Rough Draft of “Up in the Air” essay

  Walter Kirns novel “Up in the Air” is a form of Juvinalian satire writing.  “Underneath the enlightenment ideals of rationality, order and knowledge, society embraced a pervasive obsession with “decorum,” (Jonathan J. Szwec, 2011).  Ryan Bingham is a travelling businessman in career transition counseling.  The form of dark satire involved in the characteristics of Ryan Bingham and in many aspects of this novel are that there are many forms of tragedy involved with the daily habitual routines of the line of work Ryan is in.  His basic description of his job is to travel around under the employment of his firm ISM (Integrated Strategic Management), and fire people from their jobs in what he has prided himself as being the most effective way to handle the jobs requirements.  There are numerous personal conflicts involved with Ryan and all of the personal relationships he has in his life.  Through the experiences described both in the novel which was published in 2001, and a movie based on the novel released in 2009, there are many similarities to the overall theme that gets to the heart of the story.  However, in the time that has elapsed in the time from which the book was written there have been drastic changes in the world, business, and economy.  The movie captures many of the struggles that Ryan is faced with in the movie as well, but the movie has made some significant changes that show a much different side of the character Ryan Bingham.  The movie also adds a character named Alex that is a sort of love interest as well as a character that really adds a lot of self-recognition to both of the characters as they travel and learn from each other the harsh circumstances that are involved with their line of business.

  With the Juvinalian satire as a theme for the characters in this novel, it is a very dark reality that is involved with the expectations and daily formalities involved with career transition counseling.  Ryan Bingham has been with INS as a career for many years and has been collecting his frequent flier miles for the duration of his employment.  Ryan’s goal is to reach one million frequent flier miles and become the seventh person in Great West Airlines history for achieving that status.  Ryan intend on quitting his job with INS and is convinced that Myth-Tech has been looking into hiring him.  Ryan Bingham has only one week left under employment of INS before he accrues his frequent flier miles and will want to quit working for INS.  The name Myth-Tech seems to be a just that; a myth.  Ryan is determined to earn those flier miles and has many conflicts with his family in achieving this.  Ryan’s sister is engaged to be married in this last week Ryan is on his way to achieving his goal.  Some of the forms of dark satire are demonstrated in Ryan’s attitude and dialogue with his sisters and his mother.  He is unwilling to give up any of his frequent flier miles to a friend of the family that wants to come to the wedding but cannot afford to do this without help.  The conflicts he has with his mother really show that his priorities are not to his family and that his dream of achieving his goal comes before anything else.  There is some very funny situations especially in the movie in this form of dark satire that take sometimes disturbing circumstances and make light of the situation or a joke of it.  When many of these situations are causing extreme isolation and obsession over what Ryan believes are what is most important to him.  The business dealings he has with people he is firing also are intended to make the reader or audience laugh when people are fired from their jobs.  In one instance in the movie a woman tells Ryan that she is going to jump off a bridge and kill herself when she learns that she is being fired.  That was not so much one of the humorous aspects of the satire, but was certainly part of the dark portrayals of Ryan’s business.

  There are other sad parts of the movie and the book when Alex is left or broken up by her boyfriend, or when Ryan learns that a woman that he realizes that he loves turns out to be married with children.  It is another example of the dark humor when Alex is dumped by her boyfriend when she goes out with Ryan and the woman he is seeing to a rap concert and gets really drunk.  These are not things that most people laugh at but Bingham turns the situation into something very comical.  These are also very good qualities in Ryan and the story which could be described in the book and movie as Horacian satire that are tragic to the characters yet they make you laugh.  Many of the scenes when people are being fired and their reactions are outrageous they are also very funny.  Bingham has a very very good style of writing that take real events that happen to people every day, and he shows you how the same situation can be devastating and fatal to some people and have very tragic outcomes, and the same thing will happen to another person that is tragic and their reactions he describes are very funny.  For a writer to get those kind of emotions out of the characters and make you feel what they are feeling, or at least make you sympathize with their situation are things that we all go through at times in our lives.  It is a good writer that can make you feel those struggles, or joy, or embarrassment, or whatever it may be that people can relate to real life situations that they have been through or have seen friends or family go through. 

  Ryan Bingham is portrayed as a very confident person in this novel and movie, but his isolation and vulnerability are also very evident.  In the movie he is taking Alex on the road with him to teach her that the business that they are in is not some kind of easy, unemotional thing that is affecting the lives of the people they are dealing with.  Her character really gives a real description of portraying the hard nose, unemotional type of person that can deal with people in those situations and not be affected by it.  This novel really represents what our economy is like. People are suffering, and struggling through life in this day and age every day in the circumstances this novel is depicting.  The novel was even written before 9/11 and the recession in the United States really happened.  The movie kind of brings the same plot or storyline, but updates it since the wars in Iraq, and all the terrorist threats we have had on our nation.  Traveling sales people did not have to go through half the security and threats of terrorism that have happened since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have reappeared in many years with attacks on US soil now.  The job crises in this country was very well portrayed in the scene in the movie where Ryan goes to an office building that is almost completely empty with only two or three people working there, and he is there to fire someone or everyone.  This story hits home with a lot of people who have been fired from their jobs that they have worked for the company almost their entire lives.  This movie shows the impact that the people who have to do the firing have on their lives.  It shows that it is not an easy job.  That companies have to hire people to fire people.  I also recognized the Juvinalian satire as well as the Horacian satire when Alex first came to the company INS and had what she thought was the brilliant idea of just firing people over a computer screen, and Ryan confronting her with several scenarios of how an employee may react when you are telling them they are losing their job.

  “Up in the Air” had very many realistic things that really made many valid considerations to how many people are affected by the recession that has been going on time after time for generations that make this novel timeless in many ways.  Not only were the main characters lives shown in a realistic way, but how they suffered as human beings doing the firing, and that the people being fired were not the only ones being affected.  Walter Kirn Talso showed the affect that it has in many different lives involved in the theme of this book.  The satire was expressed both humorously and tragically as pretty much everything in life has a side to it.  It was interesting to read something that was tragic yet somehow makes you look at points in your life that you have felt the same way and can laugh because you have been through it and you can identify with it.

Works Cited

Walter Kirn. Up in the Air. novel, 2001

Howard Bretherton.  Up in the Air,film, 2009

Jonathan J. Szwec.web. 2011