Willful Creatures Review

Aimee Bender is not what one would call a traditional author. Her stories contain a woman with potatoes for kids, a boy with keys for fingers, and a big man having a little man as a sort of pet. Though this may seem far-out there, her use of absurdities along with humor, is used to show how people deal with the daily struggles for power. Her style of writing is more surreal, with unusual sentence structures and unusual order of words. Though one may think that it’s just all too absurd to get anything out of the stories, one has to look deeper, under all the absurdities to see the true, complex meanings of the stories. Bender uses absurdist fiction in this book, which is fiction that brings in absurd elements and often uses humor and analyzes human nature. There is no realistic basis in this type of fiction, and the author creates for the reader a whole new world. We as the readers buy into this world, and can distinguish right away that it is purely fictional. This essay will explore the stories in Willful Creatures and Bender’s ways of using absurdist fiction. Humor is found much deeper in these stories and Bender uses it as a way to lure people to sad, and otherwise conventional stories. Many themes are present throughout, and Bender’s particular rhetorical choices in the titles of stories and characters names play a huge role in this novel.

Theorists Relating to Willful Creatures

Thomas Hobbes and Henri Bergson are two important theorists who had much to say about humor and laughter that apply to the stories in Willful Creatures. Hobbes is an English theorist who saw humor as a social process, all about people being in positions of power. He described laugher in people as “caused either by some sudden act of their own, that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another by comparison whereof they suddenly applause themselves”( Hobbes quoted in Ewin 29). He saw laughter and humor as arising out of those fleeting moments of power, when we are able to recognize our own power and control over others. He therefore viewed laughter as selfish, with people always seeking to align themselves with the individuals who are in power. In Willful Creatures, though many of the stories seem so far out there and absurd, there is this underlying power struggle constant throughout. We see people who are in power laughing at others who they are in control of, and those who think they are in power slowly realizing that they are powerless. Several examples of this power struggle in specific stories include, “Debbieland,” where the group of girls holds power over Debbie, and “Motherfucker,” where the man thinks he has power over the starlet, but in reality ends up hurt. In “End of The Line,” the big man holds power over the little man, and in “The Case of The Salt and Pepper Shakers,” both the man and wife are trying to gain power over each other,with both ending up dead.

Henri Bergson is a French philosopher, who thought the main function of laughter is to intimidate by humiliating. He saw laughter as “always rather humiliating for the one against whom it is directed, laughter is, really and truly, a kind of social “ragging” ”(Bergson Chap 3, Par 2). Bergson, like Hobbes, sees laughter as a social gesture, one that helps us to point out where it is that an individual deviated from the particular category society set up, and lure this individual back into participation of the community. In Willful Creatures, we see Bergson’s theory on laughter displayed throughout, in stories such as “The End of The Line,” where the big man humiliates the little man, and in “Debbieland,” where the group of girls humiliates Debbie. Also in “Ironhead” we see humiliation, as the boy with the iron for a head has no friends, because he is different from everyone else. Being born to a family of pumpkin heads he is considered an outcast and therefore shunned. Bergson believes that when an individual has stepped out of the norms, those in power humiliate the weaker person in order to self-correct them. Both of these theorists deal with humor as some sort of a power play, and in many of the stories in Willful Creatures, not only just the stories mentioned earlier, we see this humor at work, disclosed behind all the absurdities.

Power Struggles

One major theme that is evident through many of the stories in Willful Creatures is that of power struggles. We see the people in power belittling those who aren’t so powerful. Many times though, the people who think they are in power, often end up being the ones with the least amount of power. There are three particular stories, which have this competition of the powerful versus powerless.

In the first, “End of the Line,” we see a big man buy a little man in a cage, and belittle and humiliate him. He throws him, drugs him, and even puts him in the refrigerator, while all the time laughing at his control over him. At one point, the big man puts the little man down his pants, and we see the positions of power turn, as the little man flicks the big man. The little man “hadn’t even minded much being in the underwear of the big man, because for the first time since he’d been caught, he’d felt the smallest glimmer of power”(19). This is the first time the little man is in control of the situation and is able to humiliate the big man. As the story unravels, we see that the little man has a family and community, whereas the big man lives an empty life with no family and no real human connections. The big man may actually torture him because he wishes he had a life like that of the little man. We see that when the big man tries to chase the little man down after letting him go, the big man finds emptiness and loneliness at the end of the line. This is when it becomes evident that the little man holds power over the big man, because he is the one who has a loving family and community waiting for him back at home. When the little man realizes this, by no longer feeling the effects of the pain the big man inflicts of him, he gains the position of power. This entire story, especially with its two male characters, is all about power struggles and humor is derived from this. Hobbes’ theory goes along with this story in that the entire time the big man was so proud he could do something to someone else. He was constantly laughing when being in a position of power over the little man. Bergson’s theory also applies to this, as the big man humiliates the little man in order to laugh. Humiliation is used as a power play, to show the big mans superiority over the little man.

