This essay will critically analyse, compare and contrast the representation and interrogation of American culture in an era of post-modernity, considering, in so doing, the writers’ styles, techniques and choice of theme.

Maria represents modern

In A&P Sammy represents those trying to break out of a fixed dominant culture of capitalism, powered by consumerism and work. He wants to be free, to live the perfect consumer life. Sammy’s character fantasises about parties that Maria is likely to attend, he would probably envy Carter’s life but not Maria’s.

Post-modernism describes a broad change in attitudes and thinking which began in the early part of the twentieth century. Postmodern thinker Jean-François Lyotard (1984) believed Postmodernity represented the end of the process of modernity, leading to quicker cultural change. “Post-modern” refers to a belief in the collapse of absolute truth or identities and “grand narratives.” These would include the Bible, Koran and Maos Red Book. Jean Baudrillard (1998) argues in a philosophical treatise, Simulacra and Simulation that society substitutes all reality and meaning for symbols and signs and what we know as real is a simulation. The simulacra are the signs of culture and media creating the “reality” that we perceive. Society becomes overwhelmed with imagery, man made sounds, media and advertising. This simulacrum eventually becomes hyperreal, more real than real, presupposing reality. Apathy and misery break down Nietsche’s feeling of ressentiment (a state of repressed feeling and desire which generate of values.) Our misconceptions of reality shaped by simulacra create our values, which are thus distorted. Hollywood and

Thematically throughout the text Didion asks us to consider life in an era of post modernity. What if our life was a void of artificiality, lacking in morals, where recreational drugs are the norm, conversations and beliefs are vacuous and where people had no feelings for each other? Maria inhabits this world symbolising American post-modern attitudes. In A&P Sammy imagines the life that three women live, he is so drawn to this illusory life that he quits his job to go and find it. We read hints of Maria’s inner self. The redeemable part of her character and America Maria tells us that causing the emptiness is the abortion. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘There’s no point.’ ‘No point in what.’ ‘No point in our doing any of those things.’ He looked at her for a long while. ‘Later,’ he said then. ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s all right.’ (p.133)
The abortion symbolises the loss of values that have been replace by simulacra. The extract below refers to it obliquely:They mentioned everything but one thing: that she had left the point in a bedroom in Encino.”(p. 133)Maria by the end of the book is in complete despair and despondent. In a very short chapter, entirely in italics to emphasise it is Maria speaking, chapter eighty two shows that Maria is looking ahead to a simple life canning fruit, but acknowledging her past misery and her problem with “as it was”.“I used to ask questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is ‘nothing.’“(p.209)

This emptiness is reflected in the images of the desert. By chapter eighty four, Maria is observing closely small incidents. A hummingbird flying, coins falling in water and sunlight. Maria visualises like a film, in short scenes, becoming artificial, confirming her status as simulacra and victim of simulation.

Sammy as a character is not as developed, the length of the piece does not allow it. We learn of his misogyny but are not shown the things that really move him, other than his desire for a different life. His perception of “Queenie’s” life can only be based on what he has seen and read or heard, Baudrillard’s simulacra.

Play It as It Lays in its style reflects post modernist thinking; replacing the grand narrative with smaller narratives. A&P must make a point concisely. Economy of language, precision of imagery and dialogue is fundamental to its success. Updike demonstrates care and precision in his use of language and grammar, in his use of quotation marks in A&P. For example:

The girls, and who would blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say “I quit” to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.

