Tantrum (graphic novel)

AUTHOR: Feiffer, Jules

ARTIST: Jules Feiffer (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Alfred A. Knopf

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1979

Publication History

Originally labeled a “comic book novel,” as the term “graphic novel” had not yet been popularized, Jules Feiffer’s Tantrum was first published as a black-and-white book-length cartoon story by Alfred A. Knopf in 1979 under the Borzoi imprint. Tantrum was one of the first adult graphic novels published by a trade publisher and was afforded standard trade-book treatment. Tantrum is also significant in that it was not serialized prior to the book’s publication. The novel was reprinted by Fantagraphics Books in 1997. The Fantagraphics edition, also in black and white, includes an introduction by Neil Gaiman and is paperbound, while the Knopf book is hardbound.

Plot

In chapter 1, “Metamorphosis,” Leo, the forty-two-year-old protagonist, sits at an upper-story window, apparently contemplating a jump. He finds no comfort in his success and family life because they offer “no danger, no mystery.” His wife’s statement that he is a “decent, thoughtful, responsive man” frightens him. When asked what he wants, Leo responds, “Mommy!” Unable to cope with the pressures of adulthood, he transforms into a two-year-old. His wife, Carol, takes him to a doctor, who refuses to believe that Leo is not a normal toddler.

In chapter 2, “Homecoming,” unable to get solace from his wife and children, Leo visits his parents; they refuse to believe that the two-year-old they see is their middle-aged son. Leo tries repeatedly to enter the house and even considers burning it down. Finally, he decides to stop pestering his parents and leaves.

In chapter 3, “Plans,” Leo visits his brother, Charlie, and asks for help. Although he is a successful businessman, Charlie is bogged down with an impending divorce, extramarital affairs, and a cocaine habit. He is unable to help Leo. In chapter 4, “Rescue,” Leo’s sisters, Norah and Natalie, try to help him but end up fighting pointlessly between themselves. In chapter 5, “The Law,” Leo returns home but finds his family in turmoil: His daughter, Ruthie, is dealing hashish, and his son has impregnated a girl. Considering a divorce, Leo and Carol consult a lawyer. When the lawyer tells Leo that alimony law applies to him even though he has the appearance of a child, he flees in terror.

The next chapter, “The Others,” begins with Leo running aimlessly. He is picked up by an ambulance and taken to “the others”: other middle-aged people who have reverted to two-year-olds. The others attempt to convince Leo to join them, but he refuses.

In chapter 7, “Flight,” Leo fights off more middle-aged two-year-olds and stows away on a flight to Palm Springs, where he hopes to find his sister-in-law, Joyce. In chapter 8, “Dream’s End,” Leo finds Joyce, but she is no longer the beautiful woman that he remembers and lusts after; rather, she is starving herself. Worried, Leo implores Joyce to seek medical attention. She refuses, but Leo feeds her by the spoonful, and she gains weight. Leo wakes in chapter 9, “Epiphany,” to discover that Joyce has gone into the desert to starve and punish herself. Leo finds her, and Joyce finally begins to eat. She becomes the voluptuous woman Leo desires, but now Leo is aging at a quick pace. He realizes that he cannot bear the responsibility of another person’s happiness and returns to New York City, landing on the doorstep of Charlie’s mistress, Miss Swallow. Miss Swallow takes Leo into her home, deceived by a note stating that the two-year-old is Leo’s son.

In the next chapter, “Epiphany II,” Miss Swallow finally gives Leo the attention he craves, nurturing and playing with him as one would a toddler. However, when they bathe together, Leo becomes attracted to Miss Swallow and reverts back to his forty-two-year-old body while in the bathtub. Leo flees, screaming.

In Chapter 11, “Comeuppance,” Leo returns home to find his apartment in shambles. Carol refuses to eat. Leo makes the children clean the apartment and then returns to sitting on the windowsill as he had before. He begs Carol for forgiveness and vows to try harder to make their life work, but Carol does not want him to try harder. Like Leo, she is tired of all the responsibility and wants to be a two-year-old. They both revert to their two-year-old selves, and the story closes as Leo and Carol leave the apartment, deciding to offer their children financial but not emotional support.

Characters

•Leo, the protagonist, is a middle-aged man who transforms himself into a two-year-old through the force of his will, as he no longer wants to accept the responsibilities associated with being a husband and father.

