Reflective Online Teaching: The Missed Love: Fromm’s Frameworks, the Narrator, and the Escape from Freedom

What if …

AI-generated picture by Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano in September 2025

Introductory Note to the Reader

This essay analyzes Knots (Nudos), a short story by my Nicaraguan friend and writer, Wilbert Salgado. As usual, Wilbert shared his writing with me and, while exchanging messages, he also told me a bit about the story’s genesis.

He explained that he initially wanted to include symbols in the narrative. However, my reading took a different turn: I delved deeper into the psychological dimension of the plot, guided by the theoretical frameworks of Erich Fromm.

I found that Fromm’s concepts in The Art of Loving (1956) and Escape from Freedom (1941) were particularly useful in examining the narrator’s failures, contradictions, and inner struggles, which become central to understanding the outcome of the story.

The Missed Love: Fromm’s Frameworks, the Narrator, and the Escape from Freedom

Abstract

This paper analyzes the narrator in Wilbert Salgado’s short story Knots (Nudos) using Erich Fromm’s frameworks from The Art of Loving (1956) and Escape from Freedom (1941). Fromm’s four elements of love—care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge—reveal the narrator’s inability to cultivate mature love. Simultaneously, Fromm’s three mechanisms of escape—authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity—help explain the narrator’s avoidance of authentic freedom and responsibility. The analysis concludes that the narrator’s silence, conformity, and self-sabotage lead to unfulfilled love, illustrating the psychological costs of failing to embrace positive freedom.

Keywords: Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, Escape from Freedom, Love, Conformity, Psychological Analysis, Nudos, Wilbert Salgado

Resumen

Este trabajo analiza al narrador del cuento Nudos de Wilbert Salgado a través de los marcos teóricos de Erich Fromm en El arte de amar (1956) y El miedo a la libertad (1941). Los cuatro elementos del amor propuestos por Fromm—cuidado, responsabilidad, respeto y conocimiento—evidencian la incapacidad del narrador para cultivar un amor maduro. Asimismo, los tres mecanismos de evasión—autoritarismo, destructividad y conformismo automático—explican su tendencia a evitar la libertad y la responsabilidad auténticas. El análisis concluye que el silencio, el conformismo y la autodestrucción del narrador lo conducen a un amor no consumado, mostrando las consecuencias psicológicas de no asumir la libertad positiva.

Resumo

Este artigo analisa o narrador do conto Nudos de Wilbert Salgado a partir dos referenciais teóricos de Erich Fromm em A arte de amar (1956) e O medo à liberdade (1941). Os quatro elementos do amor definidos por Fromm—cuidado, responsabilidade, respeito e conhecimento—revelam a incapacidade do narrador de desenvolver um amor maduro. Da mesma forma, os três mecanismos de fuga—autoritarismo, destrutividade e conformidade automática—explicam a sua evasão diante da liberdade e da responsabilidade autênticas. A análise conclui que o silêncio, a conformidade e a autossabotagem do narrador resultam em um amor não realizado, ilustrando os custos psicológicos de não abraçar a liberdade positiva.

Love, from Erich Fromm’s perspective, is not a passive or automatic state but an art to be cultivated. In The Art of Loving, Fromm (1956) argues that love involves four interdependent elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. As he explains, “Care, responsibility, respect and knowledge are mutually interdependent. They are a syndrome of attitudes which are to be found in the mature person” (Fromm, 1956, p. 33). Similarly, he insists, “To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge” (Fromm, 1956, p. 36).

Parallel to this, in Escape from Freedom (1941), Fromm explores how individuals react to the burden of freedom: the anxiety that comes with having one’s life in one’s own hands. He identifies three primary mechanisms of escape: authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity. These are responses to the fear that freedom brings, fear of isolation, responsibility, and the challenge of being oneself without the anchoring of established roles (Fromm, 1941).

In what follows, I will examine how the narrator in Wilbert Salgado’s short story, Knots (“Nudos” in Spanish) fails to express his love directly, and that his way of behaving can be better understood through both frameworks proposed by Fromm: where the narrator, whose name is no known, falls short in fulfilling the elements of love, and how his behavior corresponds to escape mechanisms from freedom and commitment though he justifies his path in life as a result of his so-called object of love.

The Narrator’s Shortcomings under The Art of Loving

Fromm (1956) holds that to love productively, one must exercise the capacities of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. The narrator in Wilbert’s story demonstrates many classic failures in these dimensions:

Care:	Instead of actively attending to the emotional reality of the beloved, by expressing affection, by being open, the narrator hides behind gestures and indirect acts. The love “strangely” expressed by our male voice in the story does not manifest in caring acts that affirm the beloved in her living reality.
Responsibility:	In Fromm’s sense, responsibility is more than duty; it is a “voluntary act, which originates in my own response to the needs, expressed or unexpressed, of another human being” (Fromm, 1956, p. 41). The narrator in the story avoids the responsibility of confession, of facing the possibility of rejection. His success in life (“sports, art, etc.”) is presented as owing to her inspiration, but this does not substitute for being responsible toward her as a person who deserves honest communication and to know whether she is loved.
Respect:	Respect requires recognizing the other’s individuality, allowing her to be herself, to grow on her own terms. The narrator’s silence could be seen as a failure of respect: rather than seeing her as someone with her own desires and agency, he treats her as an object of longing, rather than a partner in mutuality, someone who can be approached and felt. Wilbert’s narrator is rather disrespectful to the person he attests to have loved.
Knowledge:	According to Fromm, “Respect is not possible without knowledge; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge” (1956, p. 36). The narrator’s understanding remains superficial enthusiasm, admiration, perhaps wishful fantasy and does not penetrate deeply into her inner life. The narrator in the story chooses to stay away from her and behave in a way he expects her beloved to decode the messages he is not able to openly express.

