Generation X

3 Pages 807 Words

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. By Douglas Coupland. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991).

Coupland illuminates the nineteen eighties by utilizing characters Andy, Clair, and Dag to construct a literary portrait of their generation. The job market, consumerism, and literary terms each contribute to identifying the 1980s generation that came of age. Generation X presents the post baby boomer generation who lost the “genetic lottery” causing job dissatisfaction, baby boomer resentment, and the search for something different.
Dag’s story illustrates the X generation job market headed by those such as his boss, which Dag explains “Now, Martin, like most embittered ex-hippies, is a yuppie, and I have no idea how you’re supposed to relate to those people.” Dag furthers yuppie classification as, “Dickoids like Martin who snap like wolverines on speed when they can’t have a restaurant’s window seat in the nonsmoking section with cloth napkins” (21). As his story continues in the chapter titled “Quit Your Job” Dag reflects baby boomer resentment but first he explains to Dickoid Martin, “Well, if I’m going to quit anyway, might as well get a thing or two off my chest.” Following Dickoid’s (Martin) astonished response Dag asks, “do you really think we enjoy hearing about your brand new million-dollar home when we can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and we’re pushing thirty? A home you won in a genetic lottery, I might add, sheerly by dint of your having been born at the right time in history? You’d last about ten minutes if you were my age these days, Martin” (21). This story is especially important because it displays separation in occupational potential between the superior baby boomers vs. the inferior X generation. Most importantly Dag is unsatisfied with his job therefore providing an important aspect of his generation.
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