Morals, modernity, and machines: short(story) reviews

Although only a month into the academic year, I am once again reminiscing on the short stories I read this summer and how they feed into my daily life. A little spooky, a little nostalgic and a lot of Abercrombie & Fitch. Come along.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson:

Although appearing in “The New Yorker” in 1948, Shirley Jackson’s story has a similar feel to post-modernists of the early 21st century– a tongue in cheek commentary, if I may. The story, apropos of the title, is centered in a small southern village who has a yearly lottery. While the story itself finds its footing very quicky (or slips on its footing, depending on if you won the lottery or not), the themes of the text build slowly – and I would argue, beyond the pages of the text. Tradition and religion are inextricably tied to this town and to the readers. And even though this town doesn’t exist, we may come in contact or know a version of it during our lifetimes. I say tradition to wrap in the overarching mood of nostalgia, which crawls on its belly from Martin’s grocery store to the wooden stool.

People do not like the lottery, per se, and may not even respect it, but they’ve never lived with anything different, and they fear that more than The Lottery. This short story is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the characters that do nothing are most at fault; they never had morals (never thought they needed to), and when they tried to piece any together it was too late.

“Jon” by George Saunders:

On a slightly less ‘morals-are-needed-because-we-live-during-post-WWII’ type of story, George Saunders’ piece also appeared in “The New Yorker,” but instead in 2003 and ‘actually’ a post-modern writer. The premise is banal in some respects: boy-meets-girl type deal, they work in a ‘Facility’ (don’t question it), and they’re all given the anti-depressants “Aurabon,” twice a day. Hm.

Saunders’ writing style is very specific: think “House of Leaves” mixed with Donald Barthelme’s characterization of how children talk. A little strange. And while I would say this piece places itself more firmly in the early 2000s rather than Jackson’s transcendental outcome, “Jon” still conveys many aspects of the modern day. Throughout the story, Randy (or Jon, he doesn’t mind) is in a constant state of naming; the clothes he and others are wearing, the food they have in the pantry, etc. are all name-brand and/or designer products. In some instances, even, the barcode number is given rather than the item’s name.

What you get, then, is a version of consumer culture cross-mixed with anti-depressants extrapolated onto people all crammed in a ‘Facility’ that believes itself to have everything one needs to live a good life. To boil it down, Saunders is playing with a modern-day idea of capitalistic exploitation of what we now call “self-care.”

And like they say, Abercrombie & Fitch is the opiate of the masses.

“The Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka:

No, this is not the one with the giant coach roach in it (rest in peace Gregor Samsa), but rather published originally in German in 1919. Personally, though, I enjoy this short story rather than “The Metamorphosis” both due to the historical background and that it is truly a Kafkaesque story; there is a push and pull of an old tradition being outweighed by new hierarchies (a connection maybe Jackson found interesting enough to play with?), and the loss of respect.

The story is simple: An “apparatus” is being used to punish a soldier. A case of punishment to fit the crime, correct? But the soldier doesn’t know what he is being punished for, and there was no defense case given to him. He was simply at work, fell asleep (as we learn was his crime), and now he is sentenced to death.

How…wonderful.

What interests me, however, are two things. One, the machine plays with the allegory of divinity: You spend long enough on the machine, and you have a religious experience (or the belief of one). And secondly, this idea that the Officer in charge who grumbles at the “leniency” toward criminals by the new Commander can be traced into what the philosopher Foucault talks about in “Discipline and Punish.”

The Officer doesn’t like this new leniency, which consists of not dying right away, but who is to say the Commander will not choose something less public but still a substitute of the “apparatus’” effects? Say, a prison?