Ida Character Analysis

For about a decade now I have witnessed a woeful decline not only in the business of our country but also in the spirit of its people. Where perseverance and ingenuity once dwelled, apathy and despair now loiter. Where self-reliance reigned, beggarly submission now squats. The working man is reduced to a panhandler. A vicious circle has taken hold of our able-bodied men: they increasingly rely on the government to alleviate the misery created by that same government, not realizing that this dependency only perpetuates their sorry state of affairs.

Self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good, as all the transactions [William] conducted throughout his life eloquently show. These two principles (we make our own weather; personal gain ought to be a public asset) I have always striven to follow.

The trials of her tender years and her always delicate health had given her the innocent yet profound wisdom of those who, like young children or the elderly, are close to the edges of existence.

She was too fragile, too good for this world and slipped away from it much too soon. Words are not enough to say how dearly I miss her. The greatest gift I have ever received was my time by her side. She saved me. There is no other way to put it. She saved me with her humanity and her warmth. Saved me with her love of beauty and her kindness. Saved me by making a home for me.

She would narrate a whole book back to me, footnoted with conjectures and predictions. I must say I learned to enjoy those little mysteries. But only in her passionate rendition. It was so lovely to look at her, lit up, lost in her storytelling. She was so captivated by the plot and I was so captivated by her that the food on our plates would grow cold. How we would laugh when we noticed! She always asked me to guess who the killer was, but I had been too distracted looking at her, and it was never the butler or the secretary I offered up as prime suspects. This made us laugh even harder, while I pretended to reprimand her for having made our food cold.

If neither my ancestors nor I had understood that a healthy economy, prosperous for all, had to be safeguarded, our careers would have been very brief indeed. A selfish hand has a short reach.

This is why I find the baseless, libelous accusations directed at my business practice incensing. Should not our very success be convincing enough evidence of everything we have done for this country? Our prosperity is proof of our good deeds.

I have always shunned politics and declined all the positions offered to me. But I am proud to say that during this time I helped to steer the official monetary and trade policies in the right direction by providing informal advice whenever requested. This amicable relationship with the government started in 1922, when President Warren G. Harding summoned me and other businessmen to the White House to help him fulfill his campaign promise to bring prosperity to our people by putting “America First.”

After reading [Bonds], I felt prepared for my first interview with Andrew Bevel. Even more: although it was a work of fiction, the book had convinced me that I was in possession of some essential truth about his life. I was still unable to see just what this truth might be, but this did not prevent me from believing I had, somehow, the upper hand.

That day in Central Park that envelope seemed to contain more than just money. I had never held so much cash in my life. Ten twenty-dollar bills. (Our rent, at the time, was about twenty-five dollars a month.) They were unused and clung to one another. [...] Flipping through them inside the envelope, I noticed they had consecutive serial numbers, which was something I had never seen before. This made me think, with a bodily sort of vividness, of the millions of twenty-dollar bills printed before and after mine and the endless possibilities they represented. The things they could buy, the problems they could solve. My father was right: money was a divine essence that could embody itself in any concrete manifestation.

“Do you truly understand what my job is about?”

“No.”

“Thank you for not attempting a response. My job is about being right. Always. If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake.”

I think of my father. He would always say that every dollar bill had been printed on paper ripped off a slave’s bill of sale. I can still hear him today. “Where does all this wealth here come from? Primitive accumulation. The original theft of land, means of production and human lives. All throughout history, the origin of capital has been slavery. Look at this country and the modern world. Without slaves, no cotton; without cotton, no industry; without industry, no finance capital. The original, unnamable sin.” I keep reading through the draft. Of course, not a single mention of slavery.

It seems that more than vindicating Mildred [Andrew] wanted to turn her into a completely unremarkable, safe character—just like the wives in the autobiographies of the Great Men I read during that time to come up with Bevel’s voice. Put her in her place.

Perhaps this is what Harold Vanner tried to do in his way as well. Why present that broken image of Mildred in his novel? This is a question I have asked myself again and again since first reading Bonds. Why make her mad when she was obviously so lucid? […] He broke her mind and her body simply because it made for a better story (a story he could not resist telling, even if it debased her and, in the end, destroyed him). He forced her into the stereotype of fated heroines throughout history, made to offer the spectacle of their own ruin. Put her in her place.

“What I’ve made, I’ve made on my own. Alone. Completely by myself. And that, in part, is what I proved to everyone during the crash. Regardless of the circumstances there is always room for individual action.”

“Well . . . You weren’t completely by yourself. Your ancestors . . . And your wife was at your side. You did say that Mrs. Bevel saved you.”

At once he lost the impetus his brief speech had given him. “That I did.” He made the salt shaker rotate between his fingers. “And how true it is. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than restoring her image. Thank you, again, for that lovely paragraph with the bouquets.”

