Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - László Dányi: Decoding Decoded Systems: An Interpretation of Steven Millhauser's "In the Penny Arcade"

disturbs and deforms them" (Sarraute 90). The more realistic and the visible the world is the more deformed and distorted it becomes. As I mentioned it under the proairetic code, shedding light onto something provides the answers to our questions, and as the illusion is killed the mystery cannot be sustained any longer. In order to preserve mystery the boy seeks a darker corner in the arcade where he discovers all the typical people and objects one might find in a place like that. At a symbolic level some of these objects can have ironic implications. For example the toy derrick which could be a symbol of gambling as a crane, but it might as well mean the symbol of death as a gallows. If the reader follows the latter line, which can be argued for from the preceding context which is the following, Tough teenagers with hair slicked back on both sides stood huddled over the pinball machines. In their dangerous hair, rich with violence, I could see the deep lines made by their combs, like knife cuts in wood. I passed a glass case containing a yellow toy derrick..." (Millhauser 136) Interestingly enough he will conclude that the derrick breaks and kills the childish illusions and dreams a few lines further on when the child despises his childishness. 5. The referential code The penny arcade which is a place where one lets his hopes be exploited is a part of commercialized culture. The short story recollects all the elements of popular culture which means culture for the people in this case, and then stuffs them into a meatgrinder of the arcade out of which these elements flow like a distorted, confused and annoyingly, or at times funnily mixed mass. In this mass Millhauser establishes a perfect balance between innocence and irony, elation and defeat, sorcery and artifice, novelty and indifference, dream and disappointment, and recoil and wish. 19