On becoming human: Elly Patterson, Part One.

[dreadedcandiru2]

The interesting thing about the middle years is sort of alluded to in the last Lynnsight to appear in the treasury. As we're about to see, Michael is praised for a sort of negative dedication to his family that's based less on his actually wanting to support what he assumes to be a campaign to enslave him and more based on avoiding punishment and censure for malingering. The Lynnsight in question talks about how at the point where the Treasuries leave off, the Pattersons were ceasing to be comic types and starting to become complex individuals. Given that we're never going to see the Lynnsight that chortles about the point where they cease becoming realistic people we can relate to and devolve into wish fulfillment fantasy projections again, I think it is sort of fitting to remind us of what the Pattersons were when they were people instead of sitcom horror freaks. Since Elly is the axis about which the plot rotates, I think it behooves me to start with her.

The first thing someone who started following the strip right about now would notice is that Elly is sort of desperate for any sign that the people around her appreciate what she does for them and don't simply take what she does (or for that matter, her) for granted. This is a problem because she lives in a world that seems to think that being praised for doing things she's "supposed" to do is bad form and also corrupting of the moral fibre. John and the kids might indeed be glad to have her in their lives and love living in the home she makes for them but they'll be damned if they let her know about it because she might become some sort of egomaniac if she realizes that they really like her. They don't understand that Elly needs to feel good about herself in order to feel as if she's making a difference because their culture won't admit that as a possibility.

This leads us to the central emotional tension of the strip: Elly's desperate quest to find any sort of identity that allows her to finally hear the words "We like you and we appreciate what you do for us" and its collision with imbeciles who can't understand what she's hungry for because they believe that the work itself should provide satisfaction. As she says, they only seem to notice what she does when she's too sick to do it and expect her to work and work and work without any expectation of recognition because she can't read minds.

Comments

[josephusrex.livejournal.com]

You've nailed it. The problem is that Elly is just too dull a character to make us give a darn about whether she fulfills her quest or goes unappreciated the rest of her life. In my novel "Ambitions," which chronicles a family that looks a bit like the Pattersons, it's the youngest daughter who's the protagonist, striving for recognition and appreciation, while the parents are the antagonists.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

The problem is that Elly is just too dull a character to make us give a darn about whether she fulfills her quest or goes unappreciated the rest of her life.

The odd thing is that her life of superlative dullness seems to be what attracted the readership; they care nothing for her as a person but they can identify with her futile and irrelevant struggle because she provides validation of their own lives.

[josephusrex.livejournal.com]

That's true. It's her dullness that makes her Everywoman. Rather like how so many liberal Christian denominations promote a Jesus who's made of Play-Doh and can be molded to fit any individual's tastes or needs.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Similarly, her family are so blandly generic as to be equally capable of such contortion.