Sympathy and Reminiscence in Saunders' "Christmas"

In a collection of short stories in which each one is characterized by some absurd plot line or ridiculous string of advertisements, a seemingly ordinary, mundane story like "Christmas" from George Saunders' In Persuasion Nation surprisingly stands out. While the story itself is fairly straightforward, with a fairly basic plot and familiar setting when compared to other stories of the collection, and would most likely be taken for granted if placed in any other collection of stories, the fact that it is regarded with such normality immediately calls a sharp contrast to the rest of the stories of the collection, which could be described as anything but "normal". The story starts off with an unnamed narrator claiming that he is broke, living in his aunt's basement at twenty-six, and forced to rely on his uncle to provide him with a mediocre roofing job, which he is fittingly mediocre at. As we read on, our narrator settles into a more observatory/bystander role in the story, and the focus quickly shifts away from him to John, an older coworker of his. All throughout the story we see the other roofers heckle and ridicule John due to his lackluster roofing abilities and claims that he is some "master roofer" worthy of more than hauling tar. The narrator sits and watches as John, father of fourteen kids, easily gets cheated out of his money by one of their coworkers, attempting to intervene but ultimately unsuccessful. In the end, John goes home broke, but it is the narrator who is dejected due to his inability to help out a friend. While the plot of the Christmas party and John squandering away all his money is the framework for the story, through his reactions to the entire situation the narrator reflects on the story in a way that tells us a lot about he himself as a sympathetic, caring character.

It is true that the narrator doesn't completely neglect himself at the beginning of the story, as he takes time to mention his poor financial situation and struggle to find a job, but most of this doesn't appear as an attempt to garner any sympathy from the reader, but rather as a transition to speak about his coworkers and the way they constantly disparage John. The narrator acknowledges that his situation is his own fault and doesn't try to make up any excuses for it, stating that the reason he's losing his girlfriend is because of his "pathetically dwindling prospects" (89). Even when he gets the job as a result of a favor called in by his uncle, he is very truthful about his skill level, stating that "once everyone had seen me work, I became The Great White Dope" (89). Instead of seeking to impress the reader through false claims of excellence at his job and looking for reasons to blame his poverty and failure on, the narrator accepts his situation and goes on about his life, establishing him as a reliable and sensible character. John's reliability, on the other hand, is immediately called into question when the other roofers call him out on his claims of dexterity:
"You are so full of shit," said Rick. "If you were so fast then, why are you so shitty now?"
"You roof like my mother," said Terry, the owner's brother.
"Maybe your mother roofs good," John mumbled.
"She don't," said Terry. "But still she's faster than you" (90).
When John claims that he should be allowed to do the real roofing work, rather than just lug around tar all day, he is met with harsh discouragement from his coworkers, who say that he lies and is in actuality a terrible roofer, We can already observe the type of environment that the roofers work in, and the negativity directed towards John by several of the roofers in this environment. The narrator importantly doesn't join in on the jeering, and later we will see only steps in to help when alone with John, as he knows any attempts to aid John in the presence of Rick, the supervisor will simply get shut down.

A few weeks later is the Christmas party itself, which the narrator describes as characterized by a lot of gambling. While John heedlessly jumps into the gambling, the narrator steers clear of it all: "Finally, in terms of money, I got it: money forestalled disgrace. I though of my aunt, who workers three jobs and whom I had not yet paid a dime for food, thought of my girlfriend, who now paid whenever we went out, which was never, because my five shirts were too stained with tar" (94). The narrator shows his shame with his whole situation in these lines. He is twenty-six and living with his aunt for free, and he understands that this is incredibly altruistic of her and that he ought to at least make some kind of attempt to compensate her. We observe a similar feeling towards his girlfriend. These lines really show the type of character the narrator is. Even though he is essentially at rock bottom, he appreciates when people like his aunt and girlfriend help him out and understands how invaluable their help is at this point in his life. This is why the narrator, unlike John and so many of the other roofers, restrains from gambling; he knows how hard he has worked and how much people have helped him along the way, and is thankful enough to not risk losing all of his hard earned pay check, if only to someday repay those who have been so generous to him. We will see the extent of his generosity later during the Christmas party. When the gambling begins, Rick uses his history of belittling John to his advantage, forcing everyone else out of the game until it is just him and John, and then egging on John to lose all his money. When John finally loses all of his money: the narrator thinks: "A light went on in my head, and has stayed on ever since: It was all about capital. Rick could lose and lose and never really lose. Once John dipped below four hundred, he was dead. He was dead now" (95). The narrator understands how exploitative Rick, a man of higher status in that he is their supervisor, is being to someone like John. John, carrying the burden to support a whopping fourteen kids can't afford to be risking his money gambling, and the narrator understands that if John loses his money, which he does, all of it, "he was dead now." No one else seems to really care about Rick's exploitation of John, as the other roofers, such as Terry, are too occupied either egging Rick on or simply minding their business, guarding their own pay checks. Later, when John attempts to cash in his bonus check for more gambling money, the narrator attempts to stop him:
"You're doing right," I said. "Go on home."
"Ain't going home, John said, and numb-footed across Prairie Island again.
"No no no," I mumbled, vividly drunk, suddenly alive (96).
Here, the narrator recognizes John's attempt to cash in his bonus check, only to inevitably lose more money, and attempts to stop him. We can observe that the narrator genuinely cares for John, as he is the only one actively outside with him, trying to prevent him from burning his bonus paycheck along with the 400 dollars he already lost to Rick. Despite the narrator's best efforts though, John persists and eventually loses it all. Later, when the narrator has quit roofing and started anew, he reflects on what would've happened if he had lucked out and gotten a job as the Assistant Curator, hypothetically sitting at a restaurant with his aunt and girlfriend, and thinks about how pathetic he was that he couldn't even help out one man getting cheated out of his money: "After dinner, the three of us sit there, laughing, laughing at the fact that I, an Assistant Curator at the famous Field Museum, was once a joke of a roofer, a joke of a roofer so beat down he once stood by watching as a nice man got cheated out of his Christmas" (99).