Listen to me because what I have to say is vitally important. It isn’t life or death. It is live or die. Maybe alive or dead. But it’s not meant to change anyone’s life. This isn’t one of those sentimental bullshit Hallmark cards. This isn’t an after school special. I’m not going to say, “Don’t just be—Do!” That would be ridiculous. Besides, I hate grammar. Even more than grammar, I hate cleverness that is based on it. Let me explain for those who don’t understand. To be is a verb that describes a state of being. Its conjugated forms are: am, is, are, was, were. There are other tenses, but there’s no need to get into those. It does not describe any action. It can describe a state of action, but the word itself is only a state. See-I just used “is,” an intransitive linking verb, that describes the noun “word” as something specific: “a state.” “Do,” describes action. Rather, it “helps” to describe action. Even when someone asks “How are you doing?” You say, “I’m doing fine/good/well/not so good/etc.” Not so good at what? Life, probably. Activism is for people who don’t know any better.
I wake up on Friday morning wanting to punch my roommate in the face, and I do. That’s how I end up in the hospital. I had never hit someone, closed fisted, in the face before. I’ve slapped people plenty of times, mostly because I was too afraid to punch. But not today. I punch him square in the mouth. Lucky for him, he is laughing like an idiot. Otherwise his teeth probably would have punctured both his lips. Instead, they puncture my hand. The knuckles hit those little yellow daggers and are stuck for a second. I can feel the incisors yanking out as he falls backward. It hurts. A lot.
The nurse at the hospital calls me an idiot. I thank him for his diagnosis and the stitches and go on my way. Jeremy is waiting for me in the lobby. He has a prescription in his hand. We don’t say anything to each other until we get in the car. Then we both jump in at the same time.
“IfDon’tyoueverevenstartcrazyfuckinIwillassholemurderyouif
WhatmeI’ll beat your face in next time,” Jeremy trails off after I stop.
“You’ll beat me in, will you?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I got eight stitches in my hand, and you got a prescription for some Tylenol.”
“No. Why did you hit me?”
“We’re not talking about that right now. Not unless you wanna add some morphine and maybe a leg cast to that piece of paper.”
Jeremy looks at me like he’s never seen me before in his life. Maybe I’m different. No, I’m not different. I will make no apologies. Six months ago, I did notice things beginning to spin. I decided to quit my job. I was tired of work.
“So, you’re like Ron Livingston in Office Space,” Jeremy said. We were playing Mario Kart when I pitched it to him.
“No.”
“So what is this then? It sounds like Peter.”
“Peter was tired of his bosses telling him what to do.”
“So that’s not why you’re quitting?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, why then? —Goddamn red shell!”
“Because this is just the beginning of—I don’t know what to call it yet. Something new.”
“Sounds like Peter, man.”
“Peter was tired of rules and regulations.”
“You’re not tire—damnit!” Jeremy threw the controller down. He’s terrible at video games. “You’re not tired of that?”
“No, I am,” I said standing and turning off the T.V. “What I’m doing is more than that though.”
“So what are you doing then?”
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”
We have to go to CVS before we go home so Jeremy can get his prescription. I go in with him and look at the cards. They have a category called “Any Occasion.” A card just because. I pick one up to read. On the front is a cartoon cat shrugging its shoulders with a bashful smile smashed on its face. The inside reads:
Don’t know why,
Just sayin’ hi!
Hi!
For some reason I feel sorry for the cat. Jeremy comes up behind me.
“They have magazines,” he says.
“Can you believe the nerve of these people?”
“What?”
“These cards.”
“Just forget it; let’s go. Damnit my mouth hurts.” He turns, putting his hand to his front teeth and rubbing. I follow him down the aisle.
“I’m just saying, what is the purpose of this card?” I still have it in my hand. “Who buys this?”
“No one probably—Jesus, what is wrong with you lately? Just let it go.”
I buy the card.
“There’s an envelope that comes with this,” the checker tells me.
“I don’t need it.”
Jeremy doesn’t notice until we get in the car.
“Is that what you bought? Two weeks without a job and you’re wasting what you have left on some card you’re not—what the hell are you going to do with that?”
Yes, it took me five months to grow the balls to quit my job. That’s not Peter at all.
“I don’t know yet. Hey, remember how I told you I didn’t know what I was doing six months ago?”
“Didn’t know six months ago? You don’t know now!”
“That’s not what—! That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean you said, what are you doing if it’s not the Peter thing, and I said, I don’t know but it’s something. Well, I decided. I’m quitting life.”
Jeremy laughs so hard that he pulls the car into opposing traffic, but quickly swerves back to avoid a not-too-happy Mustang.
“So you’re committing suicide?”
“No, that’s not it at all.”
“I’m sorry,” he says trying to control his laughter, “You just sound like a retarded sixteen-year-old. You know, one of those, like, really philosophical kids who thinks they have it all figured out. Oh! Like a drama kid! That’s it!”
I don’t say anything until he laughs it out a little.
“I’m just tired of—thiiiis,” I say waving my arms around.
“So you want to commit suicide.”
“No. I just—don’t want to do anything—but even that involves compliance to something—which is nothing.”
“Drama kid.”
“I’m done waking up to structure.”
“Oh! I know who you sound like! Brad Pitt from Fight Club! Or Edward Norton. You decide.”
“No, that’s not what this is. This isn’t some social experiment whatever thing. Tyler Durden wanted to spur social unrest. I don’t care about anyone else.”
“No, no! It makes perfect sense,” Jeremy said getting very excited, “That’s why you punched me! You wanna start Fight Club! Instead of working, you’re just going to—“
“Jeremy. Shut up. God, you sound like such a tool. We’re not starting Fight Club. That’s not what this is.”
“Well, you’re doing a really shitty job of explaining it.”
I don’t know how to explain it. Not at all. But I make the best attempt I can.
“You know that feeling you get when you’re driving by yourself? Like, you’re driving down the 605 or something. Traffic is terrible—just fucking—stay with me on this, okay? You’re driving. And you’re listening to The Get Up Kids or something that takes you back to when you first got interested in things other than what T.V. told you was cool. You’re just—just focusing so hard. Listening to every note, every word. You listen so intently that all of the sudden, you just turn the stereo off. And it’s silent in the car—no traffic noises, nothing. Now you’re really thinking. Just thinking about all the things you’re going to do. Whenever. Not things that you have to do, things you are going to do. And this feeling starts to rise in you; it’s like excitement, but better. It’s more than excitement. It’s longing. To be where you want to be. That’s what I want. All the time. You know what feeling I’m talking about?”
“No.”
“You are hopeless. Fucking hopeless. You wanna know why I punched you in the face? Because you never think about anything. You just do and never think. That’s why you suck shit at video games.”
“Look, I like watching those artsy, indie films as much as the next guy, or even you for that matter, but you’ve been sounding like one a lot these last few months. It’s kind of disgusting actually. You sound like you’re—like you’re just—trying way too hard. Is that what this is? Some kind of pretentious indie kid thing? Like, you want to be indie, but not, because everyone is indie now and so being indie is really not being indie? And, like, you just don’t know what you need to do to reclaim that indieness or something?” He waits for a response. “So really, the definition of indie sits with you in your lofty court of indie justice.”
“I don’t even know what you just said.”
“Of course not,” Jeremy says throwing his hands in the air and then letting them slap back onto the steering wheel.
“I’m just saying what you said has nothing to do with what I’m doing.”
He doesn’t respond.
We finally arrive back at the apartment. Jeremy walks ahead of me through the two rows of parking stalls and up the stairs. I saunter a bit. I remove the any occasion card from the small, plastic CVS bag, walk over to the dumpster and throw the bag away. I turn the card over and over in my hands.
