Parents/Children: Mutual Recognition in Victory Lap

My absolute favorite story in George Saunders' Tenth of December, was "Victory Lap." I think I enjoyed reading it  because it was an easy and fun read, but mainly because of the character Kyle.

I definitely feel pity for Kyle, but Kyle is also someone I strive to be more like. Kyle does not have a mutual recognition relationship with this parents, which would be extremely hard for a teenager. His parents have all these rules for him, which may be just trying to keep him out of danger, but they're over the top and excessive. For example, not being able to go outside when a stranger is in the neighborhood? That's absurd! I don't know how Kyle has lived such a sheltered life without going crazy before Alison is kidnapped.

Before the very end of the story, Kyle is the hero that many seek to be. He goes against everything he has been taught is right, to do what he knows is the right thing. It is unclear if at the end of the story Kyle ends up throwing the rock at Melvin's head, but even if he did I can't blame Kyle. His whole life it doesn't seem as though he has done a single thing wrong. He obeys his parents insane rules and I blame his parents for him maybe going crazy on Melvin. If they did not shelter their child but mutually recognized him, Kyle would not have felt the need to hurt Melvin after Alison escaped. 

Saunders' Sneaky Critique of Parenting Styles

The concepts of praise and reassurance are ubiquitous throughout George Saunders’ story “Victory Lap” from his book Tenth of December. The story features a quirky teenage boy named Kyle who lives a seemingly ridiculously sheltered life under the control of his parents. Kyle must complete certain tasks in order to earn “work points,” which give him the ability to indulge in activities that most people take for granted, such as watching television. While Saunders makes it extremely clear that Kyle’s parents are (almost impossibly) overprotective, the sets of dialogue throughout the story more surreptitiously make clear the parents’ use of praise and reassurance toward their only son. In one instance, the dialogue portrays the parents reassuring Kyle that Allison, a girl he saved from being kidnapped, will “recover in time.” The parents go on to state that they are “amazed by his good judgment.”

The parents’ use of reward, reassurance, and praise seem to have adverse effects on Kyle, as he tends to doubt himself often. In one instance, reflecting upon his actions of leaving his house and breaking many of his parents’ set rules in order to save Allison and subsequently (possibly: Saunders does not explicitly inform the readers as to whether or not Kyle actually dropped a geode on the man’s head) causing severe injury to or even killing her kidnapper, Saunders reveals that Kyle is thinking that he “should’ve never stepped outside.” Kyle’s doubting of himself and his low self-esteem seem to be the consequences of his parent’s misuse and overuse of praise, reward, and reassurance, as he only acquires sincere gratification through completing his tasks and receiving excess praise from his parents. Thus, Saunders puts forth a complex critique of parental praise by demonstrating the damaging effects it can have on a child.

George Saunders' Theme of Psychological Oppression

In both "Escape from Spiderhead" and "Victory Lap", Saunders has a main character that is oppressed psychologically. In Victory Lap, Kyle is trapped by his Father's work system and can’t function normally. Kyle experiences a kidnapping, a situation in which any normal human would attempt to help. Unfortunately, Kyle's mind has been trapped by his Father and his absurd system. As opposed to helping, Kyle considers going about his chores and pretending that he had never witnessed the kidnapping. Similarly, Jeff experiences psychological oppression in Escape from Spiderhead as he is forced to go along with experiments. While Jeff realizes the Darkenfloxx experiment is unethical, he goes along with it initially because of his lack of mental freedom. Jeff is in a corner as the director threatens to take away his time to Skype his mother, and offers to extend his time if he participates.

While the characters are both psychologically oppressed to begin with, both are able to break from their restricted states and exercise their control over themselves. In the case of Kyle, he eventually snaps from his dad's system and halts the kidnapping. His repressed feelings are apparent when he expresses how good it feels to "dominate a grownup." His oppression as a result of his father results in physical violence as an attempt to escape. Jeff also escapes using an act of violence, only his act of violence was committed against himself. As he takes his own life, Jeff displays his mental freedom, making a decision of his own. He also expresses how free he feels from all of the past burdens he experienced in his lifetime.

