The Elephant Vanishes: Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Fragility in Rigidity

The narrator’s rigidity and inability to adapt to the new world he finds himself in suggests that rigidity carries the risk of fragility. The narrator is someone who sticks to routine because structure helps things go smoothly. He is calculating and logical. Each fact he presents about the case of the elephant flows logically to the next. He uses numbered lists to organize his thoughts and strives to understand everything about a situation by collecting and organizing any and all information relating to it. He not only believes the world to be an essentially pragmatic place but also that everyone else naturally shares this view. For the narrator, things are the way they are for a reason and he knows his place in the grand scheme of things. The editor, on the other hand, presents a more flexible point of view. She is curious about the narrator’s ideas but questions whether he is entirely right. She seems to adapt her understanding in response to new information.

The way each character reacts to the true story about the elephant’s disappearance pits their mindsets against each other and reveals a weakness in the narrator’s perspective. The editor hears the astonishing story and does not disbelieve it. The way she simply absorbs the information without it causing her distress shows her adaptability, and that adaptability makes for resilience. The narrator, on the other hand, becomes completely disillusioned. His rigid worldview makes him unable to adapt to the knowledge that something completely inexplicable and illogical has occurred. He loses his motivation in life and is overtaken by malaise. In a sense, the incident breaks him. The narrator’s breakdown suggests that a worldview rooted in rigidity can make a person too fragile to cope with truly unexpected events.

Loneliness in the Aftermath of Loss

The incident of the vanishing elephant shows the profound loneliness that may occur after something is forever lost. The narrator’s description of the now-abandoned elephant house at the end of the story symbolizes the loneliness he feels. There was once something special and interesting in this spot, but now there is nothing, and that absence creates a profound sense of alienation. But the narrator cannot simply forget about the elephant like the townspeople do because of what he witnessed the night the elephant vanished. What he saw makes no sense and the narrator struggles to reconcile or even describe it. The utter senselessness of the loss of the elephant represents the confusion and dismay all people feel when they unexpectedly lose someone or something important. The inexplicability of the elephant’s disappearance in turn causes the narrator to lose his very sense of reality.

Because of what he witnessed that night at the elephant house, the narrator’s entire worldview is upended. The order and logic he so deeply abides by has been exposed as a mirage. He finds he can no longer relate to the rest of the world as he once did and his interest in life fades. His failure to reach out to the editor again suggests that he fears something could go wrong or become “off-balance” as with the elephant and his caretaker, and the promising relationship could simply vanish. The loss of the elephant causes the narrator to lose faith in the permanence of any relationship. The loneliness the narrator feels over the elephant’s disappearance causes him to withdraw from others and makes him feel even more alone in a world that no longer makes any sense.

The Illusion of Logic

The elephant’s disappearance shatters the illusion of logic that shapes the narrator’s worldview and challenges the notion that everything has a reasonable explanation. The narrator believes in pragmatism as an important organizing principle. In his work marketing kitchen appliances, he emphasizes the practicality of each part of the kitchen and how each appliance works with another. He harps on the importance of balance and unity. For the narrator, everything has a specific purpose, and creating a balance between each individual thing makes for overall harmony in life. Viewing things in this way allows the narrator to communicate the value of his goods to customers and to sell more appliances. He uses a similar approach in other areas of his life. His daily routine never changes, and he uses numbered lists to explain things because they present the facts in an orderly and logical manner. He keeps a scrapbook of elephant news so he can have a complete understanding of what is happening from beginning to end.

The disappearance of the elephant upends all this strict order. It makes no sense. There is neither a reason nor an explanation for it. The result for the narrator is total disillusionment. The world goes on, but the narrator can no longer be a part of it because he now knows that there are some things that have no explanation. He must recognize that his deep belief in logic is simply a useful way to frame the world around him so that it makes sense. In other words, logic is an illusion people create to help them cope with their confusion.

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