A Room of Junko's Own

Telling a New Narrative of American Adam
and His Manhood in I Am the Cheese

Tinker Bell (JSCLE) 49
YOSHIDA, Junko

Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese (1977) has been highly praised for its sophisticated and deceptive narrative as well as its somber and serious theme. Published when the aftermath of the Watergate scandal was still in the air and reflecting the social and political atmosphere of the period, the novel deals with the corruption of authority and its misuse of power.

Since then, the American political climate has changed much, especially after September 11, 2001. America is assertively claiming its right to freedom and justice on the international political stage. By reading I Am the Cheese while paying close attention to the current attitude of the U.S., I think Cormier’s narrative technique and the unbendable way of life of the protagonist, Adam Farmer, still appeal to the minds of today’s readers. Therefore, I would like to re-read the novel framing it in the narrative of the American Adam or the American Myth with my focus on the manhood of the American Adam.

1. The Three Narratives

It is often pointed out that I Am the Cheese contains three narratives. The first is that told by Adam in the first person and present tense. He tells readers that he has set out from Monument, Massachusetts on a seventy-mile-journey by bicycle for Rutterberg, Vermont, where his father is hospitalized. Wearing his father’s old jacket and hat for protection against the cold weather, and carrying a gift for his father in the basket, he starts pedaling his old fashioned bicycle, saying, “I want to go. By my bike, by my own strength and power” (3).

The second narrative is the taped conversation between T (Brint) and A (Adam) which is inserted into Adam’s narrative of his bike trip. In the tape Brint either interviews Adam for some psychotherapy treatment for amnesia or interrogates him for specific information. The third narrative is the formed in the third person and past tense by Adam when he responds to keywords, like “dog” and “Amy Hertz,” contained in Brint’s questions. So the third account is based on his provoked and fragmented memories.

Accordingly, readers have to deal with the three narratives wondering how each of them relates to the others, or which of them is primary. Furthermore, judging from the uncertain situation in which Adam Farmer is placed in the second narrative, we are unsure whether he is a reliable narrator or not. He may be undergoing psychotherapy, and his memories may be untrustworthy.

Anxiety is also contained in the first narrative, and actually it pervades the entire narrative. Take the old man Adam meets at a gas station, for example. Though he first looks like a kind old man, he sees Adam off with sinister words, “What do you want to go for, Skipper? It’s a terrible world out there. Murders and assassinations. Nobody’s safe on the streets. And you don’t even know who to trust anymore. Do you know who the bad guys are?” (13-14).

To reduce the anxiety roused by such words, Adam sings a nursery song “The Farmer in the Dell,” which reminds him of his affectionate father, David Farmer. David would ask the infant Adam, “What’s your name, boy?” referring to the song; and Adam would joyfully answer, “Adam Farmer.” “The Farmer in the Dell” has been, as it were, a theme song for the Farmer family. Accordingly, Adam sings this song whenever he feels frightened or discouraged, like being attacked by a fierce dog, or failing to contact Amy Hertz, his girlfriend, by phone.

Meanwhile, in the second narrative, stimulated by the keywords, “Amy,” Adam recalls sweet and joyful memories of Amy. They are the memories of the “Numbers,” a sort of pranks or games he would play with her as part of adventure and diversion. The basic Number is played at a supermarket by filling up shopping carts and leaving them behind as they are. Its goal is to enjoy watching store clerks puzzled and confused at unlikely occurrences.

2. Numbers

I Am the Cheese is actually a mystery novel that urges readers forward through the complicated narrative structure to learn Adam’s and his family’s true identity. However, the more memories Adam recovers, the deeper the mystery becomes: Why does Adam have two different birth certificates? What caused his family to live in such isolation? Is Amy, a charming girlfriend of Adam, an agent of the enemy? Who is Mr. Grey, a key figure to Adam’s amnesia? For what purpose does Brint interview Adam while medicating him? Is Brint really a psychiatrist trying to help Adam recover from amnesia, or actually an agent of a certain institution seeking specific information?