Escape from Yourself

It is not often that a reader finds himself inside a character without thinking of that character as himself. However, as Vladmir Nabakov writes in "Good Readers and Good Writers", that is a trait of a poor reader. Someone who is a good reader, at least by Nabakov's standards, is able to read a character without always trying to relate, or has an impersonal imagination. In George Saunder's stories "Victory Lap" and "Escape from Spiderhead" from Tenth of December, he makes this easy for the reader.

Specifically, in "Victory Lap", The style of writing is what allows the reader to read to Nabakov's satisfaction. It is written in third person limited, which is somewhat unusual. We get to look inside the minds of his strange complicated characters and hear all of their strange complicated thoughts. However, if this was all happening in first person, we wouldn't get that feeling of being some non-physical observer. It would feel like reading a diary, which would be much more personal and would make it easier to relate to the character. Writing the story in third person limited feels slightly unnatural at first, but in the end you get a much more enchanting experience.

Saunders is 'good writer' in "Escape from Spiderhead" for an entirely different reason. It is because the world he created in the story is so completely different than our own. And even though it is an imaginary-science-fiction-emotional-torture-jail, it still felt very human. However, not relatable enough to fuse the reader to the character, Jeff. The reader is able to observe this strange world through Jeff's thoughts and feelings. Saunders is even able to give the reader an experience of what death might be like in this world, or our own. He does not just take his own experiences and write about them, he writes of things that most likely no one has experienced, while still giving them meaning and significance in our own lives.

Escape into the Unconscious

According to Nabakov, in order to be a good reader, one must never by any means relate to a character in the story by connecting it with their own life. By drawing parallels and relating a character's life to your own, you are essentially making massive assumptions about that character of which the author may not have intended to come across. By making these assumptions and reading a story in this narrow-minded sense, you are missing out on the full enchantment of that character and story as a whole. In order to be a good reader, you must allow yourself to become fully enchanted through the author's words because if not, you are not only limiting your ability to absorb the good writing, but are also not truly appreciating or respecting the authors work.

While some may argue that becoming fully enchanted in this sense is impossible, George Saunders challenges that. In both "Victory Lap" as well as "Escape from Spiderhead," the story is told from a sort of stream of consciousness point of view that while first appears very confusing, leads you into this sort of trance where even though you do not always understand exactly what is happening, as the story unfolds, it leaves you understanding the story on a much deeper level by the time it is finished. By getting this view from the deepest, most personal level, it's almost as if you understand the characters better than they do themselves. At the start of "Victory Lap," we are introduced to Alison, who awaiting at the top of the stairs, builds this entire fantasy of choosing her dream prince. While it at first appears trivial, this fantasy allows us to get to know Alison on a personal level and can even be used as evidence that she is in fact not in a mentally normal state.

Saunders writes similarly while inside Kyle's head where we are able to see his internal battle between the id and superego within his consciousness. Because of this writing style, Saunders is able to fully delve into deeper themes of subjectivity and power that cannot be looked at from the surface. We see that he is intelligent and very much aware of the system that he is trapped in, his consciousness proving that there is something truly wrong with the hierarchy. Kyle always has his father in his mind, fight against his father and family as much as it is a fight with the person. This shows that it is really hard to break out of the system. This battle within his mind where his parents rule his thoughts is because he has a relationship with his parents in which he has never seen mutual recognition.

Spiders In My Head

Saunders is a brilliant writer. Victory Lap was spontaneous but well written. Escape from Spiderhead was dark but at the same time made you happy. I really enjoyed reading Escape from Spiderhead. Saunders created characters that the reader could think about. He did not create characters that readers would want to identify with, but characters that the reader could learn from. 

In the story Victory Lap after Allison's attacker is hit with a rock he seems to have an epiphany that he is going down to hell. In Spiderhead when Jeff overdoses on Darkenfloxx he feels as if he is going up and his death seems more noble then the attackers.

I don't know if Saunders intended to draw this parallel in stories twenty pages apart, but I thought it was cool how he illustrated the different paths of two "criminals." Jeff repented on his crime and honestly regretted it and when he died he was forgiven and allowed into Heaven. I know that sounds all religious but I think that it takes some skill to insert a religious message like that into a story without overdoing it.

