Unzipping the Suspicious Pants

If I had to choose anything that stuck out to me the most when I first started this class, it is without a doubt the “suspicious pants” conversation. In this discussion, we were asked to dissect and analyze the meaning of a particularly suspicious pair of pants from Twitter. Needless to say, I never expected to do something like that in a college-level English class. In fact, that was probably the most time I have spent talking at a pair of pants that looks it has eyes.

The thing that baffled me the most was the idea that this pair of pants encapsulated everything about Percival Everett in one image. I could not fathom this idea and  I found myself scrambling to find any similarities at all. I was unsuccessful for the most part, but after reading more of Everett’s work as well as interviews, I am starting to believe that the suspicious pants have more to do with Everett than I previously thought.
 
Let’s start by taking the pants and Everett at a surface level. When one first looks at the pants, things seem pretty straightforward. It is a lighthearted, silly image akin to many others found on Twitter. All that we see are a pair of pants that look like they have eyes.
 
Similar things could be said about Everett, particularly in his various interviews. Everett’s responses are often curt, humorous and blunt. In an interview with VQR Online, Everett states “Sure. Any good literature has to be regional, because it has to be set in a place. Not that that’s the defining feature of it, I don’t think that that’s true. But any novel that thinks it’s not regional, well, then it’s USA Today.” When Everett says something he quickly presents his ideas and then moves on. Everett does not linger on what he says and instead leaves things wide open for interpretation of the reader. 
 
That brings me to why Everett and the suspicious pants have so much in common. If you think about the pants for a while, it raises several questions. I for one began to wonder why the pants are there, who put them there, why they look suspicious and how the language in the image affected my point of view. Everett works in a similar manner. While Everett appears to present his ideas in an up-front, matter-of-fact style, his ideas go beyond quips, just as the pants go beyond being pants. The sharp-edged sarcasm disguises high-level concepts that readers are free to extrapolate from.
Am I crazy for comparing an acclaimed writer to a pair of pants? I might be. But above all, I believe that this ability to analyze and dissect is pivotal when dealing with any form of literature. Everett’s ideas, like the pants, have considerable depth beneath the surface. Ignoring that would be a disservice to ourselves as readers and thinkers. While it is a cliché of English scholars to overanalyze everything, I believe one can gain much by taking a second look at things that no one else would.

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