It is practically impossible to just read “How it Works” as both the storyline and the way it is created, sucks you into the story and causes you to become JoBeth the main protagonist, or into the antagonist; perhaps both in equal measure. You find yourself living in her life, loving what she loves and hating what she hates. Further, you will join her in her path of strengths and weaknesses as she narrates where she has come from, how far she has come, and how dangerously close she is to going back. Sometimes it feels like she never left but has only been lying to her group; or perhaps telling the truth about the lies she has been telling herself and believing them. As the tragedy finally and suddenly unfolds, you will be left feeling her pain when she finally leaves you behind to enjoy her downfall. A narrative motif refers to any euphemism, structural apparatuses, language, and other descriptive elements that keep recurring with a symbolic significance in the furtherance of the thematic input of a literary work (Casano, 2003). The thematic inputs and motifs so circumspectly applied in this short story create a cascade of emotions that make it last so long and somehow never end thus cementing the absolute brilliance of the narrative itself.
The entire story is dominated by one big imagery motif of an alcohol and drugs support group; pictures of men and women who love and hate one another in equal measure and have been brought together by various reasons. Perhaps most of them would want to leave and never come back, some of them actually. There is however, an underlying understanding that leaving spells doom for them, so they stay together, support one another or seem to, and employs politeness in a bid to both fit in the group and keep the group going. Few of these people are brought here by a desire to change. Albeit change is the reason they come here for, some are brought by the guilt occasioned by the destruction and hurt they have left behind through their alcohol and drug induced escapades. A good example here is the narrator but others like Paige are only there through legal compulsion and only a few like Dorie are there due to an actual desire to change.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The continuous image one gets is a group of people, sitting in a horse shoe shaped set of tables thus having to see one another, enjoying being there but more or less hating each other; enduring one another since their interests are intertwined. Due to necessity of time, they have learned to cope with each other and perhaps through learned helplessness, they have pushed their indifferences and dislikes to an area at the back of their minds where caring no longer exists. Day in day out as shown by JoBeth’s contention that she had come 90 out of 98 days, they meet and forlornly sit together yet alone and above all, just endure each other’s presence while doing their best to pretend to enjoy it.
Another general motif availed in the entire story is dishonesty. This name is never mentioned and even the reader will not know that everybody is lying to everyone else since such groups are meant to be places where people are real with one another and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth as they are all sailing in the same boat of misfortunes. Suddenly and mercilessly, JoBeth bursts this bubble when she said “I said I saw Dorie this morning’ she said her voice trembling “I lied…..” (Fairbanks II, 2009, p. 10). She admits that almost everything she had told the group earlier in in her hearty, moving and seemingly candid speech was all lies. The fact that the whole group except Ray the visitor is not moved by the admission of dishonesty on her part shows that they have all been lying to one another, and most importantly to themselves.
This motif of dishonesty draws a theme of the fallacy entailed in the support groups where alcoholics and other sufferers meet together to support and help one another out of their addictions, pains, and miseries. It becomes very clear through this motif that the support groups are as much a fallacy as the idea that they assist their members since the members only turn up but not really attend and the moments of honesty and opening up are actually a bunch of lies. The camaraderie and family in this group is a lie as they seemingly hate each other. Therefore, the only little success seen in the support group’s attendance happen in spite of the group not because of them.
Another major motif lies in the anatomy of JoBeth; her breasts. It seems that when men talk to her, they are seemingly addressing her anatomy rather than herself thus objectifying her and occasioning her discomfort and chagrin. It is however, clear from the way the breasts issue is framed throughout the passage that it may be a perception issue within JoBeth rather than an act of indecency on the part of the individuals she accuses of objectifying her. The first one is Old Hack whom she accuses both of addressing her breasts instead of talking to her and also hugging her suggestively during routine interactions.
The second one is Ash the Plumber who she also accuses of speaking to her breasts, the third is her boss at the place of work whom she accuses of having invited ‘her breasts’ to his van to use drugs. Finally, she accuses an older member of the support group of staring at her breasts prior to the start of the meeting and tries to cover them with her hands prompting her ‘pigeon’ Paige to give her a sweatshirt to cover herself with. In equal measure, it is also possible that all these gentlemen were actually staring at her breasts since they were good looking; evidence by the fact that she was once a model who almost won the Miss New Hampshire Crown. This is however, quite doubtful based on her envy of Paige qualified by her contention that she was lucky to have left drugs before they ruined her good looks that made her attractive to the boys; a argument that clearly creates the impression that by the time JoBeth stopped drinking, she had already ruined her beauty.