The song Spiderhead by Cage the Elephant isn't necessarily related to The Tenth of December in any way, but I think a connection could be made. I am going to leave that up to any of the readers. I left the link the song below check it out and comment on how you think it relates to one of Saunders stories. 

Power and Dominance

Through his short story Victory Lap, George Saunders manages to capture the imaginations out of our very bodies and place us directly into the minds of several different dynamic characters. He carefully creates several images and examples of different dominance complexes, happily building off the other work in class on philosophers Jessica Benjamin and Vladimir Nabokov.

The first complex he develops in seen through Alison Pope, as she paints her fantasy across her staircase walls. She depicts herself as a ballroom princess, judging suitors left and right, deciding whether they've earned her favor. "What about this guy, behind Mr. Small Package, standing near the home entertainment center? What a thick neck.."  (1). Here Saunders develops his first binary, the BEAUTY/beast. That is, Alison's princess status that reigns above her lowly suitors.

Secondly, Saunders establishes the PARENT/child binary through Kyle. Kyle is hardly allowed to be his own person in life, as he's strictly controlled by his parents rule system. He is so limited by his parents 'directives' that he even considered not doing ANYTHING about Alison's kidnapping, even calling the police, lest the outside world think him strange, lest he violates too many directives. Luckily in the end he is driven to overcome these constraints, but all the same, this binary nearly cost a girl her life.

This ties into the third binary produced, KIDNAPPER/captive, an obviously negative complex by nature. A rapist, pedophilic murderer nearly captures and kills Alison, and would have been successful had Kyle not intervened.

All of these point to a greater truth that Saunders's story conveys, that truly Victory Lap is about the struggle for POWER/dominance, as seen through Alison's need to put herself above her subjects, Kyle's parent's need to control their son and his need to find his own person, and the rapists need to control his victims. Saunders paints these binaries all in negative lights, from Alison fanciful whims forcing her to be polite and invite the murderer into her home despite her instincts, Kyle's much needed reaction that might have remained dormant had his instincts not overridden his rules, and there's definitely no good way to look at a rapist.

In the end, Saunders is able to pull ideas together and solidify an underlying opinion of the negative effects of dominance complexes through carefully constructed streams of consciousness running parallel throughout a gripping short story. He can enchant and perplex the reader, thus inspiring them to seek out complicated thought and find inner meaning in all he writes and all he does, this past example to name one of a few.

He's pretty awesome, this Saunders guy.

Analysis Paralysis and Paralysis Analysis

In “Victory Lap,” both Alison Pope and Kyle Boot find themselves figuratively paralyzed when faced with opportunities to act. For Kyle, his moment of paralysis occurs when he stands on his porch watching the “meter-reader” drag Alison away, debating whether to intervene. Alison, likewise, is haunted by the feeling of immobilization as she dreams about deciding to stop Kyle from killing the intruder. Both suffer from “analysis paralysis,” or inability to act due to over-thinking.

Kyle’s analysis paralysis derives from his obsession with contemplating the consequences of his actions. He constantly harrasses himself by wondering “WHAT IF...RIGHT NOW?” (pg. 11) and early in the story, he finds himself immobilized when he realizes that in order to clean muddy footprints off the floor, he must leave more (pg. 11). When Kyle contemplates if he should help Alison, he imagines the consequences of helping: his parents’ reactions to his violation of their “directives” not to intervene and even how his reputation would suffer if he were to call 911, admitting that he saw the incident and chose not to save Alison. By over-thinking the results of his actions rather than following his gut, he fails to act immediately.

Unlike Kyle, Alison quickly knows that she wants to intervene. As she watches Kyle lift the geode to kill the intruder, she whispers “Kyle, don’t" (pg. 26). However, she frequently wakes up from dreaming that she failed to stop Kyle. She relates this feeling of paralysis to dreams in which she wants to save a puppy but can’t because she must also balance a ball on her head (pg. 26). The complication of the task by the addition of the ball reflects Alison’s tendency to become immobilized by her imagination. For instance, at the beginning of the story, she spends a rather long time at the top of a staircase, lost in a fantasy and unable to proceed in reality.

