Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
Re: The Tragedy Aspect
Many of you have commented on the pros and cons on the tragedy of the story of Roy's life. I was more interested in the destroyed women left in the wake of the male athletes who have no problems describing their own flaws proudly.
Iris Lemon is ruined by a teenage pregnancy and then later by Roy's almost total abandonment after she breaks his slump. Memo Paris is ruined by literally all the men in her life. Pop drags her around like some kind of mascot and prostitutes her out to the men of the team to keep them happy. While Iris is a more sympathetic, wholesome character because she seems noble, Memo is clearly seeking someone to care for her. She clearly demonstrates symptoms of depression and manic tendencies. Her actions grow more and more desperate as the book progresses.
It is the women in the novel, more than the men, that to me show Malamud's early academic research. He wrote his thesis on Thomas Hardy. NOTHING ever ends well in Hardy, especially for women, so this was not an unforeseen conclusion.
Having said that, I also agree with the Gatsby-esque feel. Replace that blinking green light with the flashing scoreboard and you've got a great parallel.
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Oh, I had been going to bring up Malamud's attitude toward women. I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree with you. Great call on Hardy, by the way.
I don't think your assessment of Iris Lemon is essentially accurate. She could have been ruined by her teenage pregnancy, but she's the sterling example of someone who (I can't resist) made lemonade out of the lemon handed to her life. She kept her daughter, raised her, and loved her. She triumphed. She did what Roy could have done. Now, her tragedy is that just as she's seen her daughter off, happily, and thinks she entering into her own time at long last, she gets blindsided by another pregnancy. Will she triumph again, or will this one defeat her?
And Memo I think is an accurate and not atypical representation of a sports groupie, mid-20th century. With no agency of her own, she's looking to latch onto any man who'll give her the life she wants. Did the men ruin her or is she complicit in her own ruin? I'd argue the latter.
Also, you've left out the third woman, Harriet Bird. I think in some ways she's the most interesting of the three even though we know the least about her. I see her as someone who not only refused to be crushed by domineering athletes in particular and by the repression of women in general by literally shooting down the shining avatars of that repression. She exercised the most agency of all, if pointless and ultimately self-defeating.