Because the narrator fails significantly in these four areas, Fromm would say his love remains unfulfilled, more a longing or ideal than a mature practice. And if we try to see how the situation through the girl’s lenses, she is not being cared, shown responsibility and respect, and understood in her need to know whether she is loved or not.

Freedom, Fear, and Escape: From Escape from Freedom

Fromm (1941) draws a distinction between negative freedom (“freedom from” older bonds and constraints) and positive freedom (“freedom to” realize one’s individuality, to act spontaneously and authentically). The narrator seems to experience something like negative freedom: the possibility to act, the ability to choose; yet he does not, or perhaps cannot, use that freedom in a way that brings authentic connection between both.

The result in terms of hidden emotions among the text lines is anxiety, isolation, and ultimately, avoidance. The narrator escapes the burden of love and confession by keeping everything internal, hoping that indirect acts suffice, preserving the illusion of possibility rather than risking the reality of rejection.

The Three Mechanisms of Escape and the Narrator

Applying Fromm’s (1941) three mechanisms of escape, we can see how the narrator’s behavior aligns:

1. Authoritarianism: In authoritarianism, the individual seeks to relieve the burden of freedom by submitting to another’s will or attempting to dominate others. The narrator does not explicitly submit to an external authority, but he submits to his own fear, letting it dominate his decisions. He surrenders his agency, choosing silence rather than speaking, making her beloved one to be uncertain of what he really feels for her.

2. Destructiveness: This involves the impulse to destroy others or oneself when one feels powerless. The narrator does not lash out, but there is a form of self-destruction: by refusing to act, he destroys the possibility of love, and of being loved by someone he clearly cared for. This subtle yet real self-sabotage extinguishes potential intimacy, allowing the opportunity to fade until he is later told by her beloved that she has married another man and borne his children and that she had stopped to wait for him long ago.

3. Automaton Conformity: This is perhaps the clearest mechanism in play in the story. Fromm (1941) defines this as the tendency to adapt one’s entire self to expected norms, losing individuality in the process. The narrator conforms in indirect ways: he does what is socially acceptable, performing in school activities, art, and athletics, letting achievement serve as proxy for self-expression. He avoids vulnerability, which would require stepping outside of conventional roles. His identity becomes wrapped up in external success rather than authentic self-revelation.

Of these three, automaton conformity seems to be the dominant escape mechanism, though elements of authoritarian submission (to fear) and self-destructiveness (through inaction) also appear in the story plot.

Integrating the Frameworks: Why the Love Fails

Taken together, The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom explain why the Knots narrator’s love cannot succeed as mature love. Because he does not act from a position of positive freedom, courageous self-expression and openness, he never fulfills the elements of love that Fromm (1956) asserts are necessary:

Without respect and knowledge of his beloved, his so-called care and responsibility for her “loved one” become blind.
Without taking the risk of vulnerability by opening his heart, the freedom intrinsic to love is never claimed enslaving him to isolation and solitude.
By escaping into conformity and submitting to his fear of opening himself, he avoids the very actions that would allow love to grow among the two of them.

Thus, the “love” between the two of them remains unconsummated, more about what could have been, or what might exist in fantasy, rather than what is real and tangible.

What Could Positive Freedom Look Like?

Fromm (1941, 1956) implies what the alternative would be:

Embrace positive freedom: It is important to accept that with freedom comes risk, and that love requires making oneself vulnerable, one way or another.
Practice the four elements of love: It is essential to cultivate knowledge of the other, respond willingly to the other person’s needs, care actively for his/her growth, and show respect by recognizing his/her individuality.
Reject escape mechanisms: It is crucial to resist conformity for comfort, refuse to let fear dictate silence, and act from one’s authentic self.

If the narrator in Salgado’s story plot had acted from this position, spoken his feelings, disclosed himself, accepted rejection, if necessary, he might have forged an authentic connection, and love might have sparked out of his vulnerability. Fromm would say that this is the only way mature, productive love is possible; however, the narrator chose otherwise.

Conclusion

Fromm’s two frameworks, The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom, offer a powerful lens for diagnosing what goes wrong in the narrator’s story. Failure is not in lacking desire, or aptitude for admiration, but in failing to practice love: in failing to act with knowledge, respect, care, and responsibility. At the same time, the narrator is evading the responsibility of freedom via escape mechanisms, especially automaton conformity, rather than embracing the discomfort inherent in authentic, mature love. Only by claiming that freedom, by stepping through fear, love can become what Fromm describes: an art, a practice, a power that unites while preserving integrity.