Fantasy of Attempting to Attack a Guard

The Fantasy of Attempting to Attack a Guard is the Unnamed protagonist’s imagined response to a courtroom experience he regards as another institutional defeat. The scene sets a violent impulse against physical and psychological paralysis: he pictures attacking a guard and freeing the prisoners, yet cannot make his arms move. The contrast makes the episode a measure of his powerlessness, not an actual prison uprising.

Background in Custody

The fantasy follows a hearing in which the Unnamed protagonist stands while the charges are read but can scarcely take in their meaning. He pleads not guilty, then receives paper and a pencil from his appointed defense counsel, who instructs him to write down questions rather than speak during testimony. The protagonist does not know the lawyer’s name and quickly assumes that the man has already failed him. He resolves to listen for discrepancies himself and note anything his counsel overlooks.

The judge denies a motion to dismiss. The protagonist experiences the proceedings that follow as an extended failure of representation: in his view, his lawyer lets matters pass without meaningful intervention. After he is led back to his cell, that courtroom grievance has not settled into a clear plan. He sits with heavy, aching eyes while his body seems to retain energy and seek an object for action. The imagined attack emerges at the point where frustration and a demand for movement meet.

The Imagined Attack

As he tries to think back over the day, the Unnamed protagonist imagines that he should have seized the guard who opened the cell door that morning. In the fantasy, he would release the other prisoners and set off a revolt against the uniformed officers. The imagined target and purpose are explicit, but the scene remains an unrealized possibility: the text does not describe him attacking anyone or attempting an escape.

The imagined movement is itself obstructed. He sees his arms moving with extreme slowness, far from the guard, and strains to make them act faster. His body twists as if to propel them, but the effort changes nothing. The fantasy thus stages a failed action from within: intention is present, but the body cannot carry it out. The violence remains in thought, and the imagined revolt collapses before it can begin.

Return to Physical Reality

The scene turns back to the cell when the protagonist feels a tingling in his hand and realizes it has fallen asleep. His arm slips from his face; he opens his eyes to the overhead light, sits up, and goes to the sink to splash water on his face. These actions mark the boundary between the imagined attack and his actual condition. The guard has not been seized, the cells have not been opened, and the protagonist remains in custody.

His attention then shifts to a blemish on his cheek, which he examines and touches before returning to the bunk. The small, immediate concern replaces the scale of the fantasy with a physical detail he can inspect but not resolve. He is unsure how long he has slept and concludes that the distinction hardly matters: meals and occasional showers give the days a routine, while the always-lit cell makes the time of day difficult to tell. The failed fantasy gives way not to release, but to the prison’s continuing sameness.

Relation to His Institutional Grievance

The episode belongs to a wider pattern of distrust. In his political writing, the Unnamed protagonist argues that obscure or archaic laws give police opportunities to harass ordinary people and that officers may use their authority to settle personal grievances. In a later courtroom passage, he contrasts the severe consequences he associates with minor theft and prolonged pretrial detention with the advantages available to defendants who can afford expensive lawyers. These are his claims about the system, not findings established by the narrative.

That grievance gives the cell fantasy its immediate context: he sees himself as facing both police authority and a legal process that has not protected him. Yet the fantasy offers no practical remedy. The courtroom has ended without the dismissal he wanted; his counsel appears ineffective to him; and his imagined counterattack is halted by his own bodily incapacity. The episode therefore presents rebellion as an impulse produced by confinement and perceived injustice, while keeping its outcome firmly within the protagonist’s imagination.