virga vay and allan cedar

Sinclair Lewis' short story "Virga Vay and Allan Cedar" has always seemed just a couple of tweaks away from being something that the Coen Brothers might come up with.  Something between Barton Fink and Fargo, but with less violence.  There's the undertone of dark humor.  There's the Midwestern and specifically Minnesota setting, which puts it in the world of Fargo; there's a meek yet desperate man trapped in a bad situation, and there are bullying, semi-grotesque American caricatures along with a violent conclusion (both Fargo and Barton Fink).  But then like Barton Fink or Fargo, the meek desperate characters are still trapped -- but now things are worse, because they tried to take action.

Timid Virga and Allan are caught up in an adulterous affair, but we have to root for them because they're each married to otherwise lousy spouses.  They can't or won't divorce because apparently in pre-World War II society, a bad marriage was like a prison sentence you just had to endure.  Allan is a dentist and generally tormented by his "fat and vicious" wife Bertha, who works daily to undermine his confidence and mental well-being.  Virga's husband Orlo is the local optician and not as cruel as Bertha, but he still doesn't understand his wife nor does he particularly want to, with his general complaint being that Virga has no gumption and spends too much time daydreaming.  Virga and Allan meet secretly to make "shy, eager love in mossy pastures" or read poetry to each other, or to share banana splits like teenagers at soda fountains in other towns.  When Bertha inherits a bunch of cash and a house in California from a "horrible aunt," she decides that she and Allan will leave the frozen Midwest and that Allan can now suffer in a a sunnier climate.

"It occurred to Allan to murder her, but not to refuse to go along.  Many American males confuse their wives and the policeman on the beat."

Allan's next plan of action is to enjoy a final lovefest with Virga at a St. Paul hotel, and then the two of them will commit suicide to be eternally together. Virga first wonders if they can't just run away someplace, but Allan notes that Bertha has a private detective cousin and that he'll find them no matter where they go.  Allan pretends to attend a dentists' seminar and Virga joins him at the hotel; they take bubble baths and read more poetry and drink whiskey, then decide to end it all by sitting in Allan's car, now rigged up to have the exhaust funnel back in and asphyxiate them.  They start to slip into the happy fog of oblivion but then the windows are shattered and they're dragged out of the car and back to reality.  Bertha and her detective cousin have tailed them.  Allan's jaw gets broken in the life-saving process and Virga's face gets slapped surely more than necessary by Bertha to help her return to consciousness.  Later, Allan finds himself back home recuperating while his wife jeers to their friends how "Ally tried to--you know--with a woman, but he was no good, and he was so ashamed he tried to kill himself."

"Please go away and don't torture me," Allan mutters.

Virga finally gets her divorce from Orlo and ends up working at a 5 & 10 in Des Moines.  She writes several letters to Allan, but Bertha gets to them first and presumably rips them up, throws them in the trash, or reads them aloud in a mocking voice to the ladies in her bridge club.

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Pictured:  Hotel by a Railroad -- Edward Hopper (1952)