Literary Analysis of Richard Ford's Optimists - Research Paper Example

?A Literary Analysis of Richard Ford's "Optimists" The short story ‘Optimists’ was written by Richard Ford in 1987. The narrator and protagonist of the story is Frank Brinson who tells about his teenage years and how his family fell apart. The whole story is about adolescent disillusions and family disintegration (John, 2011) and revolves around a single event (David, 2011). The title of this short story is ironic as it probably packs dark sarcasm because, in his story, Frank calls his father (Roy Brinson) an optimist, when in fact he isn’t. His father works at the railways and generally doesn’t weigh the everyday circumstances properly. Despite of having the hunch that his employers at railways might cut him loose first when the ‘time’ comes, he didn’t do much about it. He was supposed to make a concrete contingency plan about reserve job opportunity but he didn’t and thought that bad times won’t see him. Probably this is what Ford has strangely called optimism. Ford doesn’t impose his opinion on the readers. He uses a lot of ‘not sure’ tone while describing Frank’s father. It was probably the social norm that back in the 50s and 60s, children-parent relationship was not very open as much it is these days. That is why a lot of guess work is put in the story when Ford says about his father that he ‘must’ve felt’ threatened because of adverse working environment. In fact, he is not sure if his father actually felt threatened by diseases that his co-workers were getting. Another social aspect this short story speaks a lot about how unwelcoming incidents become circus for the whole world to see. People would want to avoid such situations in which they become the center of attention for acquaintances as well as complete strangers for some hideous reasons. In the story, when Boyd accidently gets killed by Roy, Dorothy (Frank’s mom) calls the police and they arrive at the scene with their car lights flashing. As the narrator illustrates, he sees people and children standing outside their homes looking at their house where all the commotion is going on. Frank can see familiar as well as strange faces among the crowd and that’s when his mother says that their family has become a circus for everyone to see, they need to move to some other place. It has become a social norm, not only in North America but all over the world that people start judging others without looking at the facts of an incident. People are judgmental in nature and on top of that, they would act exactly according to their personal and wrongful judgment. One crucial aspect pointed out in this story is the politics that goes on at work places between the union and administration, especially back in 1950s. Politically, there is another scenario that has been discussed in this literary piece where Frank quotes his father as saying that the place he worked at (the railways) was a ‘workman’s paradise’ by the opportunities and leniency given to the workers there. It is a sad coincidence that many people consider what they are doing only because they feel safe or most probably ignore the threats and risks involved. If something’s working, they assume that it will keep working smoothly forever. Despite the fact that Frank’s father had the idea of featherbedding will be eliminated, he didn’t do anything about it. The social perspective that speaks volumes about the life of a teenager is when Frank Brinson, the narrator describes how the incident in which his father accidently kills Boyd Mitchell affects his life, “In a way none of us could ever have imagined in our most brilliant dreams of life” (p. 181). Another indirect mention in the story is Frank’s parent’s betrayal and failure to cope with the whole situation. His mother tries to justify the whole situation by, “You’ll never get anything fixed just right.” Probably it refers to the most popular social excuse that people come up with. It gives them the liberty to not try hard enough to fix things. Another social reflection in this story is about the ‘new start’ that people generally come up with. After disaster rips away people’s lives and there is too much destruction and chaos to fix, people just want to get away from the situation. They want to move away from the scene of incident in the hope of catching a fresh breath of air, but these ‘new starts’ don’t always work. As Frank wrote about lying about his age to get into the military, “after that I moved out by joining the Army and adding years to my age, which was sixteen” (p. 198), he thought it would be a new start for him to get rid of the trauma that he had suffered at his home by watching a man die in front of his eyes but as it turns out it didn’t do the job as he had hoped for. That is the social norm that people have developed, they avoid the difficulties of life and try to hide from the hardships. Sometimes people are weak but other times the tragedies and circumstances are too strong and it gets very difficult to overcome them and that’s why the only option left is to run and hide from them. These incidents as well as other aspect of his parent’s marriage have a strange connection with the title of the story ‘Optimists’. Frank’s father knew that adverse times will come and it was very likely that his family will suffer sooner than others if the railway authorities would try to eradicate featherbedding. He knew that workmen who were involved in illegal extra work had to work in dangerous conditions. They generally didn’t have many work rights or insurances to protect them. But despite of all of this, Frank’s father remains an ‘optimist’. He foresees the dangers but somehow manages to calm his alarming senses by being ‘optimistic’. This is an irony, one could blame a blind for not seeing a ditch in front of him but what of the people who see the danger staring right at them but still they don’t move an inch? Politics are being played both by the Union level of factories