The Library Annex

“I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.”

Booth Tarkington, the American male Jane Austen, portrays a lower-middle class family and the prototypical roles each member plays. A father responsible for the welfare of his family but also his dignity; a mother who wants nothing more than to provide the best for her children and give them the kind of life others in her position would envy; a son who rebels against high society only to find himself in trouble; and, of course, a daugher who wants to glue it all together.

I will focus on these characters rather than the specific plot of the story. Virgil Adams, a man of stress-induced passion and poor health, finds dignity in holding to his lifelong dedication to a company that has kept his family in meager economic conditions. The reader first meets him under the care of a nurse where he exhibits an obstinate attitude. I immediately noticed his adherence to idioms with which he grew up and have lost their significance to progress and the intrusion of that outside progress into his rooms. Virgil Adams believes in an older America in which the “rat race” held little sway over integrity, dedication and hard work. Even though his family does not have much, he eventually succumbs to his wife’s demands regarding his career and catastrophe follows.

I struggle with Mrs. Adams, Virgil’s wife, who finally succeeds in influencing Virgil to change careers. One cannot fault her desperate desire to provide the best life for her children. Yet one can question how she defines “best life”. For Mrs. Adams, her children need all the best material things which would prove a means to high-society acceptance and social prospects. In this, Mrs. Adams seems to live in an old aristocratic European world rather than a new twentieth century American one (or perhaps there never has been a difference). Unfortunately, her character never changes, but I empathize with her sorrow in watching her children judged and marginalized by those with power even though this passion likely does her children more harm than good.

Her son, Walter rebukes high society conformity and goes his own way. For this, I admire him. At one point, I hoped that Alice would adopt his “damn the man” attitude and find some freedom in life. However, at the end, Walter enjoys the least freedom of anyone in the family. With his mindset, he always risked this outcome. When comparing him to Alice, and imagining high society norms as shackles, one notices how Walter seemingly enjoyed the most freedom in the beginning while Alice enjoyed very little. At the end, the arcs completely invert against each other.

For myself, I thoroughly enjoyed Alice’s arc towards self-acceptance, if not discovery. She spent all her energy bridging the gap between her parents while simultaneously disguising herself for acceptance into high society. Tarkington goes to some effort in showcasing Alice’s quality to Arthur Russell by supressing family status and society pressures. But he cannot surpress Alice’s inner-conflict between her multiple facades and her true self. And while the reader hopes in a rewarding acceptance by, or vindictive retaliation against, high society, they soon realize the higher importance in Alice accepting herself. Nothing else can lead to the kind of happiness she and her mother want for her. And yet this transformation does not come without severe growing pains.

“We do keep looking ahead to things as if they’d finish something, but when we get TO them, they don’t finish anything. They’re just part of going on.”

She finds the strength to go on when she acknowledges the futility of her efforts for acceptance and in this she truly matures and becomes her own woman; something none of her fake friends will experience or have. Perhaps in this redemption it is she, not high society, who find themselves rich and powerful. I offer a standing slow-clap for Ms. Alice Adams! Go get ’em, kid.