The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren - Essay Example

The Man with the Golden Arm By Nelson Algren Nelson Algren, the of The Man with the Golden Arm, first published this novel in 1949; it won the very first National Book Award in 1950, and has since been made into a major motion picture. Nelson Algren was the author of many stories; however, The Man with the Golden Arm was considered by many critics and by many fans to be his best work. Even the famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, admired Nelson Algren's gritty style in this novel, stating that "This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch - Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful ... Mr. Algren, boy, you are good" ("Review Quote": np). After reading this novel, I am compelled to agree. This novel is at times strange, at times very dark, and always engaging and very interesting. People the world over all know Chicago by reputation, and yet the version of this famous city offered up by Nelson Algren is grittier and edgier than the versions offered up by tourist brochures or television sitcoms. The characters are also intriguing and engaging. There is an almost simultaneous sense of disgust and admiration as we experience how these characters aspire and strive in uncertain and distasteful circumstances. The atmosphere which he creates deepens rather than minimizes the reading pleasure. The novel's world is both plausible and foreign; more particularly, it is an atmosphere which we can imagine existing, but which also seems to be an atmosphere that we will never actually step into personally. There is a certain feeling of safety in this distance, which Nelson Algren provides through the medium of the novel. Finally, it is also important to note that Nelson Algren chooses and uses his words, both narrative and dialogue, meaningfully and succinctly. He does not bore the reader with tangential information. He does not deaden the plot with unnecessary details. Every word conveys meaning. The result is a novel which is extraordinarily difficult to put down, and even more difficult to forget once the final page is read. This is a book which under normal circumstances I would probably never have read. This book report will explain why I am so happy that I have now read the novel. As an initial matter, this is the story of a Chicago drug addict. This character, Frankie the Machine Makjinek, works as a card dealer at illegal poker games. The golden arm reference is to his steady, card-dealing arm. Frankie has just returned to his old neighborhood in Chicago, from jail and a temporarily successful attempt at detoxification, and he works as a card dealer while he tries to turn his life around. He wants to beat his morphine addiction, and he also wants to stay out of trouble and out of jail. The story revolves around his attempts to straighten out his life while simultaneously existing alongside other drug addicts, attempting to pacify a dominant wife, and striving to beat his own former addiction to morphine. In many ways, this is a similar type of story. A person has made a mistake, the mistake has had negative consequences, and the person wants to pursue a better and a more productive life. There are thousands and thousands of stories premised in the same fundamental fashion. What is different about The Man with the Golden Arm, however, is the way in which the story is presented. There is a tremendous depth in the characters. There is a very particularized depth in the setting. More significantly, Nelson Algren presents this quest by the main protagonist as an almost impossible quest. There is an almost mocking tone extended to notions that human beings are civilized or otherwise capable of suppressing deep-seated urges and instinctive desires. Nelson Algren seems almost a cynic and a realist at the same time. He feels sympathy rather than pity for his main protagonist. In this way, the reader is compelled, at times, to question whether Frankie the Machine is so different than the rest of us. He is a human being, and Nelson Algren might inquire whether we are, in fact, truly superior. The setting illustrates this point, as Frankie the Machine is in many ways a captive of his physical environment. The setting sets the stage for the entire novel; indeed, the characters and the plot are allowed to maximize their potential in the seedy environment created by Nelson Algren. Most generally, the setting is in Chicago. This is a city well-known for its ethnicity and for its various and well-defined neighborhoods. Chicago is a city of extremes: there is wealth and poverty; there is success and failure; and, more importantly, for this novel, there is a visible prosperity existing alongside a more desperately hidden part of the city. This hidden part of the city, the one which is less visible to admirers of Chicago, is the one which Nelson Algren chooses to house his novel. More specifically, Nelson Algren chooses to create Frankie the Machine's neighborhood in Chicago's Near Northwest Side. His setting is a Polish-American ghetto. This setting perfectly complements the same types of struggles which Frankie the Machine has experienced and which he does experience in the novel. In many ways, it becomes almost inconceivable that Frankie the Machine could live in any other neighborhood. Wishful thinking aside, Frankie the Machine is the Polish-American ghetto of Chicago's Near Northwest Side and the Polish-American ghetto is Frankie the Machine. In sum, the setting chosen, created to some extant, and developed by Nelson Algren is inextricable linked to the main protagonist. They are the same in spirit, though articulated differently in terms of physical setting and main character. There is a consistency in the novel, whether in terms of characterization or of setting, which is mutually reinforcing and which makes the novel feel as if you yourself spent time with the main character in his hometown neighborhood. The Polish-American ghetto is filled with failed dreams and lofty aspirations. The ghetto, however, foreshadows that this is a place where most dreams will not come true. This is a place where dreams are meant to be broken. This is a place in which lofty aspirations are mocked and ridiculed. There are no grand casinos; quite the contrary, there are illegal card games in crumbling buildings. There are no eccentric alcoholics hiding an afternoon drink of expensive scotch whiskey, a simple telephone call away from the luxurious confines of the Betty Ford Clinic. No, this is a neighborhood where addictions lead to more immediate forms of destruction. This is a neighborhood where people steal to eat and kill to survive. Women sell their bodies and men swagger listlessly