Today in class we discussed the role of women in What Makes Sammy Run?. What does the passage that Colleen pointed out the passage on page 270-271, "He had wanted the devotion of Rosalie Goldbaum, he had wanted the companionship of Kit, he had wanted the domesticity of Ruth Mintz and the glamour of Rita Royce, and he had thought he was getting the drop on all of them (and something more, something indispensable) in Laurette Harrington," say about Sammy's relationships with these women? Does Sammy's wanting of the women depict them as objects that he can strive to obtain in order to satisfy his own desires? Or does the fact that he wants them show that the women have something that Sammy doesn't thereby giving them more power? What are the relationships between these characters?
Why though does Sammy consider Laurette a completely different type of woman? It seems like the reason he is intoxicated by the idea of her is because she is always out of his reach, doesn't put up with his bullshit, and gives him access to the power of her father and her status. Doesn't Kit also humble him when she stands up to him: "And now that I have will you get the hell out of my office and let me work?"? Kit's aloofness though, doesn't make Sammy fall in love with her the same was Laurette's does. Rita Royce also gives him status, but he doesn't fall in love with her either. Why?
What about the other less central women in the book? When Julian tells Al how Sammy stole his story Girl Steals Boy he is extremely distraught. His suffering though doesn't seem to be about the money or the fame or the fact that Sammy stole his story, but about the fact that it was affecting his relationship with his wife, Blanche. He didn't confront the situation or confide in Al until Blanche threatened to leave him. What does that say about Blanche's power as a woman? What about Billie or Sammy's mom?
How are the different ways women are portrayed in the novel similar or different? What is the relationship between the women and/or the relationship between women and men?
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ReplyDeleteI think that Laurette deceives Sammy in the end by making him think that she did have all of the qualities the other women listed poses, yet she it turns out she is just as cunning as Sammy. While the scene after the wedding is unfolding, I begin to feel bad for Sammy. I thought that he really had wanted to marry her for qualities in her instead of outside of her. If Sammy had said goodbye to Laurette in this moment, then I would have felt more sympathetic towards him; however, he simply stays because of the power from her father and the belief that he can have other women whenever he wants. It now still feels as though Sammy's ultimate goal is the money and fame, whereas for a short while I firmly believed he was in love with Laurette. I think this situation gives Laurette significantly more power over Sammy because of the way she can play with him emotionally. Since Sammy did have such strong feelings towards her, and she has the ability to play with those feelings that are so rarely seen, her power will last as long as he desires the status of her father. Assuming that this is forever, Laurette has infinite authority over him.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons Sammy desires Laurette is because her "old money" represents something that he can never achieve alone, given his poor upbringing. Even though Sammy has outrun seemingly everyone and claims that he has everything he could possibly want, he sees that Laurette is still "above him" in status, even though she hasn't had to work hard like Sammy. No matter how successful Sammy has become, he's still viewed by his peers as a brash, uncultured, "nouveau rich" kid, and he wishes to shed that label by marrying into a well-respected elite family. Sammy cannot stop himself from continually trying to elevate in status, and Laurette becomes his latest outlet to do so.
ReplyDeleteidea credit to Andy
DeleteI love the "old money" idea and the relation back to The Great Gatsby. I'm still a little conflicted about Laurette and whether she (and the other women) represents everything attainable that Sammy wants in life or whether she is the completely unattainable "old money" status that he falls in love with. I think that Sammy has found a way to work/wriggle his way to everything he was devoid of in his life, and that Rosalie is all of those things plus something more drives him to total infatuation.
ReplyDeleteLucy, to answer your question about whether women are objects to Sammy, I don't think so. Kit he treats with respect and looks up to her, and she is one of his confidants. I think the women represent things Sammy doesn't/didn't have and what he seeks, unconsciously or consciously I have no idea. Why Sammy doesn't fall in love with these different women I think is because they only offer him a single missing piece of the puzzle (a seemingly endless puzzle) but Rosalie offers him all of it. I felt that he thinks she was exactly what he was running towards. But then he "trips" and I don't understand whether he keeps going or if he just stops.
