ATDTDA (7): Webb/Lake, 189-191

[Paul Nightingale]

The opening paragraph, Webb at work, is a prologue to the lengthier scene at
home. We learn that Webb is now "shift boss" and "Veikko and his squarehead
compadres gave him a party to celebrate". Previously, he "had worked his
from hoistman through singlejacker to assistant foreman" (90), after which
the Reverend advises him to aim for a disguise of normality: "Best disguise
is no disguise. [...] A man like you, with a wife, children--last ones they
tend to suspect ..." etc (91).

Webb resembles Scarsdale Vibe insofar as each seeks to disguise themselves
as normal. Cf. the first appearance of SV, seeking "a vast ebb and flow of
anonymity" (31). Cf. also his reappearance, meeting Kit, "dressed more like
a feed-company clerk ..." etc: "He had on smoked 'specs' and a straw hat
whose brim width unavoidably suggested disguise" (156).

On that latter occasion, SV goes on to talk about his sons, and the way they
have disappointed him (157). Webb has also tried to introduce his sons to
the family 'business', so to speak (90). The most important relationship for
both men, arguably, is outside the family: SV with Foley Walker, Webb with
Veikko. For each, then, the family has nothing to do with work.

The family scene in this section deals with Webb's attempts to establish
patriarchal authority: his attempt to govern Lake, to 'know' her, echoes the
way employers--using the likes of Lew--have attempted to keep their
workforces under surveillance. Cf. his words to Kit, when Webb insists that
he's the one They are after, before claiming: "They're trying to buy my
family away." (104-105)

On that occasion, Kit was being bribed by big-money: he had been offered
something Webb couldn't compete with. When Lake claims to have been
"[b]ettin on a fight" (189) he jumps at the opportunity to demonstrate his
superior knowledge: "Save it kid, listen ..." (190). Knowledge is power, and
the fight game is 'his' territory, part of his life outside the family.
Putting her down has the same function as SV's mockery of Colfax (157): for
each man, the inferior status of the child confirms their own superiority.
After the argument, Webb thinks of the child "who only yesterday would come
wriggling dirty-faced into his arms" (190).

We have no way of knowing, of course, if Lake intentionally lied to allow
Webb to know she wasn't telling the truth. Her financial independence here
echoes her brother's means of liberation, and the section ends with her
thinking of him: "... the one she missed most being Kit, for they were the
two youngest and had shared a kind of willfulness, a yearning for the
undreamt-of destiny, or perhaps no more than a stubborn aversion to settling
for the everyday life of others." (191)

Just above this passage, she has returned to an empty house, her father "on
shift", her mother "running chores", ie both out working, their absence
signifying the daily routine that makes their movements predictable.