I am most definitely not a New Historicist but I felt that Jane’s character could be seen as a comment on the current narratives about the American Dream. In my opinion, the American Dream is seen with an air of cynicism today. There isn’t really much hope in the American Dream. I think this can be reflected in the story by Bill and Jane’s failing mom-and-pop bulletproof vest rental shop—surrounded by a “closed-down Double Drive In”, a long-gone Kmart, and a bankrupt pizza place (79). There is no hope for the “little people” in the shadow of the 24-hour Body Armor Emporium. Success and hope is reserved for the rich and the powerful.
I also think that Jane’s character reinforces this cynical outlook on hope. She spends much of the story dwelling in the worn-down memories of her youth. She and Bill spend their evenings cruising around the town where they grew up. At one point in the novel, Jailhouse Rock plays behind her, reminding her of their “liberal-arts dreams, their own let’s put on a barn dance notion of being their own bosses” (86-7). She thinks, “This is the place we are at, around the corner from the drive-in theater where she and Bill spent their youth, a place she won’t even look at because these days, even worse than hope, nostalgia is her enemy” (87). She is surrounded by reminders of the dreams of her youth, dreams that will never come true because they have reached “a moment near the end of things” (86). I think this is why she dwells so much on the past. It was a time of hope and of happiness, a time when her dreams—the American Dream—was still possible.
When Jane sees Ruth with a boy, her reaction is completely different from Bill’s reaction. She seems jealous of her daughter because she is living in that time of hope and possibility, the time that Jane can’t seem to escape nor grasp. She watches her daughter laugh and drink and dance. “This is a careless spirit Jane has forgotten…I want my Monte Carlo back, Jane thinks” (89-90). Her car stands as an example of her inability to let go of the past, too. Whenever she would ride in it with Bill, she would swivel the chair backwards “to see it all disappear behind her” (90). She has “come to be on intimate terms with her blind spot,” constantly looking behind her to see the dreams of her youth (86). One final example can be her multiple rendezvous to the Emporium. “She feels safe in the arms of the enemy…For a moment, there are no blind spots and she is at ease” (90). The Emporium is the ultimate symbol in the novel of power, success and progression. No matter how she clings to the dreams of the past, they will not come true. The Emporium fills her with the hope she has lost since her youth and she no longer has to look to her “blind spots” to see some kind of hope in life. I feel that her actions throughout the story only solidify the cynical narrative of the American Dream. Success, happiness and security that inhabit the American Dream is not possible for little mom-and-pop stores. These things are only possible if you become a customer of the powerful and the wealthy.
Unlike Ashley, I feel like I get New Historicism and cultural criticism, but I agree with her analysis of this piece of literature by Adam Johnson. Regardless of the type of world the characters in a story live in, there are frequently ideologies that cross-over into our own world. There are many things that are recognizable in this piece. Jane longs for the more simple days of her youth, when she could drive around without looking over her shoulder to see if someone is going to hurt her. This is a common response to growing up. Life is simpler when we’re young, we feel indestructible, just as Ruth does. We long to feel safe, but even in the real world, things change. In some ways the world does get more dangerous, but in some ways our perceptions have changed and we are made more aware of what is really going on around us. Either way, we remember how things used to be and wish they were that way again.
ReplyDeleteJohnson hits home to me through his use of Bill and Jane’s memories. Many of the things they remember, I remember as well, having grown up during the same times. I also remember reading futuristic stories of the type of world that I would be living in as an adult, such as “Escape from New York”, “Blade runner”, “Logan’s Run”, and the book “1984”. All of these pictured the world a darker place, much different than the world that actually exists. However, in some ways there are many similarities that make a person pause and think.
Daniel’s prompt about the American Dream in “Trauma Plate” and Ashley’s response to it seem to reveal the way a narrative can become privileged. Let me explain. In this class, Lois Tyson’s distillation of critical theories is shaping our view of theory; it’s at the center, and we’re orbiting it. Were we reading another text, we might see the theories differently. And at the center of the Tyson’s text is The Great Gatsby, which she analyzes following the methodology of each theory she focuses on. (I’m stating the obvious, I know.) She often finds Gatsby to be a commentary on the American Dream, regardless of which theory she’s using. So, thanks to Tyson’s text, the American Dream has a strong presence in our class—it’s a large planet in our solar system, to continue forcing the metaphor. Without Tyson’s text, perhaps Daniel wouldn’t have included the American Dream in his prompt.
ReplyDeleteI use the astronomy metaphor to show how the small narrative (literary narrative more than New Historical narrative here) of “Trauma Plate” has changed the slightly larger narrative of my taking English 2600. See, the image of orbiting occurs many times in the story. For example, “[Ruth] pedal[s] big, easy loops around us. . . . It feels good . . . being the center of my daughter’s universe for a few minutes” (82). Another example: “Her husband is giving driving lessons to her daughter, who loops circles around Jane in the old Caprice” (86). And another: Ruth’s astronomy course and its references to Pluto “swing[ing] wide one day and never com[ing] back” (92). Astronomy is a cool structural element of the story ( I think the repeating images of orbiting and the bit about Pluto breaking its orbit provide support for Adam’s post about how “Trauma Plate” deals with the dissolution of the family). However, I might not have called attention to it if I weren’t trying to make the point that the texts of the class and the text of my life intertwine, each influencing another, which seems to be what New Historicists claim happens all the time.