The Collected Works of David Lavery 1

Deconstruction
at
Bat:
Baseball
vs.
Critical
Theory

in
Northern
Exposure’s
“The
Graduate”



“How
can
you
hit
and
think
at
the
same
time?”

Yogi
Berra



“I
thought
you
were
beyond
authorial
reference.”

Professor
Martin
in
“The
Graduate”



In
December
2004
an
admired
colleague
and
I
crossed
paths
on
campus.
We

had
not
seen
each
other
in
weeks,
and
as
we
caught
up
on

personal
and
professional
news,
the
subject
turned
to
the
then

recently
deceased
Jacques
Derrida.
Everyone
who
knows
me
is

aware,
or
so
I
thought,
that
I
was
not
a
fan.
Had
I
not
given
a
talk

several
years
ago
entitled
“The
French
Disease:
European
Memes

and
the
Infection
of
Western
Thought”?
Was
I
not
fond
of

quoting
(as
I
do
again)
David
Lehman’s
query
in
Sign
of
the
Times:
Deconstruction

and
the
Fall
of
Paul
De
Man,



How
to
explain
the
cachet
of
deconstruction,
the
way
it
has
infiltrated
public

discourse?
At
the
crudest
level
of
its
appeal,
the
word
announces
the
writer’s

knowingness:
I’m
hip
to
what’s
hip.
I
know
what’s
happening
in
the
world
of

big
ideas.
A
Los
Angeles‐based
screenwriter
named
Mark
Horowitz,
trying
to

explain
the
current
French
enthusiasm
for
movies
starring

Mickey
Rourke,
places
the
deconstruction
craze
in
the

perspective
of
“a
constant
war
between
the
U.S.
and

France.”
In
Horowitz’s
words,
“We
sent
them
Jerry
Lewis,

so
they
retaliated
by
sending
us
deconstruction
and

Jacques
Derrida.
.
.
.
Deconstruction
conforms
to
an

American
preconception
of
the
cerebral
French
in
the
same
way
that
Jerry

Lewis
in
The
Nutty
Professor
represents
a
Frenchman’s
impression
of
an

1
American
type. 




1
David Lehman, Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of
Paul DeMan, Poseidon Press, 1991, p. 22.
 The Collected Works of David Lavery 2

2
So
when
my
colleague
proceeded
to
mourn
the
loss
of
the
late
‘Boa
Deconstructor’ 

as
the
passing
of
one
of
the
great
‘public
intellectuals’
of
our
time,
I
did,
I
will
admit,

almost
lose
it.
‘Public’
intellectual?
How
could
such
a
world
class
promulgator
of
the

indecipherable
be
deemed
a
‘public’
intellectual?
Horns
locked,
both
of
us
a
bit

shocked
at
the
animosity
we
had
conjured,
we
backed
away
and
changed
the
subject.

No
doubt
you
are
wondering
what
all
this
has
to
do
with
Northern
Exposure.
I

began
here
because
I
wanted
you
to
know,
up
front,
that
I
have
a
dog
in
this
fight—

and
by
fight
I
mean
a
sixth
season
episode
of
Northern
Exposure
entitled
‘The

Graduate.’



Northern
Exposure
(1900‐1995)
was
always
a
supremely
literary
television
series.
In

the
Season
Three
episode
‘Cicely’
(3:
23),
for
example,
we
learn
that
Franz
Kafka

once
visited
the
small
Alaskan
town,
where
he
was
first
inspired
to
write

‘Metamorphosis.’
In
Season
Five’s
‘Una
Volta
in
L'Inverno’
(5:
17),
septuagenarian

store
owner
Ruth
Anne
Miller
sets
out
to
learn
Italian

so
she
can
read
Dante’s
Divine
Comedy
in
the
original.

