Roy Spivey Case

Roy Spivey

Roy Spivey is a short story by Miranda July dealing with the meeting between the narrator and a famous actor whom the narrator names Roy Spivey. The meeting ends up having a crucial effect on the rest of the narrators live.

Everything starts of as a coincidence; cause the narrator hadn't planned to sit at first class, but she got promoted because she gave her seat away. She ends up sitting next to this famous actor who is sleeping, and then everything changes. Some sort of connection is established between them at the first eye contact: "I shut mine again and right away opened them, slowly, and he opened his, slowly, and our eyes met, and it seemed as if we had woken from a single sleep, from the dream of our entire lives." (p. 1, l. 14-17) The narrator feels pretty devoted to this Roy Spivey, and it's like time is standing still. The double use of slowly states this allegation. The following lines of the short story pretty much sets the relation between the narrator and Roy Spivey. "Me, a tall but otherwise undistinguished woman; he a distinguished spy, but not really, just an actor, but not really, just a man, maybe even just a boy."(p. 1, l. 17-18) There is no doubt that she doesn't feel like they are equal. She even finds it hard to define what he is, that places him further above her in the hierarchy between them.

She looks at herself as tall but not anything else. The roles are some sort of switched between the genders. In this case Roy is the "goddess". But anyway they are talking ceaselessly in two hours and she gets to know him and even gets intimate details about his personal life and his relationship with the beautiful starlet. This helps her feeling more comfortable. "When the meals were served it felt as if we were eating breakfast in bed together, and when I got up to use the bathroom he joked, "You're leaving me!" And I said, "I'll be back!" (p. 1, l. 23-25) The narrator is feeling this pretty emotional connection to Roy because of that comparison. Roy has started to joke with her, which proves that he feels some sort of comfortable together with her, but still the relation between them is showed because she feels like she needs to insure him that she will be back. That could be a sign of that she's still not feeling that they are that equal yet. She goes to the bathroom to wash her armpits; this turns into a little mess, which discolours her skirt a bit because of the water stains. This is a big deal for her, and she ends up trying to equal the colour on her skirt with the water. This states that she's pretty unsecure, and doesn't wont to look or act like a fool in front of Roy.

When she is back on her seat she explains the whole situation to Roy and he listens to her and helps her with the armpits. This is a quite important passage as Roy is acting quite chill and even sniffs her armpit, which is pretty intimate. He could have made fun of her or made her feel uncomfortable. That is