Study Questions for “The Deposition”
One. Explain the title’s double meaning.
There is the deposition of the witness and there is the metaphorical deposition of Burke who is questioned for the crime of lust and stalking.
He becomes a witness to his own life with a stream of memories as he walks the streets of his youth and is “flooded with desire” and nostalgia.
Does he experience metacognition or any kind of awareness that might lead to redemption?
Two. Burke is a great judge of the world’s failings but not his own. Explain.
He is a self-righteous and angry man who has let his body go to pot, so to speak, even as he derides the dilapidated structures around him.
Three. Explain Burke’s pride and its relationship with the story’s theme.
Here we read a key passage:
Burke believed that he had a gift for sensing not only a person’s truthfulness in response to a given question but, more important, his natural inclination toward the truth. It was like a homing instinct in those who had it. No matter what the risk, no matter how carefully they might have defended themselves with equivocation and convenient lapses of memory, it was still there, fidgeting to be recognized. Over the years, Burke had brought considerable skill to the work of helping people overcome their earlier shufflings and suppressions, even their self-interest, to say what they really wanted to say. The nurse needed to tell his story; Burke was sure of it, and sure of his own ability to coax the story forth. He would master this coy witness.
Four. An honest assessment of Burke might be that he is so susceptible to lust and lasciviousness that he can be put into a trance and go into “stalker mode.” Is this true?
Read this key passage:
Burke held back—though barely aware of holding back, or of the catch in his throat. She was tall, magnificently tall to his eyes. He caught just a glance of lips painted black before her long dark hair swung forward and veiled her face as she looked down to find her footing on the curb. She stopped on the sidewalk and watched the bus pull away in a belch of black smoke. Then she slipped her bag off her shoulder and stretched luxuriously, going up on her toes, hands raised high above her head. Still on tiptoe, she joined her fingers and pushed her hips from side to side. She was no more than twenty feet away, but it was clear to Burke that she hadn’t noticed him, that she thought she was alone out here. He felt himself smile. He waited. She dropped her arms, did a few neck rolls, then hiked her bag back onto her shoulder and started up the street. He followed, matching his pace to hers.
She walked slowly, with the deliberate, almost flat-footed tread of a dancer, toes turned slightly out. She was humming a song. Her knee-length plaid skirt swayed a little as she walked, but she held her back straight and still. The white blouse she wore had two sweat spots below her shoulder blades; Burke could picture her leaning back against the plastic seat on the bus, drowsing in the swampy air as men stole looks at her over their folded papers.
The tone of her humming changed; grew more rhythmic, less tuneful. Her hips rolled under the skirt, her shoulders shifting in subtle counterpoint. Her legs were very white and on the back of her right calf there was a dark spot the size of a penny—maybe a mole, or a daub of mud.
Burke has been following the woman for some time as we continue to read:
Burke stared at the curve of her neck, so white, so bare. It looked damp and tender. She went on in her slow glide and he followed. He had been walking in time with her, but such was his absorption that he lost the beat, and at the sound of his footsteps she wheeled about and looked into his face. Burke was right behind her—he had somehow closed the distance without realizing it. Her eyes went wide. He was held by them, fixed. They were a deep bruised blue, almost violet, and darkly rimmed with liner. He heard her suck in a long ragged breath.
Five. What kind of witness is Burke when put on the “witness stand”?
Read this key passage:
“The young lady there?” Burke asked.
“Don’t play cute with me,” the woman said. “I’ve never seen anyone so terrified. The poor thing could hardly speak when she came to my door.”
“Something sure scared her,” the cop said.
“And what was my part in this?” Burke asked. He looked directly at the girl. She was hugging herself, sucking on her lower lip. She was younger than he’d thought; she was just a kid. He said, gently, “Did I do something to you?”
She glanced at him, then averted her face.
In the same voice, he said, “Did I say anything to you?”
She stared at the ground by her feet.
“Well?” the cop said, sharply. “What’d he do?”
The girl didn’t answer.
“Aren’t you the smooth one,” the woman said.
