A Corner of the Universe

Fred Carmel’s Funtime Carnival energizes sleepy Millerton. Everyone is excited to attend opening night. The carnival represents possibilities—an escape from everyday routine. Hattie notes that at nighttime, the carnival has a “magical” atmosphere where “anything, anything at all, might happen” (79). The carnival shows the townspeople a glimpse of another world. Rides, carnival eats, and exotic sideshows pique the imagination.

For Adam, the carnival embodies the “circus of life” that he sets out in his pajama bottoms to find (64): a plethora of emotions. The carnival offers everything from ecstasy to agony—stimuli that Nana attempts to suppress in her son. Nana wants to nail down the corners of Adam’s universe.

At the same time, the carnival is a practical family business. In her behind-the-scenes tour from Leila, Hattie learns that the business is much like her family’s boardinghouse, and that carnival kids need friends, too. The carnival shows Hattie both a magical new world, and a practical new look at how different people live.

For Hattie, church and churchgoing are tied to appearances, rather than substance. Adam, straightforward and outspoken, is unable to repress or conceal his emotions, and refuses to go to church; he represents authenticity. In contrast, Nana and Papa, who value status and appearances and propriety, attend church every Sunday. Neither Hattie nor her family attends church, believing that they can speak to God in their minds and do not need an expensive building to do it. They are spiritual, rather than religious, a more liberal faith trend that began to gain ground in the mid-1950s. Hattie also doubts the effectiveness of church doctrine when she witnesses Nancy and Janet’s hypocrisy. They cruelly laugh at Adam just after a service—they have clearly not absorbed any message of tolerance. Hattie is similarly disappointed in the priest’s generic funeral service for Adam. The church and its teachings do not embrace the lessons Hattie learns from Adam: authentic communication and honesty.

The top of the Ferris wheel represents life at its fullest. At its apex, riders experience a sense of joy, wonder, and a feeling of being at “the center of the universe” (130). Seeing Millerton spread out below, Adam compares the town to Oz and Neverland, fantastical lands from L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz  series and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, and to Nirvana, a place of peace and happiness in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. But as the Ferris wheel turns, returning its passengers to the ground, Millerton once again becomes its regular self. The bottom of the Ferris wheel brings sadness, fear, and bad times. Adam comments that the Ferris wheel is “too good,” and he is right. The view of perfection from the Ferris wheel’s view is unsustainable and fleeting. When the Ferris wheel breaks, it catapults Adam from perfect rapture to perfect terror. His extreme mood swings reflect his reactions to everything in life.

Dad loves taking family films with his movie camera, but in the Prologue, Hattie observes that Dad’s home movies feature “only the good times” (xi). They do not capture actual life-changing events. The home movies are another aspect of characters’ focus on appearances, rather than genuine emotions. He captures Nana and Papa going to church, Hattie’s birthday parties, and the Fourth of July picnic. Dad also directs his subjects so intently that his films border on deceptive: asking his family to wave, to pantomime rubbing their stomachs to show their appreciation of good food, and smile so long on the Ferris wheel that their smiles feel “branded” onto their faces. Dad’s films have a single perspective: Life is happy and perfect. The films reflect the family tendency to cover up unpleasantness and not discuss difficult things. To an extent, Dad hides behind the camera, capturing events the way he wants everyone to remember them. Notably, Adam does not follow Dad’s movie directions: Adam cannot be emotionally inauthentic. Adam only smiles on the Independence Day film because Hattie genuinely makes him laugh.

The beloved American sitcom I Love Lucy was the most popular television show in America for four of its six seasons. Adam can recite most of its 180 episodes verbatim and has pictures of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz tacked to the walls of his room in Nana’s house. The show reflects Adam’s exuberant nature, his way of exploring life and peeking around the corners of his universe. Hattie believes that Adam likes Lucy because “She is completely imperfect”—like Adam himself (183). In I Love Lucy, Lucy wants more out of life than being a housewife. She continuously attempts, and fails, to become famous like her husband Desi. Like Lucy, Adam pursues happiness with varying degrees of success.