Season
Six’s
‘Up
River’
(6:
8)
evokes
Conrad’s
Heart
of

Darkness
(not
to
mention
its
cinematic
reimagining
in

Apocalypse
Now),
with
Ed
Chigliak
playing
Harry

Marlow/Benjamin
Willard
and
Joel
Fleischman
as
Kurtz.

And
from
first
episode
to
last,
morning
DJ
Chris

Stevens’
radio
monologues
are
full
of
references
to

great
writers
and
thinkers.
As
Robert
J.
Thompson
has

observed,



Sometimes
Northern
Exposure
wasn't
just
like
reading

a
good
book,
it
actually
presented
people
reading
good

books.
Throughout
one
entire
episode
[Season
Two’s

‘War
and
Peace’],
for
example
.
.
.
Chris
Stevens
.
.
.

reads
passages
Northern
Exposure
Special
Issue
7
from

War
and
Peace.
In
the
meantime,
according
to
the

producers'
plot
synopsis,
the
residents
of
Cicely

‘experience
Tolstoyesque
nightmares
and


2
Geoffrey Hartmann, ‘Preface’, Deconstruction and Criticism, ed.
Harold Bloom, et al, Continuum, 1979, pp. i-viii.
 The Collected Works of David Lavery 3

Dostoyevskian
passions.’
Chris,
an
intellectual
dilettante
who
seemed
to
be

taking
all
of
his
on
air
rambling
patter
from
a
college
syllabus,
went
a
long

way
in
giving
the
show
its
cerebral
if
somewhat
self‐important
veneer.
At
one

time
or
another
during
the
course
of
the
series,
Chris
made
references
to

works
by
Hegel,
Kierkegaard,
Kant,
Nietzsche,
de
Tocqueville,
Jefferson,

Whitman,
Baudelaire,
Melville,
Shakespeare,
Jung,
Jack
London,
Edna
St.

Vincent
Millay,
and
many
other
authors.
No
nerd,
Chris
was
just
as
fluent
with

Raymond
Chandler
or
Def
Leppard,
but
it
was
his
perpetual
name‐dropping

and
passage
citing
from
the
Great
Books
that
seemed
to
announce,
as
[John]

Falsey
and
[Joshua]
Brand
[the
series’
creators]
had
often
boasted,
that

3
Northern
Exposure
wasn't
written
for
the
‘mass
audience.’ 



No
single
installment
of
Northern
Exposure
seemed
less
directed
to
a
mass
audience

than
‘The
Graduate,’
written
by
Sam
Egan
and
directed
by
James
Hayman,
an
episode,

very
near
the
end
of
the
series’
run,
concerned
with
Chris’
defense
of
his
thesis,
in

partial
fulfilment
of
an
M.A.
in
a
University
of
Alaska
extension
program.
Indeed,
the

intended
audience
for
‘The
Graduate’
would
seem
to
be
not
someone
with
a
Nielsen

box
but
the
faculty
of
an
English
department.
Chris
has,
it
seems,
penned
a

deconstructionist/post‐colonial
reading
of
the
Ernest
Lawrence
Thayer
classic
‘Casey

at
the
Bat’
and
finds
himself
forced
to
navigate
the
Scylla
and
Charybdis
of
his

openly
adversarial
committee
members.
Professor
Dick
Schuster,
a
traditional

literary
scholar
who
(in
his
own
words)
wants
to
treat
‘a
poem
as
a
poem
and
not

just
a
code,’
dislikes
reading
presentist
political
implications
into
a
poem
from
1888,

and
refuses
to
grant
a
‘diploma
for
glibness,
nor
even
erudition.’
Prof.
Aaron
Martin,

on
the
other
hand,
an
advocate
for
‘interpretive
freedom’
and
‘hermeneutic
license,’

is
a
young
Turk,
impressed
by
the
candidate’s
outlaw
status
(a
high
school
drop‐out,

Chris
had
once
done
hard
time
back
in
West
Virginia)
and
predisposed
to
the
thesis’

understanding
of
the
big
guy
at
the
plate
as
a
combination
Nietzschean
übbermensch

and
emblem
of
American
manifest
destiny.
As
Chris’
orals
begin,
we
get
a
taste
of
the

opposing
forces.

