By personifying a commonplace household appliance, further
amplifying "Lamp's" identity by removing the definite article,
"Résumé for a Lamp" successfully causes the reader to look at an
otherwise unexceptional item in a different light. This effect is especially apparent when Lamp
is portrayed as a nine month precursor to a midwife, a cognizant being capable
of going to college, and a world traveler. Where articles and even subjects of
sentences have been eliminated, the piece not only reads like the résumé it claims
to be, but could also pass for a stylized Craiglist ad with its very specific
purchase history.
Weldon
undermines the conventional résumé as well.
Some sentences are fragmented, short, and to the point as would be
expected, while others are lengthened and have narrative qualities. There is no mention of potential “employment”
or a prospective buyer. Where the
average résumé will only include an applicant’s experience, skills, and other
qualifications, Lamp’s shortcomings are likewise exposed: its initial bulbs are
replaced for being annoyingly bright, it is stolen at an in-house charity
event, and it is described as a rebel when it short circuits.
Specific
events in Lamp’s life are highlighted, but the chronological order is skewed
and the occurrences are not written in their actual succession. The action randomly transitions between Lamp’s
production, its first owner (the Patriarch), its current residence, and
everything in the middle. The tense also
tends to shift abruptly, without any compliance with whether events are taking place now
or in the past.
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