Cows

Television is a symbol of the hollow promise of a normal life and the destructive power of idealized images. For Steven, the TV is a cruel mirror reflecting a world of love, family, and happiness that is utterly inaccessible to him. It is the primary vehicle for the theme of The Illusion of the American Dream, projecting a manufactured reality that fuels his increasingly destructive quest for belonging. Steven accepts the lives he sees on screen as models for the only authentic way to exist, turning his own squalid and isolated life into evidence of personal failure. His desire is to become what they are, to live in a world where, as he imagines, “when you looked at the TV it was a mirror” (3). This desire is what drives him to acquire a wife, child, home, and financial security, viewing them as essential components for his “plagiarized blueprint for living” (47).

The artificiality of this blueprint becomes increasingly apparent after Steven kills the Hagbeast and temporarily appears to achieve his goal. The apartment becomes an idealized domestic space modeled on television families for Steven and Lucy, and her pregnancy seems to provide the final component of the life he has imaged. However, attaining this does not produce the security it promised, as Steven instead becomes increasingly anxious about what he has built and turns repeatedly to violence to preserve it. At the same time, Lucy recognizes that their love is a performance and that their unhappiness still exists. When Lucy’s death finally destroys Steven’s imagined family, he turns his back on the television and regards it as “a liar.” In this moment, the screen becomes incapable of delivering what it promised, exposing the destructive consequences of treating culturally manufactured images of happiness as instructions for how life must be lived.