At
the
outset,
Professor
Schuster
reminds
Chris
that
‘brevity
is
the
soul
of

wit,’
and
Martin
counters
his
senior
colleague’s
quotation
of
Alexander
Pope
by

evoking
Dorothy
Parker’s
‘Brevity
is
the
soul
of
lingerie.’
In
response
to
Schuster’s


3
Robert J. Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street
Blues to ER, Continuum, 1996, pp. 164-65.
 The Collected Works of David Lavery 4

question,
Chris
successfully
defines
‘objective
correlative,’
identifies
T.
S.
Eliot
as

the
source
of
the
term,
and
recites
William
Carlos
Williams’
‘Red
Wheelbarrow’
as
an

example.
Then
Martin
asks
a
question
that
would
seem
like
a
parody
if
it
weren’t

frighteningly
representative:
‘In
what
way
does
the
relativism
embodied
in
Melville’s

duality
of
evil
presage
the
moral
ambiguities
of
twentieth
century
colonialism?’

‘Heaven
help
us,’
Schuster
groans,
but
Chris
answers
in
the
spirit
of
the
question,

proclaiming
radical
notions
about
the
‘whole
paradox
of
colonialism,
the
benevolent

imperialist,
the
hubris
of
the
first
world,
the
marine
corporal
with
a
Zippo
in
Nam

who
had
to
burn
down
the
village
in
order
to
save
it.’

Though
I
cannot
be
absolutely
certain,
I
would
venture
to
say
that
this
may

have
been
the
first,
and
perhaps
the
only,
time
‘objective
correlative’
was
ever

discussed
in
prime‐time.
It
may
also
have
been
the
network
television
debut
of
the

word
‘presage.’
At
this
point,
however,
tensions
are
only
simmering.
No
one
is
taking

Chris
to
task
for
his
mangled
metaphors—how
precisely
does
one
bring
a
‘great
white

whale
to
its
knees’?—or
his
ideas.
Prof.
Martin
is
pleased,
deeming
Chris’
rant
‘right

on,’
and
Professor
Schuster
bites
his
tongue,
not
yet
ready
to
go
to
war.

Northern
Exposure
was,
of
course,
an
ensemble
dramedy,
and
‘The
Graduate,’

like
every
episode,
explores
multiple
story
lines,
one
of
which
serves
to
counterpoint

Chris’
thesis
defense.
Maggie
O’Connell
outbids
Maurice
and
becomes
owner
and

proprietor
of
the
town’s
only
movie
theatre
and
immediately
hires
Cicely’s
cinephile

Ed
Chigliak
as
‘in
house
film
consultant.’
Drooling
over
movie
catalogs,
captivated
by

the
prospect
of
screening
Diabolique,
Last
Year
at
Marienbad,
The
Italian
Straw
Hat,

Mr.
Hulot’s
Holiday,
Blue
Angel,
and
Eyes
without
a
Face,
but
clueless
about
the

actual
movie
tastes
of
his
fellow
citizens,
Ed’s
programming
choices
prove
unpopular,

and
Maggie
must
finally
put
her
foot
down,
overruling
Ed’s
taste
for
‘obscure
classics

and
cult
films.’
Dumb
and
Dumber
is
ordered,
and
in
the
final
movie
theatre
scene

Forrest
Gump
is
packing
them
in.



