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.