George Saunders’ ability to enchant the reader is evident in these moments of paralysis. By granting the reader access to all Alison and Kyle’s thoughts, Saunders invites the reader not just to see how the characters act, but to understand what thoughts, fears, and patterns of thought compel them to act in the way they do.

Talk to Me Later - I'm Too Busy Being Omniscient to Think

No matter how tempting you find it, I wouldn't suggest reading George Saunder's "Victory Lap" while standing up.  Neither would I suggest reading it while riding the train, unless you trust the stranger sitting next to you to alert you when your stop is next.  I would straight up admonish you for even thinking about continuing to read it as you cross the street ('Why are you mentioning it if you've never thought of it then, you hypocrite?' you might ask.  I hold that that is irrelevant.) 

These may all seem like generally bad ideas, so hopefully you weren't considering them in the first place.  However, I'd like to argue that they are particularly untenable when in the midst of reading "Victory Lap", because its unique third-person, stream of conscious point of view consumes the reader's attention so thoroughly as to block out their own thoughts. 

You might think that sounds outrageously far-fetched.  And I agree that, yes, you are probably going to have your own reactionary thoughts to the unfolding plot in the midst of reading - but ultimately Saunders forces his readers to forgo their own mind processes in favor of figuring out what the heck is going on in the characters' minds.  Especially so when you don't even know if you're in their minds in the first place!  Saunders begins his story simply as the narrator: "Three days shy of her fifteenth birthday, Alison Pope paused at the top of the stairs." (pg. 3)  But by the next sentence the reader is thrust into Alison's mind without the I in ICE (introduce, cite, explain) or even an 'I' to indicate Alison is expressing thoughts as she would in the first person.  So starts the roller coaster ride of choppy, uncensored thoughts and alternating featured characters which never provides the reader a chance to catch their breath, much less mobilize their own 'personal imagination'.  Nabokov would be proud.

Mutual Recognition: Can relationships truly be equal?

Jessica Benjamin, an American psychoanalyst and feminist commentator, analyzes the idea of mutual recognition within a myriad of social contexts in her book, The Bonds of Love. Benjamin questions the structure of binaries that exist today, including the father-son relationship and the male-female relationship, as a means of interpreting more encompassing relationships in the world, such as country-country relationships.


Benjamin first recognizes the power disparity that is evident between a child and his/her parent. She uses the word, "domination", to express her understanding of how the two interact on a daily basis. As a feminist commentator, she relates this relationship to the male-female dynamic that exists today in which men have traditionally occupied the dominant position. Following Benjamin's recognition of such a situation, she notes the ever-popular suggested solutions from the past in which the power scale that the relationship exists on must shift in favor of the undervalued individual. She explains that a shift like that is not the solution, rather a more toxic option. This is evident in Saunders' Victory Lap when Kyle's rebellion against his parents results in him nearly killing a man.


Instead, Benjamin suggests another alternative: mutual recognition. This concept requires a kind of compassion and understanding on both sides of the relationship, in which both individuals can be viewed as separate entities with their own intentions however they are connected by "bonds of love". Although Benjamin understands this idea to be the best solution, she understands it is not completely realistic and she concludes with questions about how a truly equal relationship functions. Is mutual recognition even possible? And if so, is it worth all the extra effort?

Captivating Thoughts

George Saunders’ collection of short stories in Tenth of December not only enchants readers but also allows them to experience something new and exciting. He is able to captivate readers by letting us venture into the minds of different characters and share experiences from their point of view. In “Victory Lap”, Saunders shares the thoughts of three different characters, and in turn, lets us see the same situation from three different minds. Because we are able to follow the characters’ stream of consciousness, we are able to have a deeper and more personal understanding of who they are.

