The
page I am discussing in Jimmy Corrigan The Smartest Kid on Earth is a
page that occurs fairly early on in the novel. There are no page numbers, but
it portrays part of the scene when Jimmy and his father get dinner at a diner.
The page contains little dialogue between Jimmy and his father, and is mostly
awkward babble between the two men, such as “oh.. ok.. ha ha” and “no no
please.. after you”. This senseless rambling fills most of the boxes on the
page, and the rest are filled with an awkward silence between the two Jimmys.
I think
that this lack of meaning and interest displayed through timid and
uninteresting dialogue summarizes Jimmy’s life. Jimmy has no real friends as
far as we know, and goes on no exciting trips, vacations, or adventures. He
goes to work where he is ignored or chastised by a woman he likes, but cannot
work up the courage to tell. His overbearing mother consumes his life, calling
far too frequently to have nothing but more pointless and uninteresting dialogue.
Jimmy’s life is so boring that he often daydreams elaborate plots for pages and
pages, such as the superhero lifting up the house, the fling with the nurse in
the hospital, or a trip to Disneyland.
This
page represents several themes that combine to form the life of Jimmy Corrigan:
boredom, loneliness, and social anxiety. Jimmy’s life is so dull that anything
exciting that happens to him is almost certainly a daydream. The only
semi-exciting thing to ever happen to him, as far as we know, is to get a
letter from his long departed father. Even this excitement is taken away from
Jimmy upon their meeting, for the diner scene portrays their relationship
perfectly. They do not really connect because Jimmy does not have enough social
skills to develop a relationship, leaving all the talking and decisions to his
father.
Overall
this page could unfortunately summarize Jimmy’s entire being. Socially awkward,
indifferent, lonely, and weird, Jimmy can barely even carry on a conversation with
normal people. The most interesting part of Jimmy Corrigan is his daydreams,
and no one but us gets to see those.
I totally agree with this comparison. I’ve noticed several different “awkward moments” in Jimmy’s life, but I’ve never truly thought of them as being a reflection of his entire being. It’s almost difficult to get a grasp on Jimmy and connect with him emotionally as a character because we are taken through the mundane tasks of his normal life, but then again we also see the complexities – and sometimes the oddities – of Jimmy’s imagination.
ReplyDeleteThe first example I noticed of this was Jimmy’s interaction with one of his coworkers towards the very beginning of the novel. His coworker is trying to coach Jimmy in women and how to date, and Jimmy doesn’t respond well. He’s awkward; he stammers; he doesn’t fully understand what’s going on, and in the end he lets the guy walk all over him. I think this is another good manifestation of Jimmy’s entire life as an introvert. He’s lonely, frustrated, embarrassed and possibly a little depressed.
On the other hand, I also believe this excerpt shows how Jimmy compares morally with some of the other characters in the book. Jimmy is obviously not very comfortable with taking advantage of women the way his coworker describes it to him. So on one hand, Jimmy is awkward, alone and unsociable, but at the other end of the spectrum I think he’s a decent guy and he cares about other people.
But you’re right in the argument that these little occurrences are true representations of Jimmy’s life as a whole.
I agree with what you said about this scene and how it mirrors Jimmy's life as a whole. He is timid, awkward, and shows a serious lack of social skills. This is the first time he met his father. Even though they are technically strangers, they surely have many things to talk about. Jimmy Sr. seems to be more interested in conversing, but our young Jimmy is too awkward to a point where he cannot even try to establish a relationship with his "long lost father."
ReplyDeleteA similar scene that depicts what you described happens in the hospital. Just before the doctor enters the room, there is a whole page dedicated to Jimmy Sr. talking. He mentions how great the “soon-to-be-introduced” doctor is, and he suddenly changes the topic and talks about his job at the airport bar. It almost looks like he is talking to himself if one just looked at that page separately.
The page that stood out to me was the one that described young Jimmy’s sudden daydream/fantasy about the nurse that helped him out. Like you mentioned, the only time Jimmy seems to be happy is when he daydreams. In his fantasies, he is the opposite of his real self; he not awkward, especially around women, and he gets married and lives happily ever after. Also, I thought it was interesting how his daydream was interrupted by his father, who says, “I found the light switch,” bringing him back to reality.
Overall, I definitely agree with your assessment of that diner scene.
The scene you described between Jimmy and his father captures Ware's statement that his story was written to reflect the mundane happenings of everyday life. As someone mentioned in class, it is this kind of scene that forces us as readers to slow down and acknowledge the awkward silences that we are forced to endure in real life but are often spared when we read. Herein lies the genius of Jimmy Corrigan. Yes, the story and its protagonist are painfully boring, but while reading, you also get the impression that this character is arguably the most realistic character about whom we’ve read.
ReplyDeleteIt’s undeniable that the most interesting aspect of Jimmy’s character is his tendency to escape his mundane reality through exciting daydreams portraying a far more interesting version of his life. For instance, Jimmy imagines a sexual encounter between himself and the nurse tending to him at the doctor’s office. Though Jimmy did not initiate this encounter in his fantasy, it is important to note that his behavior throughout the book makes it clear that he would never take such action in real life. Yes, Jimmy is only interesting, he only takes action, in his imagination, but this fact is largely true of most people. Our inner worlds consist of those fantasies that we’re afraid to act out in reality. This is what makes Ware’s story the most realistic and the most boring of the stories we’ve read. As readers, we want to escape into a reality that is better than our own, a reality in which characters can ultimately overcome their insecurities and act as they would in their fantasy worlds. Ware’s story does not deliver this “next-step” version of reality.