Media, in all its forms, is a means of communication that can never truly convey thoughts between minds. To clarify, a medium has to overcome obstacles (sensation and interpretation) to reach the intended recipient. Plato, in his work Republic, discusses the inherent problem with the medium as it connects individuals to their ideas but also interferes with that connection.
George Saunders employs tropes like metonymy and metaphor in his narratives “brad carrigan, american” and “commcomm” to create a harmonizing effect through a double-voiced approach. By blending these tropes and double voice, Saunders substitutes and associates personal and communal mind-spaces, urging readers to understand the intertwined complexity of individual subjective reality and media as a public collective.
George Saunders’ In Persuasion Nation utilizes tropes to critique the inherent flaw of the medium that lies in its ability to interfere with thought and allow for interpretation, thus potentially obscuring the intended message. By facilitating communication, the medium distracts from its deeper purpose.
In his narrative style, Saunders speculates and recreates the phenomenon of blending artificial and actual reality. In the short story “Brad Carrigan, American,” Saunders uses a metonymic association between media’s artificial reality and the real world by narrating a reality show that mixes both. The confusion among characters on the set, not being able to distinguish between right and wrong or what is real and what is not, constantly reflects the widespread confusion in Western culture between artificial and actual reality. This confusion, which substitutes substance for form, is defined as metonymy.
“Brad Carrigan, American” presents an extended metonym throughout the story. The metonym revolves around a reality TV show that makes up the entirety of Brad Carrigan’s life. Instead of living his own existence, Brad has been replaced by a character, representing the substitution of substance for form (Saunders, 119). Meanwhile, in “CommComm,” Saunders explores the use of dramatic alter-egos in place of real people. This is done to reveal their inner nature or lack thereof. Characters like Rimney, Giff, and even the narrator express unreal thoughts and dialogue using a double voice that follows a social formula (217).
Despite their differing views on the use of evangelical language, both Giff and Rimney utilize the same method of replicating previous speech patterns to convey their messages. In the world of “CommComm,” the language of business reigns supreme as the only form of communication. Saunders believes that this union of public and private thought through metonymy is an effective approach to bridging the gap between thoughts and media, exposing how they misinterpret each other.
The narrator’s parents also exhibit qualities of borrowed speech, though it is fragmented. For example, Dad says, “Snowing like a mother,” and Mom responds, “Pretty but we can’t go out.” Dad sadly adds, “Too old I guess,” and Mom concludes, “Or something” (219). Additionally, the narrator likens them to automatic mechanisms. This is evident in the metaphor that describes Dad as flickering on and off, smiling in his chair, running in place, and kneeling near the magazine rack. The narrator observes this behavior before Giff reveals their future (223).
Many individuals are unwilling to break free from a repetitive and false reality, causing them to lose touch with their true selves and eventually descend into madness. This highlights a perspective on repeated speech, suggesting that it perpetuates a never-ending cycle unless one disassociates from their own identity.
The main theme in both stories is the importance of subjectivity. Without it, people are just machines with mass-produced personalities. The story “CommComm” portrays characters other than Brad as substitutes. For example, Buddy, the family dog, is portrayed as a talking puppet. Similarly, Chief Wayne and Doris, Brad’s closest friend and wife, only seem to have surface-level thinking. A dialogue between them exemplifies this lack of depth: “Well, I guess we all learned something today,” says Chief Wayne. “What I learned?” says Doris, “Is you never know when someone precious to you may be snatched away” (120). None of these dialogues show concern for the common man or engage in any theoretical discourse.
Therefore, in every story, each character’s existence is substituted with a new functional one, whether it be for entertainment in a reality show or for practicality in an Air Force base like in “CommComm”. This replacement of ontology, including the subjectivity within it, with surface-level functionality is another example of metonymy.
Saunders’ use of tropes aims to reference the ontological break and its manifestation in reality. These tropes serve as a means to bypass literature and directly address the idealism it represents. However, the confusion between the two, observed in “Brad Carrigan, American”, illustrates how people can be deceived by the realism of their own creations. Therefore, poetic functionality is utilized to undermine the medium and emphasize the significance of perspective.
At the end of “Brad Carrigan, American,” Brad undergoes a transformation and gains a tireless and compassionate new perspective. He rejects the falsehoods of the society he lives in, where everyone speaks in replicated words. Brad’s own voice becomes genuine as he embraces his own ideals, even though it goes against the system. Despite the resistance from others like Doris, Chaz Wayne, and Doris’ family, who are all part of the chorus of double voices, Brad feels compelled to show love for a dying child, even though the rest of his show tells him not to. Chaz Wayne warns him that there will be consequences if he defies the show’s producers and alters his own identity (149).
While internally evaluating the situation, Brad hears the sound of sobbing and grunting, causing him to wonder what else could be happening. However, when he reflects on his childhood models, he only remembers Old Rex, his grandfather, who encouraged a subjective mindset. One of Brad’s childhood flashbacks reminds him that his grizzled grandfather said, “Come on pardner, we’re free, we’re healthy, we’ve got the time-who’s gonna save this little dude if not us?” (142). This advice promotes a bohemian lifestyle, but it clashes with the reality of Brad’s TV show. Acting on these impulses only widens the gap between him and the show.
