Day vs. Gately: the cliché-aria

Day's opening set-piece is the ironist's aria, the register-war's case for the prosecution delivered with relish: recovery reframed as intellectual surrender — "learn to live by clichés," "turn my will and life over to the care of clichés." He recites the actual slogans as evidence against themselves, the string of monosyllabic imperatives meant to indict by mere quotation, on the assumption that no thinking adult could hand his life to this. The performance is fluent, funny, and self-protective; every witticism is a brick in the wall that keeps the Program's plainness from reaching him. This is postmodern irony as armor, staged at full length so the rest of the scene can test whether the armor saves him or kills him.