In the short story, “Off,” power struggles are evident as well. In this story, a woman decides she wants to kiss three people, a redhead, blonde and dark-haired man. This lady is seen as almost a diva of some sort, and seems to control everyone at the party. When she is in control, her relative meanness comes out, because she knows she is the one in control. Moments in which she displays her downright meanness seem to be the funniest moments. This is because we as the readers can relate to it, and only certain topics that can't otherwise be discussed can be discussed in jokes. Laughing implicates us in our own guilt, in terms of recognizing what the woman is talking about. She dresses more extravagant then everyone else at the party, wearing a sparkling silver dress. We see she does this on purpose as she states, “The next time I see that same host she has more lipstick on or a new glittering necklace her mother bought her but lady she is dust next to me inside this silverness” (36). She knows that by dressing better than the other women she will be the one with the power and control. She hates other women at the party, because they are in competition with her and there is a constant battle for power. Slowly throughout the story, we see the lady sort of unravel as she kisses her ex-boyfriend and can’t seem to get the dark-haired man to stop talking to the vet and kiss her. At the end of the party she is found in the closet, with everyone’s coats on her, realizing she is not as powerful as she thought, but is rather powerless. While she thought at the beginning of the party she was in power, she slowly realizes she was not, reversing her positions of power. The humor comes about as we the readers see these power struggles that she goes through. Hobbes and Bergson’s theories are also evident in this story, as we see the woman constantly trying to be the person in position of power, and trying to humiliate others so she can be in control. Humor is evident all throughout, coming from both her power and her powerlessness.

Outlandish to Conventional

In Bender’s various stories in Willful Creatures, she has an interesting way of transmitting an underlying conventional story with the use of outlandish writing. In the story “Jinx” Bender describes the relationship between two teenage girls and a boy at a poster store. When introducing the boy she said, “The boy was growing so fast...Each day people looked shorter to him”(Bender 110). Bender later went on to write about the girls’ relationship and how they interacted together, yet they were slowly drifting apart and talks about it by saying, “This moment is rare. This teenage girl out on the shopping street alone: rare”(Bender 111). Throughout the story Bender talks about one girl Tina out back kissing the boy who worked at the store, and another girl Cathy who was thinking about how her butt would look in a pair of jeans. The story “Jinx” came to be a coming of age story from the author. She never really came out saying anything about puberty and did not mention their ages but from their strange interactions and her attention to detail and descriptions, it shows them growing up and coming to their own identities. One could say that Aimee Bender uses humor and the non-conventional writing to lure the reader into the deeper, more conventional meaning that she is trying to convey in her writings.

Another example of this outlandish to conventional message is with the story “The Leading Man”. Outlandish writing is definitely used in this story about a boy whose fingers are made of keys and how he believed that his true task in life was to find the 9 doors the keys unlocked. Bender wrote about the boy opening a bank deposit box, a camp trunk, and a cafeteria door at school. They were all random locks that he was able to open, and he wasn’t feeling like he had found his true purpose in his life yet. He was searching for it through the use of his fingers. But in actuality he may have had some false expectations. The conventional story Aimee Bender was trying to get across was about a person finding their “purpose” in life. It is interesting that Bender chose this way of conveying her message across because it keeps the reader thinking and constantly questioning and wanting to look deeper into her writings. You could say that is one of the reasons she is a great author.

Titles of Stories and Names of Characters

In Willful Creatures there is a reoccurring theme dealing with the titles of Bender’s stories and the use of names in her writing. This author uses short, sometimes descriptive titles to give the reader a heads-up as to what the story is about. But in reality, is she giving us false expectations? Are we as readers reading too deep into the titles? It is an interesting topic to look at. For example, in the story “Motherfucker” as soon as a reader sees that they could think it would be a story about a person who is a real jerk, not someone who hooks up with mothers. We as the reader have perceptions that the story is going to be about intimacy and tender moments. Also, in this story Bender does not give the names of the characters. She calls them by the motherfucker and the starlet. The only name that is mentioned in this story is Heddie from Butte, one of his previous mothers that he had sexual encounters with. Bender uses this no name device in order to play on reader’s emotions. By not giving the identity of a person, it brings in a universal element, making the characters more applicable to readers. If no names are given, then the reader has no perceptions going in to it, and can therefore relate the characters to people they know in their life.