Sammy quitting is the significant event in the story; he has used quotation marks to emphasise it in the middle of a longer sentence. Updike wants us to read closely. Showing the reader the feelings of a young man spontaneous but uncertain.Play it as it lays employs a cinematic style, short scenes. The chapters are not always in sequence, films are not shot sequentially. In many chapters, the style is like a script. Short chapters, for example chapter forty, suggest life is a random set of scenes, no purpose or great plan. This chapter is mainly dialogue; the purpose to demonstrate a spontaneous, privileged and self-indulgent life and Maria controlled by BZ. Like a scene in a script. Imitating

The male characters have no genuine feeling for her and often hurt her, like Carter, who made her get the abortion. The abortion is central to the character’s thinking and actions thereafter. It surfaces in her conscious when pushed there by her subconscious, depicted in dreams, which get progressively worse. Maria regrets the abortion and explores guilt. The hypnotist sessions are examples. She seeks to regress to her foetal state. When asked if she can remember is evasive and talks about traffic. Does she know her foetus was aware? She hints at it when expressing concern at what happened to it and grieves for it. The dreams are also simulations, the hypnotism seeking to recreate as a memory an existence is a simulacra. She dwells on it throughout the book:

“ …she bought a silver vinyl dress and tried to stop thinking about what had he done with the baby. The tissue. The living dead thing, whatever you called it. ” (p.114)

This passage shows us that she believes it to have been a baby. She then tries to diminish this by referring to it as tissue. She has trouble with “as it was” because of this event.

Simulation is symbolised by the drugs and alcohol consumed that influence her dreams, her perception of reality and distort her values. The theme of distortion, the tools that are available to alter perception, and thus reality, runs throughout the book. Sleeping pills, tranquilisers, cannabis, alcohol and tobacco are all used. An unseen third person narrates the story. The reliability of the information provided by the narrator may be questionable when Maria provides it to the narrator. She is like a person with no ressentiment.

The protagonist in A&P is a man. Didion is a woman but Maria is not portrayed sympathetically. She does something many may disagree with, has an abortion. Sammy on the other hand is a young, attractive, heterosexual modern day knight in shining armour. He makes a sacrifice on behalf of three damsels in distress. A hollow gesture, it is a symbolic protest against consumerism, the values and rules that accompany it. The store represents

Sammy is a hero, albeit misogynistic. In his consideration of the three women, Sammy dwells on their physical attributes and attractiveness in a lingering manner. The reader gets the sense of ogling and scrutinising objects of desire rather than human beings. The descriptions are long and detailed, this contrasts with the descriptions of older women which are very brief. He gives the most attractive one a name, “Queenie”. She is the queen, the most beautiful. He judges women purely by appearance.Maria is a character with whom many readers would not identify and toward who would have difficulty feeling any sympathy. She is promiscuous and does not even apologise to Carter for being pregnant with possibly another man’s child. Abortion at the time the story is set was at the cutting edge of liberal and modern thinking, illegal and unacceptable in many states. Casual sex was also an emerging pastime and not widely approved of. Maria is an anti-hero. Many modern anti-heroes encapsulate the rejection of traditional values; they are reckless and self destruct. Maria does this here. There is no redemption or success for Maria. She is self destructive and reckless repeatedly, taking drugs, confronting car thieves and sex with strangers. Sammy also, in his decision to quit the store, but is portrayed more positively and humorously than Maria. There is no grand gesture from her, just nihilism followed by a retreat into hospital. She is hiding from a reality that she has only imagined. In the last chapter she tells us that “On the whole I talk to no one.” (p213). A&P’s theme considers transition to adulthood. Acting or thinking differently from immediate family, friends or colleagues, possibly disappointing or alienating them. The change is profound for Sammy. He is 19, finished school, bored and working. The girls unwittingly make him think he may miss out unless he asserts himself. His parents helped Sammy get the job. He lives at home in the environment his parents created. He is working class, implied by his memories of parties at his parents’ home: lemonade for the neighbours, Schlitz in tall glasses if the party is more sophisticated. He imagines well-dressed people eating gourmet snacks and sipping exotic drinks from frosted glasses, he longs for the girls, especially “Queenie”. Sammy rejects his role quitting his job and removing the class uniform asserting his individual identity, not his parents’ or A&P’s. Rejecting Stokesie’s life, of being trapped, he is a shallow character who sees women as objects, feeling sorry for a man who has a relationship, implying that he wishes only to use women. He gives lengthy descriptions of the three single and young women but older and married women with children are dismissed as “witches” or “marrieds”. His parents’ think what happened was sad. At the end of the story, Sammy knows how hard the world will be from now on. He does not think it sad though. Symbolising freedom, individuality and sexual liberation are “Queenie” and her friends. Wealthier, younger, attractive and wearing fewer clothes than an average shopper does. The manager, representing the government, chides them for being different. “ “We are decent,” Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing, getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A&P must look pretty crummy ” .

