Blog 1 Josh W.
For the most part, to me A Jest of God presents itself as a very realistic and fantastical story at the same time. From the beginning to the end, Rachel seems to channel James Thurber's Walter Mitty in that she has these daydreams and what seems to her like fantastical thoughts of leaving the town or just having something better happen for her, but at the same time, in my opinion, Rachel's fantasies almost seem to barely top normal. And this may be the most interesting theme in the book. It is not a person aspiring to great heights or bold new places, but simply a person who wishes to be out of a lowered and for the most part miserable existence and become content. The word happy is too much of a strain for this character and I believe Rachel is more interested in being able to choose her own life and accept the consequences whether they're good or bad. What we see at the beginning is a person who possibly compares herself to God in that she must take care of many people who don't even acknowledge she's there. And for most of the novel, one of these people is Rachel herself. Through the narrator and her own interior monologue, we hear a torrent of self criticisms and rules she punishes herself with. And what I just realized is that in this punishment and masochistic nature Rachel has, is also a bit of a self sacrificing and messianic personality that can be looked at from two completely opposite perspectives. And the way that each of us decides which perspective to choose is based on whether we want to believe that Rachel is telling the truth or lying when she is talking to herself. If she is telling the truth, her self sacrifice is a good and genuine thing and though she may complain (even to the extent of lying and being secretly sarcastic) Rachel keeps it all within her in order to help or keep other people happy. If she is lying, however, all her actions can be accredited to a desire to be seen as self sacrificing (even if she is the only one who thinks it) so she can feel superior to everyone else. And because of all of this, the ending leaves us asking the question of when Rachel finally does leave, are her reasons morally pure or narcissistically corrupt?