Perry Nodelman maintains that Cormier’s intricate narrative technique is similar to the Numbers Amy plays with Adam: “Cormier tells us that Amy ‘always withheld information about the Numbers until the last possible moment, stretching out the drama’ (182). He does that himself in the novel” (94). Nodelman’s assertion can be supported by the following words of Adam, “We – my mother and father and me – are living through a Number that’s the biggest one of all” (172). Readers are manipulated to make a story based on the second and third narratives using the limited and fragmented information given by Adam. The story would be as follows:

Adam’s father, David Farmer (formerly Anthony Delmonte), as a journalist, uncovered some incriminating information involving corruption both in the state and federal governments. As “an old-fashioned citizen who believed in doing the right thing for his country” (124), he agreed to testify before a special Senate committee in Washington. Unfortunately, this results in threat against the family by assassins. Then Mr. Grey enters their lives. Working for the government in a witness protection program, he helps the Delmonte family erase their former identities and settle in a new place with a new job. David discloses this secret to his son around the period when Adam enjoys playing the Numbers with Amy.

However, shortly after the family leave the town for evacuation at Mr. Grey’s warning, Adam’s parents are killed. Shocked at the assault, Adam/Paul loses his sanity and escapes into oblivion.

Meanwhile in the final stage of his bike trip, Adam visits a motel named Rest-A-While Motel, the very hotel he stayed with his parents before their murder. He believes that he stayed there a year before, only to find out it has been closed for three years. Also, after calling Amy again, he finds out that someone else has been using Amy’s number for three years. Suddenly realizing the disconnection with his parents and Amy, he gives himself up to insanity. If we have believed so far that Adam is actually traveling by bicycle on Route 31 and 119, then Cormier adeptly has done a Number on us.

What seems an actual bike trip is nothing but a fantasy of Adam/Paul who has been confined in an institution. Cormier never explains whether it is a hospital, prison, or secret research facility. All the people Adam meets in his bike trip turn out to be inhabitants in the institution. Referring to the initial letter of the tape numbers such as “OZK001,” Cormier explains his intention of integrating fantasy and reality, just as the Tin Man in the film The Wizard of Oz reappears as a farm hand in the last scene where Dorothy wakes up from her dream of Oz (Lion & Unicorn 129).

Cormier’s Number also has made us divert our attention from Adam’s present situation. It is not until the second-to-the-last chapter that Cormier discloses Adam/Paul’s present situation in the form of Brint’s report on Adam and his family titled “Annual report on File Data 865-01.” According to the report, Adam/Paul has periodically suffered from amnesia since his parents were killed three years ago. In order to get specific information, they recover his memories by way of medication and interrogation every year, and lead him to the scene of his parents’ death until he escapes into amnesia. Brint concludes his report that Adam/Paul will be “terminated” by the government, or his confinement will continue until he “obliterates.” In other words, Adam will be killed one way or the other, and there is no hope in Adam’s future. In the last chapter, Adam single-mindedly and furiously pedals his bicycle on his way to Rutterberg. The novel ends with his words, “But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling. . . ” (214).

3. Why the Number?

Confused readers might ask why Cormier does the Number. According to reader-response theory formulated by Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish, the goal of an author’s narrative is to make readers actively participate in bringing out new meanings in order to enhance communication between the author and the reader (Iser 30) and to incorporate readers in “interpretive communities” and transmit the meaning the communities produce (Fish 322). Therefore, Nodelman’s answer in Iser’s fashion would be: “Cormier makes us undergo the same experience Adam does. [. . .] Cormier provides readers that same faith in untruths that Adam has, the same discoveries, and the same awesome sense of having trusted too much” (100).

Nonetheless, Nodelman’s answer does not fully explore why readers should participate in the embedded meanings or “interpretive communities” in order to share the meaning of the text. In other words, the basic ideology behind the distrust and despair of Adam/Paul is not clarified. In this sense, Edward W. Said acutely maintains: “If, as we have recently been told by Stanley Fish, every act of interpretation is made possible and given force by an interpretive community, then we must go a great deal further in showing what situation, what historical and social configuration, what political interests are concretely entailed by the very existence of interpretive communities” (26). Thus, without examination of ideology that lies at the root of the “interpretive community,” we will not be able to wholly understand the meaning of the text.

