Short Stories for Students
National Advisory Board Jennifer Hood: Young Adult/Reference Librarian, Cumberland Public Library, Cumberland, Rhode Island. Certified teacher, Rhode Island. Member of the New England Library Association, Rhode Island Library Association, and the Rhode Island Educational Media Association. Christopher Maloney: Head Reference Librarian, Ocean City Free Public Library, Ocean City, New Jersey. Member of the American Library Association and the New Jersey Library Association. Board member of the South Jersey Library Cooperative. Kathleen Preston: Head of Reference, New City Library, New City, New York. Member of the American Library Association. Received B.A. and M.L.S. from University of Albany.
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Patricia Sarles: Library Media Specialist, Canarsie High School, Brooklyn, New York. Expert Guide in Biography/Memoir for the website About, com (http://biography.about.com). Author of short stories and book reviews. Received B.A., M.A. (anthropology), and M.L.S. from Rutgers University. Heidi Stohs: Instructor in Language Arts, grades 10-12, Solomon High School, Solomon, Kansas. Received B.S. from Kansas State University; M.A. from Fort Hays State University. Barbara Wencl: Library Media Specialist, Como Park Senior High School, St. Paul, Minnesota. Teacher of secondary social studies and history, St. Paul, Minnesota. Received B.S. and M.Ed, from University of Minnesota; received media certification from University of Wisconsin. Educator and media specialist with over 30 years experience.
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Table of Contents Guest Foreword "Why Study Literature At All?" Thomas E. Harden
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Introduction
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Literary Chronology
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Acknowledgments
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Contributors
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Animal Stories Jason Brown
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Black Boy Kay Boyle
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A Boy and His Dog Harlan Ellison
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The Challenge Mario Vargas Llosa
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The Country Husband JohnCheever
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The Destructors Graham Greene
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Don't Look Now Daphne du Maurier
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The Eskimo Connection Hisaye Yamamoto
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Exchanging Glances ChristaWolf
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The Red Convertible Louise Erdrich
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Gooseberries Anton Chekhov
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Resurrection of a Life William Saroyan
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The Last Lovely City Alice Adams
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Small Change Yehudit Hendel
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Night Tatyana Tolstaya
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Town and Country Lovers Nadine Gordimer
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Glossary of Literary Terms
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Cumulative Author/Title Index
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Nationality/Ethnicity Index
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Sub ject/Theme Index
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Why Study Literature At All? Short Stories for Students is designed to provide readers with information and discussion about a wide range of important contemporary and historical works of short fiction, and it does that job very well. However, I want to use this guest foreword to address a question that it does not take up. It is a fundamental question that is often ignored in high school and college English classes as well as research texts, and one that causes frustration among students at all levels, namely—why study literature at all? Isn't it enough to read a story, enjoy it, and go about one's business? My answer (to be expected from a literary professional, I suppose) is no. It is not enough. It is a start; but it is not enough. Here's why. First, literature is the only part of the educational curriculum that deals directly with the actual world of lived experience. The philosopher Edmund Husserl used the apt German term die Lebenswelt, "the living world," to denote this realm. All the other content areas of the modern American educational system avoid the subjective, present reality of everyday life. Science (both the natural and the social varieties) objectifies, the fine arts create and/or perform, history reconstructs. Only literary study persists in posing those questions we all asked before our schooling taught us to give up on them. Only literature gives credibility to personal perceptions, feelings, dreams, and the "stream of consciousness" that is our inner voice. Literature wonders about infinity, wonders why God permits evil,
wonders what will happen to us after we die. Literature admits that we get our hearts broken, that people sometimes cheat and get away with it, that the world is a strange and probably incomprehensible place. Literature, in other words, takes on all the big and small issues of what it means to be human. So my first answer is that of the humanist—we should read literature and study it and take it seriously because it enriches us as human beings. We develop our moral imagination, our capacity to sympathize with other people, and our ability to understand our existence through the experience of fiction. My second answer is more practical. By studying literature we can learn how to explore and analyze texts. Fiction may be about die Lebenswelt, but it is a construct of words put together in a certain order by an artist using the medium of language. By examining and studying those constructions, we can learn about language as a medium. We can become more sophisticated about word associations and connotations, about the manipulation of symbols, and about style and atmosphere. We can grasp how ambiguous language is and how important context and texture is to meaning. In our first encounter with a work of literature, of course, we are not supposed to catch all of these things. We are spellbound, just as the writer wanted us to be. It is as serious students of the writer's art that we begin to see how the tricks are done.
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Seeing the tricks, which is another way of saying "developing analytical and close reading skills," is important above and beyond its intrinsic literary educational value. These skills transfer to other fields and enhance critical thinking of any kind. Understanding how language is used to construct texts is powerful knowledge. It makes engineers better problem solvers, lawyers better advocates and courtroom practitioners, politicians better rhetoricians, marketing and advertising agents better sellers, and citizens more aware consumers as well as better participants in democracy. This last point is especially important, because rhetorical skill works both ways—when we learn how language is manipulated in the making of texts the result is that we become less susceptible when language is used to manipulate us. My third reason is related to the second. When we begin to see literature as created artifacts of language, we become more sensitive to good writing in general. We get a stronger sense of the importance of individual words, even the sounds of words and word combinations. We begin to understand Mark Twain's delicious proverb—"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." Getting beyond the "enjoyment only" stage of literature gets us closer to becoming makers of word art ourselves. I am not saying that studying fiction will turn every student into a Faulkner or a Shakespeare. But it will make us more adaptable and effective writers, even if our art form ends up being the office memo or the corporate annual report.
Studying short stories, then, can help students become better readers, better writers, and even better human beings. But I want to close with a warning. If your study and exploration of the craft, history, context, symbolism, or anything else about a story starts to rob it of the magic you felt when you first read it, it is time to stop. Take a break, study another subject, shoot some hoops, or go for a run. Love of reading is too important to be ruined by school. The early twentieth century writer Willa Gather, in her novel My Antonia, has her narrator Jack Burden tell a story that he and Antonia heard from two old Russian immigrants when they were teenagers. These immigrants, Pavel and Peter, told about an incident from their youth back in Russia that the narrator could recall in vivid detail thirty years later. It was a harrowing story of a wedding party starting home in sleds and being chased by starving wolves. Hundreds of wolves attacked the group's sleds one by one as they sped across the snow trying to reach their village. In a horrible revelation, the old Russians revealed that the groom eventually threw his own bride to the wolves to save himself. There was even a hint that one of the old immigrants might have been the groom mentioned in the story. Gather has her narrator conclude with his feelings about the story. "We did not tell Pavel's secret to anyone, but guarded it jealously—as if the wolves of the Ukraine had gathered that night long ago, and the wedding party had been sacrificed, just to give us a painful and peculiar pleasure." That feeling, that painful and peculiar pleasure, is the most important thing about literature. Study and research should enhance that feeling and never be allowed to overwhelm it. Thomas E. Burden Professor of English and Director of Graduate English Studies The University of Toledo
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Introduction Purpose of the Book The purpose of Short Stories for Students (SSfS) is to provide readers with a guide to understanding, enjoying, and studying short stories by giving them easy access to information about the work. Part of Gale's "For Students" Literature line, SSfS is specifically designed to meet the curricular needs of high school and undergraduate college students and their teachers, as well as the interests of general readers and researchers considering specific short fiction. While each volume contains entries on "classic" stories frequently studied in classrooms, there are also entries containing hard-to-find information on contemporary stories, including works by multicultural, international, and women writers. The information covered in each entry includes an introduction to the story and the story's author; a plot summary, to help readers unravel and understand the events in the work; descriptions of important characters, including explanation of a given character's role in the narrative as well as discussion about that character's relationship to other characters in the story; analysis of important themes in the story; and an explanation of important literary techniques and movements as they are demonstrated in the work. In addition to this material, which helps the readers analyze the story itself, students are also provided with important information on the literary and historical background informing each work.
This includes a historical context essay, a box comparing the time or place the story was written to modern Western culture, a critical overview essay, and excerpts from critical essays on the story or author. A unique feature of SSfS is a specially commissioned critical essay on each story, targeted toward the student reader. To further aid the student in studying and enjoying each story, information on media adaptations is provided (if available), as well as reading suggestions for works of fiction and nonfiction on similar themes and topics. Classroom aids include ideas for research papers and lists of critical sources that provide additional material on the work.
Selection Criteria The titles for each volume of SSfS were selected by surveying numerous sources on teaching literature and analyzing course curricula for various school districts. Some of the sources surveyed include: literature anthologies, Reading Lists for College-Bound Students: The Books Most Recommended by America's Top Colleges; Teaching the Short Story: A Guide to Using Stories from Around the World, by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE); and' 'A Study of High School Literature Anthologies," conducted by Arthur Applebee at the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature and sponsored by the National
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Endowment for the Arts and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Input was also solicited from our advisory board, as well as educators from various areas. From these discussions, it was determined that each volume shouldhave a mix of' 'classic'' stories (those works commonly taught in literature classes) and contemporary stories for which information is often hard to find. Because of the interest in expanding the canon of literature, an emphasis was also placed on including works by international, multicultural, and women authors. Our advisory board members— educational professionals—helped pare down the list for each volume. Works not selected for the present volume were noted as possibilities for future volumes. As always, the editor welcomes suggestions for titles to be included in future volumes.