When I walk in the front door, Jeremy is already in his room with the door shut. He is blasting The Get Up Kids. I walk into my room and sit down at my desk. It’s empty except for my computer, about a hundred crumpled receipts, this month’s unpaid bills, and a multitude of meaningless school assignments. I set the card upright and open on the back corner.
I walk down the short hall to Jeremy’s room and knock on the door. Then I pound. The music stops abruptly, and after a moment the door swings open.
“I just want to say—I’m not that sorry for punching you in the face, but I am just a little. I guess in the way that I should feel guilty for inflicting physical injury. Just think of it this way: If I hadn’t punched you, you probably wouldn’t have been listening to The Get Up Kids just now. Or had the opportunity to try and call me out as an indie fraud.”
“Which you are.”
“Not the point.”
“So then what is?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t seem to know much about anything anymore. “I think I’m going to call my old job back. They said they’d have something for me if I ever returned from finding myself.”
“That’s what you told them?”
“No, that’s what they said to me.”
“I mean, you told them you were finding yourself?”
“No. I said I was dissatisfied with their performance.”
“So you fired them?”
“In a way, yes.”
Jeremy cocks his head thoughtfully.
“I think I’m gonna call some people up and go bowling tonight. Cosmic bowling,” he says.
“Count me in.”
I walk back to my room, sit at my desk and pick up the card. I don’t feel sorry for the cat anymore. I respect him. To do without reason is impossible to defend. The only defense is just because. That takes courage. I want that.
VerveEarth
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Signs and Signifiers
I slump in the front seat of my car. A mist is beginning to descend, dampening the parking lot asphalt. The brick of the building goes from a dull pink to a deep orange. The 11:49 pm train is crossing the Gold Line, humming along the cables headed for the Mission St. station. Eleven minutes left until I have to be sitting at my phone. Eleven minutes left for me to just sit and be quiet. I keep my eyes closed, hoping that when I open them the clock will have jumped backwards. It never does. Every time I open my eyes it’s a couple minutes closer. I breathe deep, fly out of my car and into the back door of the building. I haven't seen the sun rise in five years.
The front room has been narrowed by obsolete phone equipment piled and collected over the fifty years the company has been in business. No one really knows why it hasn’t been thrown away, or at least organized to be displayed. Beyond the phone mausoleum lies the main hallway with the breakroom immediately to the left. Large windows display the inside. Four refrigerators, a couple vending machines and tables with plastic chairs. It’s a zoo exhibit.
I clock in before anyone stops to talk to me. My cubicle is littered with new memos. Marta is already at her phone answering calls in her awful tone. She's large, just as wide as the cubicle. She has a collection of five muu muus, at least I've only seen five, that she wears each week. Today it's midnight blue with orange birds-of-paradise. How she has continued to come in dressed like that without a word from our supervisor is a mystery to me. Once I wore jeans and he warned me that if I ever came in dressed like homeless jackass again, I'd be fired. From then on, it's been slacks and a tie. I make up for it by sitting down right at midnight. I never give anything more than I have to. Just enough to stay. Marta is always early and I resent her for it. I hate her for loving this.
“Thank you for calling TRM. This is Marta, how can I help you?” she says.
I drop into my chair and log on to my computer. I pull a sanitary wipe out of my satchel and wipe the ear grease off of my headset. I supposed to answer my first call before 12:01. The phone system comes on.
22 CALLS WAITING, the display reads. The second I hit Ready, the system will randomly route a call to me and I will most likely be speaking to someone across the country.
Marta pushes her chair back on the linoleum and stretches for a second between calls. She opens her mouth to yawn, creating multiple chins on her neck.
“How ya doin today Bobbo?”
“I'm fine, I say to her.”
“That's good, that's good.”
We have the same exchange every day. At the exact same time: 12:01 am. Marta grabs on to the sides of the cubicle and pulls herself back to the computer. She hits the Ready button on her phone system and takes a new call. Sounds like a Lego Catalog order. Who the hell orders Legos in the middle of the night?
I decide it's probably a good idea that I get started so I put my headset on and hit my Ready button. The Ready button is the gate. It is the plug in the damn. When you press that button, my supervisor told me in training, you are saying, yes I am ready to help someone. Yes, I’m ready for whatever is next.
“Thank you for calling TRM. My name is Robert. May I have your first name please?”
“Penny.”
“And your last name Penny?”
“Durham.”
“Okay Miss Durham, can I have the name and number of your store?”
“Corner Drug Store. There's no number. It's the only one I know of anyway.”
“Okay. Can I have the phone number?”
“Nine seven eight. Five nine eight. Five nine eight one.”
“Thank you Miss Durham--”
“Call me Penny, please.”
This is new. I can hear an urgency in her voice. Not the usual, I-want-my-copier-fixed-this-instant urgency.
“Okay, Penny. What can I help you with today?”
“Tell me why I'm talking to you, she says.”
I know everything there is to know about TRM copy and ATM machines. If you have ever had to deal with a grocery store copy machine, it was probably a TRM. Those aren't the only calls I take. If you call to order the LA Times, you could talk to me. Or you could talk to some woman in Ohio, pregnant with her fourth child, holding down this job just to feed herself and the other three not knowing how she is going to take care of the one growing inside her. But you would never know any of that. You only know that she can tell you all about the weekly specials and make a special note for the delivery boy to leave the paper on your porch, not in your driveway. If you call the 800 number from an infomercial, it could be me taking your order. I can tell you all about the new America's Test Kitchen cookbook, or the pill that will change your life and flush your colon. I'm lying mostly. But so is the man on the television. The information I have is just as abstract and general as what you, the consumer, hears from him. I can give you no more than what I'm given. Yes ma’am, the product is designed cleanse the body and make you feel happier and healthier than ever before. How does it work? Well why don’t you try it for sixty days and if you’re not completely satisfied, you can return and get a no-questions-asked refund! How does that sound?
So many people want to know more. That's how they get you. They snare you with generalities.
TRM is our biggest client. Customers call from Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Shoppers Drug Mart, 7-Eleven to tell me their copier is broken. There are only two types of people that call: young Southern girls, or male Indian immigrants. I can't understand the men most of the time. They get very upset with me and curse. The girls usually sound like they're daydreaming.
“You say you can't find the paper jam?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, that's right.”
“So you need a technician out right away?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“You say you want my hands all over you?”
“Yeah, listen is someone going to be out today? My manager is really on my ass about this.”
“Yes miss. We usually try to respond within forty-eight hours.”
“All right then.”
“Thank you for calling TRM.”
They don't know that I don't really work for the company they're trying to contact. And I'm not supposed to tell them. I am the Wizard of Oz, talking to you from behind my curtain. I am a road sign with subtext.
I pulled the curtain back once. I unchained this guy from the cave wall. He was blinded by his new knowledge. He didn't know what to do with himself.
“You mean to tell me that you don't work for this company?”
“No sir, I work for a company whom that company has hired to answer its customer service calls.”
“So you can't contact the warehouse?”
“No.”
“You can't get in touch with anyone who actually sells this shit?”
“No sir.”
“Oh--This--this is great. I'm gonna sue your company's ass back to the goddamn Stone Age is what I'm gonna do.”
“Sir, they're not my company.”
“Well whoever the hell it is better watch out. Because I'm coming. I am coming, goddammit.”
“Okay sir, anything else?”
“Yeah, one more thing: Kill yourself.”
“Thank you sir, have a nice day.”
I don't say anything for over a minute. I know because I watch the clock on the computer screen change from 12:04 to 12:05 and then to 12:06. I can hear her waiting for my answer.
“Is there someone else you should be talking to?” I say.
“No, but I knew that I would talk to you. A man named Robert,” Penny tells me.
“I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.”
“Look, can I try something? I'm going to hang up and call back, and if I reach you again, we'll know it was meant to be, okay?”
