Me And Miss Mandible - What Does it Mean?

Me And Miss Mandible - What Does it Mean?

What does it mean? Since early childhood this simple query has been posed to us constantly in a myriad of guises. A lover's fiery glance across the room at a party. The preacher's glowing sermon at Sunday service about the kingdom of God. The supermarket tabloid's screaming headline, " I Had Elvis's Alien Love Child." By the very nature of our being human we immediately need to process this information internally to make sense out of what we see, hear, or read. Is she angry with me or does she want to throw me down on the bed where all the guests have heaped their coats? Have I been good enough to make it through the Pearly Gates and do they have ice cream in heaven? Is Elvis still alive? This fundamental need of finding personal meaning in our world is crucial to our existence. It touches on all aspects of our lives, particularly in what we read.

Donald Barthelme's "Me and Miss Mandible" is a wicked little tale. His use of humor and the fantastic initially led me astray, making me walk away from my first reading with a few good laughs and a vague feeling of unease. On re-reading the story, this slight anxiety slowly built to a crescendo of remembered anger and pain. No longer did I just feel pity for the protagonist Joseph. I was Joseph. And this was no longer just a sad little story of Joseph's inability to fit in. Barthleme had somehow underhandedly slipped in a scathing indictment of the entire American culture.

My doorway into "Miss Mandible's" world was provided unknowingly by the author. I too, like Joseph, had been in the military, been divorced, and had spent ten years in the business world. But of more significance than this ou...

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..., is the only character in the story to be "fulfilled." "It is the pledges that this place makes to me, pledges that cannot be redeemed, that will confuse me later and make me feel I am not getting anywhere" (Barthelme 400). I too, like the character Joseph, feel all the frustration and anger of trying to make sense out of a often deranged society that will tolerate no questions about its' sanity. "Like the Old Guard marching through the Russian drifts, the class marches to the conclusion that truth is punishment" (Barthelme 401). But I find I must risk the punishment, for my own well being and sense of personal fulfillment in this world. I still need to ask the question. What does it mean?

Work Cited:

Barthelme, Donald. "Me And Miss Mandible." Literature: The Evolving Canon. Ed. Sven P. Birkerts. Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon, 1996. 394-401