User:Aven13/Paper

The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender modes.

When I was a young lad... no more than 6, maybe 7... I saw something that changed me, forever. It was a mere three sentences, but those three sentences made - make - me the person I am today.

It was a day like any other. I was out playing in the slag pit, as children are wont to do, and I had gone home. And then, I saw it. It was merely a book - my tiny hands clasped it, unaware of its power, and I opened it, and I saw these three lines:

See Jane run.

Run, Dick, run.

Good job, Dick!

Upon the first reading, I could barely comprehend the genius of these words. I stared at it in a daze for almost 30 minutes, when my horrible mother decided to take it away from me. Unbeknownst to her, I snuck the book under my raggedy street-urchin clothes and brought it up to the drawer that I slept in. Every day, from that point on, I have made myself look at this book for at least an hour a day, though on many I could have gazed much longer. This book made me what I am today.

But, enough on how this book made me what I am, allow me to analyze it for you.

Let us begin by taking a look at this passage as a whole. In this passage, we see an unnamed narrator tell a child, Dick, "See Jane Run. Run, Dick, Run. Good Job, Dick!" In the first sentence, we see the narrator tell the child, Dick, to observe Jane as she runs; to imitate her technique and style; to prance with her grace and poise. In the second sentence, we see the narrator urge on Dick to run; and finally, he congratulates Dick.

But where is his congratulation for Jane? After all, she was the one who taught Dick how to run; she was running, and without her, Dick could not have started. Why could she run, when Dick couldn't? That is the first way in which this book is brilliant. It makes various commentaries, all of which I will tell you about later, but of of the most prevalent is the theme of maturity and sexism in youth.

Since the narrator is congratulating Dick for his task of running, we know that there must have been a reason for Dick to run. This book was published in 1930, and Dick and Jane are both children. Why would the narrator be teaching a boy to run, for a purpose which women couldn't do?

Sports. The boy is training to be an athlete, but Jane is already better than he is. And she knows it. She stares silently on as she watches the narrator congratulate the boy exclusively, without a single mention of her. Because of society's inbuilt taboo on women requesting recognition or thanks, Jane knows that she must silently stay in her place and not request a single bit of thanks.

But do not think that this is in any way the fault of Dick. He is an innocent in all of this; he is merely a child being taught to run for an unseen narrator for an unknown sport. His innocence is being exploited to make a perfect athlete; someone the narrator feels like they can be proud of. Jane is silently seething with rage; but not against Dick; against this unseen narrator.

So who is this villain, this modern day Herod, this Xerxes, who is ignoring one child and exploiting the other? Let us analyze this further.

There are quite a few things we know about the narrator. First, he must be a trusted figure in the lives of both Dick and Jane; and second, he must be male, as it can be assumed that a woman would not be so inherently sexist against a small child. From these two assumptions, it makes the most sense to assume that the narrator is the father of Dick and Jane; Dick and Jane are siblings. This theory is further supported by the fact that "Dick" and "Jane" are both monosyllabic and four letters long; parents enjoy doing this. However, there is a third assumption that we can likely make. Why would the narrator be encouraging the boy to observe Jane's running style - undoubtedly good, but as a child, certainly not perfect - instead of teaching the boy himself? The answer must be that the father cannot run himself.

The theory that the father is an abusive brute who cannot himself run is further supported by the dialogue he uses. He uses exclusively monosyllabic words, many of which are commands. The only bit of humanity we get in these lines is when he tells Dick that he did a good job; but he does so without an ounce of closeness. He does not say "Good job, sport" or "Nice job, son". He instead always refers to his son by his full name, without any pronouns. This implies that the father does not feel comfortable getting close to his son in any way; but why doesn't he?

The answer is that the father himself both feels like a failure and had a distant, uncaring father. To address the first point: in America, there are very defined social roles for both men and women. The emphasis for men to be the "man of the house", the main earner, the leader is the family, is almost overwhelming in American society. We can deduce from the simple language of the narrator that he is not college educated, and as such has a relatively low wage ceiling that it is extremely hard to break. This lack of wages has made the father feel like a failure, and as such, both become distant from his children and feel like he has to get them out of the cycle of poverty; presumably via competitive running.

Since the text was written in American English, we can assume that the narrator is American. Jogging is a sport practiced by over 60 million people in the U.S. alone; but this man is not having a friendly jog with his son. Just as tennis is the sport of the rich, jogging is the sport of the lower-middle class in America. Seeing as social mobility in America is extremely low (29th), it is reasonable to assume that his father also was a lower-middle class blue collar worker who also felt ashamed at his inability to provide what he felt was a truly meaningful life for his family.

But this text shows us the truly harmful side of thinking that way. The text shows us that becoming distant because you believe yourself to be a failure as a parent only further harms your relationship with the children. Were the father actively encouraging both children to run, they would love him, and doubtless have a meaningful relationship with him well into his adulthood.

Bringing us full circle as to the reason he can't run, obesity in America has become increasingly easy in the last few years especially among lower-class households due to the cheapness and availability of junk food in stores.

However, to end the description of the narrator here would be to sell the text short by a mile. For you see, there is a deeper metaphor at work here: one so subtle you probably didn't even notice is, but it would doubtless have influenced your life nonetheless. And that is the comparison of the narrator - a failing, lower-middle class overweight man - to god.

Now, at first, you may think "Oh, impossible. There's no way that this can be related to god."