Katherine Delle
Dr. Johns
10/16/08
Loss of Collective Meaning
Throughout “Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth”, author Chris Ware has created an exceedingly alienated and lonely character in Jimmy Corrigan. The creation of such a character and the depressing and horrible experiences he goes though are commentaries by Ware on present day life losing its meaning. One of the main ways that Ware expresses his belief in this loss of meaning is through displaying an absence of not only family unity, but also in showing a lack of unity among people in general. Bill McKibbon, author of “Enough” expresses similar opinions when he explains his belief that in the process of becoming a more individualized society, we have lost collective meaning in our lives. This is an idea that I definitely agree with and it is also the main idea that I believe Ware is trying to depict throughout “Jimmy Corrigan”. He is showing his belief that modern life has a lost its meaning, and more specifically that there is a lack of unity among groups of people, especially among families.
The primary way by which Ware displays a lack of unity in modern day society is through Jimmy’s family. His mother is completely overbearing and controlling, calling him at work excessively. She even proves to be uncaring of Jimmy’s psychological state by sleeping with the superhero that has been Jimmy’s role model and father figure. However, it is in Jimmy’s father that we see the true dysfunctional relationship within the family. Jimmy has grown up not knowing his own father, so when he randomly invites him to visit Jimmy is internally very confused. He turns to fantasizing as a form of escape mechanism and fantasizes about killing his father upon meeting him. At the same time however, he also really wants to meet his father. Jimmy clearly has conflicting feelings toward his dad because of all the anger toward him yet he also has curiosity about him. By including such a dysfunctional family that has practically torn Jimmy apart inside, Ware is making his point that collective meaning in life has been lost among families.
The character of Jimmy Corrigan himself has been created by Ware to be someone who is void of collective meaning. He has very limited contact with other people, making him a very lonely and isolated man. His attempts at social activity show just how pathetic he really is. For example, Jimmy tries to have a relationship with his co-worker Peggy but he can’t seem to even have a proper conversation with her. At dinner, he puts two bowls out as he is hoping Peggy will join him for soup. However, he then remembers that he is alone and puts one of the bowls back (21). This lack of friends or romantic partners causes Jimmy to engage in strange fantasies as an attempt to fill the emptiness he feels inside including fantasies about women and superheroes. Living with such little social contact has made Jimmy’s life meaningless.
Another method that Ware uses to show the loss of meaning in life is through the four different generations of “Jimmy’s”. All four generations are shown mistreating their own sons, which is included to display that nothing seems to change and that the past simply repeats itself over time. One example of this is Jimmy’s grandfather being cruel to Jimmy’s father and even killing his brother, Amos (p.28). Also, Jimmy’s grandfather is cruel by demanding that he kill his tiny pet horse (56). Consequently, the cycle continues with Jimmy himself imagining killing his own son by smashing his head with a concrete block (57). This horrible cycle of fathers “destroying” their sons by treating them poorly and in turn causing them to treat their own sons poorly, is part of Ware’s commentary that modern life is meaningless. In fact, the scene depicting Jimmy killing his son is displayed as if it is on a stage and the spectators are 19th century mice. By depicting this scene as if it were a show we are able to see that life seems meaningless to Ware and that the family unit is almost nonexistent. Ware further shows his belief that family unity is disappearing by portraying an askew family tree which shows the generations growing backward and the tree ending with Jimmy (90). By not including branches Ware is showing here that Jimmy’s family isn’t expanding anymore.
Bill McKibbon comments on the very same symbolism of a meaningless life in his book, “Enough”. McKibbon would definitely agree with Ware that we have lost collective meaning in our lives as a society. He emphasizes in his book that there has been a decrease in faith among humans, a decrease in feeling one with the world, and a resulting large increase in individualism. He states, “and the only real resource that many of us have against the meaninglessness, now that the church and the village and the family cant provide us with as much context as before, is our individual selves.” (46) McKibbon even comments how Seinfeld, a show known for having no meaning, has become “our greatest cultural artifact” (46). One example showing that Ware would agree with McKibbon in this sense is when he shows the postcards of the town, which could be any small town in America (168). The postcards portray the town as being very dull and gray and with not a single person in any of them. By not including any people in the postcards Ware is expressing that people of modern society don’t engage in activities as a community any longer. I would definitely agree with McKibbon and Ware that we have lost collective meaning in or lives. I see many examples of this around me; for example, marriages rarely lasting, family dinners almost in extinction, and neighborhood children barely even knowing whom each other are. People today are mostly concerned with what they can do to get ahead and are only worried about their own success. This extreme individualism is what is creating more and more lonely people in the world such as Jimmy Corrigan.