Sammy’s reaction to Laurette leaving him tells the reader a lot about his perception of women and his motives in general. Throughout the novel he has used women every step of the way as an impetus for him to succeed. Sammy doesn’t love fall in love with Rita or Kit because of the fact that their role in him succeeding was completed by the time he parted ways with them. They had nothing to provide for Sammy by the end of their relationships, and in Sammy’s eyes, they were invaluable by that point. This explains why his reaction to Laurette leaving him is so extreme. For one, Laurette leaves him rather than him leaving her which is the complete opposite of his past experiences with the women in the novel. The main reason why Sammy is so upset with his disconnection with Laurette is because she still had more to offer for him. As Lucy stated, Laurette was always easily ahead of the game Sammy was playing, never falling for his trickery, and never taking him too seriously. She seemed to be a motive for Sammy’s success that would never really fade away. Once we see Sammy in such devastation, it becomes clear that he is not devastated because of the loss of their ‘love’ but because of his loss of the fuel for his success.
ReplyDeleteLucy, in response to your question regarding Sammy's relationships with the female characters, I personally think that he sees all of them (Rosalie, Ruth, Kit, Rosa, and Laurette) only as possessions. These women are just objects that he can add to his collection on the way to achieving his version of the American Dream.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it was hard to believe that Sammy was actually in love with Laurette and who she was instead of loving her as a reward, making it more difficult (for me) to be sympathetic towards Sammy, so I disagree with Natalie in that sense. However, I agree with Matt in that in Sammy's mind, Laurette represents "something that he can never achieve alone, given his poor upbringing." Although he seemed upset when Laurette immediately cheated on him (where he broke down), I don't think that was he was in love with Laurette, his breakdown was more about the fact that he had just lost a "prize" at something like a fair.
It seems to me that Sammy's obsession with Laurette has equal parts to do with Laurette's actual person and Sammy's nature. His internalized ambition - in other words, his attraction to her status, class, and power - was a significant factor. Since he was approaching the top with regards to money and position, he was driven to "run" in a different field: the social one. By virtue of her timing and role Laurette was perfectly placed to become his idol. However, her personality, attributes, and superior attitude also played parts. She could probably have played all (or at least several) of the roles he saw here as fulfilling, although she refused to do so in his life. Her dismissive attitude and sense of superiority toward him also, no doubt, motivated his quest to marry him. He had never before encountered a hurdle he couldn't jump in the process of acquiring wealth. When he encountered the barrier of her disinterest he doubled his efforts to achieve in the less direct fields of interpersonal relationships and social status.
ReplyDeleteI think Sammy and Laurette's relationship really speaks to Sammy as a character. As we discussed in class, Laurette pretty much embodies this idea of "Class" that Sammy somehow knows he'll never be able to achieve due to the mere fact that said concept is supposed to come effortlessly. The parallels that you draw between Kit and Laurette (w/r/t their ability to shrug off Sammy's posturing) are interesting -- I think the difference is that Sammy considers Kit more of an equal, while he sees Laurette as an ideal or trophy. It's sort of like the Daisy situation in The Great Gatsby; completely different characters of course, but they're dealing with the same concept of old money/rich girls on pedestals.
ReplyDeleteI like what Clay said about Rita and Kit as well. Maybe if we saw Sammy striving to achieve another level of success (say, pursuing a career in politics and going after a powerful foreign diplomat's daughter?) he'd "grow out of" Laurette as well. I think women, like all people/places/institutions, are just tools and abstractions to Sammy. He lives in a world of representations that he can usually manipulate to end up benefitting him, but Laurette ends up shattering his perception of her (forcing him to restructure his outlook to fill in the gap she leaves behind).
- Matilda
The reason I think Sammy did not choose Rosalie, Kit, Rita, or Ruth to marry or even stay close with was because he was always running. His close companionship with Kit was dropped suddenly and without explanation once he had used her as a resource to learn about Hollywood, and the minute he had climber ahead of her their relationship seized. Although at times Sammy listened to Kit (the only female character he valued for her ideas), she never had complete power over him the way she did with Al. There's a quote about when Al and Kit danced he felt that she was leading. Each woman provides something Sammy needs at that moment and when his career advances he often finds a new woman to compliment his new persona. The women are dispensable to him. Sammy firsts thinks about getting married and picks Ruth out as a woman to "put on his slippers and have his children" (paraphrased quote) and as he moves his way up to getting the job as the new studio head, he drops Ruth almost instantly when Laurette walks in the door. In Sammy's mind he is equating getting Laurette to getting everything and that is what he confuses for love (pg 251). Running is what Sammy loves, not Laurette. When she refuses the most expensive bottle of wine because it is not from 1927, "the only good year left" (253) or stiffs him by staying home with Babe Lynch instead of going out with Sammy, his ambition to get her is only further fueled and this longing for her is not a love for her, but a love for winning her and dominating her.