How Each Entry Is Organized Each entry, or chapter, in SSfS focuses on one story. Each entry heading lists the title of the story, the author's name, and the date of the story's publication. The following elements are contained in each entry: Introduction: a brief overview of the story which provides information about its first appearance, its literary standing, any controversies surrounding the work, and major conflicts or themes within the work. Author Biography: this section includes basic facts about the author's life, and focuses on events and times in the author's life that may have inspired the story in question. Plot Summary: a description of the events in the story. Lengthy summaries are broken down with subheads. Characters: an alphabetical listing of the characters who appear in the story. Each character name is followed by a brief to an extensive description of the character's role in the story, as well as discussion of the character's actions, relationships, and possible motivation. Characters are listed alphabetically by last name. If a character is unnamed—for instance, the narrator in' "The Eaton ville Anthology''—the character is listed as' 'The Narrator'' and alphabetized
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as "Narrator." If a character's first name is the only one given, the name will appear alphabetically by that name. Themes: a thorough overview of how the topics, themes, and issues are addressed within the story. Each theme discussed appears in a separate subhead, and is easily accessed through the boldface entries in the Subject/Theme Index. Style: this section addresses important style elements of the story, such as setting, point of view, and narration; important literary devices used, such as imagery, foreshadowing, symbolism; and, if applicable, genres to which the work might have belonged, such as Gothicism or Romanticism. Literary terms are explained within the entry, but can also be found in the Glossary. Historical Context: this section outlines the social, political, and cultural climate in which the author lived and the work was created. This section may include descriptions of related historical events, pertinent aspects of daily life in the culture, and the artistic and literary sensibilities of the time in which the work was written. If the story is historical in nature, information regarding the time in which the story is set is also included. Long sections are broken down with helpful subheads. Critical Overview: this section provides background on the critical reputation of the author and the story, including bannings or any other public controversies surrounding the work. For older works, this section may include a history of how the story was first received and how perceptions of it may have changed over the years; for more recent works, direct quotes from early reviews may also be included. Criticism: an essay commissioned by SSfS which specifically deals with the story and is written specifically for the student audience, as well as excerpts from previously published criticism on the work (if available). Sources: an alphabetical list of critical material used in compiling the entry, with bibliographical information. Further Reading: an alphabetical list of other critical sources which may prove useful for the
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student. It includes bibliographical information and a brief annotation. In addition, each entry contains the following highlighted sections, set apart from the main text as sidebars: Media Adaptations: if available, a list of film and television adaptations of the story, including source information. The list also includes stage adaptations, audio recordings, musical adaptations, etc. Topics for Further Study: a list of potential study questions or research topics dealing with the story. This section includes questions related to other disciplines the student may be studying, such as American history, world history, science, math, government, business, geography, economics, psychology, etc. Compare and Contrast: an' 'at-a-glance'' comparison of the cultural and historical differences between the author's time and culture and late twentieth century or early twenty-first century Western culture. This box includes pertinent parallels between the major scientific, political, and cultural movements of the time or place the story was written, the time or place the story was set (if a historical work), and modern Western culture. Works written after the mid-1970s may not have this box. What Do I Read Next?: a list of works that might complement the featured story or serve as a contrast to it. This includes works by the same author and others, works of fiction and nonfiction, and works from various genres, cultures, and eras.
Other Features SSfS includes ' 'Why Study Literature At All?,'' a foreword by Thomas E. Barden, Professor of English and Director of Graduate English Studies at the University of Toledo. This essay provides a number of very fundamental reasons for studying literature and, therefore, reasons why a book such as SSfS, designed to facilitate the study of literture, is useful. A Cumulative Author/Title Index lists the authors and titles covered in each volume of the SSfS series.
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A Cumulative Nationality/Ethnicity Index breaks down the authors and titles covered in each volume of the SSfS series by nationality and ethnicity. A Subject/Theme Index, specific to each volume, provides easy reference for users who may be studying a particular subject or theme rather than a single work. Significant subjects from events to broad themes are included, and the entries pointing to the specific theme discussions in each entry are indicated in boldface. Each entry may include illustrations, including photo of the author, stills from film adaptations (if available), maps, and/or photos of key historical events.
Citing Short Stories for Students When writing papers, students who quote directly from any volume of SSfS may use the following general forms to document their source. These examples are based on MLA style; teachers may request that students adhere to a different style, thus, the following examples may be adapted as needed. When citing text from SSfS that is not attributed to a particular author (for example, the Themes, Style, Historical Context sections, etc.), the following format may be used: "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County.'' Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 19-20.
When quoting the specially commissioned essay from SSfS (usually the first essay under the Criticism subhead), the following format may be used: Korb, Rena. Critical essay on "Children of the Sea." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. I.Detroit: Gale, 1997.42.
When quoting a journal or newspaper essay that is reprinted in a volume of Short Stories for Students, the following form may be used: Schmidt, Paul. "The Deadpan on Simon Wheeler." Southwest Review Vol. XLI, No. 3 (Summer, 1956), 270-77; excerpted and reprinted in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 1, ed. Kathleen Wilson. (Detroit: Gale, 1997), pp. 29-31.
When quoting material from a book that is reprinted in a volume of SSfS, the following form may be used: Bell-Villada, Gene H. "The Master of Short Forms," in Garcia Marquez: The Man and His Work. University of North Carolina Press, 1990 pp. 119-36; excerpted and reprinted in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 1, ed. Kathleen Wilson (Detroit: Gale, 1997), pp. 89-90.
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We Welcome Your Suggestions The editor of Short Stories for Students welcomes your comments and ideas. Readers who wish to suggest short stories to appear in future volumes, or who have other suggestions, are cordially invited to contact the editor. You may contact the editor via E-mail at:
[email protected]. Or write to the editor at: Editor, Short Stories for Students The Gale Group 27500 Drake Road Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535
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Literary Chronology I860: Anton Chekhov is born on January 16 in Taganrog, Russia.
1932: Kay Boyle's "Black Boy" is published in the New Yorker.
1898: Anton Chekhov's "Gooseberries" is published.
1934: Harlan Ellison is born on May 27 in Cleveland, Ohio.
1902: Kay Boyle is born on February 19 in St. Paul, Minnesota. 1904: Graham Greene is born on October 2 in Hertfordshire, England. 1907: Daphne du Maurier is born on May 13 in London. 1908: William Saroyan is born on August 31 in Fresno, California. 1912: John Cheever is born on May 27 in Quincy, Massachusetts. 1920: Yehudit Hendel is born in Warsaw, Poland. 1921: Hisaye Yamamoto is born in Redondo Beach, California. 1923: Nadine Gordimer is born on November 20 in Springs, a small mining town outside Johannesburg, South Africa.
1934: William Saroyan's "Resurrection of a Life" is published. 1936: Mario Vargas Llosa is born. 1951: Tatyana Nikitinichna Tolstaya is born. 1954: Louise Erdrich is born on June 7 (some sources say July 6) in Little Falls, Minnesota. 1954: Graham Greene's "The Destructors" is published. 1954: John Cheever's "The Country Husband" is published. 1956: John Cheever's "The Country Husband" wins an O. Henry Award and is later included in the 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Stories of John Cheever. 1958: Mario Vargas Llosa's "The Challenge" is published.
1926: Alice Adams is born on August 14 in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
1969: Jason Brown is born.
1929: Christa Wolf is born on March 18 in the village of Landsberg an der Warthe (now the Polish city of Gorzow Wielkopolski).
1969: Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog" is published and wins the Nebula Award of Science Fiction Writers of America for Best Novella.
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1970: Daphne du Manner's "Don't Look Now" is published.
1988: Yehudit Hendel's "Small Change" is published.
1974: Christa Wolfs "Exchanging Glances" is published as "Blickwechsel" in Germany in 1974 in a collection titled Gesammelte Erzahlungen. The story appears in English translation in 1993 in a collection named after and including Christa Wolfs most controversial novella, "What Remains" and Other Stories.
1989: Daphne du Maurier dies on April 19 in Par, Cornwall, England, from "stubborn selfstarvation."
1980: Nadine Gordimer's "Town and Country Lovers" is published. 1981: William Saroyan dies of cancer on May 18 in Fresno, California. 1983: Hisaye Yamamoto's "The Eskimo Connection" is published in the Japanese-American magazine Rafu Shimpo. 1984: Louise Erdrich's "The Red Convertible" is published and becomes a bestseller.
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1991: Graham Greene dies on April 3 in Vevey, Switzerland. 1991: Tatyana Nikitinichna Tolstaya's "Night" is published for Western audiences by the Paris Review after its Russian publication in 1987. 1992: Kay Boyle dies on December 27 in Mill Valley, California. 1994: Jason Brown's "Animal Stories" is published. 1999: Alice Adams's "The Last Lovely City" is published shortly before her death in 1999. 1999: Alice Adams dies on May 27 in San Francisco, California.
