Sunday, November 16, 2014
Is Smithy Really Just 14
We have come to quickly realize just how immature Smithy Ide is. I'm not just talking about his obsession with breasts. He also is just very naive. From the start of the novel he believes he can ride a rickety old bike all the way across the country. No sane person would believe this is even possible, let a lone a thought that should cross someone's mind. The naivety does not end there however. He believes that everyone will be nice and caring even after being shot and hit with cars. He never stops and thinks that maybe he was wrong. Also at this point I would probably turn around but Smithy has this child like idea that he is invincible. I think that he just really never mentally developed after 14. His sister went missing and this really messed with him. He didn't know how to react other than to stick to a routine of expecting her to be gone and finding her on his bike. I think that he was so afraid of change that he did not even want himself to change. This led to little or no development from that age. I think that would explain all of his childish tendencies.
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To me, it doesn't really seem like he expects everyone to be nice to him. He's just grateful when the are nice to him. Also, I he's not full of himself at all. He doesn't think he's invincible; he asks for help and continually refers to himself as stupid. If someone thought they were invincible they'd think they could do everything by themselves and wouldn't ask anyone to help them. Smithy just has this drive to continue his journey no matter what.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I've been wondering about Smithy's drive for a while now. What keeps Smithy going? From the very beginning, I didn't see Smithy as a very motivated person, and biking across the nation requires a lot of determination and endurance. At first, I think Smithy is naive (and also drunk) about the difficulties of making the journey, but later on, I think that Smithy realizes how he's changing for the better, and decides to continue on, despite all the hardships he faces along the way. Biking isn't easy, and I think that Smithy realizes that and decides to see how far he can push himself (which ends up being a lot farther than I could go!).
DeleteWell, when he is starting out, he isn't naive about it: he's drunck. But when he does get control of himself, he is kind of naive in taking this trip, I guess.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting argument. There is certainly evidence of Smithy's naivety, but the thing that confuses me is that Smithy sounds rather mature as a narrator. Perhaps we can sort of conclude from this that he matured after the end of the journey that he is recounting.
ReplyDeleteDo you think him acting like a child has something to do with post traumatic stress from the war/ Bethany's illness or that maybe thats really just his personality?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lyle that Smithy's maturity comes through in his narration--if only at the sentence level, his intellect is clearly advanced, and he has a strong "emotional intelligence" even as he slags his own intelligence. But at the same time, I think this is consistent with what Jackson is talking about: there's a kind of wide-eyed wonder at the world, an ability to look at (and taste, and smell) things fresh that is sort of "childlike" or even "naïve," but in a good way. We've forgotten all about bananas, in other words; but Smithy is able to get stoked on bananas *because* he'd "forgotten" them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, in class we discussed how Smithy's development kind of came to a stand still after Bethany left and I personally think that he just didn't know what to do after that. Then he kind of stagnated and drank and smoked all the time and he's just now making up for all of the time he lost.
ReplyDeleteTo me it's amazing that people even continued to help him. Many people nowadays would simply turn him away, which possibly would have ended his journey early. I'm wondering how this story would be different if put into a modern perspective.
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