Unwritten and little spoken about standards of decency are at issue. Queenie is flaunting this code in front of the A&P manager. Petty rules made by Government are represented here.

Maria fails to have meaningful lasting relationships, it is not clear if this is her choice. Sammy does not want a relationship. All of the men Maria deal with are powerful or successful, Carter, BZ and the actor with the Ferrari. They all abuse or use her. On the other hand, like BZ, perceive her to be her screen persona that he then falls in love with. Showing the destructive power and futility of such simulacra, he kills himself. This incident shows how desensitized and remote from the pain of others Maria has become to hide her own interior pain. She has no values and has lost all ressentiment. Men view her as an object, for their own gratification. They have money and power, so can and do use her. Sammy can only express a misogynistic view of women and make a futile and empty gesture. He cannot act on his misogyny, like BZ and Carter. No women have any intelligence for Sammy; they are pure objects, to satisfy the “male gaze”. Updike shows us this attitude concisely:

“You never know for sure how girls’ minds work (do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)…”

The manager insults the three girls openly and without a second thought and so they leave. This is a minor incident but demonstrates patriarchal power.

Didion exposes this power naked and raw, dragging the reader into a heartless male dominated artificial world. She uses the environment of the desert to show us the emptiness that Maria feels. With Hollywood and

Bibliography Updike, J. “A&P.” 2004, Literature, A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet Gardner, Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl and Pete Schakel.

Didion, J., 1970, Play It As It Lays.

Foust, Ronald. “Family Romance and the Image of Woman’s Fate in Play It as It Lays.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 5.1-2 (Mar 1984): 43-54.

Wolff, C. G. “Play It As It Lays: Didion and the Diver Heroine.” Contemporary Literature 24.4 (Wint 1983): (pp. 480-495.)

Bush, M L, 1984, The Use of Narrative Devices In the Fiction of Joan Didion.

Babich, B E., 1990, Nietzsche and the Condition of Postmodern Thought In Koelb, Clayton, ed., Nietzsche as Postmodernist

Bloom, H., 2000, ed. John Updike: Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers.

Lyotard, F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge originally published in

These are some early poems that I have now decided not to develop. They are however all copyright. Enjoy.

“[T]he tremendous claustrophobia of the city is designed to hide what the city really does, which is to divorce us from a sense of reality and to divorce us from each other.”(James Baldwin) Both Paul Auster’s City of Glass and James Leo Herlihy’s Midnight Cowboy consider the impact that

Part one of Midnight Cowboy introduces Joe Buck and provides details, by way of flashback, of his early life and his maturity into a libidinous cowboy. He is brought up by three women: ‘He had been raised by various blondes, one of whom was his real Mother. The first three, who brought him up to the age of seven, were young and pretty’ (Herlihy 1965 12) Joe did not distinguish between the three women “never certain which of them was which.” (Herlihy 1965 12). Joe does not have much in the way of male influence in his early life, and then without warning he is given into the care of Sally Buck, his grandmother, who worked long hours and left him in the care of “various cleaning women.” (Herlihy 1965 14). Sally had many “beaus” who “were ranchers who wore Western hats.” (Herlihy 14 1965). Most of them ignored Joe but one, Woodsy Niles, “taught him how to ride and a little of what Joe came to believe being a man was all about. However, like Sally’s other beaus he left “and Joe was left to pine for him as for a gone away father.” (Herlihy 1965 15). The text is making the point that a boy needs a male role model and if there is not a Father around then a boy will mimic whatever male gains his affection or respect and mimic that person: ‘But surely it was in this time of Woodsy Niles that Joe had begun to see himself as some sort of cowboy’ (Herlihy 1965 15) In contrast we learn nothing of Daniel Quinn’s early life. On the first page the text erroneously dismisses its relevance: ‘As for Quinn, there is little that need detain us. Who he was, where he came from, and what he did are of no great importance.’ (Auster 1985 1). Quinn did have a wife and son who are now both dead. The main protagonists of each text have experienced the loss of family, as has Rico Rizzo. Auster by avoiding any back story concerning Quinn focuses on the effect

