Books Symbol Analysis

The books that the lawyer reads symbolize his mental state and philosophical outlook, as his reading choices track his evolving views on the nature and value of human life. When he initially agrees to the bet, the lawyer is young and callow, and as such the first books he reads are “light,” selected to pass the time. He later asks for more substantial literature, which ultimately frustrates him to the point that he stops reading entirely. When he eventually returns to reading, he focuses on philosophy, history, languages, and, finally, the Bible. Although he becomes learned over his fifteen years in captivity, he never acquires actual lived experience, and in a way, he remains just as naïve and innocent of the ways of the world as he was in the beginning of the story, still willing to speak authoritatively about things of which he has no experience (which is what got him into the bet in the first place). In a way, then, he has learned nothing. He claims to be “cleverer than [them] all” by the end, and he surely has acquired wisdom, but the books represent a naïve understanding of the world that is devoid of wisdom gained through experience.