Notes towards an Educational Transformation

So ends 18-year-old Hal Incandenza’s response to the selection committee at the University of Arizona where he is being interviewed by three Deans, of Admissions, Academic Affairs, and Athletic, the university’s Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and its Academy prorector. He is a shy athlete of “substantial promise” being considered for the “University’s varsity tennis program.” Unfortunately Hal has some “subnormal” test scores and he is too nervous to explain them to the Admissions Committee. He greets their “expectant silence” with his “silent response” (2014, 125). His Uncle Charles does all the talking. Finally, infuriated by both Hal’s silence and his uncle’s unwillingness to stop talking, one of the Deans comes clean: “Look here, Mr. Incandenza, Hal, please just explain to me why we couldn’t be accused of using you, son. Why nobody could come and say to us, why, look here, University of Arizona, here you are using a boy for just his body, a boy so shy and withdrawn he won’t speak up for himself” (130). Hal finally explodes into a stream of verbiage that ends with the above monologue. Appalled by what they have heard, the Deans pinion his arms and legs and wrestle him to the floor. He is dragged through the Administration offices to an “old-fashioned men’s room” and “rolled over supine on the geometric tile” (133).