The Significance of the Escalator
Throughout the Mezzanine, it seems that most of the events of the lunch hour, the objects Howie sees along his way, and Howie's recollections from childhood aren’t spectacular or meaningful on their own until Howie’s enthusiasm and digressions make them seem so. For example, the narrator walks to buy a cookie, notices that urinals look like gargoyles, and remembers that his dad used to hang ties on doorknobs, none of which seem like irreplaceable ideas or events in the book; You could imagine that Baker would have had no trouble writing a book of 10 or 100 times the length of the Mezzanine—he wouldn’t run out of interesting things to notice or comment on.
On a surface level, the choice of the escalator as the vehicle of the Mezzanine also seems like an arbitrary and insignificant choice by Baker. But after closer inspection, it appears that the escalator is intended as a metaphor, suggesting that Howie is not only rising to his office but also a different mental state with a greater understanding of the world.
With this metaphor in mind, here is my interpretation of the significance of key events in the novel in chronological order (some of which also serve to strengthen the metaphor):
Almost immediately before heading towards the escalator, Howie tries to read his Penguin Classic, but is angered by the book’s treatment of life as trivial and transient. This prompts him to get on the escalator, in an effort to prove the author of the Penguin Classic wrong by ascending to a level of being where every single object or movement is spectacularly interesting and worth pondering.
As the narrator stands at the bottom of the lobby, he describes the escalator in an almost godly way, as if it were a staircase to heaven of sorts, like the type of escalator with more significance than to merely shovel lazy office workers to a greater elevation. He notices the “glossy”, black handrails, and how the light shines on the escalator in a beautiful way. As soon as he begins approaching the escalators, he makes his first digression about transferring the CVS bag between hands, suggesting that there is a correlation between traveling up the escalator and the narrator making his astute observations.
Throughout the novel, as narrator details his lunch hour, noticing that plastic straws have replaced paper straws, or how driers in public bathrooms look like mushrooms, we are continuously reminded that he is ascending the escalator, getting further away from the ground level, —where he encountered the Penguin Classic’s “incorrect” ideas—and getting closer to achieving mental superiority.
Once Howie has reached the top of the escalator, his mental journey is over, and he looks back at the escalator and the ground floor to see how far he has come. We are told that he then waves to Ray, the Janitor, but perhaps he is also cheekily waving to the author of the Penguin Classic, whose philosophical ideas are now firmly below Howie.
While I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea that the elevator represents an ascension to a higher plane of philosophical existence, the idea itself is completely fascinating. It completely reverses what we know of Howie as a character, from someone who has always seen the world in this way, or in a way like it, to someone who is deeply interested in proving a school of philosophy wrong.
ReplyDeleteWow, I never pondered the significance of the escalator. I think your ideas about its symbolism are super interesting. To me though, Howie seems to be more fascinated by the inner-workings of our everyday lives, as opposed to trying to reach a higher philosophical level than that of his book. I don’t think his disagreement with the book is what inspires his way of thinking, but that it is the other way around, and his natural way of thinking disagrees with the book. Great post!
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, I agree with this. In others, I do not. I do believe there is some symbolism of Howie's ascent over the course of the book, Howie ascending as his character deepens and fills out with each anecdote. However, I do not believe that the penguin classic plays much of a role in this journey. It is only introduced at the end, when so much of the journey has already happened without the need to refute Aurelius' philosophy. I think the true refutation Howie makes is to finish his lunch, sit back on the bench, and relax for 15-20 minutes, basking in the moments that Aurelius denies.
ReplyDeleteIt's awesome how much you dissected the escalator. I totally agree there is a huge amount of symbolism in the escalator. I think another way to read the focus on the seemingly "unspectacular" is that there truly is value in everything due to the immense complexity and beauty in life. I would agree that howie is pondering and possibly refuting aurelius but i would argue it's bigger than howie. In my opinion Howie is ingenious enough to appreciate it, but the intrinsic complexity in everything is beyond howie.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see the relationship between an escalator and a person's "mental journey". This makes me wonder, how would an elevator represent a mental journey. On an escalator, you can see what's going on around you and rising from one level to the next is a very clear-cut, continuous process. On the other hand, once the door closes on an elevator, you're not quite sure of your location until you reach the top and the door opens. Very thought-provoking post!
ReplyDeleteI never thought of the possibility of the escalator symbolizing that Howie has ascended or "left behind" the words of Marcus Aurelius on the bottom floor of the escalator. This reasoning would mean that this interpretation would not exist if Howie was involved in some other act of locomotion in a different setting, like walking down a hallway. It is interesting to think if Baker really meant for this to be the case, or if the escalator is just a part of Howie's workplace setting.
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