The goat
The goat is a literal goat - a four-legged domesticated animal - that appears in a single sequence in City of Last Chances as the property and, in the parlance of its owner, employee of Dostritsyn. It matters to the novel's texture not through any plot agency of its own but through the satirical inversion it enables: the animal is addressed with the language of a workplace, afforded a courtesy bowl of beer, and finally released from its leash in the manner of an employer granting a worker their independence. In that brief span, the goat becomes the vehicle for a joke about labour relations conducted between a man and a cloven-hoofed quadruped.
The creature's arc, such as it is, runs the length of a single chapter. It is introduced slightly drunk on the beer Dostritsyn has provided, stands as a mount while its employer conducts business outside the Anchorage, and then undergoes a metamorphosis into a barded destrier - a warhorse - at which point Dostritsyn lets go of the leash as though signing off a shift. The goat is thus both comic interlude and practical transition: it ceases to be a goat the moment it is needed as a horse, and the employer-employee script that framed its existence dissolves in the same instant.
The Term
Meaning
In this context "goat" denotes exactly what an outside reader would expect: a small, horned, domesticated caprine animal. What departs from ordinary usage is not the referent but the social frame wrapped around it. Dostritsyn does not treat the goat as livestock or as a beast of burden; he treats it as a subordinate staff member entitled to workplace amenities. The word "goat" in the passage therefore sits inside a vocabulary of employment - employer, considerate, leash read as protocol rather than husbandry - that belongs to an office, not a paddock. - ch 17
Usage
The only speaker of the relevant vocabulary is Dostritsyn, who refers to the goat's bowl of beer as evidence that "he can be a considerate employer" and frames the releasing of the leash as a procedural courtesy owed to a departing employee. The register is that of a middle-manager performing conscientiousness for an invisible HR department, and its absurdity is the point: the language of mutual obligation is applied, without qualification, to a creature that cannot read a contract. - ch 17
History
City of Last Chances
The goat appears in a single sequence in which it is identified as the property and employee of Dostritsyn, who has sent it a bowl of beer outside the Anchorage on the grounds that "he can be a considerate employer" - ch 17. The animal is described as slightly drunk at this point, a consequence of the beer Dostritsyn has provided - ch 17. Midway through the same chapter, the goat undergoes a metamorphosis, becoming a barded destrier; at the moment of transformation Dostritsyn releases its leash - ch 17. The employer-employee framing, with a bowl of beer treated as a workplace courtesy and the release of the leash as a matter of proper protocol rather than mere animal handling, is sustained throughout the brief appearance - ch 17.
Relationships
- Dostritsyn - The goat is Dostritsyn's property and, in his formulation, his employee. He provides it a bowl of beer outside the Anchorage as a workplace courtesy, walks it on a leash, and releases that leash at the moment of its transformation into a destrier, framing the gesture as protocol rather than animal handling. The bond is entirely one-directional and comic; the goat never speaks or acts independently of Dostritsyn's management. - ch 17
Notable Quotes
- "he can be a considerate employer" - Dostritsyn, City of Last Chances, ch 17
Tags
- mount · #transformation · #employee