The article before you has not seen the light of day for over half a decade. 

It was penned for Professor Kristin L. Hanely in pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Communications. 

The School in question?

Regent University. 

The piece before you outlines the doctrines of the Literary School of Modernism…the godfather that birthed the Postmodern Menace ruling the world of our imagination today! 

If you want to understand why society around you is the way it is, then read this special piece drawn from the darkest depths of the vault…

ANALYSIS OF “THE SEARCH FOR MARVIN GARDENS”

“The Search for Marvin Gardens” by John McPhee is a great example of 20th Century American creative non-fiction. 

It is a very tongue-in-cheek, ironic, and lightly self-deprecating story molded by the midcentury school of New Criticism.

This analysis will look at McPhee’s description, narration, and definition within the context of ethos, pathos, and logos. 

ETHOS OF AN INDUSTRIALIST

First, McPhee does a very good job laying his ethos out in the essay. He puts it out there like a layer cake, a little bit at a time, dropping hints throughout the beginning, before coming out directly on the fourth page: 

“My opponent and I, many years ago, played 2,428 games of Monopoly in a single season. He was then a recent graduate of the Harvard Law School, and he was working for a downtown firm, looking up law. 

“Two people we knew-one from Chase Manhattan, the other from Morgan Stanley, tried to get into the game, but after a few rounds we found that they were not in the conversation and we sent them home. 

“Monopoly should always be mana a mana anyway. 

“My opponent won 1,199 games, and so did I. Thirty were ties. He was called into the Army, and we stopped just there. 

“Now, in Game 2 of the series, I go immediately to jail, and again to jail while my opponent seines property. He is dumbfoundingly lucky. He wins in twelve minutes” (McPhee 364). 

He lets the reader know that he’s not just familiar with the game…he’s a hardcore craftsman dedicated to lifetime mastery. Even the whiz kids from Chase and Morgan don’t have his guts. 

For McPhee, Monopoly is not just a game…it’s a lifestyle. 

This dedicated expertise gives him a credible motive to seek out the real stops on the Monopoly board. 

PATHOS OF A MODERNIST

Second, McPhee builds his Pathos off this foundation. To understand this, the reader has to understand the literary milieu that shaped McPhee’s writing style. 

This literary milieu of the 20th century was built on the the school of New Criticism. New Criticism was a critical literary criteria to define and interpret great narrative art. This criteria had three parts: 

• Paradox…defined by Lois Tyson as “A statement that seems self-contradictory but represents the way things actually are” (Tyson 138). 
• Irony…“A statement or event undermined by the context which it occurs” (Tyson 139).
• Ambiguity…defined as “When a word, image, or event generates two or more different meanings” (Tyson 140). 

According to the New Criticism code, great works of literary art have to have all three elements. 

McPhee’s pathos comes across through his heavy use of Irony and Ambiguity in his description and narration.

Using the example above, his sarcastic attitude about his dead-eyed dedication to all-costs Monopoly victory is a perfect example of “A statement or event undermined by the context in which it occurs” (Tyson 139). 

He treats the game like it’s life or death, when all it really is is a printed board, numbered paper slips, and a pair of dice. 

This Ironic attitude is the foundation of the Ambiguity throughout. The entire theme of the piece is that Monopoly stands in for Capitalist America. McPhee portrays this system of economic distribution as game-like: 

“My opponent will always go in for the quick kill…[just like] The original investors in the railroads and real estate…founders, fathers, forerunners, archetypical masters of the quick kill” (McPhee 361, 366). 

McPhee then portrays this system of economic distribution as the cause of ghettos that “look[sic] like Metz in 1919, Cologne in 1944” where “Dogs…mov[e] through ruins, rubble, fire damage, open garbage.” (McPhee 365, 361). 

This is textbook Ambiguity, “When a word, image, or event generates two or more different meanings” (Tyson 140). 

THE BIG AMBIGUITY REVEALED

Third and finally, this use of Irony and Ambiguity ties together the biggest Ambiguity of the entire essay. 

This big Ambiguity is the definition of all the other Ambiguities throughout the essay. 

It is “The Search for Marvin Gardens” Logos cause-and-effect theme: 

That this game of printed board, numbered paper slips, and a pair of dice creates a chaos of wartime level devastation where “Nothing has actually exploded. It is not bomb damage” (McPhee 365). 

 No, “It is deep and complex decay,” and according to McPhee, the Monopoly of Capitalism is responsible (McPhee 365). 

CROSS-CUTTING THE IVY LEAGUE

Overall, I think this is a very good essay. I think that McPhee does a very good job with the narrative structure of the piece. He groups it very nicely into threes, and that is a winner in any narrative (Booker 229-234).

He does this by cross-cutting from the gameplay, to the real location, and then to the background that ties the two together. This works very well, and gives it a very balanced, readable feel. It keeps an Ambiguous, Irony-laden essay grounded with a modicum of clarity.

I don’t agree with McPhee’s politics. It’s clear he was writing for a very high-brow, East-coast elite, Ivy League crew to assuage their guilt for living in the “Marvin Gardens” of the world. 

Even if there were no politics in this piece, the fact that he is consciously writing in the New Criticism style in 1972 suggest he is not writing for Silent Majority Gunsmoke viewers reading Men’s Adventure Magazines while listening to Lawrence Welk on the record player. 

I believe that the Ghetto situation he lays out is not the failure of Capitalism, but the failure of No Capitalism. McPhee says himself: “When they go off to wait in unemployment lines, they wait sometimes two hours” (McPhee 366). 

WHAT THE VIETNAM VET KNEW 

If you don’t have a job, you’re going to have a lot of violent activity aimed at people, and that’s going to be crime. If you have a job, you are too busy for that kind of violent activity.  As Vietnam Veteran Bing West observed: 

“During the Vietnam era, Hollywood had created a myth about the farmer who hoes by day and shoots by night. A real farmer is too tired to do both. Combat is not a pickup game” (West 19). 

McPhee believes that the inherently unfair competition of Capitalism creates an underclass that lives in Ghettos and an overclass that lives in Marvin Gardens.

But in fact, Capitalism channels man’s ingrained competitive instinct inside of him into economic activity that benefits all members of society. 

When there are no jobs, this competitive instinct will turn to violent crime that leads to “Metz in 1919, Cologne in 1944…not [from] bomb damage,” but from “deep and complex decay” (McPhee 365). 

Understanding that fact is our only shot at getting Marvin Gardens for everybody. 

Sincerely,

Richard Barrett

03-25-2018

Written somewhere in the USA…

Sources Cited

Booker, Christopher. The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2004. Print. 

McPhee, James. “The Search for Marvin Gardens.” The Best American Essays of the Century. Eds. Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. 361-372. Print. 

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2006. Print. 

West, Bing. The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. New York: Random House, 2008. Print.