“I do remember passing her a while back,” Burke said, addressing himself to the cop. “Maybe I surprised her—I guess I did. I was in kind of a hurry.” Then, speaking with absolute calm, Burke explained his business in New Delft, and the forty-five-minute break, and the route he had taken and the necessity of moving right along to get back on time, even if that meant overtaking other people on the sidewalk. All this could be confirmed at the law office—where they’d certainly be waiting for him. Burke invited the cop to come along and settle the matter forthwith. “I’m sorry if I surprised you,” he said in the girl’s direction. “I certainly didn’t mean to.”
The cop looked at him, then at the girl. “Well?” he repeated.
She turned her back to them, rested her elbows on the roof of the cruiser, and buried her face in her hands.
The cop watched her for a moment. “Ah, geez,” he said. He gave the driver’s license another good look, handed it back with the card, and walked over to the girl. He murmured something, then took her by the elbow and began to help her into the back seat.
The woman didn’t move. Burke felt her eyes on him as he replaced the license and the card in his wallet. Finally, he looked up and met her stare, so green and cold. He held it and did not blink. Then came a flash of bursting pain and his head snapped sideways so hard he felt a crack at the base of his neck. The shock scorched his eyes with hot tears, blinding him. His face burned. His tongue felt jammed back in his throat.
“Liar,” she said.
Until Burke heard her voice he didn’t understand that she’d struck him—he was that stunned. It gave him a kind of relief, as if without knowing it he’d been gripped by the fear of something worse.
He heard the doors of the cruiser slam shut, one-two! He bent down with his hands on his knees, steadying himself, then straightened up and rubbed at his eyes. The cruiser was gone. The left side of his face still burned, hot even to the touch. A bearded man in a black suit walked past him down the hill, shooting Burke a glance and then locking his gaze straight ahead. Burke checked his watch. He was seven minutes late.
He took a step, and another, and went on, amazed at how surely he walked, and how lightly. Down the street a squirrel jabbered right into his ear, or so it seemed, but when he glanced up he found it chattering on a limb high above him. Still, its voice was startling—raw, close. The light in the crowns of the trees had the quality of mist.
Burke stopped outside the law office and gave his shoes a quick buff on the back of his pant legs. He mounted the steps and paused at the door. The blow was still warm on his cheek. Did it show? Would they ask about it? No matter—he would think of something. But he couldn’t help touching it again, tenderly, as if to cherish it, as he went inside to nail this witness down. ♦
Burke proves to be evasive, obfuscating, and cagey, the very kind of witness he despises.
Prewriting and Thesis Practice for "The Deposition"
I used clustering but have to show you in a brainstorm laundry list format:
Burke and his personal quest for truth vs. his dishonesty and self-deception
Burke is pompous and self-righteous about his station in life, a lawyer who questions dishonest witnesses on the witness stand.
Burke feels morally superior to most. He sees himself as an embattled champion of the truth against the forces of evil and deception.
Burke probably feels that he is smarter than most as he evidences a certain degree of intellectual pride.
Burke feels pride for fighting for the right cause: He tries to bring justice to victims of bullies and corporate greed.
But for all of Burke’s inflated self-image, he is a victim of his own self-deception.
He is blind to his own dishonesty. Worse, he is as dishonest as the very witnesses he excoriates in his imagination.
He will undergo his own “deposition” when a cop, a witness, and a victim of his stalking confront him with his crime and he goes into denial mode.
Burke cannot tolerate the disparity of being a truth seeker (in his own mind) with being a liar, someone who uses his lawyer skills to dodge the truth.
Burke’s ego won’t allow an honest self-evaluation.
Even when slapped in the face with truth, we tend to feel the momentary slap but go back to our self-deceptive lives.
Burke’s self-deception makes him live, to a certain degree, inside his head, which of course is solipsism.
Burke wills ignorance: He makes himself blind to his stalking and scaring a woman. He doesn’t even know he was following her so closely.
He is pulled by his own desires; he is overcome by own desire to be young again, to feel connected to his youthful self.
Burke is probably not a bad person. He probably means well, but he is still prone to self-deception and lies. He is probably like most of us.
