I find that Rydell is a very interesting character, and sometimes his character is contradictory. For example, “[w]hatever it was [Rydell] was supposed to be doing here, for Laney, he wanted to do it right. Get all jangled, this way, you never knew what could happen. Calm down. Nobody was losing it here.” (121) and then, "he lost it immediately” (121). Rydell appears to be a cautious person who always wants to do things right and legally. However, because he has agoraphobia, it makes him nervous, easily tempered and loses control of himself (i.e. just like when he tortured the Chinese kid behind the counter because the kid wasn't able to provide the information Rydell wanted.) In addition, Rydell believes that killing is unnecessary and often doubts the need of killing when he quotes, “killing anyone was a terrible and permanent thing to enter into” (196). Nonetheless, after witnessing Konrad killed someone “silently and without raising a sweat … [like] the way another man might change his shirt or open a bottle of beer”(196) Rydell feelings begin to contradict his beliefs and felt “something in [him] yearned so to be that, that, feeling it now, he blushed” (196).
I feel that Rydell’s fictional character and life events actually portray and represent an aspect of real life and real people. There are people who dream of becoming lawyers, doctors, police officers etc… but due to unfortunate events that occur in their lives, they are prevented from achieving their ambitions and thus, have to take alternative paths to reach their goal. Furthermore, many people have strong beliefs and values of what they consider is appropriate but sometimes their thoughts and desires contradict eachother.
In lecture, Dr. Ogden mentioned that Laney is the mind and Rydell is the body. I agree with Dr. Ogden. Throughout the novel, Laney is the “master-mind”, the one that sees all the patterns and flows in the nodal points, feels all changes in the world, and only “go” to places via his mind, such as entering the virtual world. Laney feels a change, and sees the world as ending soon, but he never physically leaves his cardboard to stop this change. Instead, he hires Rydell to carry out his exact instructions and guidelines. Indeed, Rydell, “the body” physically carries out these instructions and task that Laney has ordered. Rydell is like Laney’s body, a being that performs Laney’s commands. This is my interpretation of it, what do you think?
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(On a completely different) Side Note: Eversince tutorial class, each time I walked into a London Drugs, it keeps reminding me of Lukcy Dragon, except London Drugs is a Canadian convenient store and not American. I found out there are roughly 63 London Drugs across Canada, most of which has the same set up and appearance. hmmm.. sort of "freaky" if you think of it.
by: Rosalie Pham
1 comment:
Again, very insightful Rosalie! I especially found this of your interpretation of Rydell as being contradictory. I'd never really thought of him that way but it is very true, especially with the example of killing. He doesn't like killing, yet wants to emulate Konrad's method of killing. Also, this does transcribe to real life quite easily. There are many people who have contradictions in their life and often have trouble reconciling them. I feel that this may also work the other way to give us as readers insight into Rydell. Perhaps Rydell's troubles in life come from his inability to reconcile his own contradictions. He wants to a killer like Konrad, but doesn't like killing. He doesn't like killing, but wants to be a cop. He wants to be a cop, but can't find a stable job as one and, instead, ends up in dead-end security-type jobs. You mentioned that Rydell appears to be cautious and I think it is from an insecurity rooted in these contradictions. Rydell isn't sure of himself because he has two opinions and doesn't know which is right. He wants to be good (evidenced by his wish to be a cop, a profession dedicated to helping others) but has difficulty figuring out what good is.
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