To deal with the issue of transmission of ideology in a text, I find Roberta Seelinger Trites’ adaptation of Louis Althusser’s theory, “Appareils Ideologique d’Etat” (AIE) or “Ideological State Apparatuses” (ISAs), for arguing the role of children’s literature as an institution useful (4). Althusser maintains that, through operations of ISAs, modern capitalist states secure the reproduction of labor power and its skills. ISAs include such institutions as religion, education, family, trade-unions, media, and cultural ISAs (literature, arts, sports, etc.) (130-43).

Adolescent literature as an institutional discourse has been expected to socialize adolescents, preparing them for adulthood in modern society. In her discussion about this role, Trites mentions, “Central to the construction of adolescent literature as a tool of socialization is the issue of how adult writers depict authority in the literature” (54).

Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine how Cormier depicts authority, especially that of male figures. First, let us examine Adam’s father, David/Anthony. David is portrayed not as a type who exercises his parental power over his son, but rather as one who gains love and trust from his son, which is typically seen in his singing “The Farmer in the Dell.” Meanwhile, Adam wears his father’s jacket and hat, and carefully carries a gift for his hospitalized father. These are notable illustrations of their good relationship.

In contrast, Adam has the worst relationships with other authority figures, Mr. Grey and Brint, two representatives of bureaucracy. Though Mr. Grey first appears as a friend and helper of the Delmonte family, he later becomes a watchdog controlling their lives like puppets. Their relationship culminates in Mr. Grey’s betrayal and killing of Adam’s parents. Brint is little different from Mr. Grey: first, he is a helper and friend, but later a betrayer and killer. It is obvious that Cormier portrays the father-son relationship positively, whereas he portrays the government-citizen relationship negatively.

It is also clear that the latter relationship is the source of the unhappy ending. As a way to clarify the ideology in the text, Peter Hollindale raises questions, including the following: “If some ‘happy endings’ reconverge on the dominant ideology, is it also true that an unhappy ending is a device for denying such reconvergence, and hence for reinforcing a blend of ideological and emotional protest?” (20). That is to say, the author’s adoption of an unhappy ending can be a strong protest against the conformity to the dominant ideology, which adolescent literature is often expected to convey as an institutional discourse.

If we examine Cormier’s unhappy ending in this light, it is possible to say that Cormier resists conforming to the dominant ideology, or using his novel as an institutional discourse. Most important for him is to follow the inevitability to which his character’s emotions lead (“Forever Pedaling” 49, 51-52). That is why Adam/Paul follows his emotions after having seen the killing of his parents who were obedient to the governmental authority.

Referring to authorial power that affects readers’ subjectivity, Trites suggests that we need to investigate “a second level of textual authority” because “Writers are another source of authority within adolescent literature as an institution” (55). In effect, the power Cormier exercises in the process of doing a Number on us is to let us construct the so-called “American Narrative” or American Myth.

According to religious sociologist Walter T. Davis, the American Narrative has two subplots. One is the story that America is a representative country that has freedom, democracy, opportunity, plenty, and justice. The other plot reflects “manifest destiny,” the consciousness that America is a chosen nation answering a special calling. The second plot contains the American Dream, “American Exceptionalism,” or merely “Americanism” (7). And this narrative has a protagonist, the “American Adam,” who is a fundamentally innocent, and isolated youth, challenging the world to change for the better.

Therefore, it is not just coincidence that the protagonist in the novel is an “Adam” representing an all-American type of youth, and the name Farmer sounds WASP-ish (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) as David says (132). Cormier craftily leads readers into the “interpretive community” based on the American Narrative. Readers are manipulated into believing halfway that Adam/Paul eventually wins the conflict with his enemies; on the contrary he does not.

