The Spectacular

Throughout their investigation of the Big Apple Bomber, Marion and Peter highlight the importance of pursuing civic responsibility in support of the larger community. When Marion recognizes that the police are mishandling the Big Apple Bomber case, she takes it upon herself to seek justice for Judy’s death. In doing so, she faces considerable opposition from the male characters, who dismiss Marion as being incapable of solving the case. Specifically, Marion scrutinizes Detective Ogden’s inability to identify the Big Apple Bomber, saying, “[T]hirty-one bombs, and they have no better idea who’s setting them than they did sixteen years ago. What’s it going to take to catch this guy?” (65). Asking this essential question inspires Marion to find creative ways to uncover Martinek’s identity herself. Not only does she ultimately identify Martinek as the Big Apple Bomber, but she also takes a direct role in his apprehension, physically attacking him and incapacitating him without any assistance from the men in the story.

During the investigation, Peter also becomes a central figure to illustrate this theme, for his unique assistance in the form of psychological profiling proves instrumental to catching the bomber. In many ways, his position as a psychiatrist and an outsider causes the police to marginalize him just as they do Marion, and their resistance to accepting outside help serves to emphasize the importance of finding creative ways to make one’s voice heard, especially when it comes to aiding in keeping the larger community safe. In addition to assisting Marion with the Big Apple Bomber investigation, Peter feels compelled to help those who are experiencing mental health issues or substance misuse disorders. His volunteer activities at the Salvation Army reflect this selfless passion, and as Marion realizes the sheer number of men who languish in such challenging circumstances, the narrative emphasizes her inner reflections by stating, “Peter was doing so much good in the world, while Marion wore silly costumes and tap shoes in order to earn her weekly paycheck” (204). While Marion incorrectly marginalizes her own passions in this moment, her thoughts nonetheless reflect the fact that Peter is the first man she has met who prioritizes the needs of society over his own. Peter believes he only has a limited time to make a significant impact toward bettering society, and he therefore makes significant sacrifices to prioritize civil responsibility over personal gain.

While working with the Rockettes, Marion makes several sacrifices for the benefit of the group. First, Marion reins in her individual, natural dancing style in order to accommodate the precise, uniform style that the Rockettes demand, and this dynamic is reflected during one particular rehearsal in which Russell lectures the dancers, saying, “What we do is about the art of synchronization, precision, which involves suppressing your individual dancing style. Not an easy thing to do, by any means” (54). Marion never fully masters the Rockettes’ unique style, for despite her earnest efforts to blend in, her natural flair for improvisation causes her to stand out in subtle ways even when she performs the choreography perfectly. When Marion realizes that her efforts to blend in aren’t working, she sacrifices her position with the Rockettes altogether, knowing that the troupe’s style will be stronger without her. As the tears in her eyes demonstrate when she officially relinquishes her position, the decision to leave the show is a devastating one, for the camaraderie of the Rockettes has provided her with a degree of support and professional validation that she never thought she would be able to achieve.

Marion also makes personal sacrifices for her family, as is evident from her long endurance of Simon’s tactics of control and manipulation. Even after learning of his deceit about Lucille and his active concealment of Martinek’s personnel file to protect his own reputation, Marion finds it within herself to gives up her dream of living in Manhattan so that she can support her father while working as a choreographer. To mitigate this personal disappointment, Marion rationalizes her decision; as the narrative states, “if she moved in with him, the money that she would have spent toward an apartment could go instead to their living expenses, as well as hiring help” (330). Marion therefore relinquishes her financial independence to care for Simon, believing that Judy would have wanted her to look after him. Marion confesses to Peter that she wants to have children; however, she spends nearly all her free time in her 20s and 30s tending to Simon instead of starting her own family. Still, she never regrets her decision to make these sacrifices, and she feels better prepared to confront her own Parkinson’s diagnosis after caring for Simon.

Significantly, Marion is not the only one to make deep personal sacrifices, for Peter also gives up the opportunity to pursue a romance with Marion out of fear that his family’s history of mental health issues will affect him as well, causing him to eventually become a burden to Marion. As a result, Peter selflessly sacrifices their relationship to ensure that Marion will have the freedom to pursue her career. However, years later, he admits regretting his decision to leave her, stating, “I was a coward, I guess that’s one way to put it” (347). Acknowledging the fact that he put too much effort into attempting to control fate, Peter realizes that his fear caused him to lose decades with the love of his life. When he learns that, like him, Marion never married or had children, he jumps at the opportunity to undo his sacrifice from years prior, and this conclusion marks a turning point in the development of both characters, for, having spent a lifetime denying their own desires in order to support others, they finally have the opportunity to pursue their own mutual dreams to the fullest extent, rectifying their past periods of self-denial.