“Penny, I don't want to disappoint you, but I don't think you're going to get through to me again. Do you know how many--”
“There are fifteen call centers nation wide who handle calls for TRM. Furthermore, your call center, Peak Communications, handles calls for 700 clients. All the incoming calls are randomly routed and distributed between all the call centers and all the agents. You're probably only trained on twenty or so of those, which narrows it down considerably. Since it's the middle of the night where you are, there are probably only between twenty and thirty agents handling calls, right? Well assuming it's the same at all the other call centers, I'd say the chances are slim, but that's why it's important. I guessed the name of the person I would get on the phone. I dialed the number and said to myself, I am going to speak to Robert. And here we are.”
“So what does that mean?” I ask. I know this is meaningless, but I want to keep her on the phone as long as possible. She is a customer, after all, and no one is ever allowed to hang up on a customer. Ever. We have to sit and listen and wait until we hear click.
“Well it doesn't mean anything yet. Not until I call back and reach you again. Do you know where I am?”
“No, I haven't looked up your store's account yet.”
“I live in Massachusetts. Have you ever been back here?”
“No,” I admit sheepishly.
“You're in Los Angeles aren't you? I've never been there either. I've never been beyond the Appalachians.”
“And so, you're saying--”
“Here we are, two voices. Neither of us has ever been even remotely near the other. We've probably had completely different life experiences. Has anyone ever spoken to you before?”
“You're joking right? I talk to people every day, eight hours a day,” I tell her in the sort of curt tone that customers usually talk to me in.
“But do they speak to you?”
This is getting weird, I think to myself. I look at the clock and notice that we've been on the phone for almost ten minutes.
“I--I guess not. I mean not in a religious or philosophical--I don't believe I'm having this conversation.”
“Believe it,” she says like an evangelist.
“Look, people call. They have problems. I try to help them fix those problems. That's it,” I say
“No one has ever wanted to know who you are, where you're from, the last time you cried, the name of your first kiss, what you had for dinner?”
“Why would anyone want to know?” I say, almost out of patience.
“That's what you need to tell me,” she says.
“Penny, listen. Is there anything wrong with your copier? Because, if not, I should probably get on to other calls.”
“I'm going to call back. At five o'clock Pacific time. And if I get you, we'll take it as a sign. As fate.”
Now I'm upset. I can't decide why exactly. An irrational anger is growing in my throat.
“A sign? It would be a coincidence. What would something like that mean?”
“It can mean anything you want it to. People interpret fate in a number of ways. In any way they want. Do you believe in fate?”
I pause for a moment. I’m not deciding, I already know the answer. I just don't know if I want to tell her. Fate is something for mystics and dreamers, my father would say. Destiny, moira, lot--all garbage. A man makes his own. No one can decide for him. All the words of my father. He put up a façade--he didn't believe in anything philosophical. But that in itself was a philosophy and he knew it. He hid behind his blue collar. He used it as a crutch. I could never understand why. He didn't thrive on sympathy. He didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him. I did though. I hated how he would never admit that maybe things could have been better for us. He would never say that I could do better. Everything was acceptable. Community college was acceptable. State was acceptable. This job was acceptable. You make your own destiny, son.
He was a bus driver for the MTA. Never took a single sick day. They laid him off one hot, spring morning just about nine months before he was going to retire. The unusual heat that year was making it difficult for him to see. He wore glasses thick as DMV windows and needed prescription sunglasses.
“I can't see nothin' but heat risin' from the pavement out there,” he'd say. “I'm gonna kill someone or someone gonna kill me.”
His back was also getting progressively worse. Sitting for eight hours a day on vibrating vinyl rattled his insides so that they just wouldn't stop moving. He needed surgery, or he wasn't going to be able to walk by the time he was ready to retire. The MTA wouldn't pay for it. After all his years of service, they just let him go and hired someone younger who already owned sunglasses and had a spotless medical record.
“That's just the way some things are,” my father told me. “No point in blamin' something silly as fate. I'd like to think I have a bit more control over myself. I make my own decisions and so the consequences are mine--no one else's. “
My father's route was considered one of the most dangerous. The 42. It started in Downtown between 3rd and 4th on Broadway, not far from the Civic Center. It crossed down through the Jewelry District, then headed West past USC and Expo Park, then turned slightly South and went through Crenshaw, Inglewood and finally ended just North of LAX in Westchester. The year after Dad got laid off, the police officers accused of beating Rodney King nearly to death were acquitted. Rioters stopped many MTA busses, including Dad's old one. The new driver was able run and escape the mob, who smashed all the windows and lit the bus on fire. Dad never even noticed; he drew no connection. But the coincidence always made me wonder. I don't think Dad would have been as lucky as the other driver. There are some moments in time that imprint themselves on your mind. They make you think about things differently from then on. No one else thinks anything of it. To them, it's just another day. But to you, it changes everything. It is the point on which your existence pivots and changes direction.
“I do,” I finally say.
“Goodbye, Robert. I hope to speak to you again in a few hours.”
I say nothing and wait until the LED on my phone system moves from Call to Wrap-Up. I switch off-line for a minute and breathe slowly.
My shift continues uneventfully. I have a swarm of calls between 2 and 3am for TRM; the grocery store employees in the Eastern and Central time zones always arrive at 5am to open shop. A few sleepless people call to order some colon cleanser from the infomercial they're watching with dry eyes. I hate not having a break between calls. Even ten seconds is bliss. There is an LED on the phone console set apart from the buttons that is supposed to give me an approximate idea of the call volume.
When it is off, I have no calls waiting.
Green means 1-5 calls waiting.
Yellow means 6-15 calls waiting.
Red is 16 or more.
Most days the light is red the second I sign on. Those days are always bad. I know that, statistically, I am more likely to talk to more assholes that day than a day where the light is green when I sign on. It is almost never off.
As it gets closer to 5 am, I begin to get nervous. I know why, but I don't want to admit it to myself. I tried to just forget about it at first. But I keep thinking, what if? I told myself it was impossible. I still want to believe it's impossible. But what will happen if she does get through? I've pinned it. I’m afraid nothing will happen. I want the space-time continuum to tear and shred into a million pieces. I want it to incite a miracle. I want to pivot again. I know strange coincidences and statistical anomalies occur everyday, but most don’t mean anything. I believe in fate. I want to hear Penny's voice in my headset at 5 am. I just want to know before I do, that something will happen. I want it to mean something.
I know that if she calls right at 5 am, she will probably have to wait on hold for at least ten minutes. The West Coast grocery stores call at 5 am. I am trying to time it right, though there's no sense in trying. I want to take a call right at 5 am. I'm on a car loan application at 4:57 am. These can take less than a minute, but I drag it out, and instead of telling the customer I don't know the answer to his questions, I fake it.
“Yes sir just got three blue Escalades in this morning. Yes, one of them is in the showroom right now. Oh, well, I think they're all fully loaded, sir. Yes, I will check on that. Sure, let me take your number, and a sales rep will call you right back. Thanks for your business.” Click.
5 am.
The LED sits on Wrap-Up. My heart is beating in my wrists. I try to slow it down. Stop. Stop. Stop. I want to prepare myself for disappointment before I hit Ready, but I can't. I have to get this over with and get back to normal, no matter what that is.
3 CALLS WAITING
“Thank you for calling TRM. My name is Robert. May I have your first name please?”
Silence. This happens from time to time. Someone is on hold for a long time and they put the phone down. Their ear hurts after a while and they need a break. They get sick of the elevator music. Music I have never heard. I don't even know what type of music they're really listening too. Many people complain about it, but they only tell me, You need to get that waiting music changed. I have no idea what it sounds like.
“Hello? You've reached TRM, this is Robert. How may I help you?”
“Oh, Hello? Hello? Is this the copy place?”
“Yes sir, may I have your first name please.”