Sylvia Patterson Iskander asserts that Cormier deviates from narrative convention (12). However, Cormier’s goal is not the construction of the conventional narrative; I would rather use the term “deconstruction” to describe Cormier’s goal. Therefore, at the end of the novel it is not surprising if we feel tricked that this American Adam will not be able to defeat his enemies, but will instead be “terminated,” a term with a two-fold meaning: the government will terminate Adam on the one hand, and Cormier terminates the American Narrative and the American Adam on the other. Cormier thus deconstructs the conventional narrative.

4. The Fourth Narrative

Despite the unhappy ending, or because of it, readers tend to re-read the book. Probably the complexity of the narrative structure would urge us to do so to reconfirm our readings; in addition, also we re-read it in our expectation to find something beyond the deconstruction of the old narrative. Careful readers find a fourth narrative in addition to those already mentioned. Though it has always been present as a “basso continuo” or “continuous bass” from the earlier stage of the novel, readers would not recognize it as a narrative owning to its simplicity. The narrative in question is the nursery song “The Farmer in the Dell,” which starts with lyrics related to family and ends with lyrics related to holocausts. It should be noted that Adam always sings this song whenever he feels discouraged.

Cormier writes only part of this song, which in fact consists of ten stanzas as follows:

　　1.      The farmer in the dell, / The farmer in the dell, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The farmer in the dell.
　　2.      The farmer takes a wife, / The farmer takes a wife, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The farmer takes a wife.
　　3.      The wife takes a child, / The wife takes a child, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The wife takes a child.
　　4.      The child takes a nurse, / The child takes a nurse, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The child takes a nurse.
　　5.      The nurse takes the cow, / The nurse takes the cow, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The nurse takes the cow.
　　6.      The cow takes a dog, / The cow takes a dog, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The cow takes a dog.
　　7.      The dog takes a cat, / The dog takes a cat, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The dog takes a cat.
　　8.      The cat takes a rat, / The cat takes a rat, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The cat takes a rat.
　　9.      The rat takes a cheese, / The rat takes a cheese, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The rat takes a cheese.
　　10.   The cheese stands alone, / The cheese stands alone, / Hi-ho, the derry-o, / The cheese stands alone. (Anderson)

Despite its ceaseless presence, the meaning of this song is not deciphered until the denouement. After disclosing that Adam’s bike trip actually occurs within the confines of an institution, the last stanza, “The cheese stands alone,” is sung for the first time. Then, Adam questions his identity as Paul and recognizes himself as follows: “I know, of course, who I am, who I will always be. I am the cheese” (210). He is “the cheese” that stands alone, being attacked by the rat.

This novel has generally been understood as a tragedy in which the protagonist is to be terminated eventually. However, if we accept the nursery song as a fourth narrative, and accept the reality Cormier created in it, the reading of the novel changes drastically.

Accordingly, in the framework of “The Farmer in the Dell,” the protagonist the Cheese is furiously pedaling his bike. As Adam/Paul predicts in the third last chapter, he will continue to live as the Cheese. As long as he stays in the narrative framework of “The Farmer in the Dell,” the cheese keeps standing, and Brint and his colleagues will not be able to kill him.

As Cormier says, “[. . .] Adam had taken no sunset ride to freedom [. . .] . But does an unhappy ending alone make a novel realistic?” (“Forever Pedaling” 47), in the final chapter he replaces the conventional narrative with a new one. In the alternative narrative, Adam states: “It’s cold as I pedal along, the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves and into my jacket and my pants legs, too. But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling . . . ” (214). In the imagery of the adolescent boy named the Cheese who keeps pedaling his old-fashioned bike all alone, we can see “a blend of ideological and emotional protest” mentioned by Hollindale (20).

By placing and reading the novel in the socio-cultural context of America in the 1970s, it is not surprising to find that the author had to consume significant energy in deconstructing and protesting against the conventional American Myth, which had spellbound the “manhood” of the American empire so powerfully. For some readers, it may sound ridiculous to admit “The Farmer in the Dell” to be the alternative. Or at best, it may seem to be a kind of joke, an evasion, or Number.

