Quote:
Originally Posted by Far-L
An insightful conjecture, however, I think there must also be a deconstruction of the relationship dialectic that provides the fulcrum of subtext; namely, the antagonist is propelled by the necessity of her inherent conditional, which is she is a stripper and strippers want money, and so requires her to request monetary compensation for her erotic performance. Then, the apparent lack of consideration for this reality becomes the basis for the conflict to ensue; thereby causing a reversal of the sympathetic identification and empathy with the characters. Whereupon, the stripper acts according to her trajectory in the arc of her character, and the dude who can't even flip a buck looks like even more of a shmuck.
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Well, of course. That goes without saying, but if you read into the underlying thematic contraditctions of the story taken as a whole, then the use of that "reversal of sympathetic identification" becomes almost superfluous. To me it's the overweaning ethos of the implied counterpoints between customer and stripper here that make the subtextual construct so nebulous as to almost completely disappear, and we are instead left with the feeling that someone wanted a dollar, and someone else didn't want to give it to them. Surely then, if the entire framework of that dynamic rests on such a simple premise, then the need for some altruistic, "higher purpose" to the tale as a whole becomes blindingly overwhelming and, in a way, almost injiurous to the reader. Don't you think?
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