 The Collected Works of David Lavery 5



There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-
Casey at the Bat
hugging third.
by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Then from 5,000 throats and more there

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the
rose a lusty yell;
Mudville nine that day:
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in
The score stood four to two, with but one
the dell;
inning more to play.
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled
And then when Cooney died at first, and
upon the flat,
Barrows did the same,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the
the bat.
game.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he

A straggling few got up to go in deep
stepped into his place;
despair. The rest
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in
smile on Casey's face.
the human breast;
And when, responding to the cheers, he
They thought, if only Casey could get but a
lightly doffed his hat,
whack at that -
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at
Casey at the bat.
the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy
his hands with dirt;
Blake,
Five thousand tongues applauded when he
And the former was a lulu and the latter was
wiped them on his shirt.
a cake;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the
So upon that stricken multitude grim
ball into his hip,
melancholy sat,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer
For there seemed but little chance of
curled Casey's lip.
Casey's getting to the bat.

And now the leather-covered sphere came

But Flynn let drive a single, to the
hurtling through the air,
wonderment of all,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the
grandeur there.
cover off the ball;
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball
And when the dust had lifted, and the men
unheeded sped-
saw what had occurred,
 The Collected Works of David Lavery 6

"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun

one," the umpire said. is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and

From the benches, black with people, there somewhere hearts are light,

went up a muffled roar, And somewhere men are laughing, and

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a somewhere children shout;

stern and distant shore. But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone Casey has struck out.

on the stand;

And its likely they'd a-killed him had not "Phin"

Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great

Casey's visage shone;

He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the

game go on;

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more

the spheroid flew;

But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire

said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and

echo answered fraud;

But one scornful look from Casey and the

audience was awed.

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they

saw his muscles strain,

And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that

ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth

are clenched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon

the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now

he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of

Casey's blow.
 The Collected Works of David Lavery 7

In
the
episode’s
titular
story
line,
something
quite
similar

transpires
as
Chris
Stevens
abandons
his
elitist
deconstructionist

inclinations—Denis
Donoghue,
after
all,
once
described

deconstruction
as
a
sad
attempt
by
the
academy
to
develop
its
own

1
avant‐garde —in
favour
of
more
traditional
critical
assumptions.
His

conversion
begins
at
a
dinner
party,
hosted
by
the
always
pompous

plutocrat
Maurice
Minnifield,
at
which
the
culture
war
erupts
and

Chris’
committee
members
come
to
blows.

After
Martin
and
Schuster
hit
up
Maurice
for
endowing
a
chair
(clearly
an

ongoing
discussion),
talk
turns
to
Derrida
and
Barthes,
and
the
death
of
the
author
(a

moment
in
literary
history
praised
by
Martin
as
a
releaser
of
all
the
hidden
meanings

buried
in
a
text),
and
Chris
expresses
for
the
first
time
misgivings
about
his

poststructuralist
way
of
approaching
literature,
wondering
what
happens
to
‘beauty

is
truth,
truth
beauty’
(Keats—from
‘Ode
on
a
Grecian
Urn’)
under
such
an
episteme.

Banter
between
Martin
and
Schuster
becomes
increasingly
confrontational,
and
this

time
it’s
personal.
To
the
former’s
accusation
that
his
senior
colleague
clings
to
old

ideas
in
order
to
remain
department
chair,
Schuster
responds
with
sarcastic
glee

‘You
better
get
used
to
those
faculty
apartments.’
When
Schuster
scolds
Martin
that

‘You
and
your
carjacking
protégé
.
.
.have
put
2000
years
of
accumulated
knowledge

into
a
rhetorical
Osterizer
and
grinded
it
all
into
oblivion.’
he
characterizes

Schuster’s
old‐
fashioned
mindset
as
‘bigotry
with
panache.’
As
Chris
looks
on
in

wonder,
they
go
for
each
other’s
throats
but
are
separated
by
the
powerful

Minnifield,
who
angrily
(and
hilariously)
reminds
them
‘Gentleman,
it’s
only

literature’

Earlier
Chris
had
offered
a
toast
to
academia:
‘in
a
world
of
ever
more

compromise
and
pettiness,
the
last
refuge
for
ideas
and
idealism
for
their
own
sake.’