and at greater level where economic policies of a country are formulated and hard working men like Roy have to work in life threatening circumstances to put the food on the table for their family. Socially speaking, the narrator Frank also points out the sexuality of his mother as well as his father’s potential for violence (Guagliardo, 2000). The causes for both of these behaviors can be traced back into the initial pages of the story. Roy (Frank’s father) works in very adverse conditions at the railways and he frequently sees his fellow worker falling sick or getting injured by harsh conditions of work. And as the expectation of financial crunch starts appearing significantly, many workers break rules and start working extra times and at those sites that are probably prohibited, only to earn some extra cash for their future needs. There is no disagreement that Roy chose to work in those conditions himself and no one asked him to but looking at the atmosphere and financial crisis looming in, no one can blame him. But working extra hours and in a dangerous environment took its toll and he started feeling threatened all the time. That is probably one reason why he became so violent. He couldn’t handle the pressure when he saw a man being torn at three places and freaked out. Later when he reached home, Boyd (his neighbor) along with his wife was playing cards with Mrs. Brinson. And at a slight provocation by Boyd (who was probably drunk at that time) landed a lethal blow to his chest and he couldn’t recover and perished right there on the floor. Frank specifically tells this afterwards that his dad had told him about various blows that a man can give to another man. Some blows are only minor blows just to insult the other person and some blows are to hurt the other. Whereas some blows are so intense that a man can kill the other with it. This indicates that Roy knew exactly what he was doing. There are other reasons also that can be said in defense of Roy that Boyd was taunting and mocking him and he was also a big man and that Roy was shaken up after watching his colleague being butchered by coal-cars but in the end Boyd was the one who lost his life at the hands of Roy. This whole incident contributes to the dissolution of a family. And the violence is not the self-definition of masculinity, rather it is a tool for self-destruction (Ferry, 2011). Sometimes ordinary people just end up doing bad things, they are not evil by nature. Frank relates to this incident by, “Situations have possibilities in them, and we have only to be present to be involved” (p, 181). Most of the characters of Ford stories definitely play a bad role like a desperado but they are not one-dimensional villains (Fallon, 2001). Frank’s mother Dorothy was more of a free soul. She enjoyed the feeling of more freedom than she already had. She was like a wild soul and used to admire the thought of swimming in freezing water. It made her feel free. She used to go swimming and used to invite her friend and her husband to play canasta. Interesting part of the story are the thoughts that go through Frank’s head when he witnesses everything at his home and later when he is much older man, he meets his mother at a shopping mall. And at that place, what her mother tells him, adds so much more to what Frank had originally thought about his parents. There were so many troubles at home that Frank was unaware of when he was a teenager. His mother asks Frank (as if feeling guilty) if he ever felt that Boyd and his mother loved each other. Frank is (unsure as always) says “no”. Her mother confirms that it is true that they were not in love and Boyd loved his wife Penny and she loved Roy but also adds that she wished she and Roy knew each other better. People in their desperate times usually turn to religion. When they lose all material hope they turn to spiritual assistance and look for salvation. A man can lose hope in other people but he generally finds hope in supreme deity. When the protagonist (Frank) goes to the police station with his mom at about midnight to free his father, his mother goes inside the compound while he stays behind in the car. He stares at the high walls of the jail and the only sounds he can hear are the sounds that some prisoner makes, “Hello hello. Marie! Are you with me?” this is the essence of human psychology and what role religion plays in his life. People seek company in their lives. They want the comfort that a supreme power is watching them from above and that deity listens to their cries of pain and anguish. Even the thought of being alone in the world makes people scared. What has been described in the story tells that the prisoner was reaching out for Marie to find comfort and salvation. That prisoner probably needed a reason to be alive or at least to keep hope alive. He cries for Marie and asks her directly if she is with him. A lot of people when sent to prison repent (at least momentarily or temporarily) and they convert to their religious roots. Even the death roll prisoners are customarily asked right before their execution if they would like to be read to the Holy Scriptures. And usually they are accompanied by a father or priest towards the chamber or gallows to comfort them and to make peace with God. Works Cited Crouse, David. "Resisting Reduction Closure in Richard Ford's Rock Springs and Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth." Web. 19 Dec. 2011. . Fallon, Erin. A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English. Westport: Greenwood, 2001. 159-60. Print. Ferry, Peter. "Joseph M. Armengol 2010: Richard Ford and the Fiction of Masculinities." Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 1.33 (2011): 191-96. Print. Ford, Richard. Rock Springs. Grove, 2009. Print. Guagliardo, Huey. Perspectives on Richard Ford. Jackson, MS: Univ. of Mississippi, 2000. Print. McGahern, John. "Writings." Kevin Stevens. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. . Read More