The Human Comedy: Analysis of Setting
"The Human Comedy: Analysis of Setting" delves into the fictional town of Ithaca, California, a central locale in the novel by William Saroyan. This town is influenced by two primary models: the classical Ithaca from Homer's "Odyssey," symbolizing a hard-earned homecoming, and Saroyan’s own boyhood memories of Fresno, California. Ithaca embodies the essence of small-town America, particularly reflective of the 1940s, featuring community staples like bakeries, grocery stores, and schools. The Macauley home is a focal point within this setting, representing warmth, familial bonds, and the daily rhythms of life in a modest household.
The telegraph office, contrasting the tranquility of Ithaca, serves as a gateway to the outside world, bringing news that often disrupts the town’s peaceful existence. This juxtaposition highlights the tension between local security and the unpredictable nature of events beyond the town’s borders. Through these settings, Saroyan captures the interplay of everyday life and broader societal issues, offering a poignant reflection on the human experience during a tumultuous era.
The Human Comedy: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1943
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Sentimental
Time of work: Twentieth century
Places Discussed
Ithaca
Ithaca. California town in which the novel is set. The fictional Ithaca has two models. The first is from classical Greek literature—the Ionian island kingdom of Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey (c. 800 b.c.e.). In that epic, Ithaca is a home that is painfully attained by the hero of the Trojan War after a long and difficult journey. Both “Homer” and “Ulysses” are names of characters in Saroyan’s story.
Saroyan’s second model for Ithaca is his own boyhood hometown in central California. Growing up in the “Little Armenia” section of Fresno, Saroyan knew at first hand small-town America, with its bakery (selling day-old pies), its grocery store (run by a clerk who fetched goods for customers), the train depot (where young boys waved to engineers as great trains sped by), the butcher shop, the newspaper office, the bus station, the telegraph office, the library, and so on. Ithaca’s high school is modeled on Saroyan’s own Emerson High School, with his own painful memories of studying ancient history and of athletic competitions on the race track with the hurdles (again the imagery of ancient Greece intrudes).
In Saroyan’s mind the two Ithacas merge to become one, not only an archetypal Norman Rockwell small town, but one recognizably real and representative of real American towns during the 1940’s.
Macauley house
Macauley house. Ithaca home of the Macauley family, headed by the widowed Katey Macauley. The modest house stands on a tree-lined street; it has a large, inviting front porch, complete with swing, and friends and neighbors pause, while walking, to chat up those outside the house. Singing is a part of the family’s daily life, as are the long heart-to-heart chats in the kitchen, which was often the center of life in working-class American homes during the period in which this novel is set. The household follows regular hours: the hour when children eat breakfast and dash off to school, the hour when the mail arrives, the afternoon break between school and work, the return, late at night, for a cup of coffee before retiring for the day. It is very much a 1940’s routine, set in a pre-media era, when entertainment was largely self-generated and interpersonal, and interaction was the norm. The Macauley house is more than merely a place in Ithaca; it represents America to soldiers uprooted and sent overseas by the war.
Telegraph office
Telegraph office. Part of Saroyan’s genius was to set the dramatic against the prosaic. While Ithaca symbolizes tranquillity, and the Macauley home represents security, the local telegraph office is the door to the wider, more dangerous world beyond rural California. Through it comes the daily news that often transforms the town, as when reports of its sons killed in the war arrive. It is thus not surprising that the telegraph clerk, Mr. Grogan, drinks and takes heart medicine and eventually has a fatal heart attack. His death is symbolic of the frequent bad news that enters tiny Ithaca.
Bibliography
Calonne, David Stephen. William Saroyan: My Real Work Is Being. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. The first major study after William Saroyan’s death in 1981. Treats The Human Comedy as a discussion of the family of humanity, as a portrayal of the journey from boyhood to manhood, and as an illustration of the triumph of love over death.
Floan, Howard R. William Saroyan. New York: Twayne, 1966. Traces William Saroyan’s literary career from 1934 to 1964 in four phases, the third phase being started by The Human Comedy. Still useful as an introduction to Saroyan’s works. Chronology and annotated bibliography.
Hamalian, Leo, ed. William Saroyan: The Man and the Writer Remembered. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987. Articles by acquaintances and friends of William Saroyan. Largely anecdotal and sometimes poorly written, the accounts nevertheless give glimpses of the author’s daily life.
Lee, Lawrence, and Barry Gifford. Saroyan: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Reveals William Saroyan’s achievements and failures as a writer and as a person. Useful for placing The Human Comedy in its historical and cultural context.
Leggett, John. A Daring Young Man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Leggett relies heavily on Saroyan’s journals to produce a sustained glimpse of the author that is neither admiring nor forgiving.
Saroyan, Aram. William Saroyan. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. A review of William Saroyan’s life by his son, himself a poet, essayist, and novelist. Well illustrated with photographs and includes a bibliography of works by William Saroyan. Especially useful for exploring the autobiographical elements in The Human Comedy.