This Week's Contemplations

Since I missed the class discussion for three stories this week, I’m going to write a little bit about each of them. These stories are “Battle Royal,” “Shiloh,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

I must begin with “The Yellow Wallpaper” because it was my favorite. I really enjoyed the author’s description of the wallpaper as it was an extremely effective personification of the wallpaper as a mysterious, intoxicating, and creepy force rather than just a form of decoration. With a smell that is described as “creeping,” “hovering,” “skulking,” “hiding,” and “lying in wait,” the wallpaper continues throughout the story to haunt the narrator, who says that the paper looks to her “as if it knew what a vicious influence it had” (427, 432). As the story goes on, the narrator becomes convinced that there is a woman trapped in the wallpaper – just as the narrator is trapped in that room. This seems to just be a similarity among the two at first, but in the end of the story, it becomes clear that the woman in the wallpaper and the narrator are the same person; the narrator says after she has supposedly freed the woman from the wallpaper, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night.” At this point, it has become clear that the narrator invented the woman behind the wallpaper – possibly without her own awareness– as a representation of how confined she felt by her husband. She felt helpless and trapped, and she focused all of her attention so intently on the wallpaper that, in her mind, she became its prisoner.

“Shiloh” is a classic example of a story about two people who realize that they have grown apart. Leroy is a truckdriver whose recent bad accident has left him at home and made him realize that his life desperately requires some reevaluating; as he says, he “has the feeling that [he and his wife] are waking up out of a dream together – that they must create a new marriage, start afresh” (605). Although he aspires to make some big changes, his focusing entirely on building a log house limits his potential for change; even when both his wife, Norma Jean, and her mother, Mabel, tell him that his dream is impractical, he continues to cling to his idealized vision that this new house will provide the new start that he and his wife need. Norma Jean, on the other hand, does not stop changing throughout the story. She moves from obsession to obsession and throws herself entirely into each of her endeavors; from working out to relearning piano to learning to write, she continues to challenge herself to try new things and to excel at them. Thus, in the end, the two of them discover that they can no longer live happily together.

“Battle Royal” is a story about race relations in the 1940s written from the perspective of an intelligent and well-educated African American man reminiscing about his youth. Throughout his young life, the narrator was haunted by the words of his grandfather to “overcome [white people] with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open” (527). Although he impressed his white acquaintances with his intelligence and his obedience, he was always wondering if that was really what his grandfather wanted. After the “battle royal” among the African American men at the conference of white people and their public humiliation with the trick of the electrocuting mat covered in coins, the narrator realizes that although the white men appreciate his intelligence and his potential to be a good influence and leader for his race, they do not actually respect him. He realizes that no matter how he behaves, they will never treat him as an equal. Thus, he comes to the conclusion that his grandfather meant for him to conform to the white men’s wishes only if he has something to gain from it because white men will never be grateful for anything he does nor will they bestow anything upon him unless it benefits them. (693)

Understanding Sammy

Our class discussion this week on the character of Sammy in John Updike’s “A & P” led me to explore the topic further because I wanted to see if, after reading it a second time, I, like other members of my class, would see greater meaning in Sammy’s final decision to quit his job at the A & P. After reading it the first time, I came to the conclusion that Sammy chose to quit his job on a whim primarily in order to impress the young girls clad in bathing suits. I came to this conclusion because, although from the beginning it is apparent that Sammy does not particularly enjoy his job, it seems that he is used to it and appreciates the routine – and also I think he does enjoy being able to observe people and make witty comments to himself for his own amusement. The idea of quitting seems to come up very suddenly and the timing of it seems to be entirely based on the fact that the girls, the causes for his supposed heroism, are leaving and nearly out of earshot.

What I didn’t consider, though, is that maybe the effect that the girls had on him was more than just a superficial appreciation. Their unconventionality causes him to reevaluate his boring, routine job with an uninspiring, unremarkable manager. He admires the girls’ (especially “Queenie’s”) boldness in walking into the supermarket wearing their bathing suits fully knowing that all eyes will be on them. The more he watches them, the more he comes to regard them with respect, and once the manager reprimands them, sympathy. Sammy identifies with the girls when the manager confronts them; he thought, “That’s policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency.” Sammy is developing a sincere disgust for the narrow-mindedness of his manager, and this feeling, along with the desire to be accepted by the girls who brought about this revelation, causes him to act without warning.

