Obligated Decoration

While some have suggested the Ricketts’ fireplace décor is motivated out of a desire to experience unity with the poor at large and others have asserted they adorn their hearth in an effort to escape their defunct position through aesthetic distraction, I find instead that Agee’s language is intended to frame the Ricketts’ decoration as an action birthed from obligation.
Their house demands it.
First, it must be noted that Agee’s description of the Ricketts’ fireplace concludes a longer exposition describing the Ricketts’ house as a whole. Agee is careful to note that their home, unlike the humble dwellings of others in their station of life, was originally made for occuants of the “ordinary lower-middle-class” (170). The house, like the family itself, has a past. And its past design necessitates present action.
The Ricketts’ must beautify. A fireplace cannot go unadorned, just as a front porch made for socializing must be “kept nearly clear of junk” (171).
The pictures, then, are displayed out of obligation to the space. Agee explicitly asserts this as he says the Ricketts have “crusted” their walls with decoration “in obedience” to the demands of the house. Every “broad and handsome” fireplace must be dressed.
But let me be clear: While the act of decorating is one forged from duty, the decorations themselves are reflections of the Ricketts’ current status.
By juxtaposing the demands of an elevated living space with the reality of the Ricketts poverty, Agee is developing an archetype. He is attempting to create an image to describe the many Americans who have experienced such generational loss and shame.
It becomes clear that Agee is crafting a type as one examines the objects he notes above the fireplace – ie. pictures of “fireside coziness of the poor” (175) – as well as the footnote that honestly admits that the description is part “memory” and “In part improvised” (176). The specific details themselves are not nearly as important as the image that is developed, namely, one of economic loss but enduring familial obligation.
Agee is fascinated by the Ricketts' sense of obligation to decorate in spite of their depressed economic circumstances.