Live in someone’s shadow
Jimmy McGill—later known as Saul Goodman in “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad”—Jimmy McGill always lived in the shadow of his older brother Chuck. What does it mean to live in the shadow of someone else? To live in someone else’s shadow?
It means the other person always got more attention. The other person was always more successful, always attracted more attention. It’s not a good feeling to always be in the shadow of another person. It’s not common. Sure, in any pair of people, there will be differences. One may be more popular, more outgoing; the other might be more successful in other ways. One might be better artistically, the other might do better in school. One might be more athletic, the other might prefer video games. Those are just differences in personality, abilities and preferences.
If you live in the shadow of another person—it could be a brother, a colleague, a business partner, a husband or wife—you feel hidden. You feel as if nobody notices you; like you can never be good enough.
John F. Kennedy (JFK) was an American president; one of his brothers was a Senator and another was Attorney General, the highest law-enforcement officer of the United States. Their father was a powerful senator. JFK’s sons, nephews, and nieces were popular in politics, too. Few people know who Jean Kennedy Smith is. She died a few weeks ago in New York; she was the sister to John F. Kennedy. I had no idea she existed. She was an American ambassador to Ireland—certainly not a prominent political figure, but neither was she totally unknown. But she lived in the shadow of her brothers. Her brothers—and all the other Kennedy men, in the generations before and after—were all prominent politically. She was not prominent to anywhere near that extent. She lived in the shadow of the powerful men in her family.
Any time you have one really famous person in a family, the others tend to feel like they’re living in the shadow of their family member. You have probably heard of the tennis star Novak Djokovic. Famous, famous tennis star from Serbia—very talented. His mother recently gave an interview saying that her other two sons—Novak’s younger brothers—were also talented in tennis, but she and her husband only had the energy and ability to support Novak’s career. She’s describing a situation where two of her sons had to live in the shadow of the other—it’s not just that only one was famous, but that the famous one’s fame, stature, blocked their own careers.
If you think biologically, think of a big tree that soaks up all the sun. If you plant a seed in the dirt right next to the big tree, in a place where there is no sun, then that seed is going to have a hard time growing up, reaching its full potential. So if you feel like you’re in the shadow of someone else, you feel like you can’t get the energy or attention you need to be yourself and do your best.
And that’s what it was like for the young lawyer Jimmy McGill. His much older brother was a genius—not just a successful lawyer, but a prominent one and a genius. Chuck got all the attention as a kid, and Jimmy felt neglected. Whether that was true or not, we don’t know; but it’s certainly how Jimmy felt. Jimmy felt like he was in the shadow of his older brother.
Sometimes you might say a person is trying to escape the shadow of another person. We talked about how Prince Harry wanted to step down from his royal duties in the UK. Is it possible he was trying to escape the shadow of his older brother, Prince William? William is in line to become King of England—Harry is much farther back in line. Prince William has always been seen as the more traditional of the two brothers, the more fit to be King. People love his wife. Is it possible that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle just wanted to escape the shadow of Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton?
You can sometimes—sometimes—use it in the context of a place or an object. Take the city of Fort Worth, Texas, for example. It is a city of almost a million people, the fifth-largest in Texas. But in many ways, Ft. Worth exists in the shadow of its neighbor, Dallas. If anyone asks, “Where is Ft. Worth?” the answer is always, “it’s right next to Dallas.” Dallas is about 50 percent bigger, but is far better-known and gets much more attention. Dallas airport; Dallas Cowboys; the Dallas region. Ft. Worth exists in Dallas’s shadow.
JR’s song of the week
JR’s song of the week is Lust for Love by Lana del Rey. It’s the part of the soundtrack of “Dark” on Netflix. “Dark” was the first-ever original Netflix series in GermanIt borrows a few famous lines. In the song, she sings, “’Cause we’re the masters of our own fate. We’re the captains of our own souls.” I recognized those words—they are borrowed from a famous, famous poem called “Invictus.” The song of the week, once again, is “Lust for Love” by Lana del Rey.
See you next time!
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That’s all for today. We’ll be right back here on Monday for another Plain English! See you then.
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