My heart drops.
With each call, disappointment displaces my anxiety. The time moves closer and closer to 5:30. I take more TRM, a comment for Downey Fabric Softener, an LA Times order. I have to take a break. Not because I need one, but because my supervisor tells me it's time.
“Take ten, Bob,” he says to me.
Marta is in the break room finishing her breakfast: a SlimFast shake.
I saunter around the room, contemplating a soda or snack from a machine, but decide against it. I grab a seat in the corner of the room and just sit for a moment with my eyes shut tight and the palms of my hands stretching my face back. I can feel Marta’s eyes on me. Please God, I don’t want her to talk to me.
“Bobbo?” she asks in a motherly tone. We have never spoken outside our five-second conversation first thing when I come in. Christ, please let this end.
“Yes?”
“You're not really looking like yourself today. Is everything all right?”
I snap up and open last September's Time, trying to ignore her, but something tugs at me.
“Well--” I breathe deeply-- “Marta. The truth is that I think I've missed a huge opportunity. A chance for change. I think I’ve missed something really big, and there is nothing I can do about it now.”
She looks at me with a furrowed brow. Her forehead is deeply ridged. I can tell she understands and is turning it over in her head. “What are you wanting to change?” she asks me.
“I don't know,” I say, frustrated. “I was waiting for a sign. For fate to step in. It's not just this job. It's everything. The way I think. Christ, I sound like an idiot. I just wanted a new philosophy.”
“Fate? Robert.” And she looks at me hard. Very seriously, the way a doctor would. She has never called me Robert before. “I don’t know, I don’t want to sound rude. I guess I’ve always believed fate was sort of--well--just ridiculous.”
She looks at me sheepishly, like she just insulted my mother and feels bad about it.
“Ridiculous how?” I say, humoring her.
“Not ridiculous, but--I guess I just learned that a person chooses his own. I figure, I can’t go blaming something like fate every time things don’t my way. I’d like to think I have a bit more control over things.”
I feel something in the pit of my stomach. It’s rising. At first I think it’s vomit--it’s familiar like that, but different. I stare ahead and focus on nothing. My eyes blur.
“Weeeellll,” Marta says heaving herself out of her chair, “I guess I better get back to the old grind. It's what I've chosen.” She cracks a smile out of the corner of her mouth and gives me a wink. “It was nice talking to you Bobbo. I hope we can do this again sometime.”
“Yeah,” I say still staring. I check my watch. Two minutes left of my break. I walk back to my cubical. My supervisor is going over new procedures for placing TRM service call orders. Marta is telling someone all about the benefits of a clean colon. I know I will never see either of them again. I'll probably get a call from my supervisor, cursing and telling me I'm fired. I won't say anything and I'll hang up. I know this. I think about Penny and breathe relief. I look at my computer screen. I see the Ready button. I reach down and press it. I walk back passed the break room and out to the parking lot. I get in my car and just sit for a minute. I will drive, but the timing isn't important. The where isn't important right now. I can decide when and where. The sun is coming up over the cables of the Gold Line. The mist is being burned away, but it clings to the tops of the oak trees. The rays sparkle on the damp asphalt of the parking lot. The world lights up around me.
The front room has been narrowed by obsolete phone equipment piled and collected over the fifty years the company has been in business. No one really knows why it hasn’t been thrown away, or at least organized to be displayed. Beyond the phone mausoleum lies the main hallway with the breakroom immediately to the left. Large windows display the inside. Four refrigerators, a couple vending machines and tables with plastic chairs. It’s a zoo exhibit.
I clock in before anyone stops to talk to me. My cubicle is littered with new memos. Marta is already at her phone answering calls in her awful tone. She's large, just as wide as the cubicle. She has a collection of five muu muus, at least I've only seen five, that she wears each week. Today it's midnight blue with orange birds-of-paradise. How she has continued to come in dressed like that without a word from our supervisor is a mystery to me. Once I wore jeans and he warned me that if I ever came in dressed like homeless jackass again, I'd be fired. From then on, it's been slacks and a tie. I make up for it by sitting down right at midnight. I never give anything more than I have to. Just enough to stay. Marta is always early and I resent her for it. I hate her for loving this.
“Thank you for calling TRM. This is Marta, how can I help you?” she says.
I drop into my chair and log on to my computer. I pull a sanitary wipe out of my satchel and wipe the ear grease off of my headset. I supposed to answer my first call before 12:01. The phone system comes on.
22 CALLS WAITING, the display reads. The second I hit Ready, the system will randomly route a call to me and I will most likely be speaking to someone across the country.
Marta pushes her chair back on the linoleum and stretches for a second between calls. She opens her mouth to yawn, creating multiple chins on her neck.
“How ya doin today Bobbo?”
“I'm fine, I say to her.”
“That's good, that's good.”
We have the same exchange every day. At the exact same time: 12:01 am. Marta grabs on to the sides of the cubicle and pulls herself back to the computer. She hits the Ready button on her phone system and takes a new call. Sounds like a Lego Catalog order. Who the hell orders Legos in the middle of the night?
I decide it's probably a good idea that I get started so I put my headset on and hit my Ready button. The Ready button is the gate. It is the plug in the damn. When you press that button, my supervisor told me in training, you are saying, yes I am ready to help someone. Yes, I’m ready for whatever is next.
“Thank you for calling TRM. My name is Robert. May I have your first name please?”
“Penny.”
“And your last name Penny?”
“Durham.”
“Okay Miss Durham, can I have the name and number of your store?”
“Corner Drug Store. There's no number. It's the only one I know of anyway.”
“Okay. Can I have the phone number?”
“Nine seven eight. Five nine eight. Five nine eight one.”
“Thank you Miss Durham--”
“Call me Penny, please.”
This is new. I can hear an urgency in her voice. Not the usual, I-want-my-copier-fixed-this-instant urgency.
“Okay, Penny. What can I help you with today?”
“Tell me why I'm talking to you, she says.”
I know everything there is to know about TRM copy and ATM machines. If you have ever had to deal with a grocery store copy machine, it was probably a TRM. Those aren't the only calls I take. If you call to order the LA Times, you could talk to me. Or you could talk to some woman in Ohio, pregnant with her fourth child, holding down this job just to feed herself and the other three not knowing how she is going to take care of the one growing inside her. But you would never know any of that. You only know that she can tell you all about the weekly specials and make a special note for the delivery boy to leave the paper on your porch, not in your driveway. If you call the 800 number from an infomercial, it could be me taking your order. I can tell you all about the new America's Test Kitchen cookbook, or the pill that will change your life and flush your colon. I'm lying mostly. But so is the man on the television. The information I have is just as abstract and general as what you, the consumer, hears from him. I can give you no more than what I'm given. Yes ma’am, the product is designed cleanse the body and make you feel happier and healthier than ever before. How does it work? Well why don’t you try it for sixty days and if you’re not completely satisfied, you can return and get a no-questions-asked refund! How does that sound?
So many people want to know more. That's how they get you. They snare you with generalities.
TRM is our biggest client. Customers call from Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Shoppers Drug Mart, 7-Eleven to tell me their copier is broken. There are only two types of people that call: young Southern girls, or male Indian immigrants. I can't understand the men most of the time. They get very upset with me and curse. The girls usually sound like they're daydreaming.
“You say you can't find the paper jam?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, that's right.”
“So you need a technician out right away?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“You say you want my hands all over you?”
“Yeah, listen is someone going to be out today? My manager is really on my ass about this.”
“Yes miss. We usually try to respond within forty-eight hours.”
“All right then.”
“Thank you for calling TRM.”
They don't know that I don't really work for the company they're trying to contact. And I'm not supposed to tell them. I am the Wizard of Oz, talking to you from behind my curtain. I am a road sign with subtext.