At
Maurice’s
Chris
begins
to
realize
his
naiveté
and
sees
for
the
first
time
that
the

hostility
critical
theory
has
spawned
may
be
a
sublimation
of
such
non‐intellectual

petty
matters
as
who
holds
the
department
chair,
or
secures
the
office
with
a

window,
or
gets
the
best
housing.
As
the
cliché
we
all
know
has
it,
the
competition
is

so
fierce
because
the
rewards
are
so
small.




1
Denis Donoghue, ‘The Strange Case of Paul DeMan’, New York Review
of Books, 12 October 1989, pp.32-37.
 

Van
Gogh,
Beethoven,
Thoreau,
Emerson,
Poe,
Shakespeare



Not
surprisingly,
bearing
witness
to
such
a
spectacle,
even
if
it’s
only
about

literature,
causes
Chris
to
have
bad
dreams.
He
finds
himself
in
a
war
zone,
leading
a

platoon
that
include
soldiers
named
Beethoven,
Van
Gogh,
a
‘Nevermore’
uttering

Poe,
and
Shakespeare,
under
fire
from
a
sniper.
The
radio
brings
news
that
the

sniper
has
taken
out
the
entire
‘Transcendental
45th,’
including
Emerson,
Thoreau,

and
Fuller.
A
too‐brave
Shakespeare,
distraught
over
the
death
of
Poe,
is
himself

gunned
down
and
dies
uttering
the
famous
last
words
‘It
is
a
far,
far
more
better

thing
I
do.’
An
angry
Chris
goes
after
the
sniper,
only
to
come
face‐to‐face
with

himself.

Television
doesn’t
get
any
better,
or
any
more
literary,
than
this.

Shakespeare,
of
course,
gets
all
the
best
lines—his
‘They
got
Eddie!’
lament
upon
the

death
of
Poe,
his
anachronistically
fatal
quotation
of
Dickens’
A
Tale
of
Two
Cities.

But
it
is
Chris
who
comes
away
terrified
but
enlightened
by
his
dream‐shattering

ouroboric
recognition
that
the
canon‐terminating
sniper—and
take
note
how
well
the

metaphor
works—is
really
himself.
The
next
day,
‘Chris
in
the
Morning’
is
all
about

his
doubts.
As
Ray
Charles
wails
the
appropriately
titled
‘Tell
me
What
I
Say’
in
the

background,
Chris
acquaints
all
of
Cicely
(and
the
television
audience
as
well)
with

his
growing
methodological
concerns.
‘You
analyse
something
too
much
you
just

grind
it
into
dust,’
he
has
come
to
think,
wondering
if
his
whole
pursuit
of
a
degree

may
have
been
a
misguided
venture:
‘I
should
never
have
opened
that
matchbook.

‘We
are
looking
for
people
who
like
to
think.’’
But
such
musings
are,
in
fact,

rhetorical,
for
Chris
has
concocted
a
new
plan
for
his
thesis
defense.

Anyone
who
has
been
around
universities
for
a
time
has
probably
heard

Academic
Legends
about
theses
and
dissertation
defences—the
one
making
the

rounds
when
I
was
working
on
my
M.A.,
for
example,
about
the
doctoral
candidate
at

the
University
of
Minnesota
who
lost
his
lunch
all
over
the
conference
table.
Thesis

and
dissertations
have
even
found
their
way
into
films.
In
Irvin
Kershner’s
The
Eyes

of
Laura
Mars
(1978),
for
example,
released
the
year
I
finished
my
own
dissertation,

a
serial
killer
is
revealed
to
be
a
detective
(played
by
Tommy
Lee
Jones)
driven
to

psychopathy
by
his
inability
to
even
finish
his
treatise.
Earlier
in
the
decade,
in

