Powerlessness at the Workplace of George Saunders’s Pastoralia
Pastoralia, by George Saunders, is a work of fiction that included in his collection of short stories with the same name. The story occurs within a magnificent dramatic spectacle. The protagonist, who is the main character of the story, portrays a caveman in a considerable imitation of a cave. It is not wholly perspicuous what sort of primordial savages the characters attempt to mimic. Thus, the audience is left with the perception that the era in which the events occur is permeated with a fair amount of ignorance. The main characters, Janet and an unnamed protagonist, pretend to chase after unseen flies while robot animals graze outside the cave. The two characters are prohibited from speaking in any form of civilized language with each other or anyone else as well, from maintaining the illusion (Britt).
Other fascinating features and occurrences such as fake floods are put in place for the amusement of the audiences who visit the theme park. The narrator’s personae are rather pitiful, imprisoned in their exhausting lifestyles. They have embarrassing jobs, whereas their relationships appear broken and dysfunctional. The protagonist has a family back at home, which he contacts exclusively by fax. He has a son, expeditiously wasting away from an unfamiliar illness, and is looked after by his wife. Janet, on the other hand, has a son who is known for his substance abuse tendencies (Neeper). The sense of powerlessness and defenselessness that is created in Pastoralia opens on to, almost ineluctably to a deterioration in self-motivation, as is evident in the book. This analysis, therefore, hopes to advance further the readers’ comprehension of Saunders’s story as the dramatic illustrations of powerlessness at the workplace and how they act as a dissertation of the superior concepts that rule the American culture. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Saunders’s Depiction of Powerlessness concerning the American Culture
For starters, we’ll consider the management, as illustrated in the story. Greg Nordstrom, who is a company executive, invites the protagonist to lunch, to have discussions on the intentions of the company to lay off workers. Greg requires him to give evaluation reports on Janet, who he seems to hint that will be on the receiving end of the rounds of firing. He is reluctant to expose this to her and decides to warn her instead, and she listens and works as required for the next two days. Days later, however, Bradley, her son, shows up at the exhibit. She speaks with him, which is against the rules, but the protagonist turns a blind eye to her infractions and does not report her. Bradley gets arrested for purchasing drugs with the twenty dollars he had been given to by his mother and got a ten-year sentence. Janet, who is traumatized by her son’s arrest, finds herself lashing out at a family who came to the exhibit with an ill-mannered child (Britt). The child’s father decides to report the matter to the manager, and the protagonist is left with no recourse and has to give a negative report as well.
Janet’s behavior at her place of work speaks a lot about what happens currently in our society, more so in the areas of practice. Most jobs require the full commitment of their employees to their organizations with high disregard for their personal lives. This has created frustrated workers like Janet, who are always stressed and cannot correctly balance work with their own lives (Rando). Janet is laid off, and the executive applauds the protagonist for reporting her. He, later on, he acquires an internal memo, mentioning that more workers will be evaluated, and some will be fired in the process. After that, Linda comes in to replace Janet and shows great promise in how she carries out her duties. The protagonist and his new co-worker show much dedication to their work.
Every evening the protagonist has to fill a performance evaluation report as a requirement by the management. Janet is an under-performer, repeatedly breaking the rules, resisting to comply with the authenticity policy, using unauthorized language, and smoking cigarettes. Nevertheless, the protagonist carries the workload by himself and maintains an excellent report on his co-worker despite her manifest incompetence (Britt). This is depicted numerously in our current society where people have to struggle between upholding morality, that is doing the right thing always, and letting unacceptable situations slide for the benefit of others because of relations with them. This, however, comes at the expense of others or even the persons themselves.
The artificial cave can be considered as a symbol of the workers’ captivity and indignity at their place of work. They have to pretend to be cave people day in day out for them to get money, which they need for their sustenance and survival (Hayes-Brady). This is also a clear representation of what happens in our society now. Most people have been turned into metaphorical zombies at the corporations where they work, just to earn for their survival. They are confined to doing odd jobs, some of which are very demeaning. The “Employee Remixing” represents the management’s lack of attention towards the welfare of its workers. Remixing is a thinly veiled term for layoffs, and the corporation is fully willing to use both layoffs and the threat of layoffs to control its employees in cruel ways (Britt).
To expound further on their confinement, we note that both Janet and the protagonist have to stay at the exhibit permanently. They have each been provided with separate rooms just nearby, where they are supposed to eat and sleep when they are away from the cave. Nelson, the three-year-old son of the protagonist, suffers from a mysterious disease, and the family is slowly plunging into severe debt. Janet, on the other hand, has her sick mother who is attended to by one of her neighbors while she’s at the exhibit. The goat can also, very well, be a symbol of the two workers’ reliance on this company, without which, they will go broke and starve to death (Kasia). To make things worse, the company has also threatened to throw them out if they fail to live up to the expectations.