Overall, Ware, McKibbon, and myself all are in agreement that there is a loss of collective meaning in modern day life. This loss is specifically displayed throughout “Jimmy Corrigan” through a lack of family and group unity. Our family, friends, and just people we interact with on an everyday basis are what give our lives meaning and without this sort of socialization our lives lose meaning. This is clearly shown through Jimmy Corrigan who has a very limited social life and therefore has developed psychological problems because of it. Family and societal unity provide our lives with collective meaning and I believe that we have lost much of this unity in modern life. Ware, McKibbon, and myself all would agree that reestablishing this unity it would be able to bring more meaning into people’s lives.
3 comments:
In your paper you did a good job of comparing "Jimmy Corrigan" to "Enough" and their respective authors. You gave many examples of the loss of meaning in the lives of Jimmy and humanity as a whole. One thing that you should address is whether this loss of meaning is worth all the other progress we have made as a society. Talk about how technology and other advancements have made our lives less meaningful and whether our lives lives have gotten better as a result. Do the ends justify the means? Besides that everything else was good. You even added your own opinion on life losing meaning.
Katherine Delle
Dr. Adam Johns
10/19/08
Loss of Collective Meaning
Throughout “Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth”, author Chris Ware has created an exceedingly alienated and lonely character in Jimmy Corrigan. The creation of such a character and the depressing and horrible experiences he goes though are commentaries by Ware on present day life losing its meaning. One of the main ways that Ware expresses his belief in this loss of meaning is through displaying an absence of not only family unity, but also in showing a lack of unity among people in general. Bill McKibbon, author of “Enough” expresses similar opinions when he explains his belief that in the process of becoming a more individualized society, we have lost collective meaning in our lives. This is an idea that I definitely agree with and it is also the main idea that I believe Ware is trying to depict throughout “Jimmy Corrigan”. He is showing his belief that modern life has lost its meaning, and more specifically that there is a lack of unity among groups of people, especially among families.
The primary way by which Ware displays a lack of unity in modern day society is through Jimmy’s family. His mother is completely overbearing and controlling, calling him at work excessively. She even proves to be uncaring of Jimmy’s psychological state as a young boy by sleeping with the superhero that has been Jimmy’s role model and father figure. However, it is in Jimmy’s father that we see the true dysfunctional relationship within the family. Jimmy has grown up not knowing his own father, so when he randomly invites him to visit Jimmy is internally very confused. He turns to fantasizing as a form of escape mechanism and fantasizes about killing his father upon meeting him. Jimmy clearly has conflicting feelings toward his dad because of all the anger toward him, yet he also has curiosity about him. By including such a dysfunctional family that has practically torn Jimmy apart inside, Ware is making his point that collective meaning in life has been lost among families.
The character of Jimmy Corrigan himself has been created by Ware to be someone who is void of collective meaning. He has very limited contact with other people, making him a very lonely and isolated man. His attempts at social activity show just how pathetic he really is. For example, Jimmy wants to have a relationship with his co-worker Peggy but he can’t seem to even have a proper conversation with her. At dinner, he puts two bowls out hoping Peggy will join him for soup. However, he then remembers that he is alone and puts one of the bowls back (21). This lack of friends and romantic partners causes Jimmy to engage in strange fantasies (such as fantasies about women and superheroes) as an attempt to fill the emptiness he feels inside. Living with such little social contact has made Jimmy’s life meaningless.
