The Danger in Hoping

             In Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth, Chris Ware explores the danger in individuals allowing themselves to hope through the scene of Jimmy daydreaming he is flying while actually sitting in the doctor’s office.  Up until this point, the readers see Jimmy as a very lonely and repressed narrator who seems to live without any overarching goals.  In order for Jimmy to deny his depressing reality, he constantly daydreams of himself holding various superhuman qualities in order to overcome his daily struggles.  In the doctor’s office, Jimmy wishes to deny the reality that he has a bloody nose after being hit by a car.  The bloody nose symbolizes his feebleness as being merely human, that there are forces in the world stronger than he is, such as the car that ran him over.  In order for Jimmy to ignore his shortcomings as a human, he imagines himself possessing the superhuman ability of flight, as he flies alongside a bird sans bloody nose.  Hope becomes an illusion preventing individuals from seeing the reality of their situations.  For the bird, he literally does not see reality when he falls from the clouds and collides with the window of the doctor’s office.  Flight becomes synonymous with success, and falling with failure.  This is previously demonstrated with the man dressed in the superman costume jumping from a skyscraper only to realize too late that he cannot fly and it was his initial hope that he could which brought about his eventual demise.  Jimmy’s hopeful fantasies remain just that: imaginary.  Jimmy does not overcome his problems in reality when he is caught up in his dreams.  His wishful dreaming can only allow him to deny reality so much before it comes “crashing back”; a crashing that literally manifests itself in the bird’s collision with the window.

The page concludes with the doctor and Jimmy’s father confirming the source of the crashing as “some stupid bird”, dismissing Jimmy’s dreams of overcoming his weaknesses.  This comment also demonstrates an adult disillusionment for dreams whereas Jimmy never “outgrew” the hope that comes with dreaming, explaining why Jimmy is often depicted in a limbo state between child and adult.  It is Jimmy’s hope and belief in superheroes that keep him “stupid” and childlike, which prevents him from acknowledging the reality of his struggles.  For Jimmy, superheroes possess powers greater than any forces in the world, yet it is a dangerous notion to believe humans are capable of superlative greatness.  It is pseudo-superman and Jimmy’s hope that they can fly – or remain uninjured from forces greater than them – that leads to them falling and further hurting themselves.