I pulled the curtain back once. I unchained this guy from the cave wall. He was blinded by his new knowledge. He didn't know what to do with himself.
“You mean to tell me that you don't work for this company?”
“No sir, I work for a company whom that company has hired to answer its customer service calls.”
“So you can't contact the warehouse?”
“No.”
“You can't get in touch with anyone who actually sells this shit?”
“No sir.”
“Oh--This--this is great. I'm gonna sue your company's ass back to the goddamn Stone Age is what I'm gonna do.”
“Sir, they're not my company.”
“Well whoever the hell it is better watch out. Because I'm coming. I am coming, goddammit.”
“Okay sir, anything else?”
“Yeah, one more thing: Kill yourself.”
“Thank you sir, have a nice day.”
I don't say anything for over a minute. I know because I watch the clock on the computer screen change from 12:04 to 12:05 and then to 12:06. I can hear her waiting for my answer.
“Is there someone else you should be talking to?” I say.
“No, but I knew that I would talk to you. A man named Robert,” Penny tells me.
“I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.”
“Look, can I try something? I'm going to hang up and call back, and if I reach you again, we'll know it was meant to be, okay?”
“Penny, I don't want to disappoint you, but I don't think you're going to get through to me again. Do you know how many--”
“There are fifteen call centers nation wide who handle calls for TRM. Furthermore, your call center, Peak Communications, handles calls for 700 clients. All the incoming calls are randomly routed and distributed between all the call centers and all the agents. You're probably only trained on twenty or so of those, which narrows it down considerably. Since it's the middle of the night where you are, there are probably only between twenty and thirty agents handling calls, right? Well assuming it's the same at all the other call centers, I'd say the chances are slim, but that's why it's important. I guessed the name of the person I would get on the phone. I dialed the number and said to myself, I am going to speak to Robert. And here we are.”
“So what does that mean?” I ask. I know this is meaningless, but I want to keep her on the phone as long as possible. She is a customer, after all, and no one is ever allowed to hang up on a customer. Ever. We have to sit and listen and wait until we hear click.
“Well it doesn't mean anything yet. Not until I call back and reach you again. Do you know where I am?”
“No, I haven't looked up your store's account yet.”
“I live in Massachusetts. Have you ever been back here?”
“No,” I admit sheepishly.
“You're in Los Angeles aren't you? I've never been there either. I've never been beyond the Appalachians.”
“And so, you're saying--”
“Here we are, two voices. Neither of us has ever been even remotely near the other. We've probably had completely different life experiences. Has anyone ever spoken to you before?”
“You're joking right? I talk to people every day, eight hours a day,” I tell her in the sort of curt tone that customers usually talk to me in.
“But do they speak to you?”
This is getting weird, I think to myself. I look at the clock and notice that we've been on the phone for almost ten minutes.
“I--I guess not. I mean not in a religious or philosophical--I don't believe I'm having this conversation.”
“Believe it,” she says like an evangelist.
“Look, people call. They have problems. I try to help them fix those problems. That's it,” I say
“No one has ever wanted to know who you are, where you're from, the last time you cried, the name of your first kiss, what you had for dinner?”
“Why would anyone want to know?” I say, almost out of patience.
“That's what you need to tell me,” she says.
“Penny, listen. Is there anything wrong with your copier? Because, if not, I should probably get on to other calls.”
“I'm going to call back. At five o'clock Pacific time. And if I get you, we'll take it as a sign. As fate.”
Now I'm upset. I can't decide why exactly. An irrational anger is growing in my throat.
“A sign? It would be a coincidence. What would something like that mean?”
“It can mean anything you want it to. People interpret fate in a number of ways. In any way they want. Do you believe in fate?”
I pause for a moment. I’m not deciding, I already know the answer. I just don't know if I want to tell her. Fate is something for mystics and dreamers, my father would say. Destiny, moira, lot--all garbage. A man makes his own. No one can decide for him. All the words of my father. He put up a façade--he didn't believe in anything philosophical. But that in itself was a philosophy and he knew it. He hid behind his blue collar. He used it as a crutch. I could never understand why. He didn't thrive on sympathy. He didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him. I did though. I hated how he would never admit that maybe things could have been better for us. He would never say that I could do better. Everything was acceptable. Community college was acceptable. State was acceptable. This job was acceptable. You make your own destiny, son.
He was a bus driver for the MTA. Never took a single sick day. They laid him off one hot, spring morning just about nine months before he was going to retire. The unusual heat that year was making it difficult for him to see. He wore glasses thick as DMV windows and needed prescription sunglasses.
“I can't see nothin' but heat risin' from the pavement out there,” he'd say. “I'm gonna kill someone or someone gonna kill me.”
His back was also getting progressively worse. Sitting for eight hours a day on vibrating vinyl rattled his insides so that they just wouldn't stop moving. He needed surgery, or he wasn't going to be able to walk by the time he was ready to retire. The MTA wouldn't pay for it. After all his years of service, they just let him go and hired someone younger who already owned sunglasses and had a spotless medical record.
“That's just the way some things are,” my father told me. “No point in blamin' something silly as fate. I'd like to think I have a bit more control over myself. I make my own decisions and so the consequences are mine--no one else's. “
My father's route was considered one of the most dangerous. The 42. It started in Downtown between 3rd and 4th on Broadway, not far from the Civic Center. It crossed down through the Jewelry District, then headed West past USC and Expo Park, then turned slightly South and went through Crenshaw, Inglewood and finally ended just North of LAX in Westchester. The year after Dad got laid off, the police officers accused of beating Rodney King nearly to death were acquitted. Rioters stopped many MTA busses, including Dad's old one. The new driver was able run and escape the mob, who smashed all the windows and lit the bus on fire. Dad never even noticed; he drew no connection. But the coincidence always made me wonder. I don't think Dad would have been as lucky as the other driver. There are some moments in time that imprint themselves on your mind. They make you think about things differently from then on. No one else thinks anything of it. To them, it's just another day. But to you, it changes everything. It is the point on which your existence pivots and changes direction.
“I do,” I finally say.
“Goodbye, Robert. I hope to speak to you again in a few hours.”
I say nothing and wait until the LED on my phone system moves from Call to Wrap-Up. I switch off-line for a minute and breathe slowly.
My shift continues uneventfully. I have a swarm of calls between 2 and 3am for TRM; the grocery store employees in the Eastern and Central time zones always arrive at 5am to open shop. A few sleepless people call to order some colon cleanser from the infomercial they're watching with dry eyes. I hate not having a break between calls. Even ten seconds is bliss. There is an LED on the phone console set apart from the buttons that is supposed to give me an approximate idea of the call volume.
When it is off, I have no calls waiting.
Green means 1-5 calls waiting.
Yellow means 6-15 calls waiting.
Red is 16 or more.
Most days the light is red the second I sign on. Those days are always bad. I know that, statistically, I am more likely to talk to more assholes that day than a day where the light is green when I sign on. It is almost never off.
As it gets closer to 5 am, I begin to get nervous. I know why, but I don't want to admit it to myself. I tried to just forget about it at first. But I keep thinking, what if? I told myself it was impossible. I still want to believe it's impossible. But what will happen if she does get through? I've pinned it. I’m afraid nothing will happen. I want the space-time continuum to tear and shred into a million pieces. I want it to incite a miracle. I want to pivot again. I know strange coincidences and statistical anomalies occur everyday, but most don’t mean anything. I believe in fate. I want to hear Penny's voice in my headset at 5 am. I just want to know before I do, that something will happen. I want it to mean something.
I know that if she calls right at 5 am, she will probably have to wait on hold for at least ten minutes. The West Coast grocery stores call at 5 am. I am trying to time it right, though there's no sense in trying. I want to take a call right at 5 am. I'm on a car loan application at 4:57 am. These can take less than a minute, but I drag it out, and instead of telling the customer I don't know the answer to his questions, I fake it.