Another method that Ware uses to show the loss of meaning in life is through the different generations of “Jimmy’s”. All four generations are shown mistreating their sons, which is included to display that nothing seems to change and that the past simply repeats itself over time. One example of this is Jimmy’s great- grandfather being cruel to Jimmy’s grandfather as a child by physically abusing him for being at a classmates house (142) and then ultimately abandoning him, forcing him to move to an orphanage. Consequently, the cycle continues with Jimmy himself imagining killing his own son by smashing his head with a concrete block (57). This horrible cycle of fathers “destroying” their sons by treating them poorly and in turn causing them to treat their own sons poorly is part of Ware’s commentary that modern life is meaningless. In fact, the scene depicting Jimmy killing his son is displayed as if it is on a stage and the spectators are 19th century mice. By depicting this scene as if it were a show we are able to see that life seems meaningless to Ware and that the family unit is almost nonexistent. Ware further shows his belief that family unity is disappearing by portraying an askew family tree which shows the generations growing backward and the tree ending with Jimmy (90). By not including branches Ware is showing here that Jimmy’s family isn’t expanding anymore.
Bill McKibbon comments on the very same symbolism of a meaningless life in his book, “Enough”. McKibbon would definitely agree with Ware that we have lost collective meaning in our lives as a society. He emphasizes in his book that there has been a decrease in faith among humans, a decrease in feeling one with the world, and a resulting large increase in individualism. He states, “and the only real resource that many of us have against the meaninglessness, now that the church and the village and the family cant provide us with as much context as before, is our individual selves.” (46) McKibbon even comments how Seinfeld, a show known for having no meaning, has become “our greatest cultural artifact” (46). One example showing that Ware would agree with McKibbon in this sense is when he shows the postcards of the town, which could be any small town in America (168). The postcards portray the town as being very dull and gray and with not a single person in any of them. By not including any people in the postcards Ware is expressing that people of modern society don’t engage in activities as a community any longer.
I would definitely agree with McKibbon and Ware that we have lost collective meaning in or lives. I see many examples of this around me; for example, marriages rarely lasting, family dinners almost in extinction, and neighborhood children barely even knowing whom each other are. People today are mostly concerned with what they can do to get ahead and are only worried about their own success. This extreme individualism is what is creating more and more lonely people in the world such as Jimmy Corrigan. That being said, I also don’t believe that the technological “progress” we have made in our society is worth its product of a diminished family unit and loss of collective meaning in our lives. For example, although the invention of the Internet is a healthy advancement for the most part, it is also a method that many people use to hide from the reality. We block ourselves off from the world when we spend hours aimlessly surfing the web, playing Internet games, and browsing facebook and myspace. These things are detriments to group and family unity in my opinion and they can end up taking away from collective meaning in life. Ware would agree with this belief as he comments on it on page 107 saying, “But, with the inevitable forward march on progress come new ways of hiding things, and new things to hide.”
Overall, Ware, McKibbon, and myself all are in agreement that there is a loss of collective meaning in modern day life. This loss is specifically displayed throughout “Jimmy Corrigan” through a lack of family and group unity. Our family, friends, and just people we interact with on an everyday basis are what give our lives meaning and without this sort of socialization we lose this meaning. This is clearly shown through Jimmy Corrigan who has a very limited social life and therefore has developed psychological problems because of it. Family and societal unity provide our lives with collective meaning and I believe that we have lost much of this unity in modern life. Ware, McKibbon, and myself all would agree that reestablishing this unity would be able to bring more meaning into people’s lives.
Andre - you have one good comment here, but this is a fairly perfunctory response.
Kate - I like your psychological focus here, although I feel it could have been sharpened in a number of ways - for instance, this might have become a paper about Jimmy's psychological problems and how they are a consequence of the kind of social problems that concern McKibben (and you).
One difficulty I have here is that you do a solid job (if one slightly too dependent on things we talked about in class) writing about the viciousness and cruelty of Jimmy Corrigan's world, to say nothing of his fantasy life. I don't quite see, though, how the nastiness and fantasy that you detail equates to meaninglessness. "Bad" isn't the same thing as "empty" or "meaningless." You also seem to be connecting the unpleasant nature of JC's life to technology, but only in a vague way - you might have done a better job in the body of the paper preparing us for that aspect of your ending.
You have good material here, and your conclusion is pretty solid. Ideally I would have liked to see you address the concerns I raised in the paragraph above, and to at least begin to think through your conclusion in more detail. If we are being isolated by technology, how do we fix it? Or are we doomed? In other words, you end at what might be the most interesting point.
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