Stealing Freedom: What a White Horse Teaches Us About Modern Temptation and Desire

 Have you ever wondered how desire can change one's self?

Well this story, The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse talks about it, introducing two boys, Aram, Mourad and a majestic looking white horse that will show us the direct effect desire can have in your actions and reasoning.

Desire has a way of testing our moral compass, making us take the hard decision to choose between our integrity, and human fullfilment.

Everything started with a Horse.

When I read the story for the first time, there was this event that caught my attention at the start of the story, Mourad, one of the two boys, stole a beautiful white horse in order for him and Aram (second boy) to ride it and experience what it is like to be free, this may have been an act out of their need for freedom, the search for joy, I also think it most probably was related to their situation of poverty, not letting them enjoy their lives that plentifully as said in this quote from the story: "Well it seemed to me that stealing a horse for a ride was not the same thing as stealing something else, such as money. For all i knew, maybe it wasn't stealing at all." (pg.195).

After this event and reading the book I started to realize something much deeper, and that is that the horse might be a clear as sunlight example of symbolism, representing that need of the boys for freedom, joy, and compassion, also as a way to directly test their integrity by letting mourad choose between the long wanted freedom, joy and his integrity, which he of course chose freedom and joy.

To explain it in a more clear way. In the story, the horse acts like a temporary escape valve, because it gives them a brief taste of freedom and beauty that makes living in their hard and difficult situation bearable at the least.

A connection that i could find in the story to real life is that the integrity vs. desire theme is about the same as piracy vs. integrity in the digital world, as in both people justify their actions by saying that the wanted to experience (thing) themselves and they arn't hurting anyone.

Maybe they didn't steal the horse out of malice, but innocence

In conclusion is that I feel like all this situation could have been an act out of innocence instead of malice, of course, at first look you could think it was malice that powered the action but looking it at another angle, maybe Aram and Mourad just wanted to explore the beautiful world and experience freedom first-hand, it was definitely a wrong thing to do, don't take me wrong, but it's hard to not feel bad for them to try and live their lives and having the fun they need to survive while they live in extreme poverty.

And you, yes you, what would you do in Aram and Mourad's, place? would you have stolen the horse? Done nothing? Or other things? 

Leave your responses in the comments!