The prisoner-slave in the stocks is what you might call a ‘captive
audience’ as he must humbly and respectfully listen to the female stranger
telling him all about her wonderful life with her wealthy and manly boyfriend, his
(and her) fantastic high-earning jobs, their opulent home which they jointly
own, their foreign travel plans, their favourite restaurants, the latest
blockbuster films she and her boyfriend have been to see, and their ambitious
and exciting plans for the future.
Of course, whilst she is telling the prisoner-slave all
this, she is well aware that he can enjoy none of the finer things in
life, being confined in the public stocks and compelled to kiss the feet of
passers-by as they go about their daily business in the town square. Indeed,
not only is the stranger-mistress aware of the stark contrasts between her
happy life and his miserable one, she positively delights in ‘rubbing it in’, laughing at
his inferiority vis-à-vis her and her boyfriend, and rejoicing in her superior
life.
The hapless prisoner-slave, meanwhile, must simply shut up
and listen to the pretty mistress go on and on about how much better her life
is than his as she mockingly feigns sympathy for his predicament, whilst doing
nothing to alleviate the pain in his ignobly confined neck. The slave’s only
small consolation is the close-up and very personal view that he gets of the
pretty mistress’s plain grey socktops from his ignominious ‘wooden window’!
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She has a captive audience for her detailed description of her happy life |
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The helpless prisoner-slave in the stocks has no choice but to listen to her gloating |
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He is fully aware, of course, that she 'gets off' on contrasting her superior life to his lowly life |
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But all he can do is humbly and submissively listen to the bright young woman's triumphalism... |
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...whilst studying and admiring the stitching in her plain grey bootsocks |
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On and on and on she spouts... |