In Chap­ter Thir­ty-Six of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on their con­tentious rela­tion­ship with Camp­bell, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ing his ten­den­cy to demand silence when he is angry. The nar­ra­tor pos­sess­es a unique abil­i­ty to pro­voke Campbell’s anger, often find­ing a bit­ing com­ment that trans­forms his mild irri­ta­tion into out­rage. Despite this, there is a deep­er strug­gle with­in the nar­ra­tor, who sup­press­es a tor­rent of unsaid words. Each unex­pressed thought is likened to a painful object lodged inside, illus­tra­tive of a buildup of frus­tra­tion.

The metaphor of words as sharp, painful objects cap­tures the emo­tion­al tur­moil the nar­ra­tor endures. These unspo­ken thoughts twist and con­tort with­in, cre­at­ing a sense of agony as they remain pent up. The nar­ra­tor imag­ines that if they were to be cut open, all the words they have held back would spill out, com­par­ing their sit­u­a­tion to that of a whale that has ingest­ed too much debris and now embod­ies a col­lec­tion of human­i­ty’s refuse. This vivid imagery stark­ly illus­trates the weight of unex­pressed emo­tions and the detri­men­tal effects they have on the nar­ra­tor’s men­tal state.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates not only a strug­gle with com­mu­ni­ca­tion but also a broad­er sense of silent suf­fer­ing. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of Camp­bel­l’s anger with the nar­ra­tor’s inter­nal bat­tle empha­sizes the com­plex­i­ty of inter­per­son­al dynam­ics filled with unar­tic­u­lat­ed sen­ti­ments. The nar­ra­tor’s expe­ri­ence serves as a poignant explo­ration of the impact of words left unsaid, por­tray­ing a vis­cer­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of emo­tion­al pain and the desire to artic­u­late one’s true feel­ings in the face of con­flict.