‘He had to have some advice, that was all there was to it. The thought became an obsession: He wouldn’t do another thing in town until he’d found someone who knew the ropes and could give him some advice.’ (Herlihy 1965 119) As Oliver Twist had the Artful Dodger so Joe eventually meets Rico Rizzo. However, like Quinn, at this point Joe is living in

Quinn writes detective fiction as Max Work, he has no friends and only works for six months of the year. The blurring of identity, that is so fundamental to postmodern literature, begins with the use of a pseudonym to publish his books. This is highlighted when Daniel Quinn pretends to be Paul Auster and believes he is accepting an assignment from the wife of Peter Stillman. This split personality that develops, echoing works like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, is almost the sine qua non of what is now a clichéd postmodern device. This idea is again explored when Quinn goes to Grand Central Station. Quinn arrives early in order “to study the geography of the place,” (Auster 1985 50). The station is crowded and Quinn observes that Stillman could disappear “without much trouble” (Auster 1985 50). It is in this scene at the railway station, in a confined space amongst “the press of oncoming bodies” (Auster 1985 50) that the text explores the claustrophobic effect of crowds upon identity but not the idea that it is concealing a deeper, more malevolent purpose as

He follows him around New York, making a map of his walks and seeks to divine meaning from them; there is a possible reference to The Tower of Babel and the text here is considering the idea of De Carteau (1988) that walking is itself like language and that the way a person walks and where that person walks has meaning, that the city is defined by the places that people go. Auster appears to discard this idea when it transpires that the person in question has a fascination with eggs and is possibly insane. After three meetings with Stillman, at which Quinn is disguised, he discovers that Stillman has disappeared. The power of the city to engulf identity and, as

‘Stillman had gone now. The old man had become part of the city. He was a speck, a punctuation mark, a brick in an endless wall of bricks. Quinn could walk through the streets every day for the rest of his life, and still he would not find him. Everything had been reduced to chance, a nightmare of numbers and probabilities. There were no clues, no leads, no moves to be made.’

(Auster 1985 91)

The contrast between the indoor life of Daniel Quinn, as Max Work, and the real life of a detective as Paul Auster is shown here. Detectives solve mysteries; they follow leads, examine clues and interpret events and the actions of people to provide meaning. The failure of Quinn to find any real meaning in the case undermines his sense of identity and reality. From this point in the text his identity begins to unravel. Quinn believed that he “could return to being Quinn whenever he wished” (Auster 1985 62). He stakes out Stillman Junior’s apartment, hiding and sleeping up an alley. He is completely isolated; upon leaving the alley one day, to obtain money, he sees himself in a mirror and does not recognize the reflection:

‘He did not recognize the person he saw there as himself…He tried to remember himself as he had been before, but he found it difficult.’ (Auster 1985 142)

The text is overtly saying that the claustrophobic conditions within which Quinn was living in the alley divorced him from all sense of reality. He has become like the homeless people he had observed in the city:

‘The transformation in his appearance had been so drastic that he could not help but be fascinated by it. He had turned into a bum.’ (Auster 1985 121)

The city and its claustrophobic environment removes all sense of reality and so identity and leads to isolation for Quinn. This is confirmed when upon returning to his apartment he finds it is no longer his home: he has nowhere to return to:

‘He had come to the end of himself. He could feel it now, as though a great truth had finally dawned in him. There was nothing left.’ (Auster 1985 126).

