Kavalier & Clay Part 2 - What is the Why?

In Part One, Michael Chabon largely concerned himself with the recounting of the pre-Clay adventures of the Kavalier half of the tandem. Now, in Part Two, we get to see the first examples of this duo in action, beginning with their impassioned pitch to Sheldon Anapol and Jack Ashkenazy. As the negotiations progress we see this passion expressed through Sam's thoughts, who "felt that he was standing on the border of something wonderful, a land where wild cataracts of money and the racing river of his own imagination would, at last, lift his makeshift little raft and carry it out to the boundless freedom of the open sea" (87). Here we get an insight into what exactly the "'very big money'" (71) means to the artistically inclined cousins: freedom. To come up with the idea from which this freedom will be derived, the pair is given one weekend.

In search of a stroke of inspiration, the newly formed partnership takes to the streets of New York, rattling through a series of animals, abilities, and gimmicks. But repeatedly they find their ideas to be unoriginal, uninspiring, or otherwise unusable as they try to ascertain what makes their idea stand out from those of "'Every skinny little guy like me [Sam] in New York who believes there's life on Alpha Centauri and got the shit kicked out of him in school and can smell a dollar.'" When this question proves unanswerable, the two prod each other towards a critical realization: "'How? is not the question. What? is not the question'...'the question is why'" (94). As an example, it could be said regarding The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay that our protagonists' shared "why?" is the aforementioned freedom that comes hand in hand with their (soon to come) riches: the freedom from Nazi rule for the Kavalier family, the freedom from financial hardships for Ethel Klayman, and the freedom for the two cousins to express their contempt for Hitler and his regime. After Joe tells Sam about his escape from Prague, the latter stumbles upon an idea in the ensuing conversation: the Kavaliers of Prague need a "'super-Kornblum'" (120). Thus, the Escapist is born, but missing the key component of a "why"; to find it, the cousins return to the streets. 

Part Two, Chapter Eight is initially disorienting, but quickly the pieces and new characters begin to fall into place, leaving us with a detailed, comprehensive "why" to explain the Escapist's liberating tendencies. Equipped now with an explanation of Tom Mayflower's transformation into the carrier of the golden key,  the cousins set to work making him and his crew come alive on the page. Before they and their newly acquired crew of artists embark on a coffee-fueled drawing binge preceding their Monday deadline, Joe proposes to Sam a feature of their flagship publication that will come to be defining of the efforts not only of the Escapist, but of the cousins themselves: a cover depicting their hero emphatically introducing his fist to Adolf Hitler's face. With this point we see a clash of the "why"s of the various parties involved in the production of this comic. Anapol, Ashkenazy, and Racy Publications' editor in chief George Deasey see in Joe's cover a liability: something that stands in the way of their profits. "'We could get sued,'" Ashkenazy admonishes Sammy. On the other hand, "Nothing that Joe had painted had ever satisfied him more'" (159). This cover represents to Joe the type of therapeutic escape that so many people, creators and consumers alike, have found in art since its inception as a human practice. But beyond that, Joe has found a way to fight for the freedom of his family, one American child's opinion at a time, and is unwilling to relinquish it. Sammy knows this, and also knows that the "why" of the Escapist himself cannot be corrupted. As he says, "'The Escapist fights evil'...'Hitler is evil'" (160). As Sammy and Joe's display of resolution as they walk out of the Kramler building shows, if we lose our "why," we lose what makes us stand out from the crowd: a quality that cannot be bought.