“Yes sir just got three blue Escalades in this morning. Yes, one of them is in the showroom right now. Oh, well, I think they're all fully loaded, sir. Yes, I will check on that. Sure, let me take your number, and a sales rep will call you right back. Thanks for your business.” Click.
5 am.
The LED sits on Wrap-Up. My heart is beating in my wrists. I try to slow it down. Stop. Stop. Stop. I want to prepare myself for disappointment before I hit Ready, but I can't. I have to get this over with and get back to normal, no matter what that is.
3 CALLS WAITING
“Thank you for calling TRM. My name is Robert. May I have your first name please?”
Silence. This happens from time to time. Someone is on hold for a long time and they put the phone down. Their ear hurts after a while and they need a break. They get sick of the elevator music. Music I have never heard. I don't even know what type of music they're really listening too. Many people complain about it, but they only tell me, You need to get that waiting music changed. I have no idea what it sounds like.
“Hello? You've reached TRM, this is Robert. How may I help you?”
“Oh, Hello? Hello? Is this the copy place?”
“Yes sir, may I have your first name please.”
My heart drops.
With each call, disappointment displaces my anxiety. The time moves closer and closer to 5:30. I take more TRM, a comment for Downey Fabric Softener, an LA Times order. I have to take a break. Not because I need one, but because my supervisor tells me it's time.
“Take ten, Bob,” he says to me.
Marta is in the break room finishing her breakfast: a SlimFast shake.
I saunter around the room, contemplating a soda or snack from a machine, but decide against it. I grab a seat in the corner of the room and just sit for a moment with my eyes shut tight and the palms of my hands stretching my face back. I can feel Marta’s eyes on me. Please God, I don’t want her to talk to me.
“Bobbo?” she asks in a motherly tone. We have never spoken outside our five-second conversation first thing when I come in. Christ, please let this end.
“Yes?”
“You're not really looking like yourself today. Is everything all right?”
I snap up and open last September's Time, trying to ignore her, but something tugs at me.
“Well--” I breathe deeply-- “Marta. The truth is that I think I've missed a huge opportunity. A chance for change. I think I’ve missed something really big, and there is nothing I can do about it now.”
She looks at me with a furrowed brow. Her forehead is deeply ridged. I can tell she understands and is turning it over in her head. “What are you wanting to change?” she asks me.
“I don't know,” I say, frustrated. “I was waiting for a sign. For fate to step in. It's not just this job. It's everything. The way I think. Christ, I sound like an idiot. I just wanted a new philosophy.”
“Fate? Robert.” And she looks at me hard. Very seriously, the way a doctor would. She has never called me Robert before. “I don’t know, I don’t want to sound rude. I guess I’ve always believed fate was sort of--well--just ridiculous.”
She looks at me sheepishly, like she just insulted my mother and feels bad about it.
“Ridiculous how?” I say, humoring her.
“Not ridiculous, but--I guess I just learned that a person chooses his own. I figure, I can’t go blaming something like fate every time things don’t my way. I’d like to think I have a bit more control over things.”
I feel something in the pit of my stomach. It’s rising. At first I think it’s vomit--it’s familiar like that, but different. I stare ahead and focus on nothing. My eyes blur.
“Weeeellll,” Marta says heaving herself out of her chair, “I guess I better get back to the old grind. It's what I've chosen.” She cracks a smile out of the corner of her mouth and gives me a wink. “It was nice talking to you Bobbo. I hope we can do this again sometime.”
“Yeah,” I say still staring. I check my watch. Two minutes left of my break. I walk back to my cubical. My supervisor is going over new procedures for placing TRM service call orders. Marta is telling someone all about the benefits of a clean colon. I know I will never see either of them again. I'll probably get a call from my supervisor, cursing and telling me I'm fired. I won't say anything and I'll hang up. I know this. I think about Penny and breathe relief. I look at my computer screen. I see the Ready button. I reach down and press it. I walk back passed the break room and out to the parking lot. I get in my car and just sit for a minute. I will drive, but the timing isn't important. The where isn't important right now. I can decide when and where. The sun is coming up over the cables of the Gold Line. The mist is being burned away, but it clings to the tops of the oak trees. The rays sparkle on the damp asphalt of the parking lot. The world lights up around me.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
You Are Prudish, Father William: Rhyme and Respectability in Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
The Victorian Era was marked by a heightened sense of moral responsibility. People living during this time felt it necessary to live up to the highest expectations of respectability. They had many conventions and rules to follow in order to meet these expectations. Learning how to be respectable began at a very young age and was emphasized in school through learning and reciting rhymes and poems. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Alice attempts to recite her lessons a number of times but cannot seem to get the words right. Alice’s lessons and rhymes are included in the novel to contradict and poke fun at the Victorian value of respectability through the nonsense verse that replaces the original respectable text when she attempts to repeat them in Wonderland.
At the beginning of Alice’s adventure, she decides that she must try to remember some of her lessons in order to determine that she is still herself. She attempts to recite a poem written by Isaac Watts entitled “Against Idleness and Mischief.” The opening lines of Watt’s poem read “How doth the little busy bee/Improve each shining hour/And gather Honey all the Day/From ev’ry op’ning Flow’r!” (Watts 332). It upholds Victorian respectability because it insists that one must remain busy in order to be good. When Alice begins, the words get confused and she recites:
“How doth the little crocodile/Improve his shining tail/And pour the waters of the Nile/On every golden scale!/How cheerfully he seems to grin/How neatly spreads his claws/And welcomes little fishes in/With gently smiling jaws.” (Carroll 19)
Idleness and mischief are two behaviors that directly contradict Victorian respectability. Alice’s unconscious rewording “attacks the anticomic stuffiness and prudence of Watt’s [poem] and promotes by implication the important values of comic anarchy” (Kincaid 96). Alice’s reading is also uncommonly dark for what would be considered respectable during the Victorian era. The final two lines leave the reader with a dark, yet slightly comical feeling. Carroll wants the reader to recognize the contrast, but does not want it to be completely serious at the same time.
During her adventure in Wonderland, Alice comes across many interesting characters. One of the most memorable is the Caterpillar. While she is having a conversation with this character, he asks her to recite another one of her lessons, which he calls “You are old, Father William” (Carroll 42). What Alice recites is a parody of a poem written by Robert Southey. Southey’s Father William is the picture of Victorian respectability. He tells the young man that "I remembered that youth would flyfast/And abused not my health, and my vigor at first/That I never might need them at last" (Southey 401). The poem emphasizes the respectability of taking care of your health—to the point where you do almost nothing in order to preserve your health and energy for later in life. “Alice’s Father William seems the antithesis of Southey’s pious, temperate old man who has come gently to the end of his days” (Rackin 318). Father William is supposed to represent the type of person you will be if you follow Victorian values. In Alice’s rendition, however, Father William is a silly and ridiculous.
In Through the Looking Glass, Alice journeys back to the magically land of the Looking Glass and encounters many interesting characters as she did in Wonderland. Two rather odd characters, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, relate to her a poem entitled The Walrus and the Carpenter. Carroll uses this poem differently here than how poems were used in the previous novel. The twins’ recitation “prompts Alice into revealing just how much she has grown up. She ignores the victims of the poem, the oysters, and immediately searches for one of the power figures with whom to identify” (Kincaid, 95). Rather than contradicting Victorian respectability directly through the words of the poem, Carroll uses Alice’s reaction to make his point about it. The twins are disappointed with her attachment to the Walrus character. Alice seems to believe that she must choose a character to identify with. Tweedledee and Tweedledum don’t understand why she does not feel sorry for the oysters. In the end, she decides that both the Carpenter and the Walrus were equally unlikable. The poem emphasized “false sympathy and cruelty” (Kincaid, 95), and Alice finally realizes this. Carroll uses Alice’s realization to make a statement about Victorian society: it can be extremely fake and cruel.
