ashion" (1051). His own fashion is, apparently, to live in willed ignorance of the facts. In another scene with Madame Chin Gallimard remains frozen in place as Song discusses the need for an appropriate child to present to Gallimard. He effectively removes himself from the action whenever the truth is being discussed. While this obviously reflects his physical absence at the time, it also clearly creates a parallel between his willed ignorance and his current behavior on the stage. He asks if she is gone and he freezes in place like an animal hoping not to be noticed. This play does, after all, represent Gallimard's own version of events and they could have been staged in such a way that he was not present at all. His half-presence in the scenes stands for his half understanding at the time the events took place.
He seeks to liberate himself from time and place by means of the memories he evokes from his prison cell. But the most powerfully expressed theme of the play is that he cannot do this at all. Even though he has the freedom of his imagination
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