Thesis Attempts
Thesis One
Burke’s self-deception points to the motivations we all have for living under an umbrella of lies, which include our ego’s inability to accept the disparity between our anger at dishonesty in others with our own compulsive lying (hypocrisy), our inability to bear witness to our own inappropriate actions even as we do them, and our need to have an inflated vision of ourselves in order to remain motivated with our life work (championing the rights of the poor).
The above is a thesis of cause and effect.
Thesis Two.
What’s frightening about Burke’s dishonesty and self-deception is that Burke is not a “bad” person by any means. And this is the genius of Tobias Wolff: Many of his most dishonest characters are hard-working, decent people who tell lies because, as Wolff’s fiction shows, lying is a necessary coping or survival mechanism. Normal, decent people have to lie in order to_________________, _________________, _________________, and ____________________.
The thesis answers a question: Why do normal, decent people live lives of dishonesty and self-deception?
We all suffer the conflict between our private desires and our public duty. This tension causes us to create a false self that helps feel better about the suppression or repression of our private desires that are constantly compromised by our public duties.
Our flaws contradict our self-image with such force that to honestly confront our flaws would sink and demoralize us, making us unable to perform our functions, which rely on our elevated self-image (confidence).
We get trapped into a situation and we have no choice but to force ourselves to believe our hellish situation is better than it really is.
No matter how successful we are, we find it is in our nature as humans to acclimate to our success and this acclimation results in boredom, which in turn makes us discontent with our life of privilege and success. This in turn compels us to create a fantasy world that relieves us of the boredom and banality of our existence.
Can you use McMahon's material for your essay?
Only if you use signal phrase and cite your source. For example:
As we read in McMahon's blog . . .
McMahon's remarks can be expounded upon by . . .
We can further complicate McMahon's analysis by . . .
Study Questions for "The Liar" (excellent commentary on this blog)
One. What purpose are lies, such as his mother coughing up blood, serving the boy who just lost his father?
Perhaps by telling stories of tragedy and woe, he gains an illusion of control. He becomes the story teller rather than the victim.
It appears the boy lies so his mother will discover them for a variety of reasons.
He tells Dr. Murphy he doesn’t want to upset his mother but perhaps he blames her for his father’s death or resents her for living while his father had to die.
He writes, “Things were never easy between my mother and me,” and that she underestimated him accusing him of being a sissy or “delicacy” as he calls it.
He further says he got on her nerves. Father liked the son more than Mother.
Nor did Mother like the way her son behaved at his father’s funeral.
The lying separates Mother and son. He feels protected from that separation.
Also his morbid lies disturb his mother and perhaps this gives him a feeling of power over her. He can make her feel “like a failure.”
He appears to feel no emotions except when he tells lies. And he appears to want to stir emotions in others by lying. People are too numb for his tastes.
Two. What story or “lie” does the mother tell herself?
That people get “cured,” that there is “closure.” This is a fiction, a lie we believe to comfort ourselves.
Three. Dr. Murphy says of the boy’s father, “He was afraid of finding his limits.” Explain.
He could believe that he had no limits by not challenging himself.
Four. The story addresses the problem of solipsism as Dr. Murphy says about his son Terry: “How can you prove to a solipsist that he’s not creating the rest of us?” Explain.
People live too much in their heads and believe the delusional stories they tell themselves so much that outside forces, that is, other people can no longer reach them because other people eventually become the creation of the solipsist.
Five. Does the boy seem very close to his parents?
He says he and his mother are constantly at odds and he was “coldhearted” at his father’s funeral; also he no longer misses his father.
Perhaps he feeds off the melodrama of his morbid lies to substitute for the emptiness he feels toward his parents.
Six. Comment on his singing the Tibetan language in “an ancient and holy tongue.”
He believes in his own lie, or story-telling, and so does his audience. He has become a solipsist. But ironically he finds connection with his lies at the end. However, it's a false connection.
Prewriting Thesis Exercise
James wants to be the storyteller, the person who controls the narrative.
James resents his mother and lies give him power over her.
James feels little in his home life. Perhaps he shut down in the presence of his unloving mother. For whatever reason, he can feel more when he creates a false world of lies.
James’ mother has a lie: the belief in “closure.” Closure is a myth.
Lying gives James an illusion of power and control.
