Peripheralia: The Noble Sympton Bearer

Abstract

In childhood games there is often a child standing on the periphery of the playground, who is called in by the more active members to play the passive supporting part in the drama. The child, usually a girl but not always, is ordered by the dominant brothers to be the nurse or mother in the plot. She is intuitively chosen by the other actors for her passive nature and grateful willingness to be included in childhood’s enaction of the play of life; the strong and the weak, the doers and the supporters.