49 pages • 1 hour read
Richard RussoEverybody's Fool
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
North Bath and Schuyler Springs
The novel juxtaposes these neighboring communities to highlight economic and emotional disparities. Like many real towns in upstate New York, the fictional North Bath initially responded to the economic decline resulting from deindustrialization by focusing on tourism, based on its mineral springs. The town began to lose hope altogether when those springs suddenly and inexplicably dried up. Schuyler Springs is North Bath’s more fortunate counterpart. It continues to be a successful spa resort and has undergone substantial gentrification.
The differences between the two towns, which are in a way inverse mirror versions of each other, support the novel’s theme of Alternate Identities and Fate. Differences between them result in characters’ often resigned attitudes toward agency and destiny: The arbitrary event of the mineral springs drying up leads many in North Bath to also give up, seeing the world as an unpredictably cruel place. Richard Russo’s novel titles brand their protagonists as fools, asking whether it is more foolish to accept failure and stop self-improvement, or to serve a community and live meaningfully in spite of the overwhelming odds.
The Hilldale Cemetery
The Hilldale Cemetery, the setting for the opening chapter of the novel, is central to the novel’s exploration of the relationship between The Living and the Dead and in evoking the inexorable decline of New Bath. The picturesque Hill section of the cemetery reflects Bath’s prosperous and idealistic past, while the ugly, drab and crowded Dale area emblematizes the town’s current decay and hopelessness. Moreover, the silent, inscrutable graves illustrate the inaccessibility and distance of the dead: Despite Raymer’s increasingly desperate entreaties, Becka’s secrets remain hidden.
However, the cemetery is also the site of the novel’s darkly absurd humor. As the disjunction between Reverend Tunic’s romantic eulogy and the sardonic judge whom he is speaking about creates a comical discomfort in Raymer, who is both resentful of Tunic’s sanctimony and aware that he disliked Judge Flatt in life. Later, the imminence and inevitability of death becomes increasingly hard to ignore as Hill collapses into Dale, spilling the dead out of their graves and into the town proper—a grotesque literal representation of the specter of death hovering over the living.
The Two Rubs
Throughout Russo’s novel, identities repeat in parallel, alternative forms (Douglas vs. Dougie, Kurt’s mimicry of other people, Beryl Peoples’s repeated calls for her pupils to pursue better life trajectories, etc.). The fact that Sully’s best friend and faithful dog share the same name is a further example of this phenomenon. The two share an irrepressible optimism, regardless of the constant cruelty of their lives. They also both have a trusting loyalty to Sully, despite his frequent bullying and unreliability.
The human Rub longs for an alternative life in which he might be differentiated from his canine namesake, expresses his dissatisfaction with life in general, and conveys his hopes for the future through wishing. Rub’s litany of wishes is a catalogue of irreparable hopelessness—but, it is also indicative of his irrepressible resilience, which is shared by the ill-fated community to which he belongs.
The Rhetorical Triangle
When Raymer was in middle school, his teacher Beryl Peoples made much of the concept of the rhetorical triangle—a diagram that points to the relationships between a speaker, their audience, and the subject about which they are communicating. Beryl’s notes to Raymer on this abstract concept primarily stressed the need to figure out the identity of the speaker—who is Raymer when he is trying to talk to someone else, and what does the persona he presents to the outside world say about him?
As a child, Raymer found this speculation confusing and at the same time intriguing. In adulthood, the triangle continues to haunt him. The novel forces the issues of Raymer’s identity to the fore when he is struck by lightning and fractures into two distinct and very diverse personalities: the aggressive and rebellious Dougie, and the responsible and committed Douglas. Neither is the answer to Beryl’s question of who Raymer really is—the solution is integrating these aspects of himself into a unified whole.
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