Free Puppet

A really cool part of Gunnar’s development in my opinion is the way he has turned into someone that is insane. Not crazy insane, but mature and in-his-own-world insane. There is a lot of evidence in his letter to Yoshiko fairly late in the novel that shows how he is really just doing his own thing, not giving a care as to what people think of him or what he should be doing. First off, he is writing the entire letter during half-time, when he is probably supposed to be invested in the game against Cornell. Coach Palomino is foaming over how bad the team is playing, yet Gunnar is laid back through it all, not showing any interest in the game. When coach slaps a player named Isaac Gottlieb for missing a layup during warmups, Gunnar just thinks/writes, “oh shit.” There is no sense of exclamation, no emotion, he is just an indifferent observer. At the same time, Gunnar expresses that he fully capable of crossing the line if he chooses, and he seems to have fun with it. When the national anthem plays before the game he refuses to stand, and when reporters approach him because of this he eventually gets to a point where he equates America with Satan. He knows that he is being completely random, and he feels perfectly comfortable acting in that way.

While Gunnar exhibits a large amount of freedom in his thoughts, words, and actions, Scoby is a little different as the novel progresses. When we first meet him in the novel, he is the epitome of coolness. Lost in his own world of music and always doing his own thing, Nick Scoby is someone to admire. However, he is deeply negatively influenced by the pressures of public expectation. At first, he was able to play basketball or explore in his own music genres on his own or with community friends, but the transition to a public display of his perfection is uncomfortable to him. In the letter, Gunnar requests for Yoshiko to find a counselor for Scoby because he is going “insane.” This is a different kind of insane than the one I label Gunnar with, because it has darker connotation. Scoby is cracking under pressure, and Gunnar analyzes that the reason for this is that Scoby is continuously trying to find a “pair of scissors” to cut the “strings.” This is an allusion to the puppeteer strings illustrated in Invisible Man, where strings represent the everlasting hold white people have on minorities, namely black people. So the problem is that Nick has turned into someone that is trying too hard, and its damaging him. He is trying to free himself from the hold of the strings and then be his own person. However, to be your own person, Beatty is saying you just have to get over the fact that there are strings in the first place, unfortunately Scoby can't face this reality.

Gunnar is able to thrive because he knows how to deal with the strings. While Scoby struggles to snip them away, Gunnar just flat out accepts them. He admits to being attached, and he can only see the string if his eyes fight the fog of his own spirit of freedom. Once Gunnar is in the mature state of accepting reality, he can then take a step back and do whatever he wants. That is why he is able to  do stuff like calmy contemplate whether or not a free-throw is worth it at the height of an important game, get ink all over the basketball (and therefore other people’s uniforms!) during the Cornell game, etc. Gunnar feels his freedom because he understands that the strings are not cut, and he dances. But he doesn’t dance with the pupetteer, he creates his own rhythm and just lets himself go. He is purely insane.