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Acknowledgments The editors wish to thank the copyright holders of the excerpted criticism included in this volume and the permissions managers of many book and magazine publishing companies for assisting us in securing reproduction rights. We are also grateful to the staffs of the Detroit Public Library, the Library of Congress, the University of Detroit Mercy Library, Wayne State University Purdy/Kresge Library Complex, and the University of Michigan Libraries for making their resources available to us. Following is a list of the copyright holders who have granted us permission to reproduce material in this volume of Short Stories for Students (SSfS). Every effort has been made to trace copyright, but if omissions have been made, please let us know. COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS IN SSfS, VOLUME 14, WERE REPRODUCED FROM THE FOLLOWING PERIODICALS: African Insight, \. 13, 1983. Copyright 1983 by Auburn University. Reproduced by permission.— The American Benedictine Review, v. 24, December, 1973. Reproduced by permission.—The Explicator, v. 58, Spring, 2000. Copyright © 2000 Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation. Reproduced with permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, published by Heldref Publications, 1319 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036-1802.—Extrapolation, v. 18, May, 1977. Copyright © 1977 by The Kent State University Press. Reproduced by permission.—Papers on Lan-
guage and Literature, v. 21, Summer, 1985. Copyright © 1985 by The Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Reproduced by permission.—Southern Humanities Review, v. 6, Winter, 1972. Copyright 1972 by Auburn University. Reproduced by permission./v. 12, Winter, 1978 for "Politics in Graham Greene's 'The Destructors'" by Jesse F. McCartney. Copyright 1978 by Jesse F. McCartney. Reproduced by permission of the author.—Studies in Short Fiction, v. 19, Summer, 1982; v. 27, Fall, 1990; v. 31, Winter, 1994. Copyright 1982, 1990, 1994 by Newberry College. All reproduced by permission. COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL INSSfS, VOLUME 14, WAS REPRODUCED FROM THE FOLLOWING BOOK: Shallcross, Martyn. From The Private World of Daphne du Maurier. Robson Books, 1991. Copyright © 1991 Martyn Shallcross. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS APPEARING IN SSfS, VOLUME 14, WERE RECEIVED FROM THE FOLLOWING SOURCES: Adams, Alice, photograph. © Jerry Bauer. Reproduced by permission.—Apartheid sign, photograph. Getty Images. Reproduced by permission.— Boyle, Kay, photograph. New York World-Telegram, Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Divi-
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sion, The Library of Congress.—Cheever, John, photograph. The Library of Congress.—Chekhov, Anton, photograph. The Library of Congress.— Christie, Julie, Clelia Matania, in the play "Don't Look Now", photograph. The Kobal Collection. Reproduced by permission.—du Maurier, Daphne, photograph. Getty Images. Reproduced by permission.—Ellison, Harlan, photograph by Christer Akerberg. Reproduced by permission of Harlan Ellison.—Erdrich, Louise, photograph. © Jerry Bauer. Reproduced by permission.—Gordimer, Nadine, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.—Greene, Graham, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.—Produce stand at free market in Soviet Moscow, photograph by Vittoriano Rastelli. Corbis.
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Reproduced by permission.—Russian Red Army, arriving in war-torn Berlin by horse-drawn carriages, photograph. Getty Images. Reproduced by permission.—Saroyan, William, photograph. © Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.— Stinson Beach surfers, photograph by Morton Beebe. Corbis. Reproduced by permission.—Tolstaya, Tatyana, photograph by Jerry Bauer. © Jerry Bauer. Reproduced by permission.—Unidentified Englishman, called a "Teddy Boy," photograph. © Hulton Deutsch/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.— Vargas, Llosa (Jorge) Mario (Pedro), photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.—Wolf, Christa, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.
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Contributors Bryan Aubrey: Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English. Original essays on The Last Lovely City and Resurrection of a Life. Liz Brent: Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses on the history of American cinema. Original essays on Animal Stories, The Eskimo Connection, Night, and Small Change. Jennifer Bussey: Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. Entries on A Boy and His Dog, The Challenge, The Country Husband, The Destructors, Gooseberries, The Last Lovely City, The Red Convertible, Resurrection of a Life, and Town and Country Lovers. Original essays on A Boy and His Dog, The Challenge, The Country Husband, The Destructors, Gooseberries, The Last Lovely City, The Red Convertible, Resurrection of a Life, and Town and Country Lovers. Marcey Carroll: Carroll has a bachelor of arts degree in English from Oakland University. Original essay on The Eskimo Connection. Erik France: France is a librarian and teaches history and interdisciplinary studies at Uni-
versity Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan. Original essay on Animal Stories. Joyce Hart: Hart has degrees in literature and creative writing and focuses her published writing on literary themes. Original essays on Black Boy, The Last Lovely City, and Night. Lois Kerschen: Kerschen is a writer and public school district administrator. Original essay on Resurrection of a Life. Rena Korb: Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. Entry on Black Boy. Original essays on Black Boy, The Challenge, Exchanging Glances, The Red Convertible, and Small Change. Laura Kryhoski: Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. Original essay on The Red Convertible. Daniel Moran: Moran is a secondary school teacher of English and American literature. Original essay on Don't Look Now. Doreen Piano: Piano is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Bowling Green State University. Original essay on Gooseberries. Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton: Piedmont-Marlon has a Ph.D. in English. She teaches in a college in Texas and writes frequently about the modern
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short story. Entry on Exchanging Glances. Original essay on Exchanging Glances. Susan Sanderson: Sanderson holds a masters of fine arts degree in fiction writing and is an independent writer. Entries on Animal Stories, Don't Look Now, The Eskimo Connection, Night, and Small Change. Original essays on Animal Stories, Don't Look Now, The Eskimo Connection, Night, and Small Change. Chris Semansky: Semansky's stories, poems, and
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essays appear regularly in literary journals. Original essays on Black Boy, Exchanging Glances, and Town and Country Lovers. Cody Walker: Walker teaches writing and literature courses at the University of Washington. Original essay on A Boy and His Dog. Ray Warren: Warren has a master of fine arts degree in writing from Vermont College and writes young adult fiction. Original essay on The Challenge.
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Animal Stories "Animal Stories," Jason Brown's story of ayoung man grappling with his mother's imminent death from a brain tumor, has received widespread acclaim as the work of a strong and up-and-coming author. In 25 and Under/Fiction, an anthology containing "Animal Stories," Brown notes that he wrote this story when he was twenty-two and his mother was in the hospital for a successful operation. "My relationship with her was bad enough that I had not gone to visit her. The guilt drove this story on," he remembers.
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The story is told by the character Jamie as a recollection of his mother's recent stay in the hospital after she is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Memories from further in the past blend in and out of the moments that Jamie spends in the hospital room with his mother. These memories provide critical background information on his family life and on the state of his adult life, including his failures in school, at work, and in his love life. The memories serve as a distraction to the fact that Jamie's mother, whose hold on reality is tenuous at best, is dying a horrible death and refuses to allow the doctors to treat her. Also serving as a distraction, as well as a prompt to his reminiscing, are the nature and animal videos playing almost nonstop on the television in his mother's hospital room.
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Author Biography Jason Brown, born in 1969, grew up in Portland, Maine, and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Cornell University. Later he attended Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Truman Capote Fellow. "Animal Stories" appears in Jason Brown's debut collection of thirteen short stories entitled Driving the Heart and Other Stories, as well as in an anthology entitled 25 and Under/Fiction. The Georgia Review first published "Animal Stories" in its Summer 1994 issue. In 25 and Under/Fiction, Brown notes that he was so confused at the time he wrote "Animal Stories" "that I could barely make a sandwich." He was twenty-two, and his mother had been in the hospital for a successful operation, but he failed to visit her because they did not have a good relationship. Currently, Brown teaches writing at Stanford. In addition to the Georgia Review and 25 and Under/Fiction, Brown's stories have appeared in the 1996 edition of Best American Short Stories and in Mississippi Review, Story, Epoch, TriQuarterly, and Indiana Review.
Plot Summary "Animal Stories" opens with Jamie rushing to the hospital because he has just found out that his mother has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He notes that he drives recklessly, which he gets from his mother. ' 'Any man's mother is a source of grief until she dies," he says. Jamie arrives at the hospital and helps his mother operate a television remote control. She is bald and tries to wear the remote control as a hat. A doctor comes in to see how much Jamie's mother has forgotten since the previous day. His mother is sharing a room with another patient, Sharon, who is hospitalized because she overdosed on drugs. His mother's situation moves Jamie into a reverie about his life, his lack of friends and a job, and the fact that he used to have a girlfriend who wanted him to change. He notes that by the time his mother has the tumor, "it is too late for me," indicating that his life has already reached its fullest point. From his description of himself, he is overweight, and the few friends he has are crazy. In lieu of a job, he has developed an interest in nature. He
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compares himself to a tree that is shedding its leaves at the end of summer, much as he is shedding jobs, cars, and possessions. The doctor, after examining his mother, states that the tumor is "fulminate," indicating that it is growing rapidly and a biopsy is needed to gauge the extent of its malignancy. The doctor notices the nature show on the hospital room's television. Jamie relates two things his mother did within the past year that indicated something was amiss with her health: she walked in on her ex-husband and his new wife at their house and demanded to know the identity of the wife; and, soon afterwards, she flew to London suddenly, leaving her boyfriend while he was taking a nap during their vacation in Nova Scotia. She called Jamie while she was in London and suggested to him that she was thinking about getting a divorce because she thought her husband was seeing another woman. Jamie then remembers the summer of 1977, when he and his family lived in Waterville and his father had just moved out of the house. During the previous winter, Jamie's mother had made a habit of wandering around the town placing one-word notes in neighbors' mailboxes. After his father left, Jamie's girlfriend Alice and his friend Tom, moved in with Jamie and his mother. "Mom spent the summer teaching us how to drink gin," he recalls. Back at the hospital, his mother asks Jamie to tell the doctor that she does not want to undergo a biopsy. He urges her to reconsider, but she claims she doesn't want to know about the tumor and doesn't want to take the time for the procedure. A nature show about pygmy shrews plays on the television. Jamie remembers that his mother has written a book (or perhaps she has only started one; the story isn't clear) about how animals remember. In 1979, his mother developed an interest in animals and changed her name to Meadow Star. Jamie comments that he has been trying to forget his past and the things he has done, but it is difficult. Before entering the hospital, his mother had been teaching him how to do this. "To have forgotten and not know one has forgotten, Mom tells me, is the happiness of an animal," Jamie says. At the hospital, Sharon complains about the nature show, and Jamie's mother changes it to a show called Animal Imposters. Jamie's mother asks where the bathroom is, and while Jamie helps her find it, he remembers when his schoolteachers tried to diagnose in him what they thought was a learning
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disability. "I was born with serious intent and not without means, but somewhere along the line I failed to acquire an adequate degree of clarity," he muses, adding that he stopped worrying about improving himself in 1982 and soon thereafter "stopped caring so much." Jamie begins to remember more about the summer of 1977. He and Alice made love three times a day, "to stay within commuting distance of her sanity;'' and Tom made salads to eat along with all the gin they drank, while Jamie's mother talked about how she was leaving her husband and not the other way around. Jamie's father, David, came by the house several times during that summer to work in the garden. His mother, by then, was "unrecognizable"; she had colored her hair red and was wearing brightly colored clothes from Goodwill. She also was drunk most of the time. She, Jamie, Alice, and Tom spent most of the summer in the basement during the day, due to the extreme heat. Jamie remembers that his mother often blames the tumor on that summer.
