How do you understand Lorimer as a narrator in “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” How do his memories impact his view of the events he’s witnessing in the present of the story? What is one particular example of the way his earlier experiences color his view of his male crew members or the women on board the Gloria?
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Lorimer’s past has put him in an ideal position as an almost objective narrator in an extremely difficult situation. Bud’s sex driven fantasies render him useless and his masculinity proves to be the driving factor. Daves opposite stance of superiority and demeaning thoughts also making him incapable of giving an objective account. By being bullied for his lack of masculinity Lorimer did have a tougher childhood, but also gained an empathetic route that proves helpful for his reliability as a narrator. Lorimer at times it seems even forces himself to think in an Alpha mentality like his sexual dreams. To me it does not seem to be a genuine wish or even idea, but more of a plea for approval or acceptance. If he could act like a tough guy too then he could maybe forgive himself for the bathroom incident. No act of masculinity can erase a past however and Lorimer does seem to be the smartest character of the three and has his past trauma to thank for being somewhat more cohesive with the women.
Lorimer’s memories of being bullied and cast aside for not being masculine enough serve him to best understand and react to the situation that the crew was facing. When the crew finds out that they have been sent hundreds of years into the future and that Earth is now controlled solely by women, the masculine energy and demeanor that Lorimer has always lacked is emphasized in Bud and Dave. Bud is overwhelmed by the sexual fantasies he hopes to make reality in the new world while Dave condescendingly doubts any advances or validity of the society that the women have achieved. It is ultimately these masculine personas that get the men killed as they posed a threat to the balance of society in the women’s world, however narrating the story through Lorimer’s point of view allows us to visualize this clash of 2 different worlds’ dynamics through a character who is found somewhere in the middle of this masculine and feminine spectrum. Lorimer yearned to be one of these men throughout his life, but his distance from masculinity is what made him the most rational in such a crucial point in the story.
Our narrator, Lorimer’s, experience as a child and young adult shapes the way he views his two fellow male astronauts. The flashbacks to bullying scenes as a teenager I think give Lorimer a more neutral view to the situation. The two other astronauts Bud and Dave are clearly use to depict two different versions of misogynistic men. Bud is used to depict men who treat women solely as sex objects. During the story Bud is unable to really credit the women with what they have accomplished because he is too focused on how he can now impregnate the world. Dave on the other hand is used to exemplify men who seem to think they are superior to women. In both cases Dave and Bud are made out to seem as stereotypical “alpha” male characters. Scenes from Lorimer’s childhood make Lorimer have a negative view towards men like this because Bud and Dave represent his childhood bullies.
Lorimer is scarred by his past interactions with men and women, particularly the short anecdote at the beginning of the story detailing his traumatic humiliation in a woman’s bathroom. It is evident that his entire life, Lorimer has been emasculated and conditioned to feel like an adequate man. However, rather than rejecting the oppressive masculine standards forced upon him, he is instead conditioned to be obsequious to them. This is shown in how Lorimer admires Bud’s athleticism and machismo and Dave’s command over the group. Although Lorimer is likely the most intelligent member of his ship’s trio, he feels meek and belittled by the overt masculinity of his crewmates. He desperately wants to be an “alpha”, and clearly sees himself at the lower rung of the masculine hierarchy.
Similar trauma shapes his opinion of women. Lorimer struggles to prevent himself from glancing at the women’s figures, and when he does it feels as though he is ashamed of himself; not because it is improper, but because he is not enough of a man. The memory of being bullied in the bathroom was also done in the presence of some girls, which to me indicates that he feels emasculated not just by his male peers but by the opposite sex, as well. This could explain his fantasies about binding the women of the ship of the ship and raping them with his crewmates, although he does this compulsively, not because he actually wishes to harm anyone. However, clearly the beastly masculine impulses of Bud have rubbed off on him in some way; if not to gratify his sexual drive, than to get revenge for the humiliation he experienced in the bathroom.
Lorimer’s character is the tragic manifestation of lifelong emasculation by his peers. While he appears to have a strong moral compass, he is possessed with a profound self-loathing that leads him to unconsciously conjure situations that are sexually aggressive. While he may not want to hurt the women on his ship, he is almost compelled to through the coercion of his male crewmates.