For example, we discover that fourteen year-old Alison is quite naïve (but in many ways sympathetic) with phrases such as, “Don’t you understand, all people deserve respect? Each of us is a rainbow.” (Saunders, 9). The reader also gets to see into the mind of Kyle, a boy who is under the strict rule of his parents. We have the privilege of being able to understand not only how Kyle feels about his parent’s rules, but also his thoughts about breaking them. “He was already at the TV. And had left an incriminating trail of microclods…could the microclods be hand-plucked? Although, problem: if he went back to hand-pluck the microclods, he’d leave an incriminating new trail of microclods. He took off his shoes and stood mentally rehearsing a little show he liked to call WHAT IF…RIGHT NOW? WHAT IF they came home RIGHT NOW?” (Saunders, 11).

This style of fragmented and question-filled writing allows us to have a greater insight as to who Alison and Kyle really are. For this reason, Saunders is able to create a form of enchantment that would be difficult to reach had he just described the situation that the characters were placed in.

In Three Minds At Once

George Saunder's collection of short stories in Tenth of December, enchants the reader and introduces the reader to a wide range of characters. The key to Saunders' enchantment in "Victory Lap" is his ability to follow the stream of consciousness of three different character's in the same situation. The first character Alison Pope, is a charming girl who could originally be written off as naïve with such phrases  as "Each of us is a rainbow," ( Saunders,9) but when one follows the rest of her thoughts, one finds her to be quite clever too. When Alison told her teacher how she loved people and thought life was fun, Mrs. Dees pities her for being so naïve about the world. But Alison's thoughts reveal quite a clever response. She thinks that if Mrs. Dees really didn't think people were good, then she wouldn't "stay up so late grading (she) come(s) in the next day exhausted, bloused on backward having messed it up in the early-morning dark"( Saunders,10). Through Saunders' writing style the reader learns more about what Alison is like than a simple narration would reveal.

Kyle's thoughts do the same as the reader witnesses his perspective of the story and hears Kyle contemplating breaking his parents' many rules. At times this adds some humor because Kyle swears in his head which creates a rather odd dialogue of normal sentences with random swear words intermittently placed. When Kyle witnesses Allison's kidnapping, the reader becomes a witness to the internal struggle Kyle has of whether or not to interfere. Kyle hears is parent's voices in his head telling him things like "she'll recover in time," and "None of our affair" but Kyle makes up is mind to interfere when he thinks that "Forever he'd be the guy who'd done nothing,"( Saunders,21).

The reader also has the chilling opportunity of witnessing the thoughts of Alison's kidnapper. The reader learns how he planned it and how he tries not to disappoint Melvin by trying to be a good kidnapper. It is quite disturbing to hear his plans after first being introduced to charming Allison but that is how Saunders' enchants. By being able to introduce the reader to three different characters and following their different perspectives on the same situation at the same time.

Mind that Matters

In George Saunders' short story "Victory Lap," he captivates readers by bringing them into the minds of his characters. Saunders does an excellent job of enchanting his readers and making them believe his world and characters in a way that drives the readers' thoughts through his story, uninhibited. Instead of using big words or absurdly lengthy descriptions of characters and events, however, Saunders implores more ambiguous strategies.

"Victory Lap" is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that is comprised of a majority of thoughts coming directly from the characters themselves. This little window not only gives voice to the character, but manages to describe events without explicit details. During one of Alison's mental tangents, she thinks about all of the things she has yet to learn, such as, "[H]ow to change the oil. Or even check the oil. How to open the hood. How to bake brownies. That was embarrassing, actually, being a girl and all. And what was a mortgage? Did it come with the house? When you breast-fed, did you have to like push the milk out?" (Saunders 7). Alison's internal dialogue is written with short sentences, questions, and random commentary that creates a snapshot of what occurs in her mind, giving her character depth and voice without ever truly explaining who she is.

In this manner Saunders gives the reader an intimate idea about who Alison is in a clever, palatable way. Her uncensored thoughts penetrate the mind of the reader in a way that superficial description cannot.

This also gives the reader a deeper connection to the character; having seen into his or her mind, the reader becomes more emotionally invested in how the character thinks and feels. The added emotional aspect fortifies ties between the reader and the text, giving Saunders' strategy that enchanting, page-turning quality.