Red-eyed with grief over her grandfather’s death, Sally Draper hugs the floor as she watches the first televised self-immolation of a Buddhist monk. A spate of these suicides by fire will ensue in reaction to the ongoing war in Vietnam. In Buddhism and other Eastern warrior cultures, the practice of self-immolation is simultaneously a form of denouncement and of devotion.

Sally’s being glued to the television in the wake of a death and her parents’ inability to comfort her signifies an ongoing distancing of Sally from her surroundings, and, importantly, the atmosphere of 50s still pervading her home. Her witnessing such a tragic event at an early age can no doubt have an effect on her consciousness, especially in a time of grief. Another fictional character of some infamy witnessed, and became obsessed by, the very same Buddhist self-immolation: Merry Levov, from Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. 

If Sally Draper were just a few years older she could be going the way of a violent sixties radical. Could this be her baptism into political consciousness by fire? 

• footnote - by Natasha Simons