At the end of the novel the narrator states that “It is impossible for me to say where he is now.” (Auster 1985 133)

The self conscious cleverness of Auster’s style in City of

In contrast Midnight Cowboy is an examination of both childhood influence and environment. Joe Buck’s identity as a cowboy is derived from Woodsy Niles, not the women who brought him up or the city of

The text emphasizes Rizzo’s childhood experiences; he, like Joe Buck, has also lost his Father and family but it is the deterioration in his health that is caused by

‘He saw himself being drained and robbed and swindled in a thousand impossible ways: Every smile cost him some ungodly sum, and every time he nodded in assent to a stranger, a vital substance was extracted from him. If a clock ticked or a breeze blew or a wheel turned in his presence, within range of his senses, it seemed somehow to have stolen his energy to fuel itself.’ (Herlihy, 1965, 203)

Joe realizes, when referring to the clock and wheel, that the city is draining him of life. Rizzo’s health deteriorates to the point at which he may be unable to walk. The unforgiving nature of

‘I mean what do they uh, you know – do with you – if you can’t, uh..Agh, shit!’ (Herlihy, 1965, 209)

The answer is implied as nothing. So Rizzo changes from confident street-smart trickster to being unable to walk at all and scared. On the bus to Florida Joe realizes he cannot live like Rizzo, he must get a job. He confirms his rejection of the cowboy, saying he wants:

‘…a change of shoes!’ Cause I am so sick o’ lookin’ at these goddam boots. I am! I’m gonna throw ‘em in the ocean! Watch me. I want ever’thing new.’ (Herlihy, 1965, 246)

Rizzo’s death, symbolizes the death of

2000

Bibliography

Alford, S. Spaced-Out: Signification and Space in Paul Auster’s The

Auster, P. (1985). City of Glass,

Baudrillard, J.(1994) Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor:

Bernstein,S. (1990). “‘The Question is the Story itself’: Postmodernism and Intertextuality in Auster’s New York Trilogy. Merivale and Sweeney, 134-153.De Certeau, M. (1988) The Practice of Everyday Life. (Trans. Steven Rendall.) Berkely:

Gelfant, B. (1970) The

Herlihy, J. L. (1965). Midnight Cowboy,

Lavender,W. The Novel of Critical Engagement: Paul Auster’s “City of

Contemporary Literature, Vol. 34, No. 2. (Summer, 1993), pp. 219-239. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholsan-Smith. Oxford and

Little, G. Nothing to Go on: Paul Auster’s “City of

Solnit, R. (2000) Wanderlust: A History of Walking.

http://reconstruction.eserver.org/023/swope.htm accessed 28.08.07

Green Sequoia, slow down — take the joy of her,
Slow down and breathe the coy her, feelings
tapping on the broken window, in half-life light.
Get down, feathers and a shilling, wrap them

in a white shade of hessian — rough touch
smoothes a flinching wince,
like a stone frog catching flies.
It’s in the blood, 1989: On the wire

floating above a garden, dreaming
a compost smell, hiding a wobbly
neighbour, staring through the sash-windows
that squeal open, like cats drowning.

Smoke haze in the kitchen, everyone smoking
and talking; laughing at shiny photographs.
Monotone edged in white, like the life
of the neighbour’s wife, shaking to a bongo
and tidying like Andy Warhol.

Ivor Griffiths 2007

Fossil Gatherer

Propping up rusty railings by the shore – listening -
between eyelashes I saw flapping, it sounded like applause.

A skeletal osprey limped along cracked hot granite,

eyeing a red crab drowning in sunshine.

The crab was crunched — then wriggled.
Oscillating sine waves tickled the air,

a spider drowned in a bucket

next to my foot – squealing

Dirty fingernails scraped the earth
seeking out ancient dead: their stone-shadows

now ghostly skeletal images –

crushed in time and spatial vectors,
to emit crackling and spitting messages:

reminiscent of Italian and Chinese Art – in a white room.
With a high-brow air, but whining,
like a London Tube train,

late at night

then rubber-necking at the hard platform’s lip.
I watched litter swirling, between the tracks,
sniffed the warm rubber,

and flinched at metallic noises.