Pastoralia by George Sander Analysis

In the short story, Pastoralia, George Saunders depicts the life a hardworking and kind hearted protagonist, who is employed under a failing history themed amusement park, struggling to provide for his family. The job is rather easy, dress up as a caveman, and pretends to be the husband of a cave woman, Janet, to portray the life of cavemen. However, he finds it difficult to perform his job with historical accuracy when Janet is not committed to her job and refuses to abide to the most important rule, never speak English. Through the eyes of the protagonist, Saunders reveals the struggle to survive within dystopia we live in by unfolding the absurd actions corporate uses to exploit their employees.

Despite the demeaning job and being treated no more than a prisoner, he fear of being unemployed for not only himself but also his uncommitted, troublesome coworker, Janet. As the story goes on, he is pressure more and more by his upper management, Nordstrom, to rat out Janet and find a reason to get her fire regardless of the how long she had work for him. Saunders sets Nordstrom as a funny yet a horrific man, who uses many different tactics to manipulate his workers, to symbolize the terrifying corporate power. Nordstrom mentions “Our body has a rotten toe by the name of Janet, who is turning black and stinking up the joint, and next to that bad stinking toe lives her friend the good nonstinker toe, who for some reason insists on holding its tongue” (Saunders 21). Similar to the story Winky, this shows that organization, much like us individuals, must eliminate crap from our bowl of oat meal to do better, to strive higher, and to be successful. This is Saunders’ way of using humors and metaphors to help ease us, the readers, when informing that we could be living in the worst case scenario that we are too fearful to fight against.

Just like Nordstrom said “…by lying about Janet’s behavior, you are taking the food out of your own face. Who puts the cash in your...