Sunday in the Park Dichotomy in Her Personality - Essay Example

Sunday in the Park: Dichotomy in ‘Her’ Personality. Sunday in the Park is an evocative short story by Ben Kaufman. At first reading, it appears to be a fairly straightforward narrative about an encounter between a refined, cultured family and another which is boorish and violent, in which the former makes a dignified retreat. However, further reading reveals certain complex undertones, particularly in the characterization of the narrator, who is not given a name, but remains ‘she’ throughout the story. She is the pivot around which the entire action revolves. It is through her eyes and in her words that the narrative unfolds. The conflict between man’s primeval, natural instinct towards violence and physical dominance and the learned reason inculcated by civilized society forms the central theme of Sunday in the Park. In herself, she is the personification of this conflict. Her personality reflects the dichotomy between her studied, conventional behavior and her instinct to submit to force. In her role as an individual, as a wife and as a mother, she appears to adhere to the conventions of refined society but, in reality, she is rooted in the primitive instinct which values physical strength. Sunday in the Park begins with the portrayal of its’ female protagonist as the conventional, well-bred woman, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of reading a book, pervaded by a complacent “sense of well-being” (2) and apparently content with her family. This idyllic view is broken abruptly when the other boy, Joe, deliberately throws sand at her son, Larry. She immediately censures Joe, still abiding by the codes of genteel society, contenting herself with a gentle reprimand couched in very contrived, childlike language: “We must play nicely in the nice sandbox” (3). She identifies Joe’s father as “a big man” (3) and is very correctly repulsed by his uncouth spitting. However, when Joe throws more sand at Larry, “Her first instinct was to --- punish the child” (5), obviously with physical violence. Here, we glimpse her true nature struggling to reach the surface. When she is confronted with the real threat of physical violence from the big man, her overwhelming, instinctive response is a fear, which is clearly mingled with an excited arousal: She feels “a sudden weakness in her knees” (9); “her heart began to pound” and “she pressed her trembling knees together” (14). Although she supposedly abhors the idea of physical violence, “How dreadful, how incredible” (14), she does not do anything to avert a fight. She only thinks of stopping the men or calling for help, but does nothing. Again her basic instincts are excited by physical prowess. This emotion peels away the layer of contrived gentility and self-confidence she has cloaked herself in. She wishes to hurry home so that she can immerse herself in her daily routine and get rid of “the feeling” which has been exposed by the contretemps in the park. She attempts to convince herself that there had been nothing to fight for and to dismiss the incident as “silly --- and not worth thinking about” (26), but the hidden dichotomy between her real and assumed self has been exposed. As a wife, she is apparently content with her intellectual husband, who reads the high-brow Times Magazine (in marked contrast to the “funnies” which the other man peruses). She values Morton’s placid temperament and is filled with affection and tenderness for him. However, even before the defining incident in the park, we are given small glimpses of her dissatisfaction with her gentle husband. In her critical eyes, Morton is “city pale” (2). This description has connotations of anemic lifelessness. His “grey factory-like university” (2) again conjures an image of a robotic existence, lacking in life and color. She is critical of his “usual reasonableness” and “shy apologetic smile” (9), which are obviously suited to refined academic environments, but are totally inappropriate responses to the situation in the park. They are suited to his role as a professor, but not to his role as the protector of his family. She feels that he has failed in this role and she despises him for it. She resents his inability to stand up to the bully. She wants “to put her hand on her husband’s sleeve to pull him down” (14) but she doesn’t. This shows that she wants to see the physical confrontation between the two men. Although she gives lip service to her husband’s justification for avoiding a physical confrontation, she cannot escape the feeling of having been cheated and let down by his meek capitulation. This is the “heavy and inescapable” feeling which is “something acutely personal, familiar and important” (14). Thus we see that her desire for a more aggressive, physically dominant man has always been present in her personality. It has been hitherto suppressed by her veneer of refinement, but has now broken through and has altered forever her relationship with her husband. She definitely does not see her husband’s retreat as a dignified response, but as a defeat after which he is “limping with self-consciousness” (17). Her suppressed anger bursts out in response to Morton’s threat to punish their son. Her “cold and penetrating” contemptuous taunt echoes the words of the aggressor in the park: “Indeed? You and who else?” (31). Here again, her covert admiration for the bully who subjugated her husband with the threat of physical force is evident. Her reactions as a Mother also expose the dichotomy between the façade of gentility which she has assumed and the primitive instincts she attempts to suppress. Initially, she delights in the delicateness of her son’s features and appreciates his “quickness and sensitivity” (3), as opposed to the huskiness of the other boy. Larry obviously is accustomed to lean on her for guidance: “her expression would tell him whether to cry or not” (4). However, her true attitude is the one which wants Larry “to fight his own battles” (5). While she had earlier pitied her child’s defenselessness, his fragile body now evokes only resentment in her. It is this physical weakness which was responsible for his inability to stand up to the husky Joe. She pulls cruelly hard on her son’s hand, dragging him along. Her lack of sympathy for his tears and her words “I’m ashamed of you” (25), clearly show that her son’s behavior has fallen below her expectations. In all her roles – as an individual, wife and mother, she reveals that her cultivated persona, which supposedly values reason and refinement, is only a façade for the deeper part of her which admires brute force. She is excited by the prospect of a fight; she is disappointed by her husbands’ weak retreat; she wishes her son to have stood up to the bully. She is humiliated and sullied by the encounter in the park: “She felt as if all three of them were tracking mud along the street” (25). In truth, she admires force and despises the weakness of reason. She pays lip service to the conventions of reason and refinement but actually places a higher value on physical strength and size. Read More