The Knight in Rusty Armor

At the beginning of The Knight in Rusty Armor, the knight is literally encased in metal plate armor. Ostensibly merely the trappings of his profession, in this case, this physical armor symbolizes the intangible defenses that the knight—and all people—put up as protections against fear and doubt. This mental “armor,” however, can obstruct true self-awareness and growth, hiding one’s true self from others and thus obstructing one’s ability to reach one’s true potential.

When the king’s jester Gladbag sings, “We’re all stuck in armor of a kind. / Yours is merely easier to find” (9), he directly points to the knight’s literal armor as a symbolic representation of the metaphorical armor that everyone wears. The knight’s armor is easy to find because it is physically manifested on his body as plate armor. However, Gladbag’s assertion that “we” (humans) are “all” stuck in armor “of a kind” implies that this armor can take more than one form. He says this couplet right after the knight tells Gladbag he’d be singing “a different tune if you were the one stuck in here” (8). At first, the knight doesn’t understand that what Gladbag truly references when he says “armor” is symbolic, not literal, and only by working on intangible self-improvements can he be freed.