Alice came to discover a lot about herself and the society she lived in through her adventures. Lewis Carroll used these discovers to convey his own points about Victorian society. He uses Alice’s adventures, specifically the poems she attempts to recite, to contradict and mock Victorian respectability and prudishness.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Ed. Hugh Haughton. London: Penguin Books. 1998.
Kincaid, James R. “Alice’s Invasion of Wonderland.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 88.1 (1973): 92-99.
Rackin, Donald. “Alice’s Journey to the End of Night.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 81.5 (1966): 313-326.
Watts, Isaac. “Against Idleness and Mischeif.” A Collection of English Poems 1660-1800. Ed. Robert S. Crane. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1932. 332.
Southey, Robert. “The Old Man’s Comforts And How He Gained Them.” English Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement. Ed. George Benjamin Woods. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Co. 1916. 401.
At the beginning of Alice’s adventure, she decides that she must try to remember some of her lessons in order to determine that she is still herself. She attempts to recite a poem written by Isaac Watts entitled “Against Idleness and Mischief.” The opening lines of Watt’s poem read “How doth the little busy bee/Improve each shining hour/And gather Honey all the Day/From ev’ry op’ning Flow’r!” (Watts 332). It upholds Victorian respectability because it insists that one must remain busy in order to be good. When Alice begins, the words get confused and she recites:
“How doth the little crocodile/Improve his shining tail/And pour the waters of the Nile/On every golden scale!/How cheerfully he seems to grin/How neatly spreads his claws/And welcomes little fishes in/With gently smiling jaws.” (Carroll 19)
Idleness and mischief are two behaviors that directly contradict Victorian respectability. Alice’s unconscious rewording “attacks the anticomic stuffiness and prudence of Watt’s [poem] and promotes by implication the important values of comic anarchy” (Kincaid 96). Alice’s reading is also uncommonly dark for what would be considered respectable during the Victorian era. The final two lines leave the reader with a dark, yet slightly comical feeling. Carroll wants the reader to recognize the contrast, but does not want it to be completely serious at the same time.
During her adventure in Wonderland, Alice comes across many interesting characters. One of the most memorable is the Caterpillar. While she is having a conversation with this character, he asks her to recite another one of her lessons, which he calls “You are old, Father William” (Carroll 42). What Alice recites is a parody of a poem written by Robert Southey. Southey’s Father William is the picture of Victorian respectability. He tells the young man that "I remembered that youth would flyfast/And abused not my health, and my vigor at first/That I never might need them at last" (Southey 401). The poem emphasizes the respectability of taking care of your health—to the point where you do almost nothing in order to preserve your health and energy for later in life. “Alice’s Father William seems the antithesis of Southey’s pious, temperate old man who has come gently to the end of his days” (Rackin 318). Father William is supposed to represent the type of person you will be if you follow Victorian values. In Alice’s rendition, however, Father William is a silly and ridiculous.
In Through the Looking Glass, Alice journeys back to the magically land of the Looking Glass and encounters many interesting characters as she did in Wonderland. Two rather odd characters, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, relate to her a poem entitled The Walrus and the Carpenter. Carroll uses this poem differently here than how poems were used in the previous novel. The twins’ recitation “prompts Alice into revealing just how much she has grown up. She ignores the victims of the poem, the oysters, and immediately searches for one of the power figures with whom to identify” (Kincaid, 95). Rather than contradicting Victorian respectability directly through the words of the poem, Carroll uses Alice’s reaction to make his point about it. The twins are disappointed with her attachment to the Walrus character. Alice seems to believe that she must choose a character to identify with. Tweedledee and Tweedledum don’t understand why she does not feel sorry for the oysters. In the end, she decides that both the Carpenter and the Walrus were equally unlikable. The poem emphasized “false sympathy and cruelty” (Kincaid, 95), and Alice finally realizes this. Carroll uses Alice’s realization to make a statement about Victorian society: it can be extremely fake and cruel.
Alice came to discover a lot about herself and the society she lived in through her adventures. Lewis Carroll used these discovers to convey his own points about Victorian society. He uses Alice’s adventures, specifically the poems she attempts to recite, to contradict and mock Victorian respectability and prudishness.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Ed. Hugh Haughton. London: Penguin Books. 1998.
Kincaid, James R. “Alice’s Invasion of Wonderland.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 88.1 (1973): 92-99.
Rackin, Donald. “Alice’s Journey to the End of Night.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 81.5 (1966): 313-326.
Watts, Isaac. “Against Idleness and Mischeif.” A Collection of English Poems 1660-1800. Ed. Robert S. Crane. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1932. 332.
Southey, Robert. “The Old Man’s Comforts And How He Gained Them.” English Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement. Ed. George Benjamin Woods. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Co. 1916. 401.
Myth Retold and Fulfilled: Converting Myth into Religion in C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces
C.S. Lewis is generally not considered to be an author of brilliantly influential and deeply profound literature. Many know him for his children's books, The Chronicles of Narnia. He is better known for these and other non-fiction books such as Mere Christianity than he is for his fiction; his more mature and esoteric work. He wrote primarily during what most scholars would consider the end of the Modernist era, and his final novel, Till We Have Faces, reflects it wonderfully. Modernism is characterized by a search for deeper meanings throughout life, generally sought out by a return to the archaic. Lewis' retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche certainly qualifies. Lewis does not simply retell the myth in his own words; rather he uses the form of the myth to convey his own beliefs about Christianity, thus drawing attention to the arching and inseperable parallels between myth and religion.
While biographical information alone cannot solely be used to interpret a piece of literature, it is vital that Lewis' religious affiliation be known when analyzing his work. Lewis was an atheist for the majority of his life, but later became a devout Christian. He studied many of the world's religions in his search for God and came to know, as Doris T. Myers states, “the pagan myths that seem to foreshadow Jesus and [as well as accept] the Gospel as fact” (“In Context” 190). It is within this context that the work must be analyzed in order to fully understand it.
In the beginning of the novel, strong religious references are cemented with the reader. The story is narrated by Orual: daughter of King Trom and half-sister of Psyche. While it is important to remember that “Lewis's story is a "novel," not an allegory, which should remind readers that things in [Lewis’s] fiction are meaningful in themselves just as much as they may mean other things” (Arnell 1), the reader cannot help but make allegorical associations. Orual can be identified with the whole of humanity. She struggles with the question of faith. She feels that her ugliness, her sin in allegorical terms, separates her from others in the novel. The main events in the beginning (her father's new marriage, the arrival of the Fox, her discovery of her own ugliness):
point to three major themes of the book: Orual's need for love, her struggle with the faith of the Old Priest versus the enlightenment of the Fox, and the meaning of Glome's paganism within the larger context of the Incarnation of Christ. (“Bareface” 14)
In the first chapter, Orual states, “I…have not much to fear from the anger of gods…I will accuse the gods, especially the god who lives on the Grey Mountain” (Lewis 3), establishing her struggle with faith. Myers tells us that Orual “sees herself as a plaintiff against the god, but she does not hope for a divine answer” (“Bareface” 14). Lewis is drawing the reader's attention to Orual's hopeless outlook and struggle with faith in order to parallel the struggles that he himself faced as a young man. It also brings to mind the feelings that so many of his generation had: can religion provide the answers for the most profound of life's questions? Lewis would argue, yes.
The other major allegorical reference is made through the characters of Psyche and the Fox. Both represent aspects of Jesus: Psyche, the compassionate and the Fox, the philosophical. Psyche is described as beautiful from the moment she is born. Orual tells us that, “She made beauty all around her. When she trod on mud, the mud was beautiful; when she ran in the rain, the rain was silver” (Lewis 22). She catches the attention of everyone whom she meets. Jesus, who radiated spiritual beauty, captured people’s hearts in the same way.