in search of more solid footing. This is a neighborhood where solid footing is at best fleeting. Nelson Algren's setting is dark and dangerous. And yet, everything about the setting is plausible. The main protagonist is interesting because the reader will embrace him at times and want to kick him in the head at other times. There is a depth to this main character that transcends a simple description of addict, criminal or loser. Indeed, this main character, Frankie the Machine Makjinek, has some positive and some admirable attributes. First, he served his country as a soldier. This is a man who sacrificed a portion of his life for the ideals espoused by his country, the United States of America. He fought for liberty and for freedom. He neither deserted his country nor did he behave in any way dishonorably. More significantly, Frankie the Machine was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded while serving his country. This is a man, as a preliminary matter, who risked everything which he had as a young man, his health and his life, for his fellow countrymen. Second, Frankie the Machine is a family man. He cares for a disabled wife, and although there are some claims by his wife that he was responsible for the disability, there are also hints and suggestions that Frankie the Machine was not responsible. Indeed, despite having a wife who is bound to a wheelchair, and who blames him rather constantly for her impaired condition, Frankie remains married and devoted in his own peculiar manner. His attraction to his neighbor does not lessen the fact that he cares for a disabled wife, and that he generally tolerates her ill moods. Third, Frankie is a fairly perceptive and realistic man. He is not prone to excuses and he accepts that life is a perpetual struggle. He expresses a sense of humor, he accepts the weaknesses and the frailties of others, and he displays an optimistic orientation in a very cynical environment. People don't hate Frankie the Machine; if anything, there is a sort of distant respect. That this respect, as in the case of his wife who fears losing him, is often manifest in terms of jealously does not lessen the positive attributes of his character. Finally, Frankie the machine feels guilt. He is not a psychotic drug addict. He is not innately immoral or evil. He feels guilt for the mistakes that he has made. He feels guilt for his wife's handicapped condition. He feels guilt for having suspicions that his wife, Sophie, might be faking her paralysis in order to control him and to keep him at home. As a result, Nelson Algren presents to the reader a main protagonist whom is both likeable and utterly tortured by the events and the people in his life. This is a contrast with the neighborhood and the other characters more generally. The reader wants Frankie the Machine to stop sweating and shaking. The reader wants him to beat his drug addiction and to find true love. The reader wants him to be successful in another vocation and to escape the dreary ghetto forever. Such a fate, however, is not to be; perhaps, as mentioned before, Nelson Algren links Frankie the Machine so inextricably to the environment that escape is impossible. For Frankie the Machine not to exist in the Polish-American ghetto would be for the ghetto itself to cease to exist. The reader, as the plot develops, recognizes this and realizes that even men with good traits are often constrained by external conditions and relationships. Sometimes, good men are simply destined for tragic endings. The plot is less compelling than the setting and the characters; to be sure, the story seems to evolve almost naturally and imperceptibly. This is another positive aspect of the novel. Nelson Algren does not try to be too creative. He makes no attempts to be tricky or deceptive. He is simply presenting the neighborhood, the people, and the characters as they naturally exist. There is, consequently, no need for the reader to pause to consider the viability or the plausibility of the plot as it develops. The killing and the shoplifting are reasonable. The marital discord, and the straining of friendship under pressure, proceeds without hesitation or serious question. In short, while not action-driven, Nelson Algren's plot is captivating in a subtle way. It is captivating because it is realistic and straightforward. There is little sense by the reader that we would, in reality, have acted much different than Frankie the Machine. Once he returns from jail, Frankie the Machine begins to work as a dealer for illegal poker games. He has a steady hand, an irony given his drug addiction, and he has an occupation to keep him occupied as he fights to stay straight. The pressures, however, continue to build. Emotionally, he cannot deal with Sophie, his wife. Her constant accusations and biting comments make him both angry and sad. He turns to his neighbor, Molly, as a lover, and seems most secure when with her. The plot spikes when Frankie the Machine kills his morphine dealer. The entire scene dealing with the killing demonstrates how torn and fragile Frankie is at this point. Initially, he is safe. The police don't know who killed the dealer, and Frankie must now deal with more pressures as he battles regularly with his addiction problem. He is subsequently arrested for shoplifting and jailed. It is shortly thereafter that Frankie the Machine is set up by the police captain, Bednard, and forced to flee. In the end, having exited his hometown ghetto, Frankie the Machine begins to accept that his positive attributes and his aspirations have been to no avail. He has failed and he will not try to resurrect himself another time. He commits suicide and admits the utter hopelessness of his life. The reader is saddened not so much by the actual suicide as by the reality that good intentions aren't enough to stave off misery and disaster. A man the reader can identify with, and which is so helpless in the bigger picture, has failed in dramatic fashion. There is no happy ending; on the other hand, there is a reasonable ending. In the final analysis, this is a powerful and interesting book. It isn't the story itself, but rather the way in which the setting, the characters, and the themes are presented that creates so much depth and so much reality. In many ways, Frankie the Machine is a person that we all know. It might be a man, a woman, or a relative. Humans are frail, we aspire despite our frailties, and Frankie the Machine illustrates a plausible end. There is power in reality. References Algren, N. (1949) The Man with the Golden Arm. Hemingway, E. "Review Quote of The Man with the Golden Arm" Canongate Home. Accessed 16 September 2006. http://www.canongate.net/TheManWithTheGoldenArm/Ernest-Hemingway-review Read More