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almost nothing but celery in order to lose weight, and his mother forbade the eating of chicken because she started believing in reincarnation. Jamie remembers learning that Tom's mother unsuccessfully tried four different ways of committing suicide and that they all used to go to the Goodwill store to buy clothes, becoming "collages of other people's lives." At the hospital Jamie's mother confuses time, thinking that Jamie has just taken a biology test— something he has not done since 1983. The doctor comes in as the nature video ends, and Jamie's mother assures him that she will be out of the room very soon. She steals the hospital's bedside lamp and offers her clothes to Sharon, who picks through them. Later, in the car, Jamie is not sure that his mother understands where she is going, but he is certain that she is glad to be out of the hospital. Jamie comments, "What doesn't pass out of our lives, even if it is good, ends up killing us. Finally there is something that won't pass like a disease or a tumor that takes us out of life.''
At the hospital, Jamie muses as to whether his mother has this tumor because she "can't forget" and, as a psychic friend believes, her soul is "older than the rocks in China, which means she has a lot to forget." A show about the three-toed sloth is on the television. The doctor comes in to tell Jamie and his mother that if she does not agree to the biopsy and subsequent treatment, she should expect "a total loss of self-awareness, followed by a painful sinking into idiocy and death." She does not seem to care. Sharon's drug dealers come into the room to give her pills, as a show on the tree creeper plays on the television.
He stops the car in front of his mother's house, the one in which they spent the summer of 1977, and notices that it is in disrepair. His mother asks about a trip to Vienna that he knows they did not take, but he answers her as if the trip really did take place. ' 'Her own past has been replaced by the most pleasant memories from other people's lives," he thinks. He means to touch her face, because he knows she is dying, but she jumps out of the car before he has a chance and disappears into the house. From the back of the house he can see a small light come on.
Jamie remembers August 27, 1977, when his father came to the house to work in the garden for the last time; he mowed down all of the flowers he had been tending that summer. David advised Jamie that "it doesn't matter how you feel about things" and that he should not listen to his mother unless he wanted to end up like her. David's actions plunged the household into deep sadness, and Jamie thinks that the house, to someone from the outside, must have looked abandoned. He never speaks of that summer with his mother.
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A bit later the doctor comes back to the room to advise Jamie and his mother that if she does not agree to the biopsy, she must leave the hospital. Jamie thinks more about the summer of 1977 and how sad they all were. Alice and Tom ate
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Alice Alice is a former girlfriend of Jamie's, who once agreed to marry him if he would change. During the summer of 1977, Alice moves in with Jamie, Jamie's mother, and Tom. According to Jamie, she has an IQ of 165 and, while they lived together in his mother's house, she needed to have sex with Jamie at least three times a day to stay sane. At the time of Jamie's recounting the story, she is no longer his girlfriend.
David David is Jamie's father, a physician who is divorced from Jamie's mother. His reason for hav-
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ing left her is never spelled out, but Jamie's mother's strange behavior in 1976 and 1977 was most likely a contributing cause. He has remarried. Jamie says that his father is "a man of inaction" and seems to have been deeply unhappy while living with his family. However, even after leaving his family, he came over repeatedly during the summer of 1977 to tend the garden while Jamie's mother watched him. At the end of the summer, he mowed down the flowers he had worked on and never returned.
The Doctor The doctor comes a number of times to see Jamie's mother in her hospital room but seems more interested in the nature videos playing on the room's television than in his patient. He tells her that she must agree to a biopsy or leave the hospital.
Jamie When the story opens, Jamie is at his mother's bedside, distraught because she has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He is an overweight young man, the only child of his parents, most likely in his thirties when he recounts the story. He has few friends. He states,' 'I'm like a nut magnet'' because most of the people he knows are crazy or ' 'look like they just escaped from somewhere." Jamie is unemployed but does not appear to be terribly worried about this, claiming that this gives him time to think and to have a number of interests, including nature. He is disconnected from his surroundings and claims to spend time trying to ' 'forget things" and discover, as he says, "who I was." When he was in school, teachers attempted to diagnose what learning disorder he had, but it was almost impossible because the symptoms continuously shifted from stuttering to the inability to tie his own shoelaces to other problems. Jamie notes that in 1982 he decided to stop trying to improve his life, and soon afterwards, "I stopped caring so much." Based on a comment he makes to his mother, he apparently stopped attending school in 1983, which was the last time he took a test. In 1977, after Jamie's father had left the family, Jamie's girlfriend Alice and another friend, Tom, moved in with Jamie and his mother. Jamie and his mother never talk about how unhappy everyone was that summer, instead they talk about nature and politics. He remembers, though, that the household was drunk most of the time, and, because the weather was so hot, they rarely left the basement.
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Meadow Star See Mom
Mom Mom is Jamie's mother, and when the story opens she is in the hospital, having been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She refuses to allow the doctors to operate on her, and as a result, she is dying. She is also having trouble remembering such things as how to use a television remote control and what year it is. Since 1977, when her husband left her, she has not had a very strong grip on reality, and she is most likely suffering from some kind of mental illness. She refuses to move out of her house that is falling down around her. According to Jamie, she has forgotten most of her own life, replacing her past with "the most pleasant memories from other peoples' lives." Mom does various things in the story that show her fragile mental state. Years after her divorce from David, she walks in on him and his wife and asks,' 'Who is this woman?'' Later, while on vacation, she suddenly leaves her boyfriend and flies to London. From there, she calls Jamie and tells him that she is considering divorcing David, noting that she believes he is seeing another woman. During the summer of 1977, after Jamie's father leaves the family, Alice and Tom move in with Jamie and Mom, and Mom teaches the household how to drink gin. She dyes her hair red, wears brightly colored blouses from Goodwill, and is often drunk. According to Jamie, that summer she taught the household to believe that sadness was their "only friend." In 1979, she begins to go by the name of Meadow Star. It is also around 1979 that she develops a love for and an interest in animals, according to Jamie,' 'because they can't remember in the same way we do.'' As well, Jamie claims that this is when she considers writing a book about animal memory, and he refers to it in his retelling of her story— although, it is not clear whether the book was actually ever finished or published.
Sharon Sharon is the woman in the hospital bed next to Jamie's mother's bed, who has been admitted after a drug overdose. She is often very nasty and cynical.
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Tom Tom is Jamie's overweight friend, who moves into the house during the summer of 1977. No one trusts Jamie's mother with the cooking that summer, so Tom takes over, making mostly salads. Tom has a sad background, including a mother who has tried to commit suicide in four different ways, failing at all of them.
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father are divorced. Jamie remarks that in his mother's book about animal memory she argues, "Tumors may grow because people can't forget," as if getting rid of memories would help one prevent tumors. But his mother has a lot of memories to forget, he says, noting, "A psychic friend of the family once said that my mother's soul is older than the rocks in China."
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Themes Memory and Forgetting Both Jamie and his mother wrestle with their memories of the past in a way that almost minimizes present time. Although the scenes in the hospital are told in present tense, Jamie frames the story of his mother's stay in the hospital as if it were being told as a memory. Near the story's beginning, Jamie refers to the day he found out about his mother's brain tumor as being in the past when he remarks, ' 'By the time this happens, it is too late for me,'' and when he closes the story he ends with, ' "This is my entire life, everything that I remember." Woven through the memory of his mother and her brain tumor are other memories of Jamie's life, including the time when his father left the family, Jamie's failures in school and at work, and what happened during the summer of 1977. Memories are delicate and untrustworthy things in "Animal Stories." At the story's beginning, the issue of Jamie's mother's ability to remember events is raised, even those things that have happened just since the previous day. Jamie refers to his mother's brain tumor as "eating her memories." Ironically, while Jamie claims to be working on "trying to forget things," even to the point of enlisting his mother's help in teaching him "little tricks about forgetting," the entire story he tells is of past events. Part of the summer of 1977 is spent learning how to drink gin so that he, his friends, and his mother can wake up the next day having forgotten the previous day, but Jamie still remembers much of the sadness of that summer. Jamie connects his mother's brain tumor with the increasingly odd behavior she began exhibiting around 1976 and 1977, when she would place small, one-word notes in their neighbors' mailboxes. More recently she has forgotten that she and Jamie's
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Jamie's family consists of him and his parents, but it is not a picture of happiness and harmony. In fact, he notes, "There is nothing to replace the failure of our parents." In 1977, Jamie's physician father, David, left the family for reasons that are not explicitly stated, but his departure probably had something to do with his wife's increasingly bizarre behavior. For example, according to Jamie,' 'Sometime in 1977 God had told Mom: watch out for doctors, they just want to touch you." After David leaves, Jamie's mother is unable to serve as the head of the household, and the family disintegrates into a pattern of self-destruction. Jamie's girlfriend Alice moves in, as does his friend Tom, and the four of them create a sad pseudo-family that falls into excessive drinking and depression. Even though David comes by on occasion to work in the garden, the household is hardly able to function. Jamie's mother cannot be trusted to cook, so Tom takes up the job but not with much success. Eventually Alice and Tom primarily eat only celery, and the four members of the household spend most of their days in the basement of the deteriorating house, away from the heat of the day, coming up into the rest of the house only after dark. They rarely leave the house. When they do go out, they sometimes visit Goodwill, emerging from the store as ' 'walking collages of other people's lives.'' Eventually Jamie's parents are divorced. Despite all of the sadness in his relationship with his family, Jamie is attached to his mother in a tender, yet painful, way. Though he remarks,' 'Any man's mother is a source of grief until she dies," he obviously cares for her. He stays with her in the hospital, helping her to the bathroom and with the television's remote control. When she creates a memory of having visited Vienna, Jamie plays along with her, not wanting to bother her with unnecessary facts. He starts to gently touch the side of his mother's face, "because," he says, "I know she is dying," but she quickly jumps out of the car when she sees her house.