Another example is in “I Will Pick Out Your Ribs (With My Teeth),” we could find meaning in that title after reading the story. In this writing, a man is going through life helping his pill addicted girlfriend through her rough times. We could read into the meaning of the title literally, as in when he was eating ribs at his friends’ house after leaving the hospital. Or read into the title deeper and say that he is the enabler in the relationship for his girlfriend so he is slowly picking at her ribs, slowly killing her. On the other hand, she is picking at him when she keeps using pills over and over, and is testing him to see how long he will put up with it. The name of his girlfriend, Janie, is displayed, along with the name of his friend, Alan. Though the names are given, they are barely used, and Janie is mostly referred to as his girlfriend and Alan as his friend. Bender does this once again, so that the readers can connect more fully to the story, and not to the individual character. Readers can picture the characters as people they associate with in real life. By doing this, Bender allows the readers to walk away from the story feeling like it applied directly to their own life.

The other theme, the use of characters names in stories, or lack of names, in Benders’ stories is a topic to discuss and look more closely at. It is interesting that in some stories we get a name later in the writing, and sometimes no name is given at all. In “Death Watch” no names are given whatsoever. Bender says “he,” “the doctors,” the “raging men,” but never gives an actual name. We could read into this way of writing saying maybe as readers she is leaving us feeling somewhat disconnected to the characters. People generally feel more connected to a person if they know their name, so they don’t seem like just another stranger to them. Another way of reading into Bender’s lack of name use or names being used later in the story, like in “Jinx”, is so that we as readers could connect to the characters; it gives them an identity. In “Jinx” the girls are not given names until about half way through the story. By finally giving the girls’ names shows how they were coming to be individuals now, and not just “the girls” or just a pair. In Bender’s story “The Meeting”, no names are given in the story and a reason Bender may have for that is that as the reader, you could put yourself in one of the characters’ places, feel what they are feeling, pretend you are in their body at the time and in that way Bender connects the reader to her characters.


Off Note: This is a video of Luke Ford reciting an interview he had with Aimee Bender. It is interesting to see that she calls her self optimistic, yet her stories often deal with many sad topics. Her response to her writing being surreal and quite challenging is also quite interesting, as she says that she finds it challenging to connect to the readers. Many times readers find it challening to see the deeper meanings in her stories, but it's a two way street, with Bender experiencing this same challenge of how to connect to readers.


Reviews

Overall, Willful Creatures has gotten good reviews, and has been a widely and popularly accepted novel, for Bender’s use of surrealism and absurdities to display much deeper meanings. The New York Times Review on Willful Creatures states, “Bender creates contemporary fairy tales, cushioned by goofy humor and a deep tenderness for her characters, that aren't always as dark or as sinister as they initially appear. Her twinkling, chatty prose style carries the reader effortlessly over the road bumps of implausibility. Stories in this collection alternate between absurd scenarios imbued.” However, a few have not found Willful Creatures quite as appealing and haven’t been very accepting of it. LA Weekly’s review states that, ”Sometimes it feels as though she is striving for effect, as though Bender’s delightful and quixotic mind has alighted upon a flickering idea, or an image, and insisted, rather too forcefully, upon its story-ness.” The main criticisms of this book, is that some of the stories in it are more effective and mature then others. Sometimes she tries to hard to impress, and these are the stories that receive the most criticism. I agree that her stories are today’s version of previously told fairy tales. They all have much deeper conventional meanings and display moments of real human emotion, just like a fairytale. When first reading the stories, it may seem like Bender is trying to hard to gain effect by her use of absurdities, but if these were taken out of the stories, then they would not be as effective and enjoyable to read. When first reading one of the stories, it can take the reader a little while to adjust to Bender’s style of writing, and to her use of absurdities constantly throughout. But once the reader gets past the stage of just looking at the absurdities, and thinking that they are crazy, only then can they get to the deeper meanings that Aimee Bender was hoping to display. If the reader can achieve just that, then they will be accepting of the novel and enjoy it thoroughly, while possibly experiencing a brief thought about what planet this author came from.


Work Cited

Bender, Aimee. Willful Creatures. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.

Bergson, Henri. “On Laughter.” http://blackboard.uc.edu.

Hobbes on Laughter Author(s): R. E. Ewin Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 202 (Jan., 2001), pp. 29-40 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for The Philosophical Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2660519.

Messud, Claire. “The Kinks.” LA Weekly 11 Aug 2005. 3 Nov 2008 http://www.laweekly.com/2005-08-11/art-books/the-kinks.


Press, Joy. “Willful Creatures: Bizarrely Ever After.” The New York Times. 21 Aug 2005. 3 Nov 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/books/review/21PRESS.html?ex=1126238400&en=8b9e2bc26e9d408a&ei=5070.


POSTED BY: Taylor Espy, Dana Heileman, and Amanda Recker