Is The Embedded Fabula's Of The Spectacular Now?

Ala (A.W.F) Tabba

2551548

Roel van den Oever

Fiction and Film

21 December 2014

Through the Embedded Fabula’s of the Spectacular Now There is nothing quite spectacular about The Spectacular Now, a coming-of-age story focused on raw teenage romance and alcohol abuse. The events are narrated by Sutter Keely, our perpetually buzzed, and often drunk protagonist, whose focalization is presented through the filter of living in the "now." Karen Coats characterises the protagonists' behaviour in young-adult fiction as “the hyper-narcissi of judging others by own experiences, and an unreflective immersion in and advocacy for those things that please [them] in the moment” (319), which are all personality traits that Sutter exhibits. The story revolves around Sutter’s drinking problem and how it affects his relationships with the people who surround him, all for the sake of immersing himself in the ‘now’. In

Having Sutter narrate the fabula’s of his childhood on a second level made it clear to the reader that Sutter is stuck in his past. Without overcoming the past, his future will always be overshadowed by unresolved issues - from abandonment to substance abuse. The adaptation incorporated the childhood fabula’s on a third level, embedding them in Sara Keely’s perspective in an attempt to help our protagonist see beyond the now (where he is perpetually entrapped). Sutter later reflects on his actions as a learning method in order to empower himself. Sara Day writes about the growth of a protagonist in young adult fiction stating that “the best way for adolescents to gain access to any degree of power is to understand and accept their roles in a system that represses them” (66). The moment Sutter was able to accept his past, he managed to take the first step into correcting his role for a brighter and more optimistic