The only logical conclusion from this motif, therefore, is that having ruined all her beauty through alcohol yet being very lonely; having gone past the two year no relationship period yet not being in any relationship: JoBeth had started dressing provocatively and assumed people were staring at her breasts because she expected them to, not because they were actually doing it. The solid evidence for this contention is in the act by her pigeon Paige who voluntarily offers her a sweatshirt to cover herself, an act that clearly suggests that JoBeth is inappropriately dressed. That JoBeth is also seemingly a pathological liar who even lies to herself does not help her either. This motif, therefore, calls out the fallacy that creates most sexual harassment claims by outlining the fact that the problem is mostly with the alleged victim not the alleged perpetrator who in this case is the victim.
There is also the predominant motif of Higher Being that is mostly propagated by JoBeth herself albeit other characters like Dorie her sponsor and Paige her pigeon also use the term. This motif gets complicated by the use of the term ‘personal gods’ who work miracles to some of the speakers “Personal gods working miracles large and small” (Fairbanks II, 2009, p. 8). Further, the context upon which this Higher Being has been used creates a picture of both a being and a thing which makes this Higher Being quite amorphous yet the continued and intentional use of initial capital letters clearly shows it might be the almighty God or a representation of Him.
It is a fact that having been premised on a substance abuse support group, all the players in this narrative are not doing very well in life and when things are not promising, people tend to seek others to blame for their misfortunes. However, when things keep on going worse, they shall eventually run out of people to blame and excuses to give and finally create one general excuse for all things that go wrong. The thing or being that one considers the omnipresent and omnipotent god is perhaps the best available general excuse and all probable general reason for failure: most importantly, this being does not fight back or even defend himself. One of the best qualifying factors for this interpretation of the Higher Being motif is evident when the narrator says that Paige offers JoBeth an automatic apology as she had developed the technique due to her lifestyle that required constant apology ‘Paige offers an apology with the practiced technique from a lifetime of saying sorry’ (Fairbanks II, 2009, p. 5). A lifestyle that requires constant apologies will also require constant excuses, when they run out, look for endless one with Higher Being coming in as a perfect sample. The motif creates the theme of not accepting our errors but instead looking for anyone or anything to place blame on.
Finally there is the major motif of characterization by the narrator where we have sponsors and pigeons; names that bear a very close semblance to the traditional Lords and peasants or kings and pawns. This creates an impression of a hierarchy even among the basest members of a society who have voluntarily committed themselves to support groups due to the messed up situations in their lives or worse still, committed to these groups by law courts such as Paige. Even in these groups, there are still those who are considered better than others, like kings among rats. The criterions for picking the pigeons and sponsors is however quite obscure just as the categorization itself.
JoBeth is Dorie’s Pigeon and Paige’s sponsor. First, with regard to her being a sponsor, something that she is actually very proud of, it is clear from her deceitful conduct during her speech to the group and in the jeep with Ray that she has no business being anyone’s sponsor as she is not anywhere near out of the woods yet. Further, as she is clearly lonely and envious of her pigeon who seems to be a man-magnet, she goes out of her way to dig around on if she is dating anyone so as to discourage her and even seemingly force her to abandon any and all masculine relationships and remain alone for two years.
Further, Paige offers her sponsor a sweatshirt to cover up her chest that is seemingly showing, “here take this” said Paige her voice muffled as she wrestled the sweatshirt over her head” (Fairbanks II, 2009, p. 5). One cannot help but wonder who the sponsor is and who is the pigeon as Paige definitely seems to have more sense that JoBeth. A similar scenario is also repeated between Dorie as sponsor to JoBeth where Dorie attempts to browbeat her into making peace with her ex-husband who has already moved on yet JoBeth is not ready to do the same as her relationship with her ex-husband ended very painfully after a miscarriage that JoBeth clearly blames herself for.
The two are in such bad terms that JoBeth is unable to go see her in the hospital and has to lie to the group, even about a get-well-card that had been circulated the previous evening and entrusted to JoBeth to deliver to Dorie. It is clear from the foregoing that even the best among the entire group, Dorie is definitely a poor sponsor for JoBeth who does more harm than good, whether she meant well or not. This motif helps further the theme of equality in good or bad times, in normal situations and extreme ones, the trends are all the same, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
These motifs ensure that the general themes of the narration are not just available through the totality of the entire story but can also be seen and experienced throughout the narrative singularly and severally (Casano, 2003). The narrator tells about the tragedy of a beauty queen who has worked so much to keep herself clean after an ugly experience with alcohol that robbed her of her beauty, her education, her marriage, and her unborn child. As the narrator tells the story of how her efforts towards rehabilitation were simply a lull before the storm or a delay of the inevitable return of alcoholism, the story employs motifs to enhance the theme of whirling out of control as well as other secondary and independent themes within the story.
References
Casano, A. (2003). Motif in literature: Definition & examples . Retrieved from <http://study.com/academy/lesson/motif-in-literature-definition-examples-quiz.html/>
Fairbanks II, R. P. (2009). How it works: Recovering citizens in post-welfare Philadelphia , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
