Abhorrent Caricature: The Sabotage of TC Boyle

Congruent to many contemporary authors, TC Boyle began creative writing with the anticipation of making a reputation for himself. He started his first collection of short stories with lofty intentions--among them to compel the nation to fore go Stephen King's name (Ulin 143). Synchronous to King, Boyle's artists talents, dynamic language combined in artful articulation, turn the risque into a mystical, scintillating encounter for the imagination. Correspondingly parallel to King, Boyle's deficiency is his disposition to become predictable, leaving little room for reader interpretation. "The way to be a bore, for an author, is to say everything," advises Voltaire. Ignoring the well-known advise, TC Boyle's "Descent of Man'' becomes too offensive to be amusing and too hyperbolic to be a successful repartee.

By introducing Jane as "a woman who suddenly began to stink," Boyle commences with a licentious attempt at humor (Boyle 55). As Jackson describes Jane, the reader has trouble envisioning a professional, career oriented woman whose odor compels him to picture "the dark rotting trunks of the rain forest" (55). Comparing Jane's encircling stench to Pig Pen's enclosed world of dirt in Charles Schultz's Peanuts, critic Steven Crist emphasizes, "Boyle's downfall [ is that ] he ends up being unpleasantly odd'' (Crist qtd. in Emblidge 147). Visualizing Jane's indifference of her body hosting insects, Crist's analysis, although skeptical, appears indulgent.

Evident by her physical characteristics, Jane sacrifices her lifestyle as a result of the demanding research at The Primate Center (Trosky 38). Subsequently, instead of discovering the distinction between man and beast, she merges her own evolutionary existence with Konrad's conditioned intelligence. Hand and Konrad interweave into a product of Boyle's neurosis concerning the basis of man's genus ( Apple qtd. in McMaffery 144). As Jane inspires Konrad's human tendencies, she simultaneously reverts to a primate's level. Boyle corroborates the intent as Jackson claims "Konrad smelled of eau de cologne, Jane of used litter" (Boyle 61).

The reader speculates Jane's primitivism when she refuses to take Jackson's hand in the restaurant. Jackson notices "her breathing was fast," which symbolizes sexual arousal in an aboriginal environment" (61). Jane's ultimate separation from mankind transpires when she withdraws from her human lover to capacitate the sexual encounters with Konrad. Louis Burnard maintains society is "far to urbane to be moved by such hackneyed situations as the anthropologist's wife [ sic ] having it away with an ape" (Burnard 142). A polished audience finds Boyle's anecdote platitudinous rather than humorous.

The prosaic, repeated use of imagery perseveres to the point of stagnation. Continually present, fruit depicts the jungle and animalistic mannerisms. Located primarily on pillows, the rotting fruit attempts to demonstrate Jane's descent. Sharing the "source: they lay hidden like gems in the long wild hanks of her hair," Boyle, through Jackson, reiterates an endeavor to dehumanize Jane (Boyle 55). As if Boyle's grotesque intentions are not already clear, he discloses Jane's personal hygiene--habitually; she sits "fingering our her hair . . . fruit bits sifting silently to the carpet" (55).

At the restaurant, Jackson feels nauseous due to Jane's concentrated odor. Taking in the first available liquid to settle his churning stomach, he gulps coconut oil, another reference to the fruit of the jungle. Paralleling Jane and Konrad, Boyle also uses fruit to describe Konrad, "his upper lip [was] like a halved cantaloupe" (62). According to Burnard, "Mr. Boyle is . . . genially disillusioned about the human condition" (143). As if Boyle authenticates Burnard's assumption, he adds Konrad "pulled out an enormous slick red organ like a peeled banana" (Boyle 57). While considered by some critics to be a master of black humor, Boyle's repeated application of fruit imagery pointing a man's downfall exasperates the reader rapidly (McMaffery 145).

Because genus is a focal point in "Descent of Man," Boyle also makes use of animal imagery. Insects are referred to throughout the text to depict the jungle setting from which Konrad emerges and to which Jane progresses. Jane picks a louse out of her belly button and pops it into her mouth. The sight of the louse influences Jackson to "lay in bed that night . . . listening for lice crawling across her scalp" (Boyle 56).

In the restaurant, Jackson is antagonized by mosquitoes and spiders. Boyle's redundant imagery use "borrows their hyperbolic expression to microwave a story's events or significance" (LeClair 149). LeClair's 'microwave' theory not only applies to Boyle's insect imagery but also to the overwrought imagery of animals, which again leads the reader to the obvious: the jungle. Jackson visualizes "jungle birds . . . [ and ] snot-nosed apes "when the stratosphere fills with Jane's stench (Boyle 55). Before dining, the maitre d' resembles an iguana and "monkey chatter" fills the background (59).

Unnecessarily foreshadowing the upcoming and already predicted bestiality, Boyle introduces the main course, monkey brain as a "delicacy" (61). Because of the repetitive portrayals, Boyle's text jumbles together with collapsed similes set in a continuum of contemporary characteristics (Kearns 62).

Taking into account all of Boyle's works, his didactic attempts, "Descent of Man" being a prime example, fail because they "read like sick jokes" (Kaplan 58). Agreeing with Kaplan, Jane Smiley explains "the experience of reading Mr. Boyle is . . . an uncomfortable one." She adds, "His works are hard to embrace" (Smiley qtd. in Kaplan 59). Smiley hypothesizes patrons will take offense because Boyle's tendency is to overload the reader with outlandish metaphors, distorted similes, and barbaric personifications (61). Exaggeration is a mechanism Boyle must learn to harness prior to effective usage.

For more information or explanation on hyperboles, metaphors, similes, personification and click on the following link:
www.associatedcontent.com/article/249520/deciphering_the_figures_of_speech_simile.html