Thursday, October 7, 2010

Episode Two


As we learned in the first episode, the sock serves as a metaphor for our own existence. In this episode that metaphor is explored further and, indeed, expanded upon.

Ndbag tells us that he really likes socks. It's tempting to take this statement at face value; we all like socks, after all. Perhaps we're simply being told that Ndbag is like us; that we are all, at heart, boogymen.

As we read on, though, we discover that such an interpretation is far too simplistic.

Consider the phrase 'om nom nom'; is Ndbag saying this simply because he's enjoying the sock? Or could it be that he is he telling us something about the interconnectedeness of us all? By consuming the sock -- and therefore the self -- Ndbag is reminding us of the immanence of our own consciousness. But the sock itself, an item that keeps our toes warm while being trod underfoot, serves as stark warning that the self as an entity is subservient to the gestalt. The universal expression of satisfaction with consumption -- om nom nom -- serves to remind us that the the immanent self is something shared by us all. We may be individuals, but together, we are humankind.

This is brilliantly encapsulated in the last panel. By internalising the self on a daily basis, and by describing this action by adapting an apparently-trite phrase familiar to us all, Ndbag mocks hubris of the self. The self's immanence is a bathetic shadow; the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

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