The Elevator

by Nathan Gale

In Robert Coover’s The Elevator, we are faced with the frustration of a man who knows not properly how to lead his life. Martin is a below average peon at some unknown corporation, working in a cubicle on the 14th floor of a high rise. His life is a series of events that are out of his control, and make his existence seem utterly bleak and absurd. The only dominion he holds over his world is the elevator, (the central background of the story) where he is able to control his life depending on which button he presses. “Impulsively, he presses the “B”- seven years and yet to visit the basement! He snorts at his timidity.” Just as Coover’s narrative is a non-linear adaptation of the possibilities one encounters in their daily routine or narrative, Martins life is sprawling frenzy of fantasies that coexist to make his life seem more exciting, and less vacant of integrity.

These fantasies parallel and essentially create the 15 different monologues that make up the story. Martin is encountering parts of him self through memory and fantasy, while constantly editing them and passing them on to the next monologue. We see how the elevator becomes his only method of communicating both his dreams and desires to himself and it seems the rest of the world. This intensifies in the following passage “Here on this elevator, my elevator, created by me, moved by me, doomed by me, I, Martin, proclaim my omnipotence!” Coover is slyly insinuating that the only way an average man, in modern times, like Martin can stimulate his emotions is through some sort of modern apparatus, that helps simulate both our social and sexual innuendos. Just as a car is a way of showing off our personality, it seems we find ways of encompassing our identity through those technological advances. In Martin’s case this alienates him from having healthy relationships, and causes him to create an imaginary world for himself, confined to the elevators small interior.

In modern times where communication is made impersonal through phones and televisions, a character like Martin does not seem bashful, but seems almost common. Our lives are a confusion of advertising thrown at our brains, we are delivered, it seems, a million different narratives after watching an hour of television or reading a magazine. We ask ourselves "would this make me look better, or this?" We event a million different ways of looking at ourselves in order to buy just the right product. Coover's version of narrative mimics this modern pattern of appeal, this doubling back, and on the spot re-invention. As queer as the story may feel it is not so different from what we experience everyday, and it lulls us away from a comfortable character identity to a place where possibilities seem to act as the very character himself.