Combining Burke and James for a thesis:
What’s frightening about James’ and Burke’s dishonesty and self-deception is that they are not bad people by any means. And this is the genius of Tobias Wolff: Many of his most dishonest characters are decent, good-hearted people who tell lies because, as Wolff’s fiction shows, lying is a necessary coping or survival mechanism. Normal, decent people have to lie in order to_________________, _________________, _________________, ____________________, and _____________________.
Types of Lies in Tobias Wolff’s Fiction
Pete in “The Rich Brother” tells many lies: his richness makes him a better person that most; he is a victim of his brother’s refusal to grow up; he is not responsible for anyone but himself; he is in control of his life.
Pete creates a fictitious self, one that is vainglorious and full of braggadocio to hide his feelings of futility, helplessness, and despair over his ongoing toxic relationship with Donald.
Mark in “Desert Breakdown, 1968” shares similar lies of Pete in that both have an inflated self-esteem they use to hide their feelings of helplessness and worthlessness.
Mark creates a narrative of being a talent on the verge of greatness to hide the fact that he is a parent-mooching ne’er-do-well.
Dr. Booth’s lie is that his son, who doesn’t conform to his father’s ideal of masculinity and manhood, must go to a military academy to become more like his father. Actually, the lie is twofold: One, that the military academy is in his son’s best interests and, two, that the father was a manly as he likes to think he was. In fact, he uses this fantasy to hide his sense of regret and failure.
Three methods of Prewriting with Diagramming
Clustering: Write in the middle of a sheet of paper a word or phrase summarizing your topic. Circle the term and connect to another circled term.
Branching: build a tree trunk, your main topic; then branch out to chief ideas or subtopics and then show the twigs, which are the aspects of the chief ideas.
Show a pro-con opposition column
More ways of generating ideas for your writing
Ask questions:
Why are Tobias Wolff's stories so depressing?
Why are Wolff's characters so lonely?
Why is Wolff's fiction darker and more nihilistic than Ha Jin's?
Why do Wolff's characters rarely experience any kind of epiphany or redemption?
Why are Americans so hostile toward universal health care when it is so successful in other developed countries?
Why is America one of the richest countries in the world yet has the lowest ranking healthcare of all developed countries?
Why do Americans allow 25,000 people to die of treatable diseases every year when this isn't allowed (not even one such death) in other developed nations?
Do my opponents have stronger arguments for their position than I do for mine and if so is it time I switch to my opponents' position?
After prewriting, you want to develop your thesis or main point.
A Thesis Is a Form of a Claim
Be sure to recognize that there are four claims.
Claim of argument
Claim of cause and effect
Claim of definition
Claim of value
A good thesis is never a claim of fact or a claim of the obvious.
The Importance of Mapping Components
A good thesis often contains mapping components that outline the body paragraph topic sentences. This is especially useful if the mappings are in the ballpark of four or so. You wouldn't write twelve mapping components for a 100-page essay.
After writing a thesis that you are confident is strong and demonstrable, you may want to work on an essay title that pertains to your thesis.
Titles from Thesis
For example, take this thesis: "While Tobias Wolff writes compelling short stories filled with captivating characters, his fiction is diminished by Wolff's predictable determinism, nihilism, and absence of moral accountability."
Related titles:
The Diminished Art of Tobias Wolff
Another Dark Day in Wolff City
Journey Into the Dark Soul of Tobias Wolff
Wolff Knows Too Much for His Own Good
The Predictable Art of Tobias Wolff
Once you have a thesis and a title, you may want to focus on the opening paragraphs.
Many writers find that it is easier to write their introductory paragraphs AFTER they have finished the essay's first completed draft. So for now, you may just want to jot a few notes and consider the ten introductory methods we discussed earlier in the semester.
After getting your thesis, title, and introduction ideas, you will want to match an organizing structure with your thesis.
If your thesis is a debatable claim, you will likely use this Toulmin structure:
These essay parts, including claim, data, warrants, and counterarguments are explained in this Toulmin model chart. Here is a second Toulmin model page.
Simple outline of counterargument essay
Introduction
Thesis, a debatable claim
Body paragraphs of support and evidence (use warrants to connect evidence to your claim or thesis)
Counterarguments followed by your rebuttals
Conclusion
After you decide on an essay structure, you want to pay close attention to your paragraphs. They should be well developed, about 120 words or so. Also, they should be unified (details support topic sentence) and cohesive (logical).
