Functionality vs. Beauty

The description of the Rickett’s fireplace from Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men seems at first to be, simply, another passage of the book in which Agee attempts to drown his reader in the details. But when the details are focused on, their implications dwelled upon, it becomes apparent that Agee is doing more with this passage than simply describing the scene to his reader.

The Rickett’s have decorated their mantle, an extremely important focal point for the family (as Agee tells us since it is the only fireplace in any of the families’ houses capable of providing a substantial amount of heat for a room), with calendars and adds that advertise things obviously out of reach for the family. This may be seen as a shrine to the hopes for the future for the family, a collage of their desires, a source of motivation for the family. But what I would like to suggest is the possibility of the purpose of these advertisements being beyond the understanding of the family, that instead this collection of pictures and captions has more to do with beauty than with functionality.

In the following section “Notes” Agee discusses his perception of beauty in the houses of the families. In this section Agee discusses how this sense of beauty was able to arise out of his naivety towards their functional shortcomings- in other words, because the function of the houses was of less importance to him the houses became something more abstract capable of containing a beauty that was not intended by those who created them nor perceived by those that used them. This realization prompted him to ask the question “are things ‘beautiful’ which are not intended as such, but which are created in convergences of chance, need, innocence or ignorance, and for entirely irrelevant purposes?” (p178) He then proceeds to explain to the reader that, at least for him, the answer is yes.

The Rickett’s fireplace then also seems to be dealing with that same question, and provides a similar answer. The advertisements were created not for their beauty but for their functionality to produce more sales. But this purpose is lost on the Ricketts, it may not be that they do not understand the purpose of an advertisement, but rather that it is of less importance to them than the beauty they contain. This mirrors exactly how, for Agee, the function of a house is understood, yet his appreciation for them is not one of practicality but instead of their aesthetic value.