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Topics for Further Study This short story relates events from a number of years and dates. Create a timeline for the events of the story. Note the gaps in time and imagine what events might have taken place then. Write an additional scene for the story that takes place during one of these gaps. Watch one or more animal documentaries, either on television or on video. List at least three animal behaviors that you think are similar to behaviors exhibited by humans and explain why they are similar and where you have seen humans act this way. List at least three animal behaviors that you think are unlike human behaviors and explain why you think they are
Disease and Sickness The story is focused on Jamie's mother's brain tumor and on how it has affected their lives. Most of the present time frame of the story takes place in a hospital, where, Jamie notes, "people lose themselves." The atmosphere of the hospital is not very warm: there are "humming contraptions with beeping lights," and Jamie is afraid that "around each corner might lurk a cluster of diseases waiting to bore under our skin." In addition, the doctor, who sees Jamie's mother, acts distant and distracted, sometimes paying as much, or even more, attention to the nature videos running on the room's television than to his patient. He eventually forces her to leave the hospital because she will not cooperate with his treatment. Sharon, the woman sharing the hospital room with Jamie's mother, is recovering from a drug overdose. Even though the hospital is supposed to be a place where people come to heal, Sharon is visited by strange people, probably her drug dealers, who slip her pills and comment on how much various medicines in the room are worth. Jamie's father is a doctor, but he is nowhere to be found during his ex-wife's illness. In fact, one of first signs of Jamie's mother's illness comes when
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dissimilar. If you have a pet, you may use this as your subject instead of animals found in a documentary. Using the library or the Internet, do research on brain tumors. What are the different kinds of brain tumors and how are they treated? Do they always result in the patient losing memories and the ability to discern reality? Do medical experts understand what causes brain tumors? Investigate divorce statistics for the United States from 1970 through today. Has the rate of divorces increased or decreased? How has the rate of divorce changed for your state or city?
she believes that God has told her to avoid doctors. Soon after, Jamie's father leaves his family.
Depression and Sadness Jamie displays many signs of deep sadness and even depression throughout the story. Though he describes himself as ' 'a happy man,'' he reports that he is "shedding things, like jobs, cars, and old clothes," and he no longer sees his girlfriend Alice. During the summer of 1977, he, along with Alice, his mother, and his friend Tom, drank heavily and rarely left the house. The house eventually fell into disrepair and became the house that the neighbors wondered about. During that summer, he and the others seemed to work on being sad, as taught by his mother, who encouraged them to "savor" their sadness. "It was, she assured us, our only real friend, and we believed her.'' He also reports that by 1982, he had quit trying to improve his life and that "shortly afterwards I stopped caring so much."
Nature and the Environment While in the hospital, Jamie's mother constantly watches nature videos and documentaries. Many are about animals that are endangered, that are being damaged by environmental pollutants, or
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that are simply unusual. In 1979, according to Jamie, his mother changed her name to Meadow Star, developed an interest in animals, and decided to write a book on how animals remember things. "Mom loves animals because they can't remember in the same way we do," says Jamie, and she believes that this forgetting is the reason animals are happy. He also notes that in 1984 he developed an interest in nature. He often compares human behavior with that of animals, usually concluding that animals are better fit for their environment than are humans.
Style Use of Time Brown freely switches back and forth between different years in the story, even within the same section. For example, one section begins with Jamie referring to the summer of 1977, when "we stayed inside and drew the shades." A few paragraphs later, but still in the same section, he is back in the recent past, and his mother's doctor is demanding that she either accept the biopsy procedure or leave the hospital. While Jamie speaks of his mother's stay at the hospital using the present tense, a few paragraphs into the story he makes it clear that this episode is in the past; he notes, "By the time this happens"—that is, finding out about his mother's brain tumor—"it is too late for me." As well, he closes the story by stating, ' 'This is my entire life, everything that I remember." The main point of reference in the past is the summer of 1977, when Jamie's father left the family, and Jamie's girlfriend and a friend moved into the house with him and his mother. Jamie also mentions that his mother believed in God from ' 'the 7th of February, 1976, to the 10th of September, 1977," adding, "That winter we had the biggest snowstorm in twenty years," but he is not clear whether he means the winter of 1976 or 1977. Jamie mentions other dates, including 1979, when his mother developed an interest in animals and decided to take the name Meadow Star; 1982, when he claims to have "stopped being in such a hurry to improve my life"; and 1984, when he reports becoming interested in nature. There is no clear evidence as to when Jamie's mother was in the hospital, but it must have been sometime after 1984.
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Irony Brown uses irony in subtle ways. The story is essentially Jamie's memories of the past, but he claims, on a number of occasions, to be working toward forgetting the past. For example, during the summer of 1977, Jamie remembers that his mother taught everyone in the household to drink gin.' 'We drank until what happened would not be remembered the next day," he says, but obviously, in his telling of the events of the summer, he has failed to forget. He also believes that memories can be harmful, and that "when desperate, they will eat anything that we pretend to know." As well, he claims, ' 'Lately, I've been trying to forget things. Mom has tried to teach me little tricks about forgetting," but he eventually discovers that this is impossible, "like trying not to get wet while you're swimming." Furthermore, Brown sets the story in the town of Waterville, New York, a place Jamie says is without water. In fact, he claims that during the summer, residents visited friends and relatives in a neighboring town just to take baths.' 'The town was named Waterville," Jamie muses, "because whoever lived there thought constantly about water."
Nature Videos Interspersed between the story of Jamie's mother in the hospital and memories of past events are breaks in the narrative where monologues from various nature videos are presented. These videos echo his mother's interest in animals as well as her admiration for the way animals remember events differently from humans. On a few occasions, Jamie compares the behavior of the animals with the behavior of humans, usually coming to the conclusion that animals are better equipped to deal with adversity and change.
Tone The tone of the story, narrated in the first person by Jamie, comes across as flat and almost emotionless, even though the subject matter is full of sadness and suffering. Jamie appears the most emotional at the very beginning of the story, when he says that he "drove like a lunatic" to get to his mother's bedside and that he is known for "erratic bursts of self-destructiveness and unpredictable lapses in concentration." After that, he describes his rather painful life with a relatively unemotional quality. For example, when his mother displays evidence that her brain is not working correctly, his response is to calmly help her relearn how to use a television
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remote or to gently remind her that she has already divorced her husband.
and Proud of It." Some believed that the show was a clear sign of the dissolution of values in American society, prompting William Bennett, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Bush administration, to decry the series.
