Author: Jennifer Zheng

Jennifer Zheng

Essay 3 draft

English 1121

5/17/2020

There’s A Destination for Everyone

In Tony Parsons’ short story “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” the central characters are Jaswinder Smith also known as Jazz, Megan, Donald Harrison, and lastly the man in black. In this short story, Parsons explores one of Jazz’s daily life at work as an immigration officer of the UK Border Agency. Securing the airport with other fellow agents. She examines travelers’ passports and detects fake reasoning in the Arrival hall queues, holding those whose stories do not match in a small corral where she at the end of her shift, goes and interacts and investigates farther. The story displays a connection between Jazz and those she interacts with, exploring all types of ethics as they landed on her border. 

 In Zhang Longxi’s article, “The Pale Cast of Thought: On the Dilemma of Thinking and Action,” he explores the idea of the “Interpretation” between mental activities and physical actions. On the other hand, another article from Denise K. Lajimodiere’s “Ogimah Ikwe: Native Women and Their Path to Leadership” talks about the increased visibility of Native American women in leadership roles. While these articles are not focused on Parsons’s story “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” they help me understand the ethics of Jazz, forming my thesis which is to show that “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” highlights how Jazz’s characteristics are connected to virtue, feminist, deontology, and global ethics. In order to prove this, I will first discuss Jazz’s job and her first meeting with the travelers who triggered her alarm. Second, I will be discussing the stereotypes in the airport fiction where she goes looking for the passport-muncher and when she goes and interacts with travelers in the holding room. Lastly, I will be exploring the scene where Jazz informs Donald what was going on as she helps him get home/ depart him. 

An immigration officer of the UK Border Agency job is basically to evaluate travelers and notify them if they are skeptical, forbidding them to enter the United Kingdom. Although that is what Jazz does, she thinks otherwise, she likes to refer to her job as not to refuse entry to the UK but to have/ hear the inner alarm bell (Parsons,46). This emphasizes how she views herself; someone that is not stern and has a different/lighter perspective of what her job is about. With that being said, Jazz’s character is full of virtue and deontology ethics, as an officer, there are certain behaviors she does that makes the reader get a better understanding of her virtuous human being like her moral wisdom. A central scene that really provides an insight into the way that Jazz identifies passengers repeatedly reasoning is when she indicated Donald, Megan, and man in black to take a seat in a small corral. After hearing their response of visiting, Jazz made a decision due to her inner alarm signaling that they are not permitted to enter the United Kingdom. The most important thing to notice is that Jazz hates to be deceived by others more than anything. Knowing that they are being dishonset here saying Barack Obama planted a microchip in its brain, forged passport, and lastly visiting the wax museum to see candles and eat the world-famous British pizza. She still does her job accordingly, showing little to no personal feeling. As an immigration officer, she held back from saying anything offensive and was able to control her temper which carries her through the end of the story.

Toward the middle of the short story, it not only shows Jazz’s feminist ethic but a presence of deontology ethic as well. With the fugitive passport-muncher on the loose. While she went scouring for him, she said something along the line, “Sooner or later, you bang your head up against my border” (Parsons, 54). This features a logic from Lajimodiere’s article, where she notes that “women’s power and status were based on their relative control over land” (A history of nature). Jazz knows the airport from the bottom of her heart, compared to the passport-muncher, it’s her land, showing her power. By the time the passport-muncher was corner, she gave him a warning, “Don’t make me take you down” (Parsons, 54). He noticed it was only her and thought little of her since he was a foot taller and twice her weight, also the fact that she was a woman (Parsons, 54). But Jazz easily took him down, she was independent and made a process in mind. By the time she enters the small corral, she shows the authority she has as an officer to Megan telling her about the rights she has in order to get her to cooperate. When Megan started to open up and asked her a question about love, Jazz shows her feminist side and shared a bit of advice. 

Toward the end where Jazz sees Donald heading towards the Arrivals hall, she notices something strange about him, in the passage, it stated, “He looked at her mildly, slightly bewildered, as if they had never met” (Parsons, 53). In Zhang Longxi’s article, Aristotle explains, “humans as rational beings would think before they act and would interpret the present to anticipate the future” (Longxi,282). When Jazz finally sits down with him, she slowly and patiently explains to him that he has been reported missing, and his family is worried about him and she is going to send him home. This part emphasizes global ethics. According to Kimberly Hutching’s global ethics, “Such behaviors are connected to these major focal points: access to global markets, climate change, and a broad set of human rights related to health, education… and equality for all” (Hutching). Jazz sees that Donald doesn’t remember and looks confused, she shows him the boarding card and ensures him once again. When he asked what happened to him, she was on the verge of telling him the truth but she didn’t because “she knew that wasn’t really what he was asking about…”(60). And just smiled.

Like what Tony Parsons once said, “Airports are places of extreme emotion where people come and go and experiences begin and end.” He revives “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” after roaming the terminals for weeks, he creates characters like Jazz who guide wandering travelers to their destination.