But re-reading the novel today, especially after September 11, 2001, we could reasonably understand how seriously and stubbornly the Cheese is resisting the dominant ideology in the American Narrative. Take President George W. Bush’s address to the nation delivered on September 20, 2002, for example.

On September the 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. [. . .] freedom itself is under attack. (5)
What is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in
　progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. (16)

No doubt at the root his speech exists the American Narrative in which the American Adam plays a major role. President Bush showed the audience the badge of a policeman who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others. Bush’s speech and the display of a “badge of courage” was broadcast to American citizens and the rest of the world interested in how the American leader would address after the apocalyptic scenes in New York City.

In the conventional narrative the American Adam achieves his “mature” manhood through death, earning a “red badge of courage” and having his bravery celebrated as a “hero.” In this sense, the teenage protagonist, Henry Fleming, in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895) serves as evidence of how a hero attains his “mature” manhood through death in the framework of the American Narrative.

We should note again that, in the conventional sense, I Am the Cheese has no “hero,” just a victim. The government has victimized Adam’s father Anthony, and Adam himself will be victimized and “terminated” in the near future. But Adam/Paul’s strategy for survival is to name himself the Cheese and stand alone defiantly. Instead of being victimized or being placed in the object position as a victim, he fortifies the framework of the nursery song, and puts himself in the subject position of his own narrative.

5. Conclusion

Thus we see unique masculinity embodied in Adam/Paul’s behavior. First, this sensitive and weak adolescent has agency to narrate a story for his own survival. Second, instead of combat cars and gears, he is “armed” with an old bike, his father’s clothes for protection against the cold weather, and he embraces Pokey the Pig representing his innocence. Third, he will never kill anybody for his own survival, and in this sense he is an extremely stubborn pacifist.

This New Adam is the target of suspect, medical treatment, and interrogation, yet rather than counterattacking when attacked by his enemies, he spins a simple and naïve story to survive. Since the 1980s the American empire has been trying to recover “his mature manhood” through various ISAs. Despite the backlash, however, young readers are still attracted to the novel. It is this reframing of the novel in the unusual and alternative narrative that makes it more appealing to readers in today’s world, where America is the only superpower trying to expand its power based on the conventional narrative.

Acknowledgement: This is the revised version of the paper read at the 16th IRSCL congress held on August 9-14, 2003, in Kristiansand, Norway. This research was financially supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from Japan Society for Promotion of Science.

References

Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Tran. Ben Brewster, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Anderson, P. F. “The Mother Goose Pages,” The Mother Goose Pages 21 (March 2001)
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes/dell.html>.
Bush, George W. Our Mission and Our Moment: President George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation Before a Joint Session
　　 of Congress September 20, 2001. New York: Newmarket Press, 2001.
Cormier, Robert. “Forever Pedaling on the Road to Realism,” Celebrating Children’s Books: Essays on Children’s Literature
　　 in Honor of Zena Sutherland. New York: Lee & Shepard Books, 1981.
- - -. I Am the Cheese. 1977. New York: Dell, 1991.
- - -. “An Interview with Robert Cormier.” The Lion and the Unicorn 1-2 (1978): 109-35.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. 1895. New York: Norton, 1962.
Davis, Walter T. Jr. Shattered Dream: America's Search for Its Soul. Valley Forge: PA: Trinity Press International, 1994.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Community. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1980.
Holindale, Peter. “Ideology and the Children’s Book.” Signal 55 (1988): 3-22.
Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction From Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: The
　　Johns Hopkins UP, 1974.
Iskander, Sylvia Patterson. “Readers, Realism, and Robert Cormier.” Children’s Literature 15 (1987): 7-18.
Nodelman, Perry. “Robert Cormier does a number.” Children’s Literature in Education 14-2 (1983): 94-103.
Said, Edward W. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1983.
Trites, Roberta Seelinger. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature. Iowa City: Iowa UP, 2000.