The Art of Burning Bridges a Life of John Ohara
Literary Theory and Criticism
Analysis of John O'Hara's Graven Prototype
"Graven Image" first appeared in the New Yorker (March 13, 1943) and and so in O'Hara'south drove of short stories, Pipe Night (1945). In his review (March 18, 1945), Lionel Trilling praised O'Hara as having, "more than anyone now writing," "the most precise cognition of the content of our subtlest snobberies, of our points of social honor and idiosyncrasies of personal prestige," for case, "of how secretly profound is the feeling which many modernistic Americans accept about their college lives." It seemed to Trilling that "no other author could have projected the story 'Graven Image,' in which the New Deal bigwig, fifty-fifty at the moment of his greatest ability, cannot forgive or forget his exclusion from the Harvard Order he had wanted to make." Indeed, O'Hara was "the get-go writer . . . to deal fictionally with the social and emotional possibilities of the New Bargain dignitaries" (Critical Essays on John O'Hara 41–43).
The "New Deal bigwig," an undersecretary in the Roosevelt administration, arrives for luncheon at an sectional men's society in Washington with a former Harvard classmate, who seeks a high-level federal appointment. The undersecretary, "a piddling human," is called "Joe" past "the man he was to meet, Charles Browning." He is surprised to have heard from Browning, who thanks him for having answered his "letter so promptly." "Well, frankly, at that place wasn't whatsoever use in putting you off. . . . I don't where I'll likely exist in a month from now. In more than ways than one. I may be taking the Clipper to London, and then of course I may exist out on my can! Coming to New York and request you for a job. I have it that's what you wanted to run across me about." Browning replies, "Aye, and with hat in hand." The undersecretary cannot meet Browning "waiting with hat in hand" for anybody, "not even for The Boss." Browning laughs and explains to the puzzled undersecretary, "Well, y'all know how I feel well-nigh him, then I'd say least of all The Dominate." The undersecretary concedes that Browning has "plenty of company in this goddam boondocks," and therefore wonders why he has come to him.
John O'Hara/The New Yorker
Why did he not get instead to one of his "Union League or Junior League or whatever-the-hell-information technology-is pals," for example, "that large wiggle over there with the blue adjust and the striped necktie." Browning looks and the ii men nod. "You know him?" the undersecretary asks. "Sure I know him [from New York], but that doesn't hateful I approve of him." But "you're not one of our team," the undersecretary observes" and "withal you'd ask me a favor. I don't become it." "Oh, aye yous practice, Joe. You didn't get where you are by not beingness able to sympathize a simple affair like that." Grinning reluctantly, the undersecretary admits that he was "baiting" Browning, who had expected him to practice so, for he had "always been confronting you fellows," even "in 1932." "Only that'due south water under the bridge—or isn't it?" The undersecretary asks why information technology should exist, to which Browning replies, "For the obvious reason." "My land, 'tis of thee?" the undersecretary conjectures. "Exactly. Isn't that enough?" "It isn't plenty for your [New York] Racquet Club friend over in that location." "You proceed rail of things like that?"
"Certainly," the undersecretary declares, "I know every goddam gild in this land, get-go back about twenty-iii years agone." He had "had ample fourth dimension to study them all, objectively, from the outside." Noting that Browning is wearing a wristwatch, the undersecretary asks what happened to "the little animal." Browning pulls out of his pocket a key chain with "a small golden hog," only the undersecretary notes that "a lot of you fellows put them back in your pockets about five years ago, when 1 of the illustrious brethren closed his downtown office and moved up to Ossining." "Are yous still sore at the Pork?" Browning asks, and "Practise you think you'd have enjoyed being a fellow member of it? . . . You lot'd evidence the bastards. O.K. You showed them. Us. If you hadn't been and then sore at the Porcellian so-and-then's, you might take turned into only another lawyer." Mollifi ed, the undersecretary thinks he can help Browning, who wants to order drinks to celebrate. The undersecretary orders a cordial, which he sips, while Browning takes a scotch, half of which he drinks while noting that he had been worried about that "lodge stuff," adding, "I don't know why fellows like you—you never would have fabricated it in a thousand years," realizing at that moment that he has "said exactly the incorrect thing, oasis't I?" "That's right, Browning," replies the undersecretary, who leaves, "all dignity."
This chat occurs in 1943, equally can be inferred from the allusion to Richard Whitney (1888–1974), born into a wealthy family in Boston, educated at Groton and Harvard (B.A., 1911), elected to the Porcellian Club, president of the New York Stock Commutation (1930–35), bedevilled of embezzlement, and sent to Sing Sing Prison (Ossining, New York) in 1938. The undersecretary, who attended Harvard around 1920 ("about xx-three years ago"), may be a composite of Sumner Welles, Adolf A. Berle, and FDR. Welles (1892–1961), scion of a rich and socially prominent family in Boston, was educated at Groton and Harvard (B.A., 1914) and served as undersecretary of country (1937–43). Berle (1895–1971), besides built-in in Boston and educated at Harvard (B.A., 1913), served in FDR'due south "Encephalon Trust" and then as assistant secretary of state (1938–44). Neither Welles, who was a nonconformist, nor Berle, who lacked the wealth and social status, cared almost not existence elected to Porcellian. O'Hara'south undersecretary is "a picayune homo," but Undersecretary Welles was tall, while Banana Secretary Berle was brusk. Welles was forced to resign in August 1943, and Berle was dismissed in Nov 1944. FDR (1882– 1945) was also educated at Groton and Harvard (B.A., 1904) and rejected by Porcellian and confessed later that it was "the greatest disappointment of my life" (Ward 236). Such unnamed historical models (even FDR is referred to only as "The Boss") lend authenticity to O'Hara'southward undersecretary and Charles Browning, who, as did Richard Whitney (released from Sing Sing in 1941), appears to accept worked on Wall Street. In 1940, O'Hara defended FDR against "the fascist bastards who like to say that Roosevelt is a traitor to his class" and contrasted the journalist Heywood Broun (1888–1939), who "honored Harvard by going in that location," with "a Richard Whitney, who naturally went to Harvard and was a member of the Pork and the crew, and hunted, and did this and that" (Selected Letters 157). Merely in "Graven Epitome," O'Hara seems to suggest that both the undersecretary and Browning are blinded by their reverence for the Porcellian'southward "golden grunter."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
O'Hara, John. "Graven Image." New Yorker, 13 March 1943, pp. 17–18.
———. Selected Messages of John O'Hara. Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Random House, 1978.
Schwarz, Jordan A. Liberal: Adolf A. Berle and the Vision of an American Era. New York: Complimentary Printing, 1987.
Trilling, Lionel. "John O'Hara Observes Our Mores" (review of Pipage Night). New York Times Volume Review, 18 March 1945.
Ward, Geoffrey C. Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Welles, Benjamin. Sumner Welles: FDR'south Global Strategist. A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Wolff, Geoffrey. The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O'Hara. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Categories: American Literature, Literary Criticism, Literature, Short Story
Source: https://literariness.org/2021/05/25/analysis-of-john-oharas-graven-image/
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