Edward P. Jones a New Man From Lost in the City 1992

Edward P. Jones - "A New Man" (from Lost in the City [1992])

In Edward Jones' short story, "A New Man," which was initially published in 1992 as part of a collection of short stories known as Lost in the City, its protagonist, Woodrow L. Cunningham, loses virtually everyone of importance to him. He suffers the deaths of both his mother and father, the disappearance of his daughter Elaine, and the alienation of his wife Rita. The author's primary theme of loss and its effect upon Cunningham is aided by deliberate variations of narration. The tale is principally narrated from an unfocalized viewpoint, while the voice of the characters -- including that indicated in a literal sense through dialogue as well as through their thoughts -- is highly focalized. The confluence of these voices allows the reader to experience the meaning of the story from a variety of perspectives, all of which reinforce the totality of Cunningham's losses, and the cumulative impact that they have on him.

Primarily, the unfocalized voice of the narrator serves to provide a relatively unbiased viewpoint with which to gauge the magnitude of the losses that Cunningham incurs. However, this unfocalized narration utilizes a slight degree of understatement which, in certain passages, seems to imply a degree of sarcasm that allows the reader to gain insight into the inner emotions and thoughts that Cunningham feels. An excellent example of this fact is found in the opening lines of this tale, which the following quotation suitably demonstrates. "One day in late October, Woodrow L. Cunningham came home early with his bad heart and found his daughter with two boys" (Jones). There is a sublety to the messages the reader can discern from this unfocalized voice, and to the information it reveals about Cunningham's feelings. The narrator reveals, in the same sentence, that Cunningham has a bad heart and finds his daughter alone in their home with a pair of boys. Without utilizing an unfocalized viewpoint of Cunningham, the reader can infer that he disapproves of this situation simply because of the negative context in which this information is received. Although the reference to Cunningham's "bad heart" may partially explain his reason for returning home earlier than he usually does, it also alerts the reader to the fact that he is going through some difficulty. In this frame of mind, then, he finds his daughters with two boys. Figuratively, of course, this passage can relate to the emotional unhappiness that Cunningham has regarding the death of his mother, and foreshadows the emotional turbulence he will feel later regarding his daughter's disappearance and the alienation of his wife.

The focalized voice of the other characters contributes to the growing sense of unhappiness and abandonment that gradually overtakes Cunningham due to his familial problems. This is particularly true of the focalized voice of Rita. Rita is struck just as badly by the loss of Elaine as Cunningham is; in a sense, she is affected even more due to the fact that she was not directly responsible for Elaine's running away. Rather, her father was. And despite the fact that Rita stays with her husband for the duration of the story, she too is greatly transformed from a thin woman to a decidedly corpulent one. Her focalized voice, however, suggests that on a subtle, implicit level, she blames her husband for the loss of their daughter, which the following quotation, in which Rita discovers Elaine has gone, evinces. "She ain't in her room" (Jones 209). The shift in voice from the unfocalized narrator to the focalized viewpoint of Rita is dramatized in part by the deviation from standard English to the slang of Cunningham's wife. Although this shift reflects an informal way of speaking between the pair, there is also a palpable degree of flippancy in Rita's assertion that her daughter "ain't" present. This flippancy becomes magnified later on in the story, and is a subtle way in which Jones shows the loss of Elaine distances Rita from her husband. This fosters a sense of alienation between the two, which ultimately leads to Cunningham's growing unhappiness.

The unfocalized voice of the narrator helps the reader to understand just what sort of transformation is taking place in Cunningham as a result of the familiar turbulence he endures. Cunningham is, after all, the new man referred to in the title of this work, and the change that makes him a new man is far from pleasant. Early on in the search for his daughter (approximately three months after Elaine has disappeared, Jones employs the unfocalized voice of the narrator to describe Cunningham as "the chief…number one maintenance man at the Sheraton Park Hotel" (Jones 203). On the literal level, this description of Cunningham is a simple accounting of where he works. However, this information contains positive connotations regarding Cunningham's status at his job, which is certainly top-tiered due to his "number one" status. As the search for his daughter continues and the years, not months, mount, Cunningham's implied success and even cockiness dissipate. He loses a significant amount of weight; he has to rely on a variety of others (the strangers he asks for information about his daughter). The unfocalized narrator no longer depicts him as an elite man of action. He is now significantly more humble, which is a part of his transformation resulting in the title of this story.