The author gives a subtle but firm critic of capitalism by denouncing its main warts in relation with the individual. These are: exploitation of workers in depressed areas; overestimation of work, money and power; the concept of family as a decorative tool  or a forgotten bind. This can lead us to loneliness and frustration, for we have forgotten our human nature and needs: communication, love, sensitivity…people neglects communicative tools and sympathy. Each person in the story has one main problem and a consequent punishment. God-gillespie punishes his creature-characters. Or from another point of view, more objective, life surprises each character with a sarcastic end according to what he or she has lost.
The   extraordinary cynicism of some characters, their selfishness and individualism  trigger the tragedy. This happens to Robert Sullivan and Darren Jakobsen. The first realises too late that he still loves his family, that life has some sense. “ It made him realize how precious life was. For the first time in years, he felt some affection for his six-year-old daughter Anne, and even a sort of detached love toward his wife Gladys. Normally this did not concern him, but today he felt a peculiar sense of being alive.” Anyhow, it is already too late for him, he dies poisoned with liver. The ironic sense of this death is that “Robert had a meeting with Jerry Armantrout, who needed a liver transplant. Robert was in terrible shape and unable to pay attention to the conversation. He tried to explain that a liver transplant was considered an experimental operation and therefore not covered by the terms of the HMO.” Robert had denied help to this man, who’s wife works in a child care centre, taking care of Robert’s daughter. “Sally, who was very tired and hungry and upset about the news that her husband would not get the liver transplant, realized that it would be up to her to explain to the six-year-old that her father was dead. She was now the closest thing Anne had to a parent.” This man can only be blamed for insensitivity, as Darren Jakobsen trying to ease his conscience by saying to himself that it was fine he had evicted the Washington. “The decision to evict the Washingtons, an African-American woman and her two children, had not been easy, but was the correct thing to do. He didn't understand why some people were able to provide for their family and other people were not when everybody lived in the same world, but, he told himself, it was his job to provide for his own family and not other people's”.
Lack of communication and solitude also stand as big problems for this group of characters. Young- Li forbids his workers to assemble and even to talk. Their vengeance leaves Silam disconnected with the world. Lacking a simple letter makes it impossible for him to remember things and carry out a normal life. “He even forgot, one night, that he had been invited to dinner by Darren. Darren called him to see where he was, and, when Silam, who even had trouble placing Darren's voice at first, confessed that he had forgotten.” Also Young-Li suffers from this disease. Having refused to learned English, focusing on maths and avoiding all human contact turns him into a sort of machine. “They kept trying to ask him who he was. All he could say, in English or Korean he could not tell, was "zero."” This hyperbolic situation have made me think about the importance that personal relationships, not only business ones are fundamental in the development of personality. Contact with other people makes us real, in case one does not Know who he is any longer, there will be someone to remind us.
Even Ward Callahan, who plays a less important part in the story is victim of the cynicism and hypocrisy which he shows by joining a Pro-life group at church while being a nazi zealous. A paradox which seems very real and likely.
Victoria Washington is the counterpart of these characters. She represents the marginal part of American society. (She is black, from low-middle class, she is not married…) However her problems, economic ones, can have a solution, as she has her children’s support.

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Academic year 2001/2002
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
©Elena Martínez Fernandez
Universitat de València Press
emarfer@alumni.uv.es