from Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist Penguin
1985.
6. I've got a system, Sarah. You know I drive according to a
system.
11. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body
Bag.
27. Macon wasn't very familiar with dogs. He preferred cats.
He liked the way they kept their own counsel.
48. Physical contact with people not related to him made him
draw inward like a snail.
65. She (Alicia) believed in change as if it were a
religion.
66. He recalled his childhood as a glassed-in place with
grown ups rushing past, talking at him, making changes, while he
himself stayed mute.
117 Macon had kept a stack of index cards giving detailed
directions to the houses of his friends -even friends he'd known
for ages.
138 They always go to one restaurant, the one their
grandparents went to before them. . . . They dither and
deliberate, can't so much as close a curtain without this group
discussing back and forth, to and fro, all the pros and cons.
142 You're ossified. You're encased. You're like something
in a capsule. You're a dried-up kernel of a man nothing really
penetrates . . . That travelling armchair isn't just your logo;
it's you.
148 "You've lost the centre of your life, Macon."
"Yes, I know that," Macon said.
200 I'm afraid we got married because we were so far apart.
And now I'm far from anyone; I don't have any friends anymore and
everyone looks trivial and foolish and not related to me.
235 It seemed to him that the world was full of equations;
that there must be an answer for everything, if only you knew how
to set forth the questions.
280 What are you saying, Macon? Are you saying you're
committed?
WRITTEN REVISION OF "THE ACCIDENTAL
TOURIST"
In short answers refer to the passage given
and to the novel as a whole. You would discuss the relevance or
importance of the underlined quotation in its context and indicate
what characteristic it highlights either of personality or theme
in the novel.
Read the pages indicated and answer the
questions below:
1. Read page 143: "But if people didn't
adjust, how could they bear to go on?"
How successful was Macon in adjusting as he
believed people should?
2. page 142: "That traveling armchair isn't
just your logo; it's you."
What did Sarah mean? Was she
right?
3. (page 142) "It's not by chance you write
those sily books telling people how to take trips without a
jolt"
How is Macon's dream of a steady ride through
life "without a jolt" such a false one?
4. "He felt wired to her." (page
328)
How important are Macon's feelings to him?.
In your answer refer to this passage and to
the novel as a whole.
5. " . . . clinging to a fixed and desperate
mental map." (page 116-7)
How well did Macon succeed in overcoming this
Leary "dyslexia"?
Some notes from J. Worden Grief Counselling and Grief
Therapy (pp. 1-17) Tavistock 1982
to help you understand Macon Leary's grief in Tyler's The
Accidental Tourist.
Attachment Theory
Bowlby writes about the strong reaction when relationship
bonds are threatened or broken. He disagrees that such
attachments occur only to meet biological needs; they come from a
need for security and safety; it has a survival value. If the
bond is removed, withdrawal, apathy and despair will ensue. (N.B.
Macon!!)
Darwin described the grief-like state in animals at the
separation of a greylag goose from its mate. Bowlby says there a
good biological reasons for meeting every separation with
automatic instinctive aggressive behaviour.
George Engel posed the question Is grief a disease? Mourning
is healing.
Is mourning necessary? Yes, tasks of mourning must be done;
incompleted grief tasks impair further growth. Grief is a
process; first come to terms with the loss, accept the reality of
the loss.
THE FOUR TASKS OF MOURNING
Task 1: To accept the reality of the loss. Denying the facts
is mummification, Gorer 1965), denying the meaning of the loss,
selective forgetting, deny that death is irreversible.
Task II: To experience the pain of grief; physical pain leads
to aberrant behaviour; society says not to feel; people short
circuit this task refusing to feel; they travel (geographic cure);
emphatic refusal. therapy may be necessary is this stage is not
accepted and experienced.
Task III Adjust to an environment where the deceased is
missing loss of the roles the deceased played; survivors have to
take on the roles of the deceased; risk of not adating to the
loss; recognition & redefinition of life.
Task IV To withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in
another relationship detach memories abd transfer them; fear of
dishonouring the deceased or being seen to dishonour him/her;
(Never to love again) conflicts and misunderstanding occur on this
point
When is mourning finished? certainly not before one or two
years; when the person is able to think of the deceased without
pain; when the person can reinvest his or her emotions back into
life with the living.
How people respond to condolences is some indication of where
they are in the process.