Adams, by George Saunders
Trust forms the basis of all the things we achieve in life. We can only learn, feel, and unleash the full potential of ourselves in a relaxed and safe environment. When the feeling of trust ends, it is substituted by insecurity. We become scared, tensed, and suddenly feel the need to be on the alert for everything and everyone. Love will make you blind, and so will distrust. Life is full of danger - that is something we have to realize, and then forget. If you do not focus on the bright side of life, you will drop into the same black hole as Roger, the main character in the short story “Adams” from 2004. He is an example of a man who has lost his faith because of lacking security, safety and trust. This loss has consequences for him, his family and people around him.
Roger is, with his position as first person narrator, also the voice of the short story. He lives in a house located in a normal upper middle class environment with his wife Karen and his two little kids Melanie and Brian. He is a man with prejudices and an angled view on life, and therefore a completely unreliable narrator. The reader stays trapped in his point of view throughout the story, and is therefore forced to gain an experience of all characters by what they say and do.
Fear and paranoia control Roger’s life; he cannot distinguish light and darkness. He is frightened by his own shadows, and cannot any longer decide what is right and wrong. When your world has gone small and scary, the only thing you can focus on is to survive your worst enemy.
Roger regards his neighbour Walker as his enemy. The biased point of view pictures Walker as an unstable, dangerous pervert, and there is, according to Roger, no limit to what this maniac could be up to. Roger is scared, and all other feelings than fear, insecurity and the overriding will to protect his dearly loved family disappear from his life every time he gets even the smallest notion of something horrible Walker could possible do.
Quick, rash conclusions lead to these hateful incidents where Roger for example tries to disarm Walker’s house from any potential threads. As it can be seen in the following quote Roger is convinced that he is able to puzzle out what Walker is up to, by concluding what he himself would do if he “had a hate level” like Walker’s.

Roger is so frightened that he, when he tries to prevent these horrible things from happening, ends up doing the exact same things, and puts his neighbour’s family in the danger he wanted to protect his own family from - but Roger does not even consider how wrong his desperate actions actually are, because they are all done in blind and hasty self-defence.
Walker is not a well-reputed man in the neighbourhood. When Roger sends out handbills, everyone takes sides against Walker. He has some serious difficulties. It is not socially acceptable to walk around naked, and what does “I am what I am” actually mean? Peculiarities can be hard to handle, basic standards normally affects the public behaviour, but not in Walker’s case. When he acts contrary to Roger’s expectations - no wonder Roger is surprised and anxious, but nothing justifies his forced entry, violence and arson.
Roger’s mind is a mix of feelings. When he in the end of the story desperately wants to escape back to life, freedom and much more sweet memories with his children and wife, he fights his way back to his own family by knocking Walker’s down.
Roger is running; running from the fear, the insecurity, and the responsibility. The anxiety has taken over, and there is no room in him for anything else than primitive instincts - surviving and protecting his family by any means necessary. When you lose faith in your surroundings and the paranoia takes control, you cannot see through the intention behind people’s actions, and can no longer control your own. Nothing matters, when nothing is true- then you lose the true broad view and maybe the true you.