Historical Context Brown wrote this story in the early 1990s, a period of great social and political change in the United States. For example, personal computers and everyday use of the Internet were becoming more commonplace. By the early 1990s, the number of deaths from AIDS began increasing at an alarming rate, and calls became louder for more efforts to combat the disease. In the international arena, in November 1989, thousands of East Germans stormed the Berlin Wall, a symbol of communist control and power for nearly thirty years. This launched a nearly worldwide rejection of communism as a state political philosophy; and throughout the early 1990s, numerous Soviet-controlled countries, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, began shedding their communist leaders and experimenting with democratic elections and increasingly capitalistic economies. Concern for the environment grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in various pieces of legislation designed to clean up and protect water, air, and land resources. In 1990, U.S. President George Bush signed into law the Clean Air Act of 1990, which amended the Clean Air Act of 1970. Bush's approval of the legislation marked a radical departure from the environmental policies of his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. In November 1992, President Bush lost to Bill Clinton, an Arkansas governor previously unknown on the national political scene. To many, the elections of Bush in 1988 and Clinton in 1992 signaled an era during which Americans selected presidents who were simply the least objectionable rather than choosing inspirational leaders. Clinton's election, though, marked the end of the Republican party's twelve-year hold on the office of president. In January 1990, the television series The Simpsons began its hugely popular run. The Simpsons were a fictional suburban family overwhelmed by the world, whose patriarch, Homer, dispensed advice to his children on how to be mediocre. The show so horrified some sectors of society that many schools banned the wearing of Simpsons tee-shirts, especially the one that proclaimed ' 'Underachiever
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Critical Overview Critical response to Brown's short stories has, on the whole, been very positive. John Elliot, writing a review in The Daily Telegraph, proclaims Brown's Driving the Heart and Other Stories a ' 'consistently fine first collection of stories." Elliot praises Brown's deft hand at creating stories that are "intimate without falling into sentimentality." A review of Brown's collection in Publishers Weekly states that he "excels at portraying the life struggles of those with ravaged psychic resources, [and] unique people and their alienated offspring." The review also highlights "Animal Stories", admiring the skill with which Brown writes about mental illness, as well as his use of "bleak humor" to describe Jamie's dying mother. While Brown's stories can be read as fatalistic and full of despair, Jenifer Berman, writing in the New York Times, argues that they are ' 'linked by a generosity of spirit." In her review of Brown's collection, Berman points to Jamie in "Animal Stories,'' as well as to characters in other stories, as evidence that the author has created individuals who ' 'act as custodians for one another—and in doing so attempt to save themselves." She considers Brown a "pure and accomplished talent." In his review of Driving the Heart and Other Stories for the Boston Book Review, Brian Lennon' s praise for Brown's writing is a bit more reserved. While Lennon gives the collection's opening story, ' 'Driving the Heart," very high marks, his response to the rest of the stories is less exuberant. He asserts, "if some of the other stories... dwell too passively within the (male, middle-class) narrator's anomie . . . they aren't necessarily less interesting." Matthew Humphrey in The Guardian praises the appearance of "Animal Stories," as well as another of Brown's stories, "The Dog Lover," in the short story anthology 25 and Under/Fiction. He notes that "The Dog Lover" includes a situation in which a parent passes along his own suffering to his son; this condition appears, as well, in "Animal Stories," when Jamie's mother attempts to teach him about sadness and encourages him to forget the
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past. Humphrey speaks to Jamie's sorrow, as well as to the collection's "intriguing weight of sadness," noting that much of the melancholy in 25 and Under/Fiction comes from Brown's two stories. In Kirkus Reviews, however, Brown's collection receives an unenthusiastic appraisal. According to the review, the stories are like "new wine that needs aging: overwritten, ponderous, and crammed with the sorts of platitudes... that only undergraduates could find profound." The example used to highlight these "platitudes" comes from the every end of "Animal Stories;" Jamie is looking over his life and says, "It seems that what we know makes us sad and what we don't know is who we are."
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The animal videos running in her room, some brought to the hospital by Jamie, are a constant connection to a world she finds fascinating and a way to replace the memories she is losing because of her brain tumor."
Criticism Susan Sanderson Sanderson holds a masters of fine arts degree in fiction writing and is an independent writer. In this essay, Sanderson examines how Jason Brown uses the behavior of the animals in the nature videos, appearing in his short story, to explore the behavior of the story's characters. One of the unique things about Jason Brown's "Animal Stories" is the inclusion of animal and nature videos, watched by Jamie's mother and others in her hospital room. The videos provide a bit of comic relief in the story of Jamie's mother's impending death, as well as something Mom can react to. She is continually fiddling with the remote, changing the videos, and responding to their content. The action in the videos gives the other characters—the doctor, Sharon, and Jamie—a moment's distraction from the oppressive atmosphere of the hospital. In fact, commenting on the story in 25 and Under/Fiction, Brown remembers visiting his father's house during a particularly difficult period in his life to watch nature shows and says, "I thought they were the funniest things on earth," he remembers. "Everything seemed absurd to me at the time." The videos in the story can also be seen as much more than a pause in the approach of death. Again remarking on the story in 25 and Under/ Fiction, Brown notes that he was exceedingly careful in his construction of "Animal Stories." "I wrote the story one line at a time and set the order later. I would sit for hours at my job renting canoes
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and think of one line," he recalls, adding that the entire piece took three months to pull together, bit by bit. With such authorial vigilance, the placement of the videos in the story, as well as their content, cannot have been haphazard, and certainly deserves a closer look. Examining the videos reveals that the animals' activities and behaviors in the videos are reflected in the activities and behaviors of the humans in the story. Both Jamie and his mother have expressed an interest in animals and in nature: his mother first in 1979, when she changed her name to Meadow Star; and Jamie, in 1984, after he had quit working and decided he had the time to think about things such as nature. In fact, he even likens himself to a tree in autumn, shedding jobs and possessions like a tree sheds its leaves. Jamie's mother loves animals because, according to her, "they don't remember in the same way we do." The animal videos running in her room, some brought to the hospital by Jamie, are a constant connection to a world she finds fascinating and a way to replace the memories she is losing because of her brain tumor. Most of the videos are about endangered or rare animals, but all are concerned with the tactics these animals have developed to survive, both successfully and unsuccessfully. The story of Jamie's family is one of survival; each member has developed ways to survive disappointment and sadness. For example, the story is not clear about why Jamie's physician father, David, left his family, but the timing of Jamie's mother's increasingly bizarre behavior may have had something to do with it. Between 1976 and 1977, his mother—strangely
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What Do I Read Next? Perry Klass's Love and Modern Medicine: Stories, published in 2001, is a collection of eleven short stories, some very funny, that feature characters struggling to cope with family crises. Many of the protagonists are highly capable women and mothers who find their home lives much more challenging than their work lives. Three stories were O. Henry Award winners. 25 and Under/Fiction, edited by Susan Ketchin and Neil Giordano, presents fifteen short stories—two by Jason Brown—written by new literary voices, all under the age of twenty-five. The 1997 anthology includes stories on belief
enough, the only character in the story without a proper name—hears messages from God about avoiding doctors and wanders the streets, leaving obscure, one-word messages in neighbors' mailboxes. Soon thereafter, Jamie reports, his father moved out, possibly the only way he felt he could deal with his wife's diminished mental capacity. In fact, Brown inserts a video with the telling title The Threatened Pygmy Shrews after he has given a brief synopsis of Jamie's mother's fall into apparent mental illness, her alcoholism, the eventual diagnosis of her brain tumor, and the family's dissolution. The video chronicles the environmental perils challenging the shrews' survival. It notes, "industrial fallout in the rain acts as a narcotic for the animals, causing them to become disoriented and irresponsible." Because of this, the shrews have lost their natural ability to protect themselves and have fallen prey to cars, dogs, and different kinds of predators. In a similar way, Jamie's family falls prey to such "predators" as illness and melancholy. David eventually separates from and divorces Jamie's mother, and she, along with Jamie, creates a sort of pseudo-family with two of Jamie's friends for one summer. The four damaged people live together in a way not unlike the injured shrews: "disoriented and
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and religion, heroin and alcoholism, families and madness, and more. Like Jason Brown's first short-story collection, Ethan Canin's first story collection, Emperor of the Air: Stories, was widely applauded by critics. Canin was in his late twenties and attending medical school when this book was published in 1989. In 1990, Maya Angelou published a book of poetry, / Shall Not Be Moved, covering a variety of subjects, including the relationship between mothers and sons.
irresponsible." Jamie's mother teaches everyone how to drink gin, and they spend much of the summer ' 'around the kitchen table drinking slowly, not saying much, sinking into a smaller life." Tom, Jamie's friend, must take over the task of cooking for the family because Jamie's mother cannot be trusted, "for fear that she would destroy the house." Their transformation into injured animals becomes complete when they end up living in the darkness of the basement during the daytime to escape the heat and the sunlight of summer. They emerge only at night. The paint on the house peels, and the grass in the front yard grows to five feet. Jamie imagines that the neighbors probably wonder, ' 'What could have possibly happened to those people?" Another video, entitled Animal Imposters, especially reflects how Jamie sees his life. Bracketed around the video's appearance in the story is Jamie's explanation about what kind of person he believes himself to be. The video gives examples of animals and plants that are not quite what they seem to be, such as the angler fish that looks like an old rock, a snake that can fake death, and a plant that looks like a tulip to lure insects but is actually carnivorous. Jamie feels that, like the creatures in the video, he is an imposter. "If you knew me," he says, "then you would know that nothing is less like me than the
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things I've done." For example, he states that anyone seeing him standing in line at the grocery store might think he is a successful college graduate. "But my past is pocked by sores, such as an inability to spell my own name," he says, referring to his traumatic school days. He also remembers his mother, before she became ill, telling him that he should only be himself. But he believes that he is more adept at being someone other than himself, "living out scenarios that I read about in books." The nature show's imposter theme is also reflected in the behavior of Jamie's mother and the two friends who live with Jamie and his mother during the summer of 1977. That year saw the four housemates make changes in their appearances as well as in their behaviors: when they weren't drinking or hiding in the basement, they occasionally left the house to shop at Goodwill, emerging "laughing, dressed in stripes, checks, and dotted patterns .. . walking collages of other people's lives." Jamie also comments that Alice and Tom ate mostly celery that summer, in an effort to lose weight.' 'Every day there was less of them," he recalls. As well, Jamie remembers that, at one point that summer when his father was still coming to the house to work in the garden, his mother was "unrecognizable with her hair dyed red and with one of her new orange or purple blouses bought from Goodwill." His father treated her as if they hadn't yet been introduced, not like the woman to whom he had been married for years. Similar to an animal bent on survival, she had altered both her behavior and her looks. By the end of the story, she has even co-opted the "most pleasant memories" of another person. Ultimately, though, Jamie believes that the way animals behave is preferable over the way humans behave. When compared with people, animals act in a near-rational manner, and they ' 'seem to have a way of seeing what's necessary and acting on that vision," he says. Even given their failures and struggles, animals seem to ' 'get better at surviving'' than do humans. Humans look too much to the past, while animals are most concerned with the hereand-now, he argues. "We pretend we are anything else," as evidenced by people's interest in collecting antiques or in dressing up as characters from a by-gone era. "We don't eat, we grow thin and solemn, and we think about our lives," activities that only seem to bring grief, he asserts, and contribute nothing toward survival. Survival is a primary focus of "Animal Stories," both in and out of the nature videos. The
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videos serve Jamie and his mother almost as guides through a particularly difficult phase of their lives, the different animal stories steering them through death as well as life. When Jamie drives his mother back to her house, nothing matters except that she is comfortable and happy. He does not argue with her about her false memory of Vienna, and he does not try to talk her out of living in her broken-down house because he knows that these things are what she needs right now, at the end of her life. Almost like an animal, "she has darted out of the car with her suitcase,'' thankful that she is out of the hospital and headed directly toward safety and her house. Source: Susan Sanderson, Critical Essay on "Animal Stories,' ' in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Erik France France is a librarian and teaches history and interdisciplinary studies at University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan. In the following essay, France discusses the theme of toxicity in Brown's story. Most of the characters in "Animal Stories" are physically and emotionally damaged. Jamie, the narrator, provides glimpses and examples of environmental poisoning and self-destructive human behavior. By contrasting these with anecdotes and observations about nonhuman animal behavior, he underscores the unique capacity of humans to realize that they are going to die, which makes people more aware of loss and therefore more likely to feel great sadness. Except when faced with environmental poisons inflicted on them by humans, the survival instincts of many animals give them more adaptability and resilience than most of the people introduced in the story. The changes in Jamie's mother, suffering for years from an undetected brain tumor that severely deranges her perceptions, and in Jamie himself, emphasize—by their deterioration and loss—the importance of memory and hope in human identity, consciousness, and motivation. In the end, what makes a person? What is truly important in one's life? Jamie's mother's changes in circumstance and outlook also point to sadness, grief, and attempts to deal with pain and suffering through self-medicating coping patterns. Like Jamie's mother, most of the characters find life too complicated and painful to deal with in any way that can keep them functioning as productive members of society. Except for David, Jamie's father, they simply cannot adapt to change like many less self-aware animals. Their failure to
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the kind of effects caused by atmospheric and groundwater chemical contamination.
