A Man Descending - The Difficulties of Adulthood
...provincial department of social services. “A little stuffy I grant you, but stuffiness is preferable to complete irresponsibility. You on the other hand, seem to have the greatest contempt for anyone whose behavior even remotely approaches sanity.” She sees Howard as an example of what she expects in a marital relationship. His qualities are what she hopes would somehow blossom in Ed. As her expectations fail to be met, this in turn has a negative affect on her husband. Rather than encouraging his improvement, she is contributing to his descent. An individual’s descent can be caused by many factors. The force of influence has a great significance and can be either a positive or negative attribute to a situation. In Ed and Victoria’s marriage, Victoria’s influence can be said to encourage Ed’s downfall through her constant disregard of Ed’s positive characteristics. His failures are what overshadows them and Ed sees through her “stubborn profile”, that her disappointment in him is “palpable”. Ed sees Victoria as a “fiery beauty” that he is unworthy of. His defeat by Howard has caused him to think of a “rooster crowing on a dunghill.” He is constantly belittled and as a reaction, continues to remain unchanged. He is now “propelled by inertia” and is “intent only on maintaining his balance”. Although this negativity contributed in many ways, Ed is mainly responsible. His own resistance caused him to remain a failure despite Victoria’s attempts at “tugging expectantly forward”. His inability to take in her criticism causes her to become more fed up. She points in the direction of Ed’s unemployment and lies and expresses her frustration by saying, “Damn it, Ed! When are you going to begin to tell the truth? I’m sick of all this.” Ed’s unemployment has been a large factor in his loss of hope and dignity. Having a job is a necessity in an adult’s life, a portrayal of success, a responsibility. Being unemployed has left his life meaningless and has crushed any form of success he had once achieved. He reveals “Since I’ve been unemployed, I practice my smiles in the mirror whenever time hangs heavy on my hands. I have one for every occasion. This particular one is a faithful reproduction. Art imitating life. The other day, while out taking a walk, I saw a large black Labrador taking a crap on somebody’s doorstep. We established instant rapport.” This displays Ed’s loss of dignity as he compares himself to a dog rather than people such as Victoria’s friends who think of him as nothing more than “ass-hole”. Ed’s continuous pessimistic attitude has lead him to believe he is on an ineluctable descent, one he says, which will “topple me at the end of my own graph.” Solutions to problems are viable when an individual intends to reach them. Individuals are not mere objects that have no control over their decisions. Because one has a free will, an individual’s life cannot be predetermined. Ed has a different outlook on life, which makes happiness for him and Victoria, and his own personal success way beyond his reach. “His life, like every other life, could be graphed: an ascent that rises to peak, pauses at a particular node, and then descends. Only the gradient changes in any particular case; this child’s was steeper than most, his descent swifter. We all ripen. We are all bound by the same ineluctable law, the same mathematical certainty.” In Ed’s case, his “feet are on the down slope.” His acceptance of this makes it impossible to change. He sees no point in making an effort rather than to please his wife, but even then success is too difficult for him to achieve. At this point, he is only “propelled by inertia; the only initiative left him is whether or not he decides to enjoy the passing scene.” He is intent only on maintaining his balance although Victoria believed that he would somehow change “like some arid desert plant that shows no promise, to suddenly blossom before her wondering eyes.” Victoria “is a hopeful woman”, completely opposite from Ed. She believes that he can “choose to be what she expects.” “She does not understand that I am a man descending. I can’t blame her because it took me years to figure that out myself.” Ed would rather that Victoria understand his descent than push him in a direction he is incapable of going. He would rather see Victoria happy with another man, Howard where he “won’t interfere anymore”. He has lost the battle of his life. Rather than trying to justify himself, he accepts his failures, his defeat. The only thing Victoria can do is accept him rather than continually disappoint herself and that is what she is inevitably lead to. Although Ed was expecting this at some point, and this is what in the most part wanted her to understand, he still states, “Her loss of faith in me shocks me.” Not only does Ed lose any bit of faith and motivation he had left, he loses the one giving it to him. “There’s no point anymore.” They both know that “injuries so old could likely not be healed.” Adults reach a point in their lives when success can be looked back upon and used to display what the best years of their lives have worked towards. It is a stage in life when one’s full potential is reached and this in turn, is something they can be pro...