Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on
Earth is a graphic novel, also known as a comic, by Chris Ware. I would first bring up the point that it took
me a while to get used to reading this novel by the way its set up but between
the images ranging in different sizes to the images being flipped to where you
have to turn the book a few times to read it properly, it took me quite some
time to get adjusted to it. Once I got
accustomed to the novel, I began to see how the character Jimmy went on about
his everyday life with everything he had to get accustomed to. Although, one thing I quickly grasped onto
was how the title of the novel states that he is the smartest kid on earth.
By reading through the story I wouldn’t think that
is true and many people probably wouldn’t either. The reasons being is how he really doesn’t
have any friends, no interests, no type of love live, but only a mom who
bothers him so much that he gets annoyed.
Having a life like that while being a grown man seems depressing,
especially when he even looks way older than the age he actually is and on top
of that his dad abandoning him when he was a baby.
When referring to Jimmy’s dad, you
still almost get the feeling to wonder why he was hardly in his son’s life to
begin with. He had disappeared for
almost 30 years with Jimmy only keeping in touch with him by a few phone calls
and a dinner. The second dinner didn’t
even happen because his dad had stood him up, thinking he would get his act
together after being away from his son after all these years. Before Jimmy could get in touch with him
again, his father had already died.
You seem to wonder what type of man
just walks out on his own child. Jimmy
Corrigan’s mind had to be filled with questions like was he unhappy? Was he too weak to take care of me? Did he get tired of mom and that is what
drove him away? Of all these questions,
he would never really get to know now.
It has to be hard growing up without a father because kids tend to look
at them as hero’s, role models, and even to some Superman. That’s how I
looked at my dad when I was younger. At
times he would look like the strongest man in the world and had all the
super-powers. He would throw me up over
his shoulders while I thought I was the tallest guy in the world and pick up
things that seemed so impossible for anybody else to do. That’s just the way your mind thinks when
you’re a kid.
There were also times when he would
play catch with me outside and do simple things like help me with my homework
when it had to be done. It didn’t take
much for my father to become my superman.
Just from him being there alone would be better than him actually having
super-powers or being able to fly. That
leads me to believe that maybe that’s all Jimmy really wanted, s superman
figure in his life which could’ve been his father.
After going through all of that, I surely wouldn’t think he’s the
smartest and that’s simply because of his decisions. But, that’s when his imagination comes in to
play. In Jimmy’s mind, he thinks of
himself as being superman, having a really hot girlfriend, being a robot at
times, and basically anything people would think of in order to have an
exciting life. By Jimmy visualizing his
life this way even though it isn’t happening in reality, gives me the reason to
believe now why he is the smartest kid on earth.
While referring back to him being
superman and putting that mask on I think can relate to the rest of this novel
and how it is portrayed. For instance,
when you’re a kid you tend to think of fictional characters like superman and
want to be like him some day. Who
wouldn’t, when you can fly around and be the hero by saving the world and have
everyone look up to you. Since Jimmy was
a little kid, you can tell that being someone like superman would always be his
goal and after putting on that mask, it gave him an even greater imagination of
becoming him. That’s the key point to
when his imaginations started to get broader throughout the years. As he got older, he never stopped having
these imaginations because it’s like he always had that hope that these things
can happen someday.
If you think about it, Jimmy had
never stopped wearing Superman clothes from when he was younger till when he
got older. He would still walk around
with that blue Superman sweatshirt on wherever he went as if he was a young boy
still. He could care less what people
think because deep down in his mind he still had that hope of becoming that
super hero one day. Other than him
always wearing that sweatshirt, there were also many other issues that lead to
his mind being the way it was.
By Jimmy not having friends, a
girlfriend, or any interests plays a huge part in the whole superman
imagination. He knew that if he could
become superman then the friends, girlfriend, and having an interest in doing
certain things would automatically take place and happen without any
worries. The rest of this novel plays
out as dealing with loneliness, failure, and fear, but being superman means
that you won’t get lonely because you’ll be saving the world, you won’t be
scared of failure because you have the physical and mental ability to achieve
greatness, and you won’t have fear because you’ll be super-natural and nobody
can stop you.
Lastly, as
you read through this novel and examine closely, you will realize that Jimmy
never really has a smile on his face. He
always looks confused, sad, lonely, or just flat out absent-minded in life. These expressions go a long way from experiencing
time spent throughout the years with no father, to never having the friends and
encouraging people around to keep him uplifted.
That goes back to being Superman and feeling like you’re on top of the
world. If he would’ve had that chance
then you would be seeing way more smiles throughout this book from Jimmy and
not a lot of that isolated look from him.
In conclusion, Jimmy Corrigan grows
up to be a man that still has the mind at times of a child. He doesn’t live the life that he always
imagined because it’s unrealistic and never got a chance to experience anything
that was similar to it. Although, I feel
that if he had gotten a chance to do something superman-like rather than just
an imagination, he would approach life more differently so he wouldn’t have to
feel so lonely, afraid, and annoyed all at once.
Work Cited:
Ware, Chris. Jimmy
Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. New York: Pantheon, 2000. Print.
Daoust, Phil. "Daddy, I Hardly Knew You." The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 20 July 2001. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
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