Using the metaphor of 'what to do with sadness,' Brown shows that Jamie and his mother keep their poisons in themselves, whereas David lets the toxicity of sadness pass 'like a shooting star' and becomes healed."
adapt partly explains Jamie and his mother's particular fascination with the animal behavior stories they watch on videotapes or read about in books. A major underlying theme of the story emerges, highlighting the impact of human-produced toxins— those released into the environment and effecting all animal life (including human) and those, like alcohol and drugs, ingested or injected by people. These toxins induce major disorientation and destructive chemical reactions that erode or destroy memory, identity, and life itself As the story unfolds, one quickly learns that Jamie's mother is dying from a brain tumor and has already lost many of her normal human memory functions. Many years before, she divorced Jamie's father, David, a doctor. David probably began having an affair soon after Jamie's mother's creeping dementia started in 1976. One discovers that Jamie suffers from "erratic bursts of self-destructiveness and unpredictable lapses in concentration," which make him a dangerous driver, among other things. He links these characteristics to his mother. If one carefully puts clues together, the theme of toxicity emerges as a direct cause for dysfunctional behavior. For instance, in one of the animal behavior anecdotes interspersed throughout "Animal Stories," Jamie informs the reader that "industrial fallout in the rain acts as a narcotic" for pygmy shrews, "causing them to become disoriented and irresponsible." Many of the shrews are killed by cars. This fact is a reminder that Jamie drives in a disoriented and irresponsible manner. In grade school, Jamie "had a kind of roaming retardation in degenerative form." If readers take Jamie at his word, this ' 'condition'' may have been caused by birth defects—
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The time and place setting of "Animal Stories" indicates a toxic setting. Jamie explains that he and his family lived in the town of Waterville, New York, "outside of Buffalo." The actual Waterville can be located on a map closer to Utica in the interior of the state. Brown's placement of the town near Buffalo suggests its proximity to a highly contaminated site called the Love Canal, situated, like the fictional Waterville, not far from Buffalo. Jamie notes that in the winter of 1976, "we had the biggest snowstorm in twenty years, and that spring all the cows died of a mysterious disease." At the same time, and like the pygmy shrews poisoned by unspecified chemical fallout carried by rain in England, his mother became disoriented and irresponsible. Instead of walking in front of cars like the pygmy shrews, Jamie's mother put messages ' 'from God in people's mailboxes" and nearly burned her house down while trying to cook. Not mentioned in the story, documented toxic contamination in fact became evident in the school and neighborhood adjacent to the Love Canal in the same year, 1976. The Niagara Gazette, an area newspaper, uncovered evidence of chemical seepage, at that time, into residential basements in Niagara, New York. This evidence eventually led to a number of government investigations that revealed a wide array of toxic contaminants that included dioxin, a deadly carcinogen or cancercausing agent. By 1979, government officials closed the school and evacuated most residents from the area. Jimmy Carter, the president at the time, then proposed the federal Superfund Program to study, contain, and attempt to clean up toxic waste sites throughout the United States. In "Animal Stories," Jamie's mother, having begun, in 1977, to lose her memory and orientation (she could not even remember that Jimmy Carter was the president), changed her name, in 1979, to Meadow Star and developed a "preoccupation with animals." Jamie tells the reader that in the hot summer of 1977, "people outside were dying of heatstroke." His father left that summer. Jamie, his mother, his girlfriend Alice, and his friend Tom subsequently spent much of their time in Jamie's mother's kitchen drinking gin, "slowly, not saying much, sinking into a smaller life. We drank," Jamie narrates, ' 'until what happened would not be remembered the next day." They also spent much time in the basement trying to keep cool: before David moved out, he would occasionally join his wife and Jamie for a
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drink and "talk about politics." The unhealthy intake of enough gin to blot out memory combined with spending so much time in Jamie's mother's basement suggests the contaminated basements near the Love Canal and points to the underlying theme of toxicity. Brown further develops the theme through many of Jamie's other comments and ruminations about the story's principal characters. Jamie's father's family "came from a Pennsylvania mining town where they were all miners or miners' wives." This small fact evokes the kinds of diseases such as brown lung and black lung that infected mining towns and that may have motivated David to become a doctor. As for his mother's family, Jamie states that they "cannot be trusted—they are all in the business of killing themselves. Sometimes people in her family do get fatal diseases, but it is usually something so intangible as to arouse suspicion." In 1977, Jamie narrates, "God had told Mom: watch out for doctors, they just want to touch you.'' This may be an allusion to her disinterest in sex or an echo of a troubled pregnancy and Jamie's early developmental problems. Later readers learn that she suspected that David had been seeing another woman; this was probably why she divorced him. In any event, David is perhaps the only character who adapted to the changes wrought in 1977 and moved on to a new life; he remarried and lives in a new house. The Love Canal, by its very name, provides a metaphor for the family divide between Jamie and his mother, who show little resilience in the face of change and who remain in their toxic setting, and David, who escapes. The actual Love Canal, by its traumatic history, evokes the terrible damage caused by human-made toxins. The handling of the other characters reinforces the theme of both environmental and ingested toxins. One learns that Sharon, the patient who shares a hospital room with Jamie's mother, overdosed on drugs. Two drug dealers bring her a bag, and she soon "starts slipping little pills into her mouth." Jamie narrates that one of the dealers "fingers the tube leading into my mother's arm and comments that her body is worth about four hundred dollars in narcotics." In the summer of 1977, Tom tells his fellow gin-drinkers how his mother had tried but failed to kill herself four different ways. "What doesn't pass out of our lives," Jamie observes, "even if it is good, ends up killing us. Finally there
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is something that won't pass like a disease or tumor that takes us out of life." David is more able to adapt to trauma than Jamie's mother is; Jamie, on the other hand, remains stuck in her mode. David has a stronger self-preservation instinct. He opted to flee for his life on August 27,1977. He asked Jamie, "Do you want to end up like your mother?'' Though Jamie said he did not want to, his links to his mother are too strong to break. Perhaps Jamie and his mother's bodies are frailer, already contaminated, less able to adapt physically. They are disoriented and damaged by the emotionally and physically toxic environment and cannot break free. Tellingly, Brown uses the word "narcotic" to connect the environmental toxins effecting both Jamie's mother and the pygmy shrews. Narcotic effects disorient, confuse, and ultimately hurl them on a course toward destruction. Using the metaphor of "what to do with sadness," Brown shows that Jamie and his mother keep their poisons in themselves, whereas David lets the toxicity of sadness pass "like a shooting star'' and becomes healed. Like those fortunate animals that "seem to have a way of seeing what's necessary and acting on that vision,'' David saw and did what was necessary to survive. Source: Erik France, Critical Essay on ' 'Animal Stories," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Liz Brent Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses identity, introspection, selfimprovement, and what's important in life, as presented in Brown's short story. In Jason Brown's "Animal Stories," Jamie, the narrator, faced with the approaching death of his mother from a brain tumor, becomes introspective, attempting to assess and define who he is and what's important in life. Jamie explains very briefly how he came to be a person who does not have a clear sense of self and who makes no effort to improve his life. He states that, ' 'I was born with serious intent and not without means, but somewhere along the line I failed to acquire an adequate degree of clarity." In other words, he lacks the vision, or insight, to formulate a clear sense of identity of what's important to him. He explains that, at some point, he ' 'stopped being in a hurry to improve... [his] life.'' He then notes,' 'Shortly afterwards I stopped caring
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so much." Jamie is a man who has essentially avoided serious self-reflection, as a result of which he lacks a clear self-concept of what matters. Jamie explains that since learning of his mother's illness, he has been "trying to think." But Jamie is not a person inclined to self-reflection. He comments, "Lots of strange things have happened that I don't understand. If I ever have any money, I'll hire someone to explain them to me." If he had the money, he would go to a psychiatrist or therapist to gain a clearer understanding of who he is and to delve into the deeper reasons for how he has chosen to lead his life. However, he has just stated that he "never will" have money, so the reader may conclude that he truly has no intention of ever going to a therapist to learn more about, or improve, himself. His tendency to avoid introspection resonates with the doctor's prognosis that his mother's tumor will eventually lead to "a total loss of self-awareness," by which she will "lose" herself. The doctor notes that this is "worse than death." Jamie himself seems to be fighting a total loss of self-awareness in regard to his own life and sense of identity. Jamie astutely observes that, by the time his mother's tumor has reached an advanced stage,' 'it is too late for me. I already have several chins, and if I were to die tomorrow, only about four people would notice and none of them, except my mother, would be women." When Jamie states that "it is too late for me," one can speculate that he has already resigned himself to not changing or improving. Jamie's struggle with his sense of identity is indicated in part by his unspecified learning disability. This disability makes him incapable of spelling his own name. Being able to write your own name is symbolic of having a firm sense of who you are as an individual. Jamie has so little sense of his own identity that he is incapable of even articulating his own name. Not only does he have trouble getting a grip on his own identity, but his mother, too, has trouble identifying who he is. His unclear sense of identity resonates with her loss of ability to recognize him. He explains that, during the summer before the tumor was diagnosed, his mother seemed to regard him as a "new friend," and "sometimes she looked at me as if I were someone else's son." Jamie also finds thinking about who he is to be problematic because he is not sure on what basis to define himself. He does not feel comfortable defining himself by his past or what he has done with his life. He explains, "One of the biggest mistakes I make is trying to think about who I am by remem-
