Hair
The author seems almost obsessed with mention of hair. Really, it sometimes seems as if every character must have the state of their hair described. Everything becomes clear when the advice to the new man includes a warning to keep his hair short “Lest hair, over-ornamented with excessive treatment, reach the level of feminine excess.” It is important to understand that the very need for a new man derives from Nature killing off the original version because he had had begun acting too feminine, even to the point of suggested engagement of homosexuality. Short hair is a symbol of masculinity, make no mistake.
Demons and Monsters
The first act the new man must engage is taking on all the demons and monsters of the underworld who, jealous of his soul, conspired to attack him. The malevolence that characterizes these demons serve to make them symbols of the greatest evil. And the greatest evil—the most wicked of those things which caused wickedness—is deception. Among the particulars of the sins listed against them are that they confound truth with falsity, present a counterfeit face to the world, present to be sweet when they are really bitter and conceal their urge toward treachery as a march for peace.
The Mirror
The mirror allows those who cannot peer into the brilliant light of directly to see into it indirectly. And this indirect view through reflection presents an almost new world to the viewer now protected from the overwhelming aspects of the reality. The connection of the mirror as a reflection of an overpowering reality that is made safer yet still offering access to things unknown can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious seems to suggest the mirror is a symbol of literature and the way that it works as a representation of reality but one that keeps the reader at a safe distance.
The Soul
Nature and the Virtues are equipped enough to create the new man as one subject to the same flaws and frailties which so disappointed Nature that it led to the destruction of his precursor. Their goal is perfection and this can only be accomplished with the addition of a soul which is entirely the domain of God. God stitches together a soul made of the highest attributes of famous Biblical figures such as Abraham’s undying faith and the patience of Job. The soul thus is the symbol of the potential of man perfectibility.
Who’s the Boss?
The new man is created, he beats back the demons and monsters of the underworld and ends the tale situated the potential overlord of the earthly realm. And yet, the question lingers, is he really. A very long section after the soul has been attached and the new man awakens to his place in the world is comprised of each of the Virtues offering instruction in their own particular gifts as to how this new creature should behave. Such as, for instance, making sure his hair doesn’t reach an effeminate length. His soul may be the reflected glory of God, but literally everything else about the new man is the result of being told what to do and how to act by women. In this sense, the new man is the symbolic origin story of nearly every episode of an American sitcom revolving around a clueless husband who would seem almost incapable of dressing himself did he not have a wife to tell him how. The new man is, symbolically speaking, a reflection of the virtues of women.
