“The Gold Violin”
September 7th, 2008
Ken Cosgrove is a man of letters, a published writer who sees everything around him as some type of story, some type of allegory waiting to be turned into words. Having such an interpretative individual in a TV show is an interesting mirror for the audience, as when he suggests that an after hours trip into Cooper’s office to view a photograph would make a good short story, we’re in the process of watching a television show about an after hours trip into Cooper’s office.
Really, though, his story of the gold violin, perfect but unable to play a single note, is really more about the rest of the episode than it is about Cosgrove as a character. It’s not a new theme for the series, but the idea of things being entirely for show, form over function, is nailed home with a group of characters who make decisions or take life paths which will eventually come back to damage them.
But there is just something irresistable about a gold violin: as Cooper himself puts it, people buy things to realize their aspirations. The problem, of course, is when their aspirations are as complicated as Don’s emotional stability, or when they are as confused and ultimately misguided as Salvatore’s decision to get married. Really, the only purchase in the entire episode that isn’t an equivalent to the titular instrument is the painting that everyone presumes is such a prized possession: Cooper’s only in it for the money.
And if everyone else was only in it for money, Betty Draper wouldn’t be throwing up in the front seat of Don’s new cadillac, would she?
Cultural Learnings 