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.