truth” demands that one continuously strives to understand oneself and the surrounding world. This is much more difficult than “relaxing,” as the knight wants to do.

“‘I’m not nearly as afraid as I used to be,’ said the knight.

‘If that’s the case, then let go—and trust,’ said Sam.

‘Trust whom?’ the knight retorted hotly. He wanted no more of Sam’s philosophy. ‘Not whom,’ Sam replied. ‘It’s not a who but an it!’

‘It?’ asked the knight.

‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘It—life, the force, the universe, God—whatever you want to call it.’”

This quotation from the novella’s climax introduces the knight’s ultimate challenge. Now that he has gained introspection, self-knowledge, and the ability to overcome fear and doubt, he must use all those skills to embrace the unknown. “Sam,” the voice of the knight’s true self, asks him to trust some sort of higher power in this embrace of the unknown. With Sam’s final comment, the novella emphasizes the idea that what one places one’s trust in is individually defined but always larger than oneself.