Michael Montoya ENGL 2700 Ms. Kati Lewis 05/07/2013

1. Examining the Flawed Structure: A Post-structuralism Analysis of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbs Michael Montoya ENGL 2700 Ms. Kati Lewis 05/07/2013

2. The design of this project is to present what has been acknowledged as simply a childhood comic, as a full bodied text capable of critical analysis, and true substance. Bill Watterson plays with Sassure’sStructuralist Activity, deconstructing it to a bare minimum to present the binary of youth vs. development; therefore, opening up a grander opposition, one of innocence (unfiltered knowledge as Calvin applies it) vs. the structural corruption that is involved with growing up.

3. Calvin: Isn’t it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it’s weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us? Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life. Calvin: (after a long pause) I can’t tell if that’s funny or really scary. (Watterson 239)

4. Innocence Calvin and Hobbs is basically a “coming of age” narrative with a medium switch, and the existential twist of Calvin never truly growing up. Although the latter can be haunting in such instances as Calvin’s elaborate day dreams that save him from the mediocrity of everyday life (sound familiar?), this character structure allows Bill Watterson to fully examine Calvin’s youth and innocence, and all the strings that pull them in the many directions that will ultimately make up Calvin’s identity when he “grows” up. “God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” (Watterson, 147)

5. The Structures in Calvin’s Life School Throughout the comics the reader learns of Calvin’s deviant behavior in school, The trouble he has paying attention in class, and completing assignments. All things that would be diagnosable, and have been, to most six year olds like himself. This structure limits Calvin, putting him and many children like him in the late 1990’s in a “box” labeled “un-teachable” or “having ADD.” Education is a major influential structure to early childhood, and Calvin is nothing but punished for his artistic ability told to focus more on his math.

6. Family Like many to all kids in the 1990’s, Calvin was a kid of a struggling, white middle class family. There is even a widely accepted theory, one that Bill Watterson neither confirmed or denied, that Calvin has a dead older sibling. This structure of being an only child, one way or another, impacts him greatly, turning to unconventional means for companionship, and thus is born Hobbs, the philosophical stuffed tiger. But how Calvin interacts with his parents, although mostly rebellious, can all be explained as a plight for attention, feeling rejected and very alone in a greatly transitional time in his life. This structure again fights against Calvin’s artistic youth, constraining him to grow up quickly.

7. Summer and Winter The most relatable and interesting of structures because they directly impact Calvin’s identity. He spends these vacation periods cramming each day full of fun, waiting for snow, wishing for snow, and producing some of the best quotes underneath a tree with a tiger. This structure impacts Calvin’s identity two things, one of which Calvin is aware of: Calvin knows that these opportunities are few and have a time table, and he allows it to impact him completely resolving to never waste a moment with anything other then bliss, regardless of the cruelties of an unfair world “I know the world is unfair, but when can it be unfair in my favor?” (Watterson 98) he exclaims when getting sick on the first day of summer. The second is these seasons are shaping him into a “productive individual.” These structures of seasons will operate around him his entire life, even if the idea of summer is not actually in July, and he is structured to fit “fun” within it’s necessary confines of the idea of summer, or winter.

8. The Identity Clouded, like all identities, is that of Calvin’s future. Bill Watterson rightfully stopped writing the comic series in the height of it’s prime leaving readers alone with their existential overtones, nostalgic metaphors (“How can you expect to be cool without a Sombrero?”) (Watterson 200,) and anti-system messages. If remembered for nothing else, Calvin and Hobbs will always stand alone for the dialog exchanges from a six year old, and his stuffed tiger. From:

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10. One’s identity is a very complex, abstract idea examined, changed, and re-proportioned throughout one’s life. Lacan said we only achieve true identity before one begins to mimic our surrounding influences. (Lacan 1125) It is undeniable that the cultural, or social influences one faces each day of their lives have the ultimate impact on who we are. But where is the substance in this? Is humanity merely a pawn driven by the hand of fate to the other side of the chess board? Bill Watterson in his comics seeks to find the answer to all these questions of “true substances” and “meaning” exploring the ideas through the vessel of a lonely, creative six year old that will live timelessly on as both a masterfully created character of a underrated work of literature, and a nostalgic creation of all of our childhoods; one we, like Calvin, wish we never had to give up for the ebb and flow of the universal winds.

11. Work Cited “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” Jacques Lacan 1123-1128. Richter, H David. The Critical Tradition 3rd Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007 Watterson, Bill. The indispensable Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes treasury. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1992. Print. “Nature of the Linguistic Sign” Ferdinand Saussure 842-844. Richter, H David. The Critical Tradition 3rd Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. Social, group competition for valued, political, and economic resources. "White Identity and Race Relations in the 1990s."University of Hartford's Academic Web Server. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 May 2013. <http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/doane/Whiteid