Modern Day Commercials and "Persuasion Nation"

Saunders has written some interesting stories featured in Persuasion Nation, and one of the most recently read ones is titled “In Persuasion Nation”. This short story has a set of different plot lines that make it unique from other short stories we read this semester. For the first half of the story, we are introduced to new characters and a different plot every page or so. This is because the first part of the story is a collection of satirical commercials that Saunders has made up.

            These fakes are diverse in that they make fun of our present day commercials, but one thing they have in common is that they use the absurd to achieve their goal of satire. This element of over the top plot line is what makes these commercials hilarious. In all of the vignettes, there are some similarities to what we see on the T.V. today, but one of Sunders’ creations that stood out the most to me was number 4.

            This was one of the shorter sections, but also one of the weirdest. Its plot is based around two friends who are looking through a microscope at their penises. One friend ends up telling the other to go hang his penis off the Grand Canyon, and when he does, the friend steals his car. (To be completely honest, when I signed up for this class I never thought that I would write that sentence). Anyways, this vignette was, surprisingly, the one that I thought shared the most similarities with some modern day commercials.

            The first thing that is important to look at when comparing this vignette to modern day commercials is to think about what Saunders is trying to satirize. There are a lot of possibilities that we discussed in class, but the main one is a common theme that he makes fun of throughout his commercials in “Persuasion Nation”: meanness. This was a common theme in all of these “Persuasion Nathion” (as well as the previous story “Brad Carrigan, American”) as is seen in the ending where a man ends up going down the Grand Canyon to retrieve his penis while his friend steals his car.

            This vignette reminded me of two specific commercials that I have seen. Although these might not be exactly what Saunders was trying to satirize when he wrote “In Persuasion Nation,” I think they still fit into the group of commercials that he does make fun of. The first has the similarity of meanness for one’s own benefit, and cheating a friend out of something. Here is the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdCwsattfMwv. In this commercial, just like in the story, someone is tricked out of something in a painful way. Saunders may have been joking when he wrote a vignette about how an awful person steals a guy’s car and tricks him into making his penis fall off, but this commercial is very close to what he satirizes. I felt that this modern day commercial almost perfectly fits with the theme of how commercials are becoming meaner.

            There was one more commercial that this vignette reminded me of, and this one was a car commercial. Although this commercial had nothing to do with mean spirited people, the vignette reminded me of it because of the abrupt ending. In the vignette, they are trying to make their penises longer, and then all of the sudden the car is stolen and the voiceover says: “Pontiac Sophisto: So sophisticated, it might just make you trick your best friend into dangling a brick from his penis!” This ending is one that gives you the name of the product at the end of the commercial, leaving you wondering how it fits into the rest of the story and it reminded me of this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE. I remember this specific one because it was very long and played during the super bowl, and although it was a nice commercial, nobody knew that it was for Ram until the end. Although I doubt it was this genre of commercial that Saunders was trying to make fun of it still ended up working in this case.

            Saunders’ vignettes managed to satirize many different types of commercials in an over the top, hilarious way, and I am sure there are plenty of other modern day examples that are comparable to some of his vignettes. These were simply the two that I remembered, and I feel that they fit pretty well into the themes of the fourth vignette.

What if the title was “A Temporary Matter”?

            Yesterday in class we talked a little about how all of the stories in the collection fit together. What some people said, is that they have similar themes and plots but not so much as to make the book repetitive. One common pattern that I noticed throughout the stories was found in the endings. We joke about how there haven’t been many happy endings this semester, and that is also true in this collection where many of the endings are about people splitting up. Splitting up whether it be a relationship, a friend leaving, or simply two people never seeing each other again. Thus, because the finale to many of this story is an ending of some kind of relationship, I believe that this collection could in fact be titled “A Temporary Matter”.

            Now let’s look at a couple of the stories and see how they would fit in this newly titled collection. The first of course has to be “A Temporary Matter”. In this short story, which is now the title story, there are a lot of possible examples of a temporary matter. In class we named a few: The electricity being out, the two character’s relationship, and their game. All of these, but especially the ending of a relationship would fit very well under this new title.

            The next story that has the common ending of something splitting would be “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”. In this story, we are shown the young life of a girl as her relationship with Mr. Pirzada grows. The majority of the plot focuses on their interactions and the end of the story is when the war ends and the Mr. Pirzada leaves to be with his family. Near the end of “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, the narrator receives a letter Mr. Pirzada saying that he and his family were ok, and the narrator’s response is: “Though I had not seen him for months, it was only then that I felt Mr. Pirzada’s absence.” This is just one example of how this story’s relationship was temporary.

            Another story in this collection that fit into the theme of relationships being temporary is “A Real Durwan”. This story which focuses on Boori Ma, features a number different relationships that are central to the plot. The most important of these relationships though, is that of the apartment building as a community and Boori Ma. You can in essence group all the tenants in the building together with respect to how they treat Boori Ma. As we said in class, they are nice to Boori Ma, and they act like they care about her well-being, which counts as some form of relationship. Yet once again it all falls apart at the end of the story. The people of the apartment like Boori Ma as long as everything goes well, but as soon as the sink is stolen, she is blamed and the relationship breaks apart. The community feels that Boori Ma is not worth keeping around, and she is cast out with no money, which is one of the more severe endings to a temporary relationship.

            The final story that I will talk about that features this common theme is “Mrs. Sen’s”. If you don’t remember, in this story a young boy stays with an Indian woman throughout the day, and they become pretty good friends. Throughout this story we see a stark contrast between the boy’s life at home vs his (Elliot’s) life at Mrs. Sen’s house. Mrs. Sen’s is much nicer, warmer, and more loving and so naturally Elliot forms a relationship with Mrs. Sen. The end of the story though, just like the previous ones, will break apart the bond that they had. It ends with a “minor car crash”, and after that Elliot’s mother gives him a key and lets him stay at his own home after school. We assume that he never sees Mrs. Sen again, marking once again the end to a temporary matter, that being their friendship.

            I think that if the title was changed to “A Temporary Matter” then the collection would still work, only our focus on what is important might change, but I’d like to hear if you guys think the same thing.