Leave If You Can

When I first read the essay “Leave If You Can” by Henry W. Paige, I immediately felt a sense of comfort from the familiar and homey diction that Paige used to evoke a sense of nostalgia that all of humanity naturally associates with home.  Then I began to see Paige’s broader and deeper purpose of humanity’s tendency to become too attached to a location or place and in return to be held back by this attachment.  I found myself very intrigued and drawn to this concept as he discussed it.  Near the beginning of the essay Paige creates a character that remarks that he is a “prisoner here” in his home town.  By using this metaphor of the expected American man who is tied to his hometown by obligations and principle but claims of a great desire to escape, Paige develops his theme of the hypocrisy behind humanities desire to branch out and yet being too fearful to actually do so.  One of Paige’s final remarks is that man is a “prisoner of place.” This singular phrase enveloped the entirety of the essay in my interpretation.  I agree with Paige’s notion that man should branch out among their own horizons both physically and mentally so that we do not allow ourselves to become too attached or stuck in our own perspectives.