Jay Mcinerneys Bright Lights, Big City: You Are The Coma Baby :: essays research papers

Jay McInerneys Bright Lights, Big City You are the stupefaction BabyThe novel Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney relates the tale of ayoung man working for a declamatory newspaper in Manhattan by day, while visitingmany parallel bars and nightclubs during the night. He manages to accomplish this with the help of his use of cocaine, to which he is strongly addicted.Throughout the novel McInerney employs the use of the lethargy Baby, a current write upin the New York Post, a local tabloid, as a symbolical representation of the important tone. The syncope Baby has been residing in its mothers womb later themother suffered a car accident and entered a coma. The debate is to whether the unconsciousness Baby will see the "light of the delivery room". In this passage the master(prenominal)character is experiencing a dream where he interacts with the Coma Baby in hisworkplace. This passage, through the words and phrases employed by McInerney asboth dialogue and narra tion, is strong support for the concept that like theComa Baby, the main character wants to avoid facing the harsh realities of lifeand pee-to doe with living isolated in his world of narcotic-induced pleasure. Theauthor uses the interaction of the main character and the Coma Baby as proofthat the main character will not realize the fallacies of his ways until he hashit rock-bottom.The Coma Baby is shown to be the symbolic representation of the maincharacter through his actions and philosophy toward life, a philosophy whollyirresponsible and unmotivated. As the main character approaches he asks theBaby if hes going to come out. The Baby responds with "No way Jos. I like itin here. Everything I need is wield in."(line 11) This remark illustrates themain characters attitude toward life. With the condition that the Baby getswhat he needs, he has no motivation to rectify his situation. This parallelswith the main character, who , provided he has his cocaine, does little toim prove his situation. For example, he continually shows up late to work, andthen after tout ensemble botching a project is fired from his job. The drugs havecompletely stolen his motivation towards life. afterward this, when the maincharacter tries to reason with the Coma Baby about up his situation, theComa Baby plays a deaf-and -dumb routine(line14), highly symbolic of the maincharacters actions toward those that have been trying to help him. For example,the main character continues to avoid Clara Tillinghast, his boss, in herattempts to run him to work on time.