ReplyDeleteI like what Matt and Matilda were saying about Laurette's representation of intangible "Class"; it seems as though Sammy can take everything he's ever wanted, but he'll never have the innate quality of being born with class. I think this idea ties into how he uses women in contrast to how he uses men, and also which type of people, both male and female, he's able to use.
ReplyDeleteSammy's meteoric rise to fame begins when he uses Julian, who Al remarks as being remarkably similar in background to Sammy. When I was thinking about the question of how Sammy uses women, I immediately thought of Julian as a way to start thinking about how Sammy uses men as well. I think the difference will help to elucidate the difference in the way that Sammy uses either sex and what it says about the time. Sammy uses Julian as a creative stooge and ghost writer, roping him into a "partnership" with the intention of dumping him as soon as he could. This is remarkably similar to the manner in which he uses Rosalie, but with the partnership there being a romantic one. Already there's a difference in the way that Sammy uses men vs. women, and this is indicative of the gender roles of the 30's/40's. While the manner in which Sammy uses these two characters differs, their character remains the same: they're both "nebbishy", cast-off people willing to accept this treatment from Sammy. Coming from the lower class, Sammy knows how to leverage these people.
Next Sammy uses Al and Kit. Their engagement at the end of the novel sort of removes any doubt that these two characters are a pair, and like Julian & Rosalie, their genital-disparity as opposed to their character-similarity indicates how Sammy as the All-American Heel sees and uses them differently. In Lucy's quote, Al refers to Sammy's desire for Kit as a desire for companionship; this conjures Sammy's proclamations of Al as his best friend throughout the novel. Clearly these characters serve a similar role for Sammy, yet there's a difference at the very least in the fact that Sammy doesn't pork Al to my knowledge.
The final woman to analyze is sort of obvious; Laurette. But I think to keep form I should pair her with someone, and I think the most analogous pair for Laurette is Sidney Fineman. The chronology of these two characters' involvement in Sammy's rise put them together, as well as their entanglement via Mr. Harrington. To be brief, I think the way that Sammy is able to defeat Sidney but not Laurette is indicative of something, and I think it has to do with their difference in gender/character/background: Fineman is an old Jewish man, and Sammy is able to use this familiarity to conquer him. Laurette is young, female, and gentile, representative of the protestant old-money that has thrived in America for centuries.
Unorganized final thoughts:
You can pair up people that I didn't, such as Sammy's parents, i.e.
Mr. G / Mrs. G --> Julian / Rosalie --> Al / Kit --> Sidney / Laurette
Also Sammy's dad died; I think the death of Fineman has some significance that we haven't really explored.
- Myles "Big 'ol Dad" Caldwell
Sorry for the late post; I had finished up an entry that essentially reiterated something I had said in class but then I thought of a new approach to gender in this book so I'm starting over. I also don't really know if what I'm saying here is correct at all and it missed the prompt completely.
ReplyDeleteI'm still really intrigued by the idea that Sam represents the id, most notably in the role libido plays in the id, and how Sammy doesn't seem to find sex gratifying. I think Billie said she would never be able to sleep with Sammy because it would feel like she was doing it for money, which doesn't make a lot of sense because if Sammy was truly motivated solely by pleasure, as defined by the id, he would be able to appreciate sexual experiences beyond just a means to an end, such as power. Both of these descriptions of Sammy came from external sources (Kit and Billie), so its possible that neither of them understand Sammy. However it's possible that this inconsistency is an intentional choice of Schulberg. If Sammy does represent the id, where's his libido?
Sammys relationship with Laurette might lend some answers. Its not surprising that Sammy's love came so superficially since all love, according to Lacan, initially stems from childhood fantasies being projected onto physical characteristics. Considering Sammy's development, this isn't too far of a stretch. I guess what confuses me is why he only "falls in love" at this point of the book. If he represents the id, then love shouldn't be a new emotion. I think Schulberg might be arguing that love and sexual attraction don't exist in the id of the "fittest" (to look at it through the recurring Darwinian lens) of Hollywood; they are evolutionary disadvantages. Indeed, Sammy's only misstep throughout the entire book is falling in love. Yikes!
One could interpret that as being super cynical: Love is just an obstacle to success. However, I personally see it as a form of criticism of the capitalist culture that Sammy embodies. Sure individualism sounds great on paper, but after considering the implications, such as how in a truly individualistic society love would be obsolete, it doesn't look too pretty.
Sammy, as a character, is at his most human when he reveals emotions towards other people: when he calls Al his friend or when his heart is broken. Instead of striving for a society of Sammy Glicks, we should learn the inherent value in friendship and love. :-)