In “CommComm,” the narrator employs a consistent dual voice, drawing on expressions and language directly from “Tapes,” which functioned as his instructional education, before he assumed a role as a PIDS administrator, likely involving public releases of information. Each specialized term utilized by the narrator commodifies the concept it represents through metonymy. In a notable instance of media presentation, the narrator remarks: “I admit, concede, explain and pledge,” condensing a matter of public interest into a few simplified statements (204). The narrator’s professional duty entails reducing everything to a mere statement, a formulaic reduction of idealism to form, akin to persuasion through metonymy.
The narrator has found success by helping Rimney with a problem involving corpses. Rimney, a typical business person, is skilled in the language associated with his profession. He decides to conceal the corpses that are hindering a construction project in his area of business. Rimney sees the narrator as a solution to his complex problem, which is made worse by Giff from the “Odors” department. It is worth noting that the departments of “CommComm” may symbolize concepts that people categorize in their daily lives. This classification reflects the specialization that exists in academic fields today.
Giff, a religious man, detected the odor of the bodies and clashes with Rimney’s lack of spirituality. In their exchange, Giff accuses Rimney of being extremist and creating his own self. Rimney dismisses the conversation as inappropriate for a place of business (211). The novel “CommComm” portrays atheism and evangelism as idealistic but misinformed beliefs. Instead of following their cults, the characters should embrace their true identities. The double voice in the novel does not provide subjective answers.
In “Brad Carrigan, American,” the non-Brad characters have a double standard and point out Brad’s faults without addressing their own responsibility to the third world (140). Brad has a more realistic personality and eventually cannot tolerate his surroundings in the show anymore, so he escapes. He brings with him several dead bodies and an AIDS-infected infant from the third world. The arrival of these casualties in the Carrigan backyard through the show highlights certain global issues. As Brad becomes more invested in them, his peers increasingly criticize him for doing so.
Following his escape, Brad Carrigan is chased by the police. The authorities incorrectly perceive him as someone who had suspicious connections with foreign Filipinos and was observed abnormally placing dead bodies into his own vehicle for his twisted and malicious intentions. This highlights the disparity between the true reality known to Brad Carrigan and the distorted “reality” that influences the authorities (150).
Brad, despite his efforts to fix the world, is constantly persecuted for it. Eventually, he is removed from the show, leaving him as nothing but shapeless thoughts and fleeting emotions, symbolizing the loss of his individuality. Irony defines his existence, as he opposes everything and everyone in his world. Consequently, he can only reappear as a temporary presence, without an identity or a clear understanding.
In both “CommComm” and “Brad Carrigan, American,” the issue of double voice is ultimately resolved for the main characters. The stories revolve around the thoughts of the narrator in “CommComm” and Brad in “Brad Carrigan, American,” making it easy to understand their perspectives throughout the texts. Both characters undergo a cathartic experience that eliminates their double voice. Brad is forced into the “gray space,” where he is meant to be erased from existence, while the narrator of “CommComm” is brutally killed by Rimney, a fate that suits an idealist. (Source: 149; 223; 154; 222).
Once the medium is dominated by a single important topic, it may try to maintain its control over people’s minds and its collective influence. In the perspective of the narrator in “CommComm,” they consider engaging in a Moral Benefit Evaluation but quickly dismiss the idea. People depend on the validation from others, particularly when it comes to communication, but Brad and the narrator realize that there is no real value in this once they understand how futile it is to replicate cognitive processes. Once they break free from old thinking patterns, the narrator of “CommComm” transcends the system and Brad is thus eliminated from it.
Transcendence exists beyond Plato’s notion of the false “reality.” The tragic result of becoming “Brad Carrigan, American” is the loss of Brad’s personality. However, he should try to hold onto a sense of pity. If he can, whoever he becomes will inherit this feeling and be compelled to act on it. Brad realizes that he has wasted his life on accumulation, trivia, self-protection, and vanity. Therefore, a call to action is made to those who can read between the lines of tropos, urging them to transcend the falsehood of reality.
In “CommComm,” the narrator’s spiritual journey with Giff goes beyond religion, as the importance of dogma fades in comparison to true spirituality. They float among the clouds and experience a state of being where nothing is excluded. After successfully helping his own family and Giff’s, a final realization dawns on the narrator. Despite his past mistakes and selfishness, he feels a deep longing for life which propels him to return and ultimately saves him. This echoes the revelation of Brad Carrigan, suggesting that both characters, created by the same author, advocate for transcending mediated systems and thoughts in order to find personal salvation.
What is the underlying significance? Individuals, including thinkers, athletes, workers, producers, and academics, can all fall into the same trap of mistaking a message for its subject and media for reality. Metonymy, metaphor, synecdoche, and double voice all aim to challenge the media, whether it be in its genre or discourse. In the story “Brad Carrigan, American,” the Carrigans begin watching TV while the show is on, introducing another filtered perspective through which they perceive its content (124).
Media acts as a filter, compressing subjective ideas into a collective package, filtering out elements that don’t persuade the audience. It distorts truth to cater to the audience’s desires, delivering a manipulated message. However, George Saunders uses his writing to expose and criticize media and mass communication. Through his use of tropes and double voice, he aims to highlight our intellectual rights to seek idealistic material that goes beyond ownership and authorship. Media cannot fully shape one’s subjectivity; that is something that develops independently.