Richard
Rush’s
forgotten
semi‐classic
Getting
Straight
(1970),
Elliott
Gould
plays
a

deeply
confused
graduate
student
named
Harry
Bailey
who
inadvertently
brings
to

his
thesis
defense
at
Berkeley
a
hollowed‐out
book
filled
with
pot
and
then,
as
riots

erupt
outside
and
his
committee
becomes
embroiled
in
a
debate
over
Leslie
Fiedler‐
esque
ideas
about
the
homoerotic
subtext
of
The
Great
Gatsby,
goes
nuts.
After

insisting
that
the
major
verse
form
in
English
is,
in
fact,
the
limerick
(and
reciting
a

particularly
profane
one),
Bailey
jumps
up
on
the
conference
table
and
brings
the

defense
to
an
end
by
planting
a
sloppy
kiss
on
the
lips
of
his
committee
chair.




 

Getting
Straight
is
clearly
one
of
‘The
Graduate’s’
ancestor
texts.
Airing
as
it

did
in
March
1995,
it
is
not,
however,
‘come
back
to
the
raft,
Huck,
honey’
ideas
that

are
its
antagonist
but
deconstruction
and
poststructuralism,
and
Chris
Stevens
is
no

Harry
Bailey.
For
there
is
method
in
his
madness.
As
Professors
Martin
and
Stevens

await
the
candidate’s
arrival,
about
to
declare
him
a
no‐show,
they
are
summoned
to

a
snow‐covered
baseball
diamond
for
a
field
test,
if
you
will,
of
his
new,
much
less

esoteric,
understanding
of
‘Casey.’

‘What’s
the
meaning
of
this?’
Schuster
asks,
appropriately
enough,
as
they

arrive
at
Minnifield
Field,
and
Chris,
punning,
replies
that
he
wants
to
‘take
another

swing’
at
Thayer’s
meaning.
To
Martin’s
surprised
rejoinder,
‘I
thought
you
were

beyond
authorial
reference,’
Chris
asks
him
to
take
a
bat
and
go
to
the
plate.
As

Chris
recites
the
poem
from
memory,
Martin
goes
down
on
strikes
three
snow‐
covered
pitches
later,
the
last
two
whiffs,
just
like
the
Mighty
Casey.
Striding
toward

his
vanquished
examiner,
Chris
intones
Thayer’s
final
lines:



Oh,
somewhere
in
this
favored
land
the
sun
is
shining
bright,

 The
band
is
playing
somewhere,
and
somewhere
hearts
are
light;

And
somewhere
men
are
laughing,
and
somewhere
children
shout,

But
there
is
no
joy
in
Mudville—mighty
Casey
has
struck
out.



Pointing
to
Martin’s
stomach,
he
explains
‘That’s
what
Casey
at
the
bat
is
about—
that
feeling
in
your
gut.’

‘I
thought
you
were
beyond
authorial
reference,’
It’s
one
of
those
meta‐media

moments
that
make
a
proselytiser
for
television,
especially
what
I
have
been
calling

of
late
‘television
creativity,’
squirm
with
joy
on
my
couch
potato
couch.
Mirroring
in

its
development
its
antecedent
media
literature
and
the
movies,
both
slow
to

discover
the
author/auteur
and
then
surprisingly
anxious
to
finish
him
off,
television,

you
see,
is
supposed
to
be
made
in
anonymity.
Only
now,
as
we
speak,
are
TV
auteurs

emerging.
Only
now
are
we
beginning
to
recognize
the
creative
human
beings
who

make
television,
a
medium,
nearly
everyone
agrees,
supremely
friendly
to
the
writers

who
produce
such
brilliant
fare
as
‘The
Graduate’
while
toiling
largely
in
obscurity.
I

know
next‐to‐nothing
about
Sam
Egan,
its
author,
which
doesn’t
seem
quite
fair,

since
he
seems
know
a
lot
about
me—about
us.
But
I
do
know
this:
like
me
he

believes
that
deconstruction
has
had
its
turn
at
bat,
its
innings
even,
and
has
now

struck
out.