About the Writer
Robert Lowell Coover was born in Charles City, Iowa, The
United States on February 04, 1932. Coover was an American novelist, short
story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University.
He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. He became a
proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic
Literature Organization. His writing style is greatly affected by the writers
like Samuel Bekett, Franze Kafka and Miguel de Cervantes. He left the arena of
literature on October 05, 2024.
Background and Setting
The story first showed up as part of Coover’s collection of
stories published in 1969 under the title Pricksongs & Descants. The
1960s were a time when authority and traditional structures, including the
government, higher education, and gender roles, were under attack.
The timeline of the story runs from 7.40 a.m. to 10.30 p.m.
Set in the 1960s’, it depicts the middle-class values in that era of American society.
Television set seemingly the center form of entertainment, going out for
parties, teenage girls coming for babysitting to find extra some of money, the Pinball
Game – which seemingly a popular game in that era. Violence and male superiority
might be a feature in this era when considering the wild west movies screened
at that time where you see gun slingers, murders, wild law, alcoholism,
violence upon women…etc. The short story might be a counterattack about those
social stereotypes criticizing the damage caused by them to humanity as a
whole.
Themes
Primitive Lust and Desire
True wild nature of human beings is sugar-coated by forces
like tradition, values, law and religion – If those restrictions were to be lost
even for a moment, true animalistic nature of humans can emerge instantly.
Desire is such a force beyond any social restrictions. It has no age boundary –
which is that Robert Coover tries to stage through the characters in the short
story. Writer further shows the consequences with regard to such primitive
exertion of human desire. In the story, it ends up in a chaos, tragic way. Coover
explores different layers of sexual desire taking a simple structure of the
society. Mr. Tucker, an older man who is bored with his wife – though he loves
her, because of her physical changes after having three kids, fantasizes on
having sexual pleasures with the young babysitter. When the opportunity is
given, he mercilessly seduces her - which ultimately brings her a tragic death.
Mrs. Tucker shows her necessity to be flattered falls instantly in love with
the host at the party. Jack, the boyfriend loves the babysitter, but he suffers
from sex-inferiority complex; he thinks his inability to reach the babysitter
alone is his weakness; therefore, he agrees with his best friend Mart to rape
his own girlfriend. Mark on the other hand is a spoiled brat, who seeks
masculine liberty to have sex with any desired woman he encounters. Therefore,
he seeing the opportunity seduces the girlfriend of his best friend. Jimmy,
probably a young boy reaching adolescence, shows a boy’s raging curiosity of
exploring an opposite sex. Bitsy a young female child shows innocence, however
the vivid colors emitted from the TV-set spreading over her body shows the
insecurity of even such a small girl in a world of distorted sexual desires.
The babysitter, who does not portray such absurd lust or desire, ultimately
becomes the victim of the misogynistic chauvinism of other males.
Television, the devil sitting in the living room
Television is seen as the central mode of entertainment in
1960’s. In the story it is seen that all the characters are addicted to the
television set and spend a lot of time in front of it. Throughout the story
line, the television set is on and acts as a character. The programs shown on
TV goes parallel to the incidents happen in the story. When the story
progresses, the programs too become intense and violent similar to the
incidents in the story. That is a portrayal of the fact that how influential
the television to the lives of the people who watch it. In the story it can be
seen that television shows romance, absurd relationship of married men and
women, how powerful male exert the power on female and molest them, gun
fighting, killing and violent behavior. The person watches them take them as
lessons and try to practice them in their real lives which can be seen through
the characters in the story overall. The colors of TV coloring the nude child
body of Bitsy, is a critical warning about the distortions that can bring by
such television programs to the world of innocence. Mrs. Tucker suggesting watching the latest movie episode after hearing the tragic news of her kids have
been murdered is a vivid example of the emotional damage caused by the
television. This universal significance of the message given by the story is
more important to the modern world where the mode of entertainment grows
breaking the leaps and bounds.
Innocence and transformation
Innocence is mainly brought through the protagonist, the
babysitter and the kids in the story. All of them face a tragic end at the end
mainly as a result of repulsive, organic strain of misogynistic chauvinism
exerted by the male characters in the story. The babysitter, though shows some
sensual frantic behavior, is obviously shown natural to sexual desires. Though
she does not have hidden lustful expectation from her boyfriend or Mr. Tucker,
both of them have sexual fantasies about her. Writer shows how innocent male
gender can become a violent suppresser when is grown up through the character
of Timmy. Bitsy’s character is too seen as vulnerable due to the absurdity
created in the society. The unnamed toddler, a symbol of innocence becomes a
tragic victim due to the absurd sexual frenzies of the grownups around.
The post still requires the updates about the characters. Before
that, what are your personal ideas about the characters in the short story? Don’t
you think the short story, The Babysitter, though written in 1960, has a
universal applicability about misogynism and the influence of visual media
passing wrong cultures to the people? Please leave a thoughtful comment at the
comment section. Share the post if you find it useful.
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