After finishing your paragraphs of evidence and counterargument, work on your conclusion.
A conclusion can
return to the introduction
show wider implications of the issue
end on a memorable anecdote that illustrates the thesis
end on a suggestion readers can act upon
restate the thesis in dramatic fashion
After writing your conclusion and fleshing out your introduction, you're ready to look at the checklist for your argument essay:
Does the introduction state the problem or issue?
Is your claim or thesis debatable?
Does your thesis have mapping components that outline your essay?
Do your body paragraphs support your claim?
Do your body paragraphs offer evidence?
Do you have a section where you face objections and address those objections with rebuttals?
Do you use appropriate paragraph transitions?
Does your essay effectively end on a note of closure?
Should You Outline?
Probably the longer the essay the more one can justify writing an outline first. Here is a link that debates the topic of outlining or not.
Joseph Finder, author, discusses this debate with other authors.
What is my verdict?
In my experience, an outline is a good thing for giving you practice on how to organize an essay.
And outlining is a strong form of prewriting.
However, in my experience over 90% of outlines change radically. Don't look at your outline as a permanent template that becomes your master. You control it and by the very nature of exploration and critical thinking your outline will change drastically.
Lies in "Say Yes"
The couple is living a lie. They are playing house, going through the motions of mindless habit, comfort, and convenience.
One evening the husband, a bully, brings up his distaste for interracial marriage, also known as miscegenation.
In the opening, the husband is gleeful that his wife tells others how he helps around the house. He thinks, "I try." He is smug about superficial perception, not the depth of his character. He wants to show the world how considerate and smart he is, but showing is different than being.
A random topic shift to racially mixed marriage triggers the husband into defensive lecture mode. He says, "Listen . . . I went to school with blacks . . . and we've always gotten along just fine. I don't need you coming along now and implying that I'm a racist."
Lacking metacognition, the husband doesn't see his hostility, insecurity, anxiety, and, yes, racism.
As the husband lectures his wife more (because he has no listening skills), he digs himself deeper and deeper into his racist hole as he uses stereotypes to describe black people.
One of his most egregious claims is that black and white people can't connect; they can't "know" each other. As he says, "A person from their culture and a person from our culture could never really know each other."
The husband's flagrant ignorance sets off a Light Bulb moment, an epiphany, or a state of metacognition. She realizes her husband is a racist ignoramus. Full of contempt for him, she replies to him with curt answers.
"Like you know me?" There is arch sarcasm in her rhetorical question.
The husband thinks he has found his lucky moment: His wife has a bloody thumb. Now the husband can play Rescue Man and divert his wife from the argument.
But his wife, Ann, refuses to let go of her husband's racist remarks and the implications on their marriage. She presses her husband to say yes to the question of marrying her if she were black.
He says no and in essence fails the test.
If he is so color obsessed, then how can he possibly know his wife. Ann wants the marriage to be based on personality, not skin color, so in effect the husband's ignorance toward people of color also extends to her.
The most devastating lesson in the story is that we cannot compartmentalize racism. We can't hide it in some remote pocket in our brain. To the contrary, the racism bleeds through the entire body and soul and corrupts everything, including Ann's marriage.
Additionally, not only is the husband racist, he is a hot head prone to violent tempers evidenced by his throwing rocks at the neighbor's dogs.
Does Ann want to be married to a racist? Would not he infect their future children with his racism and his bullying and his hot head ways?
At the end of the story Ann appears to die to him and we see them as strangers: "The room was silent. His heart pounded as it had on their first night together, as it still did when he woke at a noise in the darkness and waited to hear it again--the sound of someone moving through the house, a stranger."
The truth of the marriage is revealed at the end: They are strangers, Ann is dead to her husband, and we can infer that perhaps she has grown up and is ready to move on, most likely to live a life apart from the bullheaded, racist ignoramus.
This is just an inference on my part. The story's ending is by all accounts open-ended.
Prewriting for “Say Yes” and any related story (“The Rich Brother”)
Topic: Option 3: Is there redemption in Wolff’s stories or are they hopelessly nihilistic?
