A Life Of Boredom And Banality

In the first Chapter of the book we see the introduction of the main character. He is a man trapped in the banality of life after war. "My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin, I work in a lumbermill there. The people I meet when I walk down the street, They say, 'What's your name? And I say, 'My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin..." (p.1)

For him his life has become a repetitive infinite cycle that is expressed in this poem. Although he is trapped he fights desperately to counter it by trying to relive memories of a past full of action. We see his constant attempts at escaping his banal reality through his constants calls to war friend which whom he wants to remember with the excuse to write his book: "I have this, disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years." (p.2)

Even if it's not clearly stated in the book I have come to believe that he isn't interested on actually writing it since he has been going around asking people about it for apparently a very long time without actually seeing any results. We can even see his attitude toward the book he is supposedly writing when he says that there really isn't enough material to write about.

There is another way of looking at this piece from a different point of view. Instead of being an escape from banality it is possible that he was trying to do the same as Gilgamesh. In a desperate attempt of leaving something in this world to be remembered by he tries desperately about a book of the only thing that he really feels is worth writing about which was his experience in the war on that particular bombing. The tone in which he writes about his experiences makes it look like there isn't much interesting happening in his life other than trying to write his book and meeting his old war buddies. This desperation to attempt leaving something behind is an affliction that affects us all and it is a desire we all have sadly not everyone is able to do so. Maybe his inability to find enough material and memories to write his book is a way to represent his failure at living a lasting remnant of him.

Another way in which we can see the banality and sad life of our main character is his wife. He met and married her but he narrated this whole part without emotion. Almost as if there hadn't been love at all. This lack of passion, of purpose makes me feel like if there had been love between the couple it was now dead. We see this example of narration here: "Then we were sent home, and I married a pretty girl who was covered with baby fat, too. And we had babies." (p. 3)

This lack of spirit show to me that he has lost meaning in life and ahs lost interest in family. I would even dare to say that the only reason he is still with his wife is because he has nowhere to go, and no reason separate. Because of this he has decided to take the easy way and do nothing. This far in the book he looks like a living dead. This might change farther on when he is able to leave his mark after death or maybe he will have an epiphany.

I can speculate that the cause of his loss of purpose and passion is derived from the war. We can see this when he sees the man squashed in the elevator. A normally gruesome and horrible event the only comment he had was, "'I've seen lots worse than that in the war.'" (p.3)

The fact that he mentioned the candy bar before he said this was probably a hint to the fact that he had no interest in what had happened he found it boring and common. In the end this shows the damage war causes on the human mind. Although he was apparently a normal person but until very recently (considering he was able to get married) sometimes there is long term damage as well. This long term damage is something that normally can't be seen immediately but these are wounds that normally never heal. Hopefully he will be able to escape from his cage of boredom and banality in the next chapters of the book.