"You anticipate a whole lot of people questioning you about your sexuality?" Julie asks. "or are there particular people you're worried about?"The story was written in 1988, when other sexualities were not nearly as accepted as they are now. The two characters don't even hide their relationship. They, in effect, are defying social expectations by their actions. There's more of this in Wallace's writing. For example, in "Girl With Curious Hair", a young lawyer is at a classical music concert with his friends. Seems normal, right? Well, his friends are a) high on LSD b) one of the girls has a hairdo in the shape of men's genitalia, and c) the "friends" are punks.
Mr. Wonderful and Big and Gimlet had all taken a large amount of Big's LSD, which is a special kind he manufactures for concerts and is free of amphetamines which might make a fellow fidget, and Grope and Cheese had taken LSD also, therefore they were all under the influence of LSD, which made them super amounts of fun to be with.Obviously, this group of people is breaking all kinds of societal/cultural expectations. Enough said.
In short, Wallace frequently writes about breaking cultural norms. Wondering if this is a recurring theme in Contemporary Literature.
I am reading the book 'The Privileges' by Jonathan Dee. It might be a bit of stretch, but one could argue that this book as well discusses expectations, not cultural per say, but definitely economic and generational. This book is told from the perspective of a young family, with the parent's being in their early 20's. Being the youngest parent's in their children's class they often feel out of place and judged at school functions, so they question whether or not they should be acting more mature so as to fit in. On the other hand, they were the first of their friends to get married and are now left behind as their single friends live their lives. They feel ostracized from both groups but aren't sure whether they should try to alter their personalities so as to fit in. The family is also wealthy and are therefore expected to live a certain lifestyle, big house, nice car, nanny, but they question whether that lifestyle would be beneficial. I haven't read enough to know if they break these "cultural norms", but if they end up doing so, drawing this parallel wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the stories of my book, "Want Not" by Jonathan Miles, a couple also has trouble dealing with cultural expectations and what is considered mainstream in today's society. They live in an old, unused apartment and do not have money because do not like what society and civilization has become. They believe it has become too occupied with corporations and trying to make money that people have begun to waste a lot of food and resources. To prove that they don't need to be part of that system to survive, they live away from people and get their food from the trash. One man, who owned a bagel shop, would always chase them away claiming it was his trash and that what they were doing was wrong. Another homeless man ridiculed them for picking stuff from the trash claiming it was gross and worthless and that they "didn't even have the right".
ReplyDeleteIn my book "Want Not" by Jonathan Miles there is a linguist professor who teaches at a New Jersey college. He was recently abandoned by his wife and his life is a mess. He questions how his expectations of himself dropped from future and present tense, what he does and what he will do, to past, what he did. I think that the character brings up a good point of the influence that the culture a person lives in has on that person. American society has expectations towards a person based on age, gender, income, etc. So much so that if the person does not fit the expectations of what is given to them, they are, like Ally said, ostracized from the group. You can also see this with the couple Jacob mentioned. They are shunned from others in their expected group because of freegan beliefs.
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