I used clustering (I prefer it to brainstorming), which I can’t show here except in a list:
I started in the middle of my page with the word “redemption”:
Redemption doesn’t have to be perfect or complete. It can be a process.
Pete and Ann show imperfect redemption.
Epiphanies
Accountability
Ann holds her husband accountable; she will no longer be a doormat and be bullied.
Ann has radically altered her view of her husband. Perhaps the marriage must end.
Thesis Generated from Prewriting:
While we would be hard-pressed to find perfect redemption in the unhappy endings of Wolff’s stories, we can assert that some of Wolff’s characters do indeed find elements of imperfect redemption evidenced by their epiphanies of themselves, their radically changed perception of others, and their acceptance of personal accountability.
Checklist for crafting your thesis:
Is the thesis debatable? Yes, we could also argue that the "imperfect redemption" described is no redemption at all.
Is there enough evidence to support the thesis? Yes, the mapping components evidence this fact.
Is the thesis narrow enough for the assignment? Yes, based on the mapping components.
Is the thesis broad enough in its purpose to engage a general reader?
Is the thesis an answer to a question? Yes: Is there redemption in Wolff's fiction?
Does the thesis suggest or outright map a structure for your essay? Yes, the mapping components are indeed the map.
Study Questions and Sample Thesis Statements for “Mortals” by Tobias Wolff
Givens wants the narrator to tell him what he thought about his obituary: "I mean, did you get any feeling for who I was? The kind of person I am?"
After the narrator shakes his head, Givens presses: "Nothing stood out?"
They argue about what makes a great obituary upon which Givens says, "If the only thing that impresses you is having a big name, then you must be a regular midget."
Givens seems to be defensive and prideful about his obituary, however false, because he can't take pride in his life. This is a metaphor for many of us: We admire our false life, our "obituary" while secretly feeling shame for our real life.
Essay Options Relevant to "Mortals"
Pare down the assignment to its bare essence.
Option 1: Explain the role of lying in Wolff's characters. You will be crafting an analytical argument and likely making a claim of cause and effect.
Option 2: Explain the role of solipsism in Wolff's characters. You will be crafting an analytical argument and making a claim of cause and effect.
Prewriting to write a thesis based on "Mortals"
The role of lying and solipsism
Living in one’s head and being a solipsist makes it impossible to know the truth.
I’ve connected options 1 and 2.
Givens from “Mortals” and Mark from “Desert Breakdown” and Pete from “The Rich Brother” hate who they really are.
All three characters live out a fantasy life, a sort of Givens-like obituary that fills them with pride but also kills them because this fantasy life prevents the truth from coming in.
The longer the characters live in this fantasy life, the more they starve inside and the more their spiritual sickness festers and infects them.
Using the prewriting to craft a thesis that is a claim of definition and cause and effect.
“Mortals,” “Desert Breakdown,” and “The Rich Brother” illustrate the disease of solipsism evidenced by their self-hatred, their parallel fantasy life, their inability to absorb truths that challenge their inflated self-image, and their misery that results from their spiritual disease festering as a result of their bullheaded solipsism.
Checklist for crafting your thesis:
Is the thesis debatable? Yes, we are arguing that Wolff's stories provide us with a clinical definition of solipsism. That is not obvious. The casual reader of his stories would not come up with that. Arriving at that conclusion required some thought.
Is there enough evidence to support the thesis? Yes, the mapping components evidence this fact.
Is the thesis narrow enough for the assignment? Yes, based on the mapping components.
Is the thesis broad enough in its purpose to engage a general reader?
Is the thesis an answer to a question? Yes: Does Wolff's fiction provide us with a clinical definition of the term solipsism?
Does the thesis suggest or outright map a structure for your essay? Yes, the mapping components are indeed the map.
Sample Thesis Statements That Suffer from Being Too Obvious or General:
“Mortals” is a story about death.
“Mortals” explores a man’s obsession with death.
Improved Thesis Statements:
“Mortals” is not a story about death or mortality; rather, it is a story about two failed lives, the narrator’s and Givens’, who, despising each other for their similarities, are both mired in narcissistic self-pity and vain self-delusion alternated by grandiose bouts of self-pity.
