I wasn't present during the period where Victory Lap was discussed, so I thought I would lay out some of my reactions to it. Please tell me if it lines up with what was talked about in class, etc.
It took me a little while before I recognized the hero narrative, but once I saw it, it became very conspicuous. Kyle breaks the rules of his weird, obsessive, slightly abusive sounding parents, whose wrath he is terrified of, to save Alison. In this act, he discovers a powerful, independent part of himself, and then controls it.
One of my questions from class concerns motives. If an act has positive results, can the perpetrator be hailed as a hero, no matter how selfish the motive? We never explicitly understand why Kyle decides to take action -- I don't think Kyle consciously does, either, because he's thinking of all the reasons he shouldn't save Alison then and there when he starts running -- but it's implied. He could never live with himself. It also might have been because he liked Alison (they were childhood playmates), but this reason is less prevalent.
Is the cleanliness of your own conscious a heroic motive? I tend to think not. It's pretty self-centered, actually. Yet, Kyle still strikes me as heroic, so perhaps considering motives are too hard and calculating a thing to do when evaluating seemingly heroic actions, since these evaluations tend to have heavy emotional weight. But I still want motives to be part of the equation! It seems too simplistic to ignore them.
Finally, a couple of things I have to get off my chest: Of course Kyle Boot runs cross country, he fits the xc boy stereotype way too well for him not to. (Think of Paulie Bleeker from Juno.) Popular stories have you believe that cross country boys are nerd incarnate. Also, nobody runs that much in practice.
I would say that "cleanliness of your own conscious a heroic motive" is generally true. How would it feel if you were being attacked and the only person who could save you decided to accept the consequences of letting you go, thereby dirtying their conscious? I think it is better for both people if the potential hero decided to "clean their conscious" by attempting to save another.
ReplyDeleteSeconded your remark about cross country.
In terms of motive, it is true that a big part of the "battle" for Kyle entails getting over his parents' voices in his head, thinking independently, and actually doing the right thing even if it entails "violating directives." So his motives, from a psychological standpoint, are mixed--we see a personal/familial drama playing out here internally, alongside the external heroic actions (like when Kyle declares "I'm the boss of me"--it has nothing to do with the guy cowering on the ground; it's directed toward his father-in-his-head). And in part this reflects Campbell's observation about heroic actions entailing a shift in consciousness--Kyle needs to be free from these deep-rooted inhibitions in order to be heroic, and partly this is an individual victory over his father. But he's *inspired* to do so by the nagging suspicion that it's not actually the right thing to do to pretend he never saw anything and not to get involved. He's driven to violate these "directives" by the impulse to stop something very bad from happening. As he reflects during the heroic act itself, "What if I hadn't?" So however complicated his motives, they have at least *something* to do with the desire to save Allison.
ReplyDeleteI had never really thought about Kyle's motives before. I think that there had to be some desire to save Allison, but also I agree that he probably wanted to have a clear conscious. When I was reading the story, I was actually surprised (and kind of annoyed) with how long it took Kyle to decide to help Allison.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like the title of your blog.
YES I wanted to say something about Kyle's weird cross country practices, but that didn't seem completely relevant. I think Kyle's motives weren't necessarily to clear his consciousness. I feel like he maybe just wanted to break loose from his strict mold and experiment with breaking the rules. Who knows.
ReplyDeleteKyle just needed an excuse to break out of his already thin shell. All these weird practices and traditions of his family is too restrictive - I don't think its right. And it shows that he actually thinks that this is kind of wrong. His inner monologue, while quite hilarious for an outside viewer really shows that he is starting to regret all these restrictions and he wishes that he could get rid of them. I think this is why Kyle decides to break out. He has had enough and he really enjoys the chance to be free
ReplyDelete