What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky

“Glory” is a story with a hint of the fantastic, though it largely stays in the realm of realistic fiction. It is somewhat absurdist from the outset, with the main character’s parents naming her Glorybetogod. As a clear but unsuccessful attempt to influence the course of their daughter’s life, the name both develops and subverts the theme of How Mothers Shape Their Children. Glory’s parents pin “on her every hope they had yet to realize” (175), hoping that she will be educated, successful, religiously devout, and a good cook to boot. Her grandfather, however, sees that Glory “has something rotten in her, her chi is not well” (176). Glory proves him right throughout her life, starting with deciding to put her hand in the dog’s mouth, which the story attributes to “the caul of misfortune covering Glory’s face that would affect every decision she made, causing her to err on the side of wrong, time and time again” (176). Cauls (membranes that sometimes cover newborn babies) are often signifiers in folklore and superstition. The use of such language in a story that largely takes place in a modern-day call center in Minneapolis prompts readers to ask whether the negative events that occur in Glory’s life are truly the result of fate or can be attributed to some other, more mundane cause.

The note Glory writes her parents provides a possible clue to what is behind her bad luck. She writes:

I was born under an unlucky star and my destiny has caught up with me. I’m sorry, Mummy and Daddy, that I didn’t complete law school and become the person you’d hoped. But it was also your fault for putting so much pressure on me (177-78).

Twice in a three-sentence note, she denies responsibility for her life, blaming an unlucky star and her parents for bringing her to this low point. The latter suggests that Glory’s parents have shaped her life—if not in the way they intended—but it is not clear that this is the case. Even before she passes out, Glory realizes that her note takes no accountability for her own actions. Additionally, her parents “did put pressure on her, but it was the sort of hopeful pressure that might have encouraged a better person” (178). As Glory herself recognizes, she is argumentative, which causes her nearly to flunk out of college, and spiteful. When presented with a choice, Glory “[is] always drawn to the wrong one, like a dog curious to taste its own vomit” (182). The passage further blurs the line between fate and free will; Glory’s life may be the product of her choices, but if she is “drawn” to those choices by an impulse she doesn’t understand and can’t control, that impulse serves as a kind of destiny. Then again, this may simply be Glory’s rationalization—another attempt to avoid responsibility.

Regardless, Glory meets her foil in Thomas. He is accomplished, devout, good with money, and dedicated to his mother. He makes friends easily, and part of her despises him not only for getting what he wants but for how he “attribute[s] it to ingenuity and perseverance, unaware of the halo of good fortune resting on his head” (189). This reinforces an element of the theme of How Privilege and Suffering Shape Perception, wherein the privileged attribute their positions in society to personal qualities and not to any head start. Likewise, Glory keeps secret her bad luck as their relationship deepens, which she can do because “people like Thomas were never suspicious, as trusting of the world’s goodness as children born to wealth” (186). This description suggests a class difference between them, though there is none. That in itself is telling: Glory has had many of the advantages that Thomas has, but she has sabotaged them all herself. At the same time, the parallel invites reflection on whether this really makes Glory any more “deserving” of her fate than a person born into poverty deserves theirs.

Since Glory has failed to “appease the gods” by making good choices, she sees her way to happiness in trickery. For example, she tries to impress Thomas’s mother but finds that the easiest way to do that is not to talk about herself. As she holds up the engagement ring that will not only wed her to someone who will balance out her bad luck but will lead her to another life—one in Nigeria—she can’t help but feel disappointed. She wants to turn her life around on her own, but marrying Thomas represents the end of the “hope that one day all her missteps would stumble her into accomplishments she could hold up as her own, that the seeming chaos of her life would coalesce into an intricate puzzle whose shape one could see only when it was complete” (198). The author leaves it up to the reader to decide not only what choice Glory makes but which one is the right one—questions further complicated by Glory’s propensity for making the wrong decision.