I read “Houston, Houston” before anything else, so here are my initial thoughts: I think Lorimer is an interesting choice of narrator because of the ambivalence inherent to his character. He opens the story with one of his memories as a young teenager being shoved into the girl’s bathroom with his fly unzipped by a group of boys. The memory functions as a backdrop for understanding how he views his male colleagues as well as women. The entire story fluctuates between Lorimer’s accounts on the physical sensation of being drugged and memories that precede this state: the whole thing unfolds in a way meant to immerse us into Lorimer’s head. Throughout the story he constructs Dave and Bud as ‘alphas,’ (or ‘jocks’ or ‘Meso-ectos’) almost regarding them as a species somewhat different than himself, with whom he has to negotiate a strange position between outside and inside, passive and active. His position as an ‘accepted’ outsider makes him ineffectual in multiple ways. His begrudging admiration of Bud and Dave’s rapport stems from his inability to assert himself in the chain of command, and his lack of authority in his view is also exacerbated by the fact that he had to sacrifice part of his ‘scientific’ self by participating in ‘outgoing’ activities (tennis, football, skiing, etc.) to achieve his status of accepted outsider. In this position Lorimer is an active observer not only of others but of himself, yet, all of his intellect is limited because it does not translate into action in a world that values activity. He is also limited in the new hierarchy of the all-female world of the future because in the end he is made to be a spectator to the unhinging of Bud and Dave, and his interior process does not translate into anything more than verbal communication. After reading “Women men don’t see” and looking over the slides: I came to understand Lorimer’s ambivalence as the best way to introduce the notion of fragile masculinity into the story. Consider his mindset at the end: while he admits his fear regarding his own vulnerability, the impassioned speech he makes about manhood relies on concepts of masculinity that are canonical of ‘traditional’ gender roles, emphasizing this idea that gender roles might actually be social constructs (revolutionary notion to most men I know even in 2021) and that if Lorimer had not tried so hard to fit in with Bud and Dave, or with the boys that pushed him in the girl’s toilet, these elements of masculinity would not have been part or his identity.
I understand Lorimer to be somewhat of the odd man out in the crew. Where Dave and Bud are strong and athletic, Lorimer is weak and awkward. He is less ‘masculine’ than the other two, but however he is far more intellectual. We learn through the narration that he has frequently been bullied, and carries many of these experiences with him. The other two crew members have far more vocal opinions about women as well, both demonstrating significant amounts of misogyny.
In certain aspects, Lorimer as the narrator evokes a certain irony in the story. It feels fitting to me that a story regarding an all female society of the future is narrated by a man who societal norms may likely label as ‘effimate’. In this regard, I feel as though the choice to select Lorimer as narrator was intentional. There is also a sense of irony in that the two men whomst societal norms may label as ‘masculine and strong’ are the ones who are the most oblivious to their current plight. Lorimer is the one who ends up figuring out that the crew is in danger of impending death; the other two men are concerned with subjugating the women.
With Lorimer as the only character with a clue as to what’s going on, his narration may serve an interesting purpose in this case. There is a side of me that says the piece uses Lorimer to critique traditional masculinity by portraying characters in the story with these traits as unpleasant, aggressive, arrogant, and in many cases vulgar.
In the story “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”, Lorimer is a very intelligent but not physically strong character, which differs from the other two crew-mates, who are more similar to alpha characters. Lorimer quickly realizes that he cannot do what his other crew-mates do—Bud sexually fantasizes about all the women in the world, and attacks one to which he is killed; Dave on the other hand believes that men are so much better than women, and that he is the only way to help the women grow their society. What these two don’t realize is that the women are perfectly happy and performing well by themselves.
Lorimer reflects on times throughout his life when he was bullied for not being physically strong or athletic and for being somewhat a nerd. He is the most feminine of the three crew members. Lorimer discusses how he played sports like volleyball, bowling, and tennis, which presumably are not the “macho-male” physical sports. He even tries telling himself that with another foot and a hundred pounds he’d be just like those guys. He wants to be like the alpha males, and struggles with his own identity. He knows that he is unlike the other two crew-mates, which actually ends up prolonging his life the longest. He knows that those two are too promiscuous and arrogant to appeal to the girls, so he uses that to his advantage and takes a much more passive approach to the girls. He does not make any sexual attempts on the women (like what Bud did), and he also is able to defuse any talks that he is better than the women (like what Dave did). These end up allowing him to live the longest, which shows that the women wanted to understand how the men operate, but realized that they pose far too many problems and would disrupt the harmony within their world.