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The Painting
In The Fall, the little-ease represents the psychological torture the narrator suffers upon realizing his own lack of goodness and innocence. A “little-ease” is a medieval torture device, a jail cell large enough to fit one person but too small for that person to stand or lie down. The narrator, trying to explain his emotional and existential pain to his listener, compares the physical torture that the little-ease inflicts on prisoners to his own psychological “imprisonment” by the knowledge of his moral failings and his simultaneous overwhelming egotism, where his knowledge prevents him from forgiving himself and his egotism prevents him from simply accepting his failings. Through this comparison, the little-ease comes to symbolize the intensely painful Catch-22 of human egotism and human self-knowledge: we are unable to stop wanting to think well of ourselves even though we know too much to think well of ourselves.
The Little-Ease Quotes in The Fall
The The Fall quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Little-Ease. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Pages 97-118
Quotes
I had to submit and admit my guilt. I had to live in the little-ease. To be sure, you are not familiar with that dungeon-cell that was called the little-ease in the Middle Ages. In general, one was forgotten there for life. That cell was distinguished from others by ingenious dimensions. It was not high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down in.
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The Little-Ease Symbol Timeline in The Fall
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Little-Ease appears in The Fall. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 72-96
...method until later. Then he tells the listener he must explain about “debauchery” and “the little-ease” before finally revealing the meaning of “judge-penitent.”
(full context)
Pages 97-118
...could not avoid his fate: he would spend the rest of his life in the “little-ease”—a Medieval torture device, a jail cell so small that the prisoner could neither stand nor...
(full context)