•Carol is Leo’s wife. She is initially critical of Leo’s transition into a toddler but later succeeds in also becoming a two-year-old.

•Phil is Leo’s teenage son. He impregnates a girl.

•Ruthie is Leo’s daughter. She is suspected of dealing hashish.

•CharlesisLeo’s brother, to whom Leo goes for help. He physically resembles Feiffer. Laden with problems of his own, including a divorce, he is unable to help Leo.

•JoyceisLeo’s sister-in-law, whom he desires. When Leo visits her, he finds she is starving herself.

•Miss SwallowisCharles’s secretary, with whom he is having an affair. Leo is attracted to her.

•Norah and Natalie are Leo’s sisters. They try to help him but are ineffective.

Artistic Style

Feiffer was a seasoned cartoonist by the time he created Tantrum, and it was his practice to draw panels in pencil first and then ink over them. However, to convey the urgency Feiffer deemed necessary in Tantrum, he eliminated the pencil step and drew directly in ink. If a drawing seemed wrong, he redrew it on another piece of paper, cut it out with a knife, and pasted it onto the background. Almost without exception, Tantrum is composed of single-panel pages, another departure for the artist. Feiffer’s earlier comics typically use multiple panels or multiple drawings within a single panel to create an effect, but in Tantrum, large single panels better convey the immediacy required. The drawings focus on characters, with only intimations of backgrounds, further creating a sense of urgency and isolation. The bold pen lines strike a sharp contrast to the white background, and the unpolished drawings magnify the sense that the story could be anyone’s midlife crisis. To express a sense of futility, Feiffer often places characters at one end of a large white page, thus conveying their emotions and feelings of powerlessness.

Themes

The resolution of a midlife crisis is one theme of Tantrum. With the exception of Leo’s children and parents, all the characters face dilemmas posed in middle age. Charles’s marriage and career are in ruins, although he appears ignorant of the havoc in his life; his estranged wife, Joyce, starves herself in order to become more attractive. Leo reverts to toddlerhood to rid himself of his responsibilities. However, he finds it difficult to enjoy infancy because he responds to women in a sexual way and not the way a child would. Leo’s return to middle age is determined by a sexual response while bathing with his brother’s mistress. Only Carol seems comfortable in her age for most of the book, caring for her two children and attempting to help Leo mature. In the end, while Charles copes with the hardships of middle age by having an affair and Leo’s sisters meet the challenge with hopelessness, Leo and Carol respond to middle age by utterly rejecting it.

Another theme of the book is responsibility to others. Although Leo tries to be a good man and provide for his family, responsibility wears on him, making him unhappy and dissatisfied. His attempts to be a responsible parent are shown to have failed; his daughter deals drugs, and his son has impregnated a girl. Ultimately, both Leo and Carol reject midlife responsibilities and return to infancy. By the end of the novel, they acknowledge their responsibility to financially support their children, but they accept that they can no longer guide their children emotionally.

Impact

At the time of Tantrum’s original publication, comics were mainly superhero stories, romance stories, funny animal stories, and adaptations of popular films. Comic strips, appearing both in newspapers and as collections, covered the same ground as comic books, although some offered political perspectives. Tantrum told a story different from those to which readers of the time were accustomed and delivered an unusual message: Life is difficult, some things cannot be resolved, and parents can do only so much for their children. The book also made an impact with its presentation, jarring the reader with its unpolished, direct drawing style and bleak visual tone. As most stories told in comic book form at that time resolved neatly and without complications, featured pleasant or funny drawings, and were packaged in pleasing colors, Tantrum was ahead of its time.

Marketed as a “comic book novel,” Tantrum sold reasonably well but not well enough to be reprinted. In general, the book-buying public was not ready for comic books that explored serious issues. However, as the graphic novel form gained recognition and respectability in the mid-1990’s, Tantrum was acknowledged as both a stepping stone to respectability for the genre and an important work in itself. Coupled with Feiffer’s memoir of his early days in comics, The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965), Tantrum secured his place as a seminal figure in the history of the graphic novel.

Further Reading

Burns, Charles. Black Hole (2005).

Eisner, Will. The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (2006).

Lemire, Jeff. The Complete Essex County (2007-2008).

Bibliography

Feiffer, Jules. Backing into Forward: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “The Jules Feiffer Interview.” Interview by Gary Groth. The Comics Journal 124 (1988).

Weiner, Stephen. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. New York: NBM, 2003.