Nostalgia and Discontent George Saunders' CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

Nostalgia, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is "a bittersweet longing for the things, persons, or situations of the past." If that is the case, then George Saunders's stories in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline tend to gravitate more toward the bitter than the sweet. The present, as depicted in this collection of stories, whether in the characters' lives or in society, leaves much to be desired. Everyone is dissatisfied and nostalgic for the past, whether real or imagined. And yet the past, as it is actually remembered, also brings equal discontentment. One might say that Saunders's characters are simply neurotic to a fault, but a deeper analysis poses a more interesting question about the real source of their unhappiness.

One way in which to examine that source is to look at the way the past is rendered. Throughout his stories, Saunders threads a common theme pertaining to the commodification of nostalgia. For instance, the settings in "Bounty" or the title story, "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," take place in theme parks that recreate the past. In "OffLoading Mrs. Schwartz," the protagonist uses modules to download personal memories to sell to a school principal. In all three stories, the past is treated as entertainment. In "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," "The Desperate Patrol," costumed like soldiers at Gettysburg, enact a rebellion which is suppressed by a "rousing speech," a sing-a-long, fireworks, and a parade like something out of a Broadway musical (7). The children in "Offloading Mrs. Schwartz," happily experience sanitized versions of American history via downloaded memories, identifying "a Mercury Cougar with no prompting" and calling each other "Nixon whenever a trust is betrayed" (75). The staged death of a child from cholera in "Bounty" equally becomes a source of amusement when "[t]he Clients titter and check their Events Schedules and a few who are really in the spirit of the thing start laying coins on Scotty's chest" (90).