The Old Bird by J. F. Powers
"The Old Bird" by J. F. Powers centers on Charles Newman, an elderly, former white-collar worker navigating the challenges of unemployment and the search for dignity in a new, humble job. Feeling the weight of his age and past pride, Newman enters a shipping room position, where he faces both the physical demands of the work and the emotional struggle of accepting his new role. His interactions with colleagues, particularly Mr. Hurley, underscore the generational tensions and attitudes towards aging in the workplace, as Hurley's remarks highlight the stigma associated with Newman's age.
Despite initial feelings of humiliation, Newman finds small victories and camaraderie among his coworkers. The narrative also delves into his relationship with his wife, illustrating the complexities of their long-standing partnership as she patiently supports him through his struggles. The story poignantly captures themes of resilience, identity, and the dynamics of love, as Newman grapples with his place in a world that seems to overlook him. Ultimately, he learns to embrace his new reality, finding joy in even the smallest achievements and the enduring love of his wife.
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The Old Bird by J. F. Powers
First published: 1944
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The early 1940's
Locale: An unspecified city in the northern United States
Principal Characters:
Charles Newman , the "old bird"Mr. Hurley , his bossMr. Shanahan , the personnel officerMrs. Newman , the old bird's wife
The Story
Charles Newman is an elderly man, a former white-collar worker who was proud of his position but is now unemployed and desperate for work. As he enters the office of the company where he is hoping to be hired, he feels intimidated by his knowledge of his age and his humiliating status as a supplicant who has known better days. His nervousness and forced joviality are met with kindness by the receptionist, and his job application is reviewed favorably by Mr. Shanahan, the personnel officer, who offers him temporary employment wrapping parcels in the firm's shipping room. Mr. Newman chokes back his feelings of hurt pride and accepts.
His new boss is Mr. Hurley, who grimly advises Newman of the great responsibility involved in making sure that packages get to their destinations intact. Hurley cites the horror story of an unfortunate shipment to Fargo, North Dakota, and Mr. Newman can only nod his head in sad acquiescence to the miseries that great companies endure.
Mr. Newman is put to work immediately, struggling to capture with twine a half-dozen sets of poker chips, a box of rag dolls, five thousand small American flags, and a boy's sled going to Waupaca, Wisconsin. Being born again in the work force is not without its minor traumas for Mr. Newman, who cuts his nose on a piece of wrapping paper and bruises a shin on an ice skate. He perseveres through the morning, however, and gets to punch a time clock for the first time when the noon whistle blows.
Not having brought his lunch, as have his coworkers, Mr. Newman wanders on the sidewalk until he finds a ten-cent hamburger to go with a five-cent cup of coffee. He returns to work feeling good about himself but has to explain to the company-proud Mr. Hurley why he did not eat in the employees' lunchroom. The exchange ends with what Mr. Hurley thinks is a satisfying round of hearty good feeling. Mr. Newman's is increased by some idle chat with a fellow worker, and he begins to feel at home.
This cheer is soon deflated by a remark he overhears Mr. Hurley make to Mr. Shanahan at the water cooler. "'Yeah,' Mr. Hurley said, 'When you said the old bird was handy with rope I thought, boy, he's old enough to think about using some on himself. My God, Shanahan, if this keeps up we'll have to draft them from the old people's home.'" At the end of the day, Mr. Hurley addresses him as "Charley" ("He had never before been 'Charley' to anyone on such short acquaintance"), and Mr. Newman realizes that any show of ambition on his part would be wasted: He is "an old bird."
At the end of his heroic day, Mr. Newman makes the epic journey home in the snow by streetcar, stopping to buy a newspaper as in the old days. His wife meets him anxiously, waiting patiently for him to explain his long day away from home. He hangs back, forgoing his usual end-of-the-day small talk with her. He grumps over petty matters. He postpones the admission that he got a job in the shipping room instead of in the office. The small drama that ensues grows out of years of living together affectionately:
She appeared amused, and there was about her a determination deeper than his to wait forever. Her being so amused was what struck him as insupportable. He had a dismaying conviction that this was the truest condition of their married life. It ran, more or less, but always present, right through everything they did. She was the audience—that was something like it—and he was always on stage, the actor who was never taken quite seriously by his audience, no matter how heroic the role. The bad actor and his faithful but not foolish audience. Always! As now! It was not a hopeless situation, but only because she loved him.
Mr. Newman's understanding of his wife's love encourages him to make a full confession of his fall to the shipping room, and from then on they enjoy the evening together as she takes part in his glorious adventure. He even makes his newfound handiness with rope a badge of wage-earning manliness, and they conspire in his fiction that he will be kept on in the job after the Christmas season. On this note the drama ends: "He was the bad actor again. His only audience smiled and loved him."
Bibliography
Evans, Fallon, comp. J. F. Powers. St. Louis: Herder, 1968.
Gussow, Mel. "J. F. Powers, 81, Dies." The New York Times, June 17, 1999, p. C23.
Hagopian, John V. J. F. Powers. New York: Twayne, 1968.
Long, J. V. "Clerical Character(s)." Commonweal, May 8, 1998, 11-14.
McInerny, Ralph. "The Darkness of J. F. Powers." Crisis, March, 1989, 44-46.
Merton, Thomas. "Morte D'Urban: Two Celebrations." Worship 36 (November, 1962): 645-650.
Meyers, Jeffrey. "J. F. Powers: Uncollected Stories, Essays and Interviews, 1943-1979." Bulletin of Bibliography 44 (March, 1987): 38-39.
Powers, Katherine A. "Reflections of J. F. Powers: Author, Father, Clear-Eyed Observer." The Boston Globe, July 18, 1999, p. K4.
Preston, Thomas R. "Christian Folly in the Fiction of J. F. Powers." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 16, no. 2 (1974): 91-107.