This idealistic and self-righteous feeling that the girls evoke in him does not last long as evidenced by his comment in the middle of quitting that shows his developing feeling of self-doubt: “It’s true, I don’t [want to do this to my mom and dad]. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture, it’s fatal not to go through with it” (19). He took a stand only to realize that it wasn’t the most logical path for him to take since reason told him that he needed this job. This slight feeling of regret hits him again after he exits the store as he sees that the girls whom he had hoped to impress are no longer there and he realizes “how hard the world was going to be to [him] hereafter” (19). Thus, I have discovered that although there was more than just a superficial, hormone-based reason for his sudden decision to quit his job, this decision was not founded on enduring practical reasoning, but rather a fleeting vision of there being more to life for him than just the monotony of the A & P (528).

Behind the Character of Cal in "Teenage Wasteland"

The story “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Tyler is one of a stereotypical teenager, Donny, who is struggling in school, testing his boundaries, and searching for independence. When Donny’s struggles are forced to the forefront by his school principal, Donny is sent to a psychologist who recommends Cal, the cool, laid-back tutor who prides himself on focusing on the spontaneous desires of the individual rather than on the individual’s responsibilities and who changes Donny’s life, although not for the better. The reader soon learns, far before Donny’s mother realizes, that Cal is not a beneficial influence on Donny because, although at first Donny’s attitude improves at the new respect and freedom that Cal free-handedly bestows upon him, Donny quickly takes advantage of the new freedoms that Cal negotiates from his parents so that his situation worsens. Cal, who is characterized through his dialogue with the other characters, is an essential character because his self-assured and easy-going manner contrasts the gravity of the situation and highlights the vulnerability and the fluctuating emotions of Donny’s mother.
When the character of Cal is first introduced, he appears to be an amiable and capable man who is passionate about helping troubled young students. He charms Donny’s mother with his calm and seemingly logical rhetoric and Donny with his easygoing nature. Cal quickly reveals himself to the reader as having Donny’s wants, not his needs, as his first priority. However, his charm and use of phrases like “don’t you understand” and “don’t you realize” distracts Donny’s mother from seeing the likely dangerous consequences from Cal’s first request to her: to basically abandon her role as Donny’s primary caregiver and to allow Cal to handle all of Donny’s affairs (38). Donny’s mother gets her first significant clue that Cal is not helping Donny when Donny’s teacher calls and voices her concern with Donny’s worsening grades. At first she becomes upset with Cal, but once she speaks to him, she once again is charmed by his calm explanation of the importance of placing Donny’s feelings first, and he assures her that an improvement in his grades will follow. Thus, she leaves this conversation with contempt for the teacher rather than for Cal, the true perpetuator of her problems.

The reason for Cal’s aversion to structure and establishment becomes apparent in the middle of the story when the reader learns that Cal had had a relationship in which he felt restrained. When Donny shares this detail with his mother, he describes Cal’s previous wife as a “controlling lady” who “didn’t understand him a bit” (39). This description of his previous wife is very similar to Cal’s attitude towards Donny’s school and towards Donny’s mother’s very involved parenting style. Cal describes these things as inhibiting Donny’s self-esteem, which is probably the way he felt about his ex-wife. Cal has thus taken it upon himself to free as many youth as possible from any situation that he identifies as oppressive. He is not even particularly concerned about being successful in this endeavor, as shown at the end of the story when Donny’s mother removes Donny from Cal’s program, and instead of disagreeing or disapproving, Cal simply admits his failure and blames Donny for it.

In this story, Cal serves to highlight the vulnerability of Donny’s family by taking their difficult situation into his hands and causing them to blindly trust his judgment even when it becomes clear that his philosophy is not providing the results that they were expecting or hoping for. Cal’s compulsion to rescue other people from the feeling of tyranny that he experienced in his marriage leads him to become involved in the lives of people who are feeling most helpless, who are looking for any possible solution to their problems. At first, it seems that Cal is worthy of their trust, but it soon becomes obvious that he is fulfilling a desire based on his own emotional needs and that the individual students’ results are not quite as important to him. Cal’s main concern is that he is living under the philosophy that being free to makes one’s own decisions is the most important part of life (691).