Edison, New Jersey

I believe Junot Diaz’s “Edison, New Jersey” would fall under the category of “slice of life”. It touches on many different areas of modern life that are not specific to Dominican Americans, though you could probably deduce many that are from this piece. However, my interpretation of the story might be a bit of a stretch, as its roots are in Marxism. I think the author was trying to devalue obsession with money and emphasize the rewards of hard work and doing things because you truly enjoy them. From what I gathered, our narrator was unhappy with his life. He continuously buys lottery tickets and steals from customers, both of which assign a negative connotation to money and material possessions. His life is centered on a principle of uncertainty (much of which has to do with money), making him directionless-ness. Everything he describes carries a negative connotation, even the uncertainties of his life. Such is evident when he and his girlfriend are describing how his day will go. She claims “I see an asshole customer, she murmured. Unbearable traffic. Wayne’s going to work slow, and then you will come home to me” (Diaz 133). He then asks if he will be rich (another reference to money) and she claims that that’s the best she can do. However, throughout the story, the only things that carry a positive connotation are stability, which he lacks. Many of these are things people have worked hard on without money as an incentive. He considers them sturdy and reliable. He describes the making of a pool table as “sophisticated” and claims that people do not understand “the precision of their construct” (129), implying that he truly enjoys assembling pool tables, though he might not be able to accept this because it is not a profitable profession. However, when he is offered a job by his ex-girlfriends father, he does not take it. He also assigns positive connotations to descriptions of the cobblestone of the Incan Roads in the Andes that you “couldn’t put a knife between” or the sewers in Rome that were not replaced until the 1950’s. He claims “that’s the sort of thing I can believe in” (129), as opposed to money, which, when he mentioned it previously, says “Money’s never stuck to me, ever” (129). I think it’s interesting that money, though he desires it so much, only ever carries a negative connotation with reference to the story and his take on life. He steals money, buys his girlfriend things with stolen money, and dislikes people who tip him poorly. However, based on his narrative, money doesn’t seem to be the thing that makes him happy. What makes him happy are the things he considers stable, the hard work of other people.

Tangents: I’m not sure if I was so drawn in by the story because I am from New Jersey and live near all of the places referenced or because the story was so well written, though it is probably the latter. With reference to the style of writing, I thought the use of dialogue (or lack there-of) played a very important role in situating the reader within the text. Because the narrator tells us what is told to him or what he says, we see everything through the lens of the narrator. Tangent: The possibility even exists that he is, at times, an unreliable narrator. Evidence for this exists in the part where he claims “That’s how the boss put it. Delinquent. We knew that’s what the customer called us because the boss didn’t use words like that” (Diaz 129). There is no evidence that the customer called him and Wayne delinquents, but the narrator believes it to be true, and so he tells us. Similarly, we are also unsure of whether or not he “got some”. He leaves any details about sexual encounters with the girl out of his narrative, but tells Wayne, when asked, that he did, claiming he has “no reason to lie about that”. I think this may have been done, in terms of the Marxist perspective, in order to demonstrate that we cannot trust him when he expresses a desire for money and to escape his current situation, though I am not sure. Lastly, there is the reference to Edison, Nj that I'm not quite sure what to make of. There is the fountain in Edison of light dispelling darkness (the picture), but I'm not really sure I'm equipped enough to speculate on that yet.