1C Study Guide for “Smorgasbord” by Tobias Wolff (149)

1.    How is the theme of hunger introduced? The teacher’s needy ego and the student’s physical appetite on page 149 and his hunger for his girlfriend on page 149.
2.    Is the boy in love with his girlfriend or in love with the idea of “being lovers”? Explain. See 149.
3.    What different types of hunger does the story suggest? Family dreams, social class ascent, general belonging, being admired, physical, romantic, appetite for food of course, the ideal perfume, which the narrator never can find (153); Garcia’s need for more and more money; Crosley desiring the overcoat he stole.
4.    How does the description of Garcia’s stepmother Linda contribute to the story’s theme? See page 153. With her dark cape she is like the Satanic Priestess of Nonrestraint.
5.    What effect does Linda have on the narrator? See page 158. She awakens the narrator’s primitive lusts and as a consequence strips him of his pretensions, his self-delusions, and his relationship with his girlfriend.
6.    In what way is the Internet a “smorgasbord”? The possibility of infinite possibilities, which is of course a chimera.
7.    Look up the narrator’s use of the word gemutlichkeit. How does this word touch on the theme of the chimera? The word means coziness and acceptance, the sense of a trusting, relaxed social setting where everyone lets go. However, the story dramatizes the opposite condition—that of being in a state of heightened anxiety, arousal, restlessness and the sense of exclusion and snobbery born from clashing economic classes. 
8.    What mental state does the smorgasbord represent? See page 158. How is this mental state opposite of gemutlichkeit? See answer to the above.
9.    How is the narrator, trying to impress Linda (“Big Hombre,” indeed!) on page 159, like the teacher he criticizes on page 149? How does this scenario contribute to the story’s theme?
10.    What is the story saying about pretentiousness and desire? See page 159.
11.    How is Linda a catalyst for the narrator’s realization that he is not in love with his girlfriend Jane? See page 162 top.
12.    How is Garcia a malignant character for the “smorgasbord” his father provides him? See 160.
13.    Contrast a superficial reading of the story with a more insightful one: A superficial reading focuses on physical desire while probing beneath the surface shows the insidious manner in which we allow our pretentiousness, born from our insecurities and inflated ego, obscures our real motives and even our real self. We walk around in a constant condition of “smorgasbord,” intoxicated by the chimera of infinite possibility and inflated self-esteem only to come back down to earth when our primitive impulses strip us of our pretenses.