The “resurrection” mentioned in the story is no resurrection at all; rather, it speaks to Givens’ desire to write his own obituary, for doing so enables him to fulfill the ultimate narcissistic fantasy: to gloss over his shortcomings, to exaggerate his strengths, and to impose an artificial narrative shape to his shapeless, meaningless existence.
Givens’ alleged “resurrection” is no resurrection at all. Rather, it is a chimera that enables him to gloss over his shortcomings, to exaggerate his strengths, and to impose an artificial narrative shape to his shapeless, meaningless existence.
The narrator is convinced that Givens called in his own obituary but in fact we have no definitive proof that Givens committed such a fraud. What is evident, however, is that the narrator is projecting his own failures onto Givens. These failures include a man who knows in his gut that he is squandering his existence on laziness, self-pity, and vain self-delusion and rather than face his shortcomings he would rather divert his energy to hating Givens.
Review of the different types of irony as they are evidenced in the stories
1. Naïveté or innocence like the wife in “Say Yes” or Krystal in “Desert Breakdown." Innocence is lost when the wives gain their Third Eye and realize they are better off alone, free from the symbiotic unhealthy dependence they have on their husbands.
The irony is that the weak role played by the woman hides the fact that the women are far stronger than the men.
In marriage, there is often a power struggle over the following:
spending money
spending time
deciding on relationships, family, friends
thinking about issues (who's right?)
assigning responsibilities
asserting control (don't do stuff behind my back)
What I've found is that over the years women have evolved to cater a man's ego while allowing the man to THINK he's in control when actually the woman is in control.
I remember a married woman told me how she gets her husband to take her out to dinner.
Another irony is that men are often full of bluster, a condition that hides their intractable Inner Baby.
Another irony in both stories is that the "weaker" wife is actually more sane than the husband and less dependent on him than he is on her even though he thinks she needs him. Men are expert at inverting reality. What's up is down and what's down is up.
2. Egotistical blindness that results in a refusal of accountability, self-introspection and creates an inflamed sense of entitlement in Mark like Peter and Donald in “The Rich Brother.”
The irony is that both Mark, Donald and Peter's sense of entitlement leaves them morally bankrupt and deprived of the power to change.
3. Narcissism, which results in delusions of grandeur like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.” This sense of grandeur is a facade feebly hiding that Mark's parents who "gave him everything" didn't give him what he really needed: guidance, structure, and discipline. Lacking those essential qualities, he is helpless, a cripple and deep down he resents his parents for not giving him what he really needed.
And this points to another irony: Mark's parents festooned him with gifts and bailed him out over and over, giving their son everything he wanted, but they didn't give their son WHAT HE NEEDED.
The irony is that the greater Mark's grandeur, the more he is accelerating toward his destruction.
4. Misguided good intentions—perhaps the wife in “Say Yes” thought she could “reform” her husband. But really she spoiled him and babied him (and seems to do so in a semi-comatose autopilot) like Mark's parents spoiled him.
In fact, the wife has been spoiling and enabling her husband, but his racist comments opened a window to his soul from which it appears she is forever repelled. This makes sense because a person cannot comptartmentalize or isolate his racism from other facets of his personality. The racism, which is part of his bull-headed ignorant, stubborn attitude, bleeds through everything he does.
5. Misguided ambition—Pete iss a man of the material world and suffers impoverishment through substitution.
6. Wishful thinking—it’s human nature to want to believe that things aren’t as bad as we suspect they are. Perhaps this is the case of the wife in “Say Yes” and Krystal in “Desert Breakdown.”
7. Oversimplistic view of the world that causes us to look at the surface without peeling the outer layer and seeing the complexities, contradictions, paradoxes, and enigmas that lie underneath. Peter is guilty of not seeing his own contradictions that make him addicted to playing the Mother role to his brother.
8. Having parents, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend or other enablers who bail us out every time we sink so that we develop a false sense of security and feel free to pursue our delusions with impunity like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.”
9. Money can give us a false sense of security and invincibility so that we can assert our most destructive, grotesque aspects of our personality and think we can get away with it—like Peter in “The Rich Brother.”
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