In George Saunders' collection of short stories referred to as Tenth of December, or at least two of the stories, Victory Lap and Escape from Spiderhead, one can only be reminded of Jessica Benjamin and her argument about mutual recognition and binaries. In Victory Lap, Saunders creates a boy named Kyle who lives in an excessively strict household. His father's list of rules seem to be sky high reinforcing the FATHER/son binary, meaning that Kyle has to be one hundred percent obedient towards his father. When Kyle witnesses a kidnapping taking place essentially in his backyard, he is torn by what to do; should he go save the girl being kidnapped which means breaking the rules of the house, or does he simply call the cops and let them handle it. When he made his decision, Saunders writes "Then he was running. Across the lawn. Oh God! What was he doing, what was he doing? Jesus, shit, the directives he was violating! Running in the yard (bad for the sod); transporting a geode without its protective wrapping; hoping the fence..." (Saunders 22). The list goes on for a whole paragraph. Kyle enjoys this as well, he enjoys breaking out of the FATHER/son binary and going against his own father.
In Escape from Spiderhead, the main character Jeff is a convicted murderer and for his punishment he was sent to a testing facility where a man named Abnesti gives the prisoners certain drugs and see how they react. In the test that Jeff was apart of, Abnesti made him fall in love with two other girls, Heather and Rachel, then he took the love away making him feel absolutely neutral towards them both. Then, Abnesti wanted to see Jeff's reaction when he gave both of the girls a drug called Darkenfloxx. Being a prisoner under Abnesti, who was essentially the warden, Jeff acknowledged for the first girl who in turn died from the drug. Abnesti still wanted to give the other girl the drug but he needed Jeff's approval. Jeff wouldn't give it to him. Finally Jeff rebelled against the WARDEN/prisoner binary by killing himself. He was happy with his decision because when asked if he wanted to return to his body and live again, Jeff declined.
Also keep in mind another part of Benjamin's argument, what happens after the binary has been challenged. She talks about how the switch does not last, or how the new "power" takes too much control. Kyle displays the second part, when he becomes his "own boss". He has conquered the binary, but now has too much control and does not know how to handle it. Just something to think about or add.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe. Kyle expresses a complete transformation in this scene. Rebelling against his father, Kyle realizes he has power himself and the ability to override his father's orders. I think that initially all teenagers seem to overcompensate for their original lack of power in the PARENT/child binary, but afterwards most teenagers usually try to initiate a balance between parent and child. We hear at the end of the story how Allison is feeling, but I think it would have been more interesting to see what Kyle was feeling and thinking afterwards regarding the PARENT/child binary.
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