Sea Oak is a short story that depicts several characters living in poverty-stricken areas across the United States. Some of the characters explicitly express their desire to have a better life. One of the important aspects of the story is the fact that a character dies and resurrects temporarily. The author George Sauder’s has combined fiction with reality so as to demonstrate the extent to which individuals will go in a bid to escape poverty and suffering. By contrasting fiction and reality, the author has demonstrated that suffering is part of life and, therefore, inevitable. Even with assistance from the supernatural, it is impossible to escape suffering. The short story acts as an instructional manual that elevates the position of individuals in varied social classes. However, it warns that as human beings the desire to buy better lifestyles, most often, comes at the expense of the well-being of our bodies. To this end, this paper will argue that in Sea Oak, Saunders critically and satirically examines the class structure and exposes the ill motivations of the wealthy, rationalizes the conditions that the poor encounter each day, and reveals the role that religion plays in perpetuating the oppression of the working class.
Most readers of this short story understand reality as everyday things that make life more difficult such as high school dropouts, living in ghettos, small rental houses, and minimum wage jobs. All these contribute to a difficult lifestyle for most people. These are the same conditions that Sea Oak uses to explicitly present reality. By Saunders using the character of Aunt Bernie, he shows exactly what having a difficult lifestyle is in life. Aunt Bernie’s nieces dropped out of high schools and now live with her (Saunders 114). She also lives with her nephew. She has lived without many jobs and what bothers the narrator is that even though Aunt Bernie works in a pharmacy, she makes very little money. This is despite the fact that she is unusually nice and this puzzles the narrator even more. For a reader, the character provides specific and identifiable details of real life. On the other hand, the fictitious part is well demonstrated when Bernie dies and comes back to life. She died of fear but resurrected a bitter woman. This happens even though she tries to ensure that her nephew, nieces and she have a better life. She comes back to life as a corpse with her flesh decomposing while her limbs are falling off a few days after. This demonstrates the true struggles that normal people and other characters throughout the story have. When he came back to life, her life did not change and, therefore, she longed to be in the grave. When she came back from death, Bernie realized that she had failed in her previous life by slaving for things that did not bring her happiness. From then, she was filled with the spirit of consumerism, which is the hallmark of the American culture. She now desired to consume more even though this never brought her contentment. She wore more sexy clothes until she died.
Before Aunt Bernie died, she was a woman who never complained about anything about her life. This was despite the fact that she was miserable. As such, she tended to consider others first. Aunt Bernie is the person who cared for her father when her mother died. She was always working night and day with the intent of earning a living but ended up getting little. She did not have a child or lover and died a virgin. Just like Jesus, Bernie sacrifices her happiness with no reward. Additionally, she receives no inheritance from her parents as the children of the rich do. In her last days, she lives a difficult life. This is captured by Saunders when he observed that she was scared to death while living in her “crappy apartment” (Saunders 120). To her nieces and nephew, she insisted that they must work for money. She viewed this as the only way through which they could not regret while they were in the grave (Saunders 122). By this, the author brings back to life the traditional debate about which the rich keep getting richer while the poor get poorer. This is a reality that people find difficult to change despite their efforts. The intention of the author was to demonstrate through satire the polarization of the American culture using Bernie. The author hoped to inspire the audience and have them think about the culture that they live in and how it contributed to all the sufferings that poor encounter every day.
With the characters of Jade and Min, Saunders, in the story, demonstrate why those who live in poverty are disdained in the American and other societies across the world. Min and Jade are individuals who are illiterate. This is demonstrated by the incident where they keep on debating the number of sides that a triangle has. They also think that “regicide is a virus” (Saunders 118). Additionally, these characters are lazy as demonstrated by the fact that they were microwaving processed junk food such as “stars and flags” and “beanie-weenies” instead of cooking. Jade and Min were single mothers (Saunders 115). The author does not intend to have the readers sympathize with their condition but he wants to show how stereotypes work to reinforce the belief by most people that are poor choose not to be hardworking and hence live in poverty. Saunders was using these characters to feed into the popular myth held by most people that poverty is just a moral condition. The author uses the character of Aunt Bernie as well as Thomas to counter balance Jade and Min. Thomas and Aunt Bernie are protagonists who not only work but also contribute to their households. This has the implication that Jade and Min are not representatives of the whole poor community. Some poor people in the society are not necessarily poor because they do not work hard. It is because they could be victims of circumstances. The society has structural barriers that hinder their upward mobility due to social structures such as classes.
In the story, the housing project further illuminates the standards of living among the poor. The living conditions where the poor live are characterized by child gangs, violence, and the laundry rooms are also the “ad hock crack house” (Saunders 120). There are also many drug addicts and unwed mothers. As a result, poverty is attached to stigma. To this end, when Thomas feels humiliated when seen with his former girlfriend. This is because by being seen with this people, her economic status would automatically be associated with poor people. In Sea Oak, the author suggests three options that the readers can use to rise above poverty and its shame. These include getting another person who could support you, accepting the condition without ambition or prostituting up the economic ladder using work.
Works Cited
Saunders, George. "Sea Oak.” New Yorker 28 (1998): 112-23.
