A Piano in a Cage

The first thing the jurors do when they get to the gym is explore, and it certainly is a gym worthy of exploring! Moving past the shoddy construction of the place, the most curious object in the room hangs - ignominious - in the corner. It will only play a brief role and even that only at the beginning of the movie. Usually, symbols only shed light on some aspect of the plot, this one tells the entire story of the jurors dilemma in the gym. And it is the jurors themselves who interpret the symbol that will dictate their night: the piano in the cage.

The reasons they imagine for the bars are logical. Perhaps the piano is kept in bars to protect the children from being hurt by it. There certainly are plenty of children who could find a way to get hurt by a piano. The next idea is that the cage might protect the piano from the children. This explanation is even more reasonable, it's like the book considered so valuable that no one ever touches it, much less reads it. While logical, the reasoning is never enough for the jurors or the audience to be confused into thinking that a piano should be in the cage. Because they recognize the real purpose of a piano. This piano is not only difficult to play but impossible to tune while it hangs in a cage. So, the piano will not only be useless but it will also get worse with age. And so the jurors laugh. Indeed, it is laughably clear that a piano in a cage does no one any good. So, why is this less obvious when it comes to men?

As the jurors move from thinking they are protecting an innocent world from the criminal boy to the idea that they might need to protect the innocent boy from a criminal world, they nearly forget the lesson of the piano. The purpose of a person's life is not to be safe, it's to live, to make choices, to be your own master. They seem to forget that as jurors they only have control over this boy's life insofar as they are justified by the law, legally they have no right to imprison him, even it is for his own good. That is what the war in heaven was all about; spirits fought to determine whether or not a person should be controlled for the sake of their own salvation. In 12, the boy should be informed of what he faces on gaining freedom but he should not be thrown in a cell for a crime he didn't commit merely to preserve his life, while, at the same time, denying him any purpose in it. And that's the lesson of the piano. Protection that allows only survival - nothing more - renders a person as useless as a piano locked away in a cage.