Student Question
The satire in George Saunders’s short story “Pastoralia” could be about the lack of boundaries between professional life and personal life. In the story, the narrator and Janet not only have to work in the cave, but they have to live in the cave as well. There is no separate home for them. Their home is where they work. They eat, sleep, and communicate with their families in the exhibit. Perhaps Saunders uses their quirky situation to send up the all-consuming nature of America’s work ethic under capitalism.
Staying with American work life, Saunders might be satirizing the deceptive language that is often deployed by companies to mask what they’re really doing. The amusement park plans to fire people, including Janet. However, the company doesn’t say that they’re firing people; they portray it as a “Staff Remixing.” This phrase makes the layoffs seem fun and exciting. It’s...
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as if people won’t be losing their jobs and livelihood—they’ll just be moved around or shaken up a bit.
For a third topic that Saunders satirizes, think about how Saunders pokes fun at the artificiality of the cave exhibit. The narrator and Janet are supposed to be living in pre-modern times, yet they have fax machines and must deal with modern corporate lingo. Even the customers don’t buy into the pretense. One man asks them if they have call-waiting. Of course, Janet doesn’t make the setup anymore believable with the way that she treats the visitors.
Lastly, it might be hard to argue that the satire centers on how companies force their employees to create a narrative that supports the company’s view. The company isn’t forcing the narrator and Janet to perpetuate a view. While it’s fair to say that they’re being exploited, they are, nonetheless, paid to reenact cave life. More so, Greg Nordstrom isn’t forcing the narrator to say something that’s not true about Janet. Janet does have performance issues.