"Pastoralia" by George Saunders

"Pastoralia" is a short story by George Saunders. It is written as a monologue. The story is basically about the narrator and his job as a live caveman in some sort of theme park. He is required to be a cave man all day long. His cavewoman colleague does not follow the rules very well; her disobedience irks the narrator because he is a rule-follower. We soon learn how the theme park operates and what the rules are for the live actors who inhabit the exhibits. The narrator is away from his family and his son is very ill. His wife is having trouble paying all bills. Janet, his cavewoman colleague, has a problem with her druggy son and her mother is dying. The administration of the theme park is about to make many layoffs and Nordtrom, on of the administration officials, wants the narrator to write a bad evaluation of Janet so that they can have an excuse to fire her. Eventually, he caves in and writes a bad evaluation after Janet insults a park guest. I like how the author doesn't explain the situation at the onset. He just begins in the action and lets the reader figure the situation out as the story progresses. This technique makes the reading more challenging and interesting. I also liked how he broke the story into numbered sections. This allows the reader to pace him or herself and it illustrates the repetition of the narrator's job. Repetition is a theme in this story. Certain routines are repeated often and they are phrased the same way each time. I am wondering if the caveman job is a metaphor for the typical office job where one's daily routines become meaningless and one is just doing the motions in order to create the appearance of being busy and productive. I wonder why Mr. Saunders chose to set the story in a strange theme park instead of an office environment. Perhaps to make it more interesting. These are just some messy thoughts on the story. I have not yet learned how to properly criticize and evaluate a piece of literature yet. It helps to let out Stromboli's Fire though.