The Mezzanine and Unspoken rules in Society

 



Throughout The Mezzanine Nicholson Baker makes amazing discoveries about everyday life in modern society through the lens of Howie( our main character). Baker does a great job of taking a fictional character and presenting the reader with realistic everyday situations that offer fascinating insights about the unspoken ‘rules’ of modern society. A couple of these ‘rules’ so to speak are, always wait to be excused and always introduce yourself.


On page 33. Howie is getting ready to leave the office to go on his lunch break when Tina(a secretary) stops him. Tina and Howie begin to engage in lighthearted small talk when they are interrupted by a phone call. While Tina is on the phone Howie waits for Tina to finish so they can continue their conversation; but as the phone call prolongs the likelihood of their conversation picking up where it left off gets smaller and smaller. So Howie is now stuck in the odd predicament of either leaving and being perceived as rude or staying and being mistaken for caring about a short three minute conversation a little too much. Howie decides to linger around Tina until she notices that he is itching to leave and she asks him a question along the lines of  “How’s the weather?”. This allows Howie to end their conversion smoothly without seeming rude or overly invested in the conversation. In a way Tina excused Howie from their exchange with her question; which brings me to my first unspoken rule: always wait to be excused. In any conversation it would be rude to just dismiss yourself from the conversation which is why you must wait for the point where the momentum of the conversation begins to slow in order to make a closing statement that forces your conversation to a halt allowing you to leave. 


At another point in the Mezzanine Howie is on his way to going up the escalator when he notices a familiar stranger from his workplace that he never properly introduced himself to going down the escalator. In order to avoid an awkward moment of eye contact with a strange not stranger, Howie pretends like he forgot something and quickly turns around to grab his imaginary item. While reading this, Howies reaction might sound silly. But I have found myself in the exact same situation and I guarantee you have to. I was at Costco and I saw a classmate of mine that I had never talked to and I wasn’t sure if they even knew my name. So to spare myself the awkward silence and quick glances at each other with both of us wondering if the other recognized them; I took my grocery cart and retreated to another aisle until they were gone. At one point or another each and every one of us have been face to face with our own personal familiar ‘strangers’ and avoided the uncomfortable hello. This is because it is an unspoken rule that you should not say hello to a person who you have not formed some kind of familiarity with. If you do, you risk that person not recognizing you and forcing them to engage in awkward and inorganic small talk.


There are so many other points in the Mezzanine like this that highlight everyday situations and the do’s and the don'ts in that situation. I found these two especially amusing and relatable. Howie's reactions and insights on these interactions allowed me to reflect on how I react in similar situations and I found myself agreeing with Howie more times than not. With that I  have a question for you, do you recognize or abide by any unspoken rules in society?



Comments

  1. Khadeejah R.September 12, 2022 at 10:21 AM

    I agree that after reading this book I started to realize how many unspoken rules there are. I found it interesting that there are these social rules that no one mentions but everyone knows. Something I realized is how there is an unspoken rule to hold the elevator, and almost never press the "close door" button. If you see someone coming you have to hold the elevator, and if you are in an elevator with multiple people, don't press the "close door" button. I have never seen anyone press that button in a full elevator, so everyone just has to wait until the door closes, even if no one is coming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AyaSeptember 18, 2022 at 12:44 PM

    Great post! You highlight really well Howie's tendency to call attention to the things we take for granted (that idea of 'defamiliarization' that we discussed in class). While the setting of this novel is kind of skimpy, we get a really good sense of Howie's world through these unspoken rules. In my own life I can think of the door holding rule where you're only expected to keep the door open for someone if there a couple seconds from reaching it. I've found that when I hold a door open for someone further away (unless its a line of people) it feels like I'm rushing them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MitchellOctober 7, 2022 at 2:04 PM

    Your duck-and-cover move at CostCo will likely be familiar to all of us reading this blog--I'm not proud of it, but when I first read that account of Howie ducking away from stepping on the escalator at the last second, I completely saw myself in that scene. And what's worse, or what makes me cringe even harder, is that I totally do that "finger in the air" gesture as if I've just remembered something I forgot, so if anyone is watching (no one is watching!) they will understand that I am a busy person with important obligations who must have just remembered some essential equipment and if you don't mind I need to hurry now to go check on that important thing . . . (all the while I'm cursing myself for being so weird and awkward).

    It's funny that we all experience versions of this, yet we always assume the other people will think *we're* weird if they see us doing it. A novel like Baker's can bring us out of the shadows, as we find common ground with other socially awkward weirdos like ourselves!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Jes Grew Rebellion

Well, we’re done with Mumbo Jumbo , it was ….interesting. I wasn't even entirely sure where to start with this blog post , there are so many things to dissect when it comes to Mumbo Jumbo but in the end I decided to take a closer look at the symbolism behind Jes Grew. At its heart Jes Grew seems to represent a rebellion against the oppressive forces of mainstream white culture. In this novel these oppressive forces are depicted as the Atonists and the Wallflower Order, groups that seek to suppress all forms of cultural expression deemed dangerous ( a decision made by themselves of course). Jes Grew is in direct opposition to these groups as it disrupts social norms through its infectious energy and liberating influence. The term Jes Grew itself is a play on words, it is reflective of the nature of an anti-plague. The name suggests that the phenomenon is natural, spontaneous, and uncontrollable, like a plant that grows. Similar to the proliferation of ideas and cultural practices w...
Read more

Ragtime

320 pages later, here we are—finished! Ragtime was an interesting read, to say the least. What struck me the most was how Doctorow melds history with fiction to create an elaborate narrative that comments on society in the early 20th century. Let's start with the family. We have Mother, Father, The Little Boy, Mother's Younger Brother (MYB), and Grandfather. At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to this family, with Father acting as the patriarch and Mother, as well as The Little Boy, falling into their typical roles. This family is meant to represent a wealthy white family in the early 20th century. Even their names, or lack thereof, point to the idea that they are meant to be representative of the basic family unit. As the story progresses, this typical upper-class family falls apart before our eyes. Doctorow dismantles this family in a way that exposes the dysfunction hidden within each character. To maintain conciseness, I'll focus on Father. At the start of ...
Read more

Exploring Interpersonal Relationships Within Kindred

Kindred was a riveting read filled with interesting topics to explore. Among them, I find the manner in which this novel examines power dynamics not only within the context of slave and slave owners but also within interpersonal relationships very intriguing. Butler creates a very intimate setting for her characters to interact. The Weylin Plantation is small, with no overseer (for the majority of the novel), and filled with slaves who often interact with their white counterparts on a personal level beyond their basic slave/master relationship. Because of this setting, readers are offered deep insight into how unequal power dynamics distort relationships among people during this time period. As readers, we see examples of these twisted versions of intimate relationships constantly throughout the novel: For example, Dana and Rufus: The relationship between Dana and Rufus began somewhat on equal footing when Rufus was young and Dana still served as somewhat of an authority figure. But as...
Read more