Where is the line between thinking that you are special and yet you are not that special? Who do you think you are? We do not want to become merely cogs in the system, so we create our own purposeful existence that is otherwise devoid of meaning. Trials and tribulations are part of life and they can either humble you, crush you or help you grow. When things go wrong, it is hard to believe that failures happen for the better. The thing is we take for granted that things are right most of the time , and yet whenever things go wrong, we feel overwhelmed and terrible. Things do not always go our way. We just have to be thankful that things do go our way, we cannot win them all.
In Tracy Flick Can't Win, a fiction by Tom Perrotta, there are two characters who once thought they were more important than other people.
Vito Falcone was 'well-known and widely respected in some quarters, He'd played in the NFL for three seasons, - not a superstar, but he'd shown a lot of promise until a knee injury ended his career --- and he'd stuck with the game after his retirement, becoming one of the most successful high school coaches in central Florida. He was an alpha dog, the guy who gave the orders and let you know when you fucked up. The world was like this : you apologized to Vito ; Vito didn't apologize to you. Nobody else in the church basement had any idea what that felt like, or how hard it was to surrender that kind of authority. '
Vito Falcone is a recovering alcoholic and he is presently attending his weekly sessions at the church basement. He is ready to make amends to those people he had hurt before. He finally realises that he is not that special and that he is quite messed up. As it happens, Green Meadow High School, his alma mater is setting up a Hall of Fame and he is going to be honoured and inducted into the Hall of Fame. He has hurt too many people, someone from school is planning a vengeful act. Things are not going to be pretty.
Tracy Flick is smart, industrious and ambitious. She is the Assistant Principal of Green Meadow High School. She had dropped out of law school to take care of her ailing mother and she is feeling stuck in her forties. When the school's long time Principal announces his retirement, she is elated by the opportunity to claim the top job. Will she get the board and the Superintendent to endorse her? She has been told by the newly elected President of the School Board that she is the overwhelming favourite and at the first round interview, she had made the case for a Flick administration.
Tracy has a ten-year-old daughter who is 'greeted with fanfare of happy shrieks and joyful shimmies from the other girls' when she gets dropped off at school for soccer camp. Tracy had 'never been like that as a child, a valued member of the pack, showered with affection, protected by the safety of numbers'. Unlike her daughter, Tracy had always been a party of one as a child, and she had possessed this conviction that she 'was destined for something bigger than they were, a future that mattered'. Sadly, she no longer believes that anymore.
Tracy Flick muses, ' It had been an adventure, growing up like that, knowing in my blood that something amazing was waiting for me in the distance, and that I just needed to keep moving forward in order to claim it.'
Tracy was a high achiever in school.
In Tracy Flick's voice,
' Coming in second too many times is tough on anyone's self-esteem, but it was especially hard for me, because it brought back memories I'd prefer not to dwell on. Back when I was in high school, I lost an election for President of the Student Government Association because a teacher - our civics, instructor, if you can believe that - tampered with the votes.
It sounds crazy, but it's true.This crooked teacher - a man I'd liked and respected and learned a lot from - wanted my male opponent to win so badly, he tossed two ballots into the trash, turning me from a winner into a loser. That's how close it was - I won by a single vote -which was humiliating in and of itself, because I was so over qualified for the job it was ridiculous I 'd been preparing to run for President ever since middle school and probably even before that. I'd climbed my way methodically up the ladder of Student Government - Homeroom Representative as a freshman, Secretary the following year (highly unusual for a sophomore), and then Treasurer as a junior - putting in the time, doing the work, earning the trust of my fellow students. Or at least I thought so, until half of them stabbed me in the back by voting for my completely unqualified bu super-popular rival.'
Tracy graduated Phil Beta Kappa from Georgetown, and worked as a congressional intern for one summer. She started law school at Georgetown as she saw herself as a budding prosecutor. She likes rules and laws. She believes in order and justice. But she had to drop out of law school because her mother was diagnosed with MS and she had gotten very sick. Her neighbour the Del Vecchios had been helpful and one day they had to go and meet their new grandchildren so Tracy had to come home. She had to find temporary work to keep them afloat. She first worked as a market research associate when she had to harass people at the mall asking them a few questions about athlete's foot. She tried a few other jobs and finally landed with substitute teaching. She finally feels like her 'true self again, and not just an anonymous cog in a commercial transaction'.
In her voice : ' School had always been my chosen arena, the place where I shined the brightest. I still remember my first day on the job, standing in front of an Algebra 2 class in Grover Township, writing Tracy Flick on the board like an autography. It felt like homecoming, like my exile was over.'
Tracy is disappointed with herself. While she accepts that she did the best she could , she muses,
'But I desperately wanted to go back in time, to find the girl I used to be and tell her how sorry I was for letting her down, that fierce young woman who never had a chance, the one who got crushed.'
Tracy Flick Can't Win is a sequel to Election where Flick was portrayed as an overly ambitious high school student. Election was made into a film in 1999 and Reese Witherspoon had rave reviews acting as Tracy Flick.
Tom Perrotta's style of writing is straightforward and effective. In Tracy Flick Can't Win, the narratives are in various characters' voices so you get to hear from the first person's voice about their personal views and what is going on in their lives. They are not particularly likeable characters but they feel real.
No comments:
Post a Comment