Psyche also has a desire to help all people. She nurses Fox back to health after he nearly dies from a fever that has plagued Glome. Following this, the word spread quickly through the kingdom and “Within two days half the city was at the palace gate,” shouting, “ 'Heal us, heal us. The Princess with the healing hands!' “ (Lewis 30-31). The similarities between these events and events from Jesus' life are obvious. She is like Christ in her “determination to touch people who need healing” (“Bareface” 24). Her ministry, like Christ's, is “physically demanding…Her willingness to sacrifice herself is equaled only by her compassion for other people” (“Bareface” 24). Psyche also becomes a sacrifice at the hands of her own father, leaving Orual riddled with guilt through the rest of the novel. This, again, is used to demonstrate a fallacy in humanity's, particularly Christians', view of Jesus' sacrifce: it is not guilt, but gratitude, thankfulness and even reverence that Orual should have.
The Fox is brought to the kingdom by the King to be a tutor for Orual. Myer’s points out that “In the Fox, Lewis shows us a man who aspires to be a true Stoic but falls short of his goal,” and that, “The Fox is ashamed of his emotions; Jesus accepted his” (“Bareface” 20). The Fox seems to contrast Jesus in many ways, yet in the end, they are comparable. Jesus most certainly was not “Stoic.” Lewis tells us he was “a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazurus and sweated blood in Gethsemane” (qtd. in “Bareface” 20). This is the opposite of the Stoic man that the Fox attempts to be. He, as do most men, wants to be a man of noble bravery. As Myers points out, “when [Fox] says, ‘The body is shaking. I needn’t let it shake the god within me’ (Lewis 18)[...]Parodixically, in his fear, his failure to be a perfect Stoic, the Fox was a precursor to Jesus” (“Bareface” 20). This comparison parellels Lewis’s belief that people do not need to aspire to stoicism; rather, they should follow Jesus’ example of humbleness.
Myth and religion are inseperable for Lewis. He calls “the Incarnation [of Jesus] ‘myth become fact’ “ (“In Context 190). Lewis used pagan myths in order to explain and “foreshadow” the coming and crucifixion of Christ. It was useful to do this because it connected the archaic and fantastical to the fundamentals of Lewis’ own beliefs, thereby bringing a certain familiarity and credibility to Christianity. Lewis wanted the reader to realize that Christianity is not an isolated belief system; it has values that can be applied in every walk of life.
Works Cited
Arnell, Carla A. “On Beauty, Justice, and the Sublime in C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces.” Christianity and Literature 52.1 (2002): 23.
Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1956.
Myers, Doris T. Bareface: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s Last Novel. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. 13-24.
---. C.S. Lewis in Context. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1994. 190.
While biographical information alone cannot solely be used to interpret a piece of literature, it is vital that Lewis' religious affiliation be known when analyzing his work. Lewis was an atheist for the majority of his life, but later became a devout Christian. He studied many of the world's religions in his search for God and came to know, as Doris T. Myers states, “the pagan myths that seem to foreshadow Jesus and [as well as accept] the Gospel as fact” (“In Context” 190). It is within this context that the work must be analyzed in order to fully understand it.
In the beginning of the novel, strong religious references are cemented with the reader. The story is narrated by Orual: daughter of King Trom and half-sister of Psyche. While it is important to remember that “Lewis's story is a "novel," not an allegory, which should remind readers that things in [Lewis’s] fiction are meaningful in themselves just as much as they may mean other things” (Arnell 1), the reader cannot help but make allegorical associations. Orual can be identified with the whole of humanity. She struggles with the question of faith. She feels that her ugliness, her sin in allegorical terms, separates her from others in the novel. The main events in the beginning (her father's new marriage, the arrival of the Fox, her discovery of her own ugliness):
point to three major themes of the book: Orual's need for love, her struggle with the faith of the Old Priest versus the enlightenment of the Fox, and the meaning of Glome's paganism within the larger context of the Incarnation of Christ. (“Bareface” 14)
In the first chapter, Orual states, “I…have not much to fear from the anger of gods…I will accuse the gods, especially the god who lives on the Grey Mountain” (Lewis 3), establishing her struggle with faith. Myers tells us that Orual “sees herself as a plaintiff against the god, but she does not hope for a divine answer” (“Bareface” 14). Lewis is drawing the reader's attention to Orual's hopeless outlook and struggle with faith in order to parallel the struggles that he himself faced as a young man. It also brings to mind the feelings that so many of his generation had: can religion provide the answers for the most profound of life's questions? Lewis would argue, yes.
The other major allegorical reference is made through the characters of Psyche and the Fox. Both represent aspects of Jesus: Psyche, the compassionate and the Fox, the philosophical. Psyche is described as beautiful from the moment she is born. Orual tells us that, “She made beauty all around her. When she trod on mud, the mud was beautiful; when she ran in the rain, the rain was silver” (Lewis 22). She catches the attention of everyone whom she meets. Jesus, who radiated spiritual beauty, captured people’s hearts in the same way.
Psyche also has a desire to help all people. She nurses Fox back to health after he nearly dies from a fever that has plagued Glome. Following this, the word spread quickly through the kingdom and “Within two days half the city was at the palace gate,” shouting, “ 'Heal us, heal us. The Princess with the healing hands!' “ (Lewis 30-31). The similarities between these events and events from Jesus' life are obvious. She is like Christ in her “determination to touch people who need healing” (“Bareface” 24). Her ministry, like Christ's, is “physically demanding…Her willingness to sacrifice herself is equaled only by her compassion for other people” (“Bareface” 24). Psyche also becomes a sacrifice at the hands of her own father, leaving Orual riddled with guilt through the rest of the novel. This, again, is used to demonstrate a fallacy in humanity's, particularly Christians', view of Jesus' sacrifce: it is not guilt, but gratitude, thankfulness and even reverence that Orual should have.
The Fox is brought to the kingdom by the King to be a tutor for Orual. Myer’s points out that “In the Fox, Lewis shows us a man who aspires to be a true Stoic but falls short of his goal,” and that, “The Fox is ashamed of his emotions; Jesus accepted his” (“Bareface” 20). The Fox seems to contrast Jesus in many ways, yet in the end, they are comparable. Jesus most certainly was not “Stoic.” Lewis tells us he was “a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazurus and sweated blood in Gethsemane” (qtd. in “Bareface” 20). This is the opposite of the Stoic man that the Fox attempts to be. He, as do most men, wants to be a man of noble bravery. As Myers points out, “when [Fox] says, ‘The body is shaking. I needn’t let it shake the god within me’ (Lewis 18)[...]Parodixically, in his fear, his failure to be a perfect Stoic, the Fox was a precursor to Jesus” (“Bareface” 20). This comparison parellels Lewis’s belief that people do not need to aspire to stoicism; rather, they should follow Jesus’ example of humbleness.
Myth and religion are inseperable for Lewis. He calls “the Incarnation [of Jesus] ‘myth become fact’ “ (“In Context 190). Lewis used pagan myths in order to explain and “foreshadow” the coming and crucifixion of Christ. It was useful to do this because it connected the archaic and fantastical to the fundamentals of Lewis’ own beliefs, thereby bringing a certain familiarity and credibility to Christianity. Lewis wanted the reader to realize that Christianity is not an isolated belief system; it has values that can be applied in every walk of life.
Works Cited
Arnell, Carla A. “On Beauty, Justice, and the Sublime in C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces.” Christianity and Literature 52.1 (2002): 23.
Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1956.
Myers, Doris T. Bareface: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s Last Novel. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. 13-24.
---. C.S. Lewis in Context. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1994. 190.
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