For about a decade now I have witnessed a woeful decline not only in the business of our country but also in the spirit of its people. Where perseverance and ingenuity once dwelled, apathy and despair now loiter. Where self-reliance reigned, beggarly submission now squats. The working man is reduced to a panhandler. A vicious circle has taken hold of our able-bodied men: they increasingly rely on the government to alleviate the misery created by that same government, not realizing that this dependency only perpetuates their sorry state of affairs.

Self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good, as all the transactions [William] conducted throughout his life eloquently show. These two principles (we make our own weather; personal gain ought to be a public asset) I have always striven to follow.

The trials of her tender years and her always delicate health had given her the innocent yet profound wisdom of those who, like young children or the elderly, are close to the edges of existence.

She was too fragile, too good for this world and slipped away from it much too soon. Words are not enough to say how dearly I miss her. The greatest gift I have ever received was my time by her side. She saved me. There is no other way to put it. She saved me with her humanity and her warmth. Saved me with her love of beauty and her kindness. Saved me by making a home for me.

She would narrate a whole book back to me, footnoted with conjectures and predictions. I must say I learned to enjoy those little mysteries. But only in her passionate rendition. It was so lovely to look at her, lit up, lost in her storytelling. She was so captivated by the plot and I was so captivated by her that the food on our plates would grow cold. How we would laugh when we noticed! She always asked me to guess who the killer was, but I had been too distracted looking at her, and it was never the butler or the secretary I offered up as prime suspects. This made us laugh even harder, while I pretended to reprimand her for having made our food cold.

If neither my ancestors nor I had understood that a healthy economy, prosperous for all, had to be safeguarded, our careers would have been very brief indeed. A selfish hand has a short reach.

This is why I find the baseless, libelous accusations directed at my business practice incensing. Should not our very success be convincing enough evidence of everything we have done for this country? Our prosperity is proof of our good deeds.

I have always shunned politics and declined all the positions offered to me. But I am proud to say that during this time I helped to steer the official monetary and trade policies in the right direction by providing informal advice whenever requested. This amicable relationship with the government started in 1922, when President Warren G. Harding summoned me and other businessmen to the White House to help him fulfill his campaign promise to bring prosperity to our people by putting “America First.”

After reading [Bonds], I felt prepared for my first interview with Andrew Bevel. Even more: although it was a work of fiction, the book had convinced me that I was in possession of some essential truth about his life. I was still unable to see just what this truth might be, but this did not prevent me from believing I had, somehow, the upper hand.

That day in Central Park that envelope seemed to contain more than just money. I had never held so much cash in my life. Ten twenty-dollar bills. (Our rent, at the time, was about twenty-five dollars a month.) They were unused and clung to one another. [...] Flipping through them inside the envelope, I noticed they had consecutive serial numbers, which was something I had never seen before. This made me think, with a bodily sort of vividness, of the millions of twenty-dollar bills printed before and after mine and the endless possibilities they represented. The things they could buy, the problems they could solve. My father was right: money was a divine essence that could embody itself in any concrete manifestation.

“Do you truly understand what my job is about?”

“No.”

“Thank you for not attempting a response. My job is about being right. Always. If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake.”

I think of my father. He would always say that every dollar bill had been printed on paper ripped off a slave’s bill of sale. I can still hear him today. “Where does all this wealth here come from? Primitive accumulation. The original theft of land, means of production and human lives. All throughout history, the origin of capital has been slavery. Look at this country and the modern world. Without slaves, no cotton; without cotton, no industry; without industry, no finance capital. The original, unnamable sin.” I keep reading through the draft. Of course, not a single mention of slavery.

It seems that more than vindicating Mildred [Andrew] wanted to turn her into a completely unremarkable, safe character—just like the wives in the autobiographies of the Great Men I read during that time to come up with Bevel’s voice. Put her in her place.

Perhaps this is what Harold Vanner tried to do in his way as well. Why present that broken image of Mildred in his novel? This is a question I have asked myself again and again since first reading Bonds. Why make her mad when she was obviously so lucid? […] He broke her mind and her body simply because it made for a better story (a story he could not resist telling, even if it debased her and, in the end, destroyed him). He forced her into the stereotype of fated heroines throughout history, made to offer the spectacle of their own ruin. Put her in her place.

“What I’ve made, I’ve made on my own. Alone. Completely by myself. And that, in part, is what I proved to everyone during the crash. Regardless of the circumstances there is always room for individual action.”

“Well . . . You weren’t completely by yourself. Your ancestors . . . And your wife was at your side. You did say that Mrs. Bevel saved you.”

At once he lost the impetus his brief speech had given him. “That I did.” He made the salt shaker rotate between his fingers. “And how true it is. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than restoring her image. Thank you, again, for that lovely paragraph with the bouquets.”