Conclusion
In summary, the story is made quite entertaining by George Saunders’ tone and style. Nonetheless, the numerous life lessons depicted in the story are what count Pastoralia as a piece of fiction worth reading. The protagonist and Janet go through very depressing circumstances, and their state of hopelessness is evident, giving no room to happy endings (Boddy). The novel implies to the readers that life is full of good times and bad times and that sometimes the bad can get to worse. The writer also emphasizes on the fact that there is always room for laughter, even in these dire situations.
Besides, Saunders’s narrative can be separated from what might be a melancholic mess by assiduousness and his bare shrewdness. In this chapter, then commences the novel, we can sight in on the abode of a caveman imitator. Pastoralia seems to be the perfectly fitting name for the theme park. The name, somehow, describes the park as a place depicting the plainness of the countryside, elevated by current-day innovation and advanced administration expertise (Neeper). Although the author applies this as the heading of the book, it might as well be an indication of the situation of the unidentified protagonist, who was bestowed the responsibility of impersonating a caveman (Britt).
The unnamed narrator resides in the cave and is provided a place to sleep in another area where a fax machine is provided. Counterfeit pictographs are placed on the cave walls, while on the outside appears to be a group of unidentifiable robots that are feeding. To expound further on their confinement, we note that both Janet and the protagonist have to stay at the exhibit permanently. The protagonist has his own family with whom he communicates with through fax (Boddy). Nelson, his three-year-old son, suffers from a mysterious disease, and the family is slowly plunging into severe debt. Janet, on the other hand, has her sick mother who is attended to by one of her neighbors while she’s at the exhibit.
George Saunders shows a lot of subtility in depicting the monotony and dullness that comes with having a monotonous job. It is also quite interesting how various actions and phrases all through the short narrative are replicated. Take, for instance, and the protagonist uses the phrase “poke their head in” to mention that a guest has come visiting the cave. He uses the phrase again when he informs us that the guests visit the cave less frequently (Hayes-Brady). This kind of repetition may somehow make it easier for the readers to understand and relate more to the protagonist’s experience. All in all, the countless life values depicted in the story is what counts Pastoralia as a story worth enjoying.
The characters of George Sanders mostly belong to the dark and rough sides of society. They are different individuals with all the strengths and weaknesses of human beings, who are in a continuous struggle to live. Most of them experience money-related severe hardships. Saunders uses the personae as representatives of the less fortunate in society. Just like Janet and her colleague who have to pretend to be cave people the whole day to make a living, most of his characters have to stoop to the lowest levels and work hard for their existence and survival (Rando). Saunders, as a writer, doesn’t interfere with his characters much as he mostly uses a restricted third-person narration (Verlander). They have their own identity; at the same time, the writer still has control over them. He pictures even the minutest thoughts that have been flowing in their minds, and the readers, though they do not necessarily belong to the lower class, can identify those emotions and relate to them. To conclude with, the stories of George Saunders are reflections of the darker sides of life in society.
Work Cited
Boddy, Kasia, “A Job to Do”*: George Saunders on, and at, Work,
Link:https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-49932-1_1.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Britt, R., “Genre in the Mainstream: George Saunders’ Pastoralia.” Tor.com, December 13th, 2011. Accessed January 17th. 2020. Link: https://www.tor.com/2011/12/13/genre-in-the-mainstream-george-saunders-pastoralia/?
Hayes-Brady, Clare, “Horning In Language, Subordination, and Freedom in the Short Fiction of George Saunders,” link: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-49932-1_2.pdf (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Neeper, Layne, “To Soften the Heart”: George Saunders, Postmodern Satire, and Empathy,
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5325/studamerhumor.2.2.0280.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_SYC-4693%252Fcontrol&refreqid=excelsior%3A3df555ddddcbc35693280218a3ab313d (Links to an external site.)
Rando, David P., “George Saunders and the Postmodern Working Class,” Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41819518.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_SYC-4693%252Fcontrol&refreqid=excelsior%3A9356c2891a9a3958eb60cd02181e811d (Links to an external site.)
Verlander, Freya, “Let the Freaking Canning Begin”: Human Waste in the Workplaces of George Saunders’s Pastoralia (2000),
Link:https://monash.figshare.com/articles/LettheFreakingCanningBeginHumanWasteintheWorkplacesofGeorgeSaunderssPastoralia2000/7459259(Linkstoanexternal site.)