In “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” the narrator spends a lot of his time explaining things to “future readers.” In the first paragraph, he writes:
Because what do we know of other times really? How clothes smelled and carriages sounded? Will future people know, for example, about sound of airplanes going over at night, since airplanes by that time passe? Will future people know sometimes cats fought in night? Because by that time some chemical invented to make cats not fight? (110-111)
We know from the beginning that he is interested in recording his life and his world so that future generations will know what it was like. However, there is one major thing he never explains to these future readers — the Semplica girls. We learn who these women are slowly as he mentions little details and explains some of their origins to his daughter, but there is never a time where he stops to tell future generations what these “SGs” are. This seemed to me that he didn’t feel the need to explain them because he assumed they would still be around. Having women strung up in one’s yard has become so normal and sought after in his society that he cannot imagine them not existing in the future.
Two things that he mentioned stood out to me in relation to the Semplica girls. In his September 23rd entry, he explains what the Whac-a-Mole game is:
Future generations still have? Plastic mole emerges, you whack with hammer, he dies, falls, another emerges, you whack, kill? Perhaps may seem like strange/violent game to you, future reader? (140-141)
The second instance was when he describes the television show “I, Gropius”:
Household in freefall, future reader. Everything chaotic. Kids, feeling tension, fighting all day. After dinner, Pam caught kids watching “I, Gropius,” (forbidden) = show where guy decides which girl to date based on feeling girls’ breasts through screen with two holes. (Do not actually show breasts. Just guy’s expressions as he feels them and girl’s expression as he feels them and girl’s expression as guy announces his rating. Still: bad show.) (165)
These passages stood out to me because the narrator is oblivious to his hypocrisy. He talks about a children’s game possibly being considered too violent for future generations, but he sees nothing wrong with everyone stringing women up in their front lawns as decorations and insists that the wire going through their heads doesn’t hurt them (even though he later mentions that if it is tugged too forcefully, it could lead to brain damage). He (rightfully) dislikes a show where men objectify women’s bodies, but again, he is fine with using them as decoration to show his affluence. The Semplica girls are so engrained in his, and everyone else’s, mind as normal that he doesn’t even begin to consider that it might not be okay to do this to them.
It is only at the end of the story that he begins thinking of these women as people, wondering about their lives before they came to America and what will happen now that they’ve escaped.
While we have talked a lot about how we can’t simply think of the fantastic as metaphorical, it is impossible to read this story and not think about how people behave in real life, how so many people will do things because it is trendy or they want to fit in without actually thinking of any consequences their actions may have on others.
The “SGs” not being fully explained is a very good point! It was something that I never noticed when reading! It makes me wonder if Saunders did this on purpose so that you could have your own opinion on what they were or if they weren’t fully known about by everyone in that time!
I found it interesting as well that he did not explain the SGs. I thought I had missed something and had to go back and re-read until I decided that this would eventually be explained. I also found it strange that he and his wife were concerned that the book could be used against Eva but dad did not destroy it.
I also found it interesting that he (obviously) did not want the children watching a TV show that objectifies women, and yet he still taught them (even his two young daughters) that it is perfectly acceptable to buy and display destitute women as ornaments. There’s something almost darkly comedic about it, in my opinion (kind of like that scene in Bruno where Paula Abdul is using an immigrant as a chair as she tells Bruno about how much she loves helping the less fortunate). Tone-deaf as the narrator is, I’m kind of amazed that Eva was ever able to recognize the unjustness of the whole situation.
I agree with what you said about the narrator not explaining the SG’s because he was likely convinced they would still be around. It is interesting because he explains everything else in such detail, but he is so oriented with the SG’s that he doesn’t feel he needs to explain them.
All of the comments here — and the original post — get at the awful and hilarious genius of this story. We have a narrator who is absolutely blind to the horrific cruelty of Semplica Girls but who has embarked on this diary with the grand ambition of explaining his life to future generations. As Raven writes, “Having women strung up in one’s yard has become so normal and sought after in his society that he cannot imagine them not existing in the future.”