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bering the things I have done." Later, he again states that "the things . . . [he has] done" do not represent an accurate picture of who he is; he claims,' 'If you knew me, then you would know that nothing is less like me than the things I've done." Jamie's mother had always told him "that being myself was the most important thing I could do." Jamie on the other hand does not feel that he is very good at being himself; he mentions that he has been better at living a fantasy life through other people, such as characters in books. He refers to a video show on Animal Imposters, which is about animals who make themselves appear to be something other than what they are—such as a predatory animal that disguises itself as a flower to catch insects, or a predatory fish that looks like a harmless rock to catch other fish for food. These disguises resonate with Jamie's sense of himself as someone who does not know how to be himself but is better at pretending to be someone else. The theme of being an imposter, or taking on the identity of others, is echoed in Jamie's description of the times he and his mother and friends went to Goodwill to buy used clothing, which they wore and became "walking collages of other people's lives." Jamie, who does not have a clear sense of his own identity, is more comfortable borrowing the identities of other people, through books, clothing, or fantasy. For his mother, likewise, once the tumor begins to affect her memory, ' 'her own past has been replaced by the most pleasant memories from other people's lives." Jamie's tendency to avoid self-reflection seems to have been learned from his father, whose impulse to avoid thinking is indicated in the statement that while working in the garden he would "bury his thoughts with the azaleas." Jamie has learned from his father not only to bury his thoughts but also to bury his feelings. At one point, his father tells him, ' 'Jamie, it doesn't matter how you feel about things." Jamie's unclear sense of self and lack of motivation to strive for self-improvement is also learned from his father's example. He observes, "My father was a man of inaction; it is the most valuable thing I learned from him." While his mother told him to always be himself, his father, he says, ' 'taught me not to worry about what I am not." While on the one hand, this may indicate a lesson in self-acceptance, in the case of this narrator, it seems to have taught him not to bother striving to improve himself or his life in any way. His father told him, "You can either be you or someone else," which is really a piece of non-advice since it's rather obvious and seems to
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carry no particular wisdom. His father added, "In the end it really doesn't matter." Jamie states, "I can't understand why he said things like that," but it seems that the lesson he derived from his father's statement was to acquire an attitude of behaving as if nothing really does matter. His mother's imminent death also leads Jamie to think about what's important in life. He notes that "you can't blame most people for not thinking, because they work instead," but adds that since he has no job and his mother has a tumor, "it's time to think about what's important in life." In so doing, he considers his mother's various attempts to understand what's important. At one point, confused by the remote control device, his mother dismantles and examines it "as if it were a mystery she is trying to get to the bottom of." Jamie, likewise, is trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, or meaning, of life. Religion is one avenue through which many people find meaning in life, and Jamie's mother believed in God for a brief period of a year or two. During this time, she wandered around the neighborhood ' 'leaving notes from God in people's mailboxes about what was important in life." These notes listed things she felt were important: gloves, fresh milk, and heat. All three of these items refer to creature comforts, such as nourishment, protective clothing, and physical warmth. Jamie, however, does not seem to consider God or religion as a means of understanding what is needed or essential. He seems to be looking beyond mere physical needs as defined by his mother in her notes from God. After the tumor is diagnosed, Jamie's mother seems to recognize as well that what is important is not just physical needs. She addresses these concerns in a book she writes about how animals remember. Jamie implies that his mother thinks animals understand what's important in life because "they can't remember in the same way we do." Jamie observes that animals, unencumbered by complex thought and memory, "seem to have a way of seeing what's necessary and acting on that vision." Regardless of what unexpected circumstance animals are faced with, they maintain a clear vision of what matters most. For animals, what matters may be just "pecking through bark for worms, or, in the case of the hermit crab, skittering across the ocean floor in search of an abandoned shell suitable for a new home." Animals, then, are able to stay focused on their needs and do what must be done to meet them. Jamie, by contrast, has no clear vision of what's necessary and little motivation to take any kind of action.
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By the end of the story, Jamie seems to prefer his lack of self-awareness, or tendency not to think, to his attempt at self-reflection."
By the end of the story, Jamie seems to prefer his lack of self-awareness, or tendency not to think, to his attempt at self-reflection. He notes, "I have come to love the things I do not know about my past," because "they are like possibilities for the future, which, to any person, is just as important to survival as food." The suggestion here is that the things he remembers, which for him are mostly disappointments, only cause him to feel sad and hopeless. Jamie admits that he is probably ' 'hiding certain things'' about his past, by not remembering them, but, echoing the advice of his father, comments, "why should that matter?" Jamie's general attitude of passivity about his life is captured by his conclusion that life is defined by missed opportunities: "In the end it's all about little possibilities that vanish, like snow." This conclusion reads as a sort of statement against self-reflection and selfimprovement—Jamie chooses to cling to the hope that the things he does not remember about himself and his life are somehow less sad and less disappointing than the things he does remember. Jamie concludes that what's important in life is forgetting the past to keep hope alive. Jamie's efforts to clarify his sense of identity and gain a clearer vision of the important things only result in his resignation to avoid introspection. In the end, he does not bother trying to improve himself and continues to live as if he doesn't care because he has come to truly believe that "in the end it really doesn't matter." Source: Liz Brent, Critical Essay on "Animal Stories," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Sources Herman, Jenifer, Review of ' 'Driving the Heart" and Other Stories, in New York Times, May 2, 1999.
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Elliot, John, "Books: A Canter and a Gallop, John Elliot on Two American Collections," in Daily Telegraph, January 22, 2000. Humphrey, Matthew, "Young Guns. Great Stories from the 25-and-Under Set," in the Guardian, June 25, 1997. Ketchin, Susan, and Neil Giordano, eds., 25 and Under/ Fiction, Center for Documentary Studies in association with W. W. Norton and Company, 1997, pp. 218-19. Lennon, Brian, Review of "Driving the Heart" and Other Stories, in Boston Book Review, April 1, 1999. Review of ' 'Driving the Heart'' and Other Stories, in Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1999. Review of "Driving the Heart" and Other Stories, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 246, February 22, 1999, p. 64.
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Further Reading Gunther, John, Death Be Not Proud: A Memoir, Harper Perennial, 1998. Gunther wrote this book, originally published in 1949, to document the valiant struggle his son waged against a brain tumor that ultimately killed him at age seventeen. Levy, Alexander, The Orphaned Adult: Understanding and Coping with Grief and Change after the Death of Our Parents, Perseus Press, 1999. Written by a psychologist in private practice for more than twenty years, this book examines what happens to adults when their parents die and how this event can facilitate the passage into true adulthood. Roth, Philip, Patrimony: A True Story, Vintage Books, 1996. Originally published in 1991, Roth's book about his father's life and his eventual death due to a brain tumor received that year's National Book Critics Award.
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Black Boy Kay Boyle drew a great deal of attention from literary stalwarts from her earliest publications in European journals and magazines. Later reprinted in the essay, "The Somnambulists," in 1929, William Carlos Williams wrote in transition that Boyle's stories were "of a high degree of excellence." He also noted that people with a "comprehensive" but ' 'disturbing view of what takes place in the human understanding at moment of intense living," will not succeed with the American readership.
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Boyle's uniqueness was reflected not only in her style, but also in her subject matter. In the 1920s, Boyle's cause—aptly reflected by her avant-garde style—was the liberation of art from literary traditions. By the following decade, Boyle was turning away from the text and to the world in which it was perceived. Her best-known works of the 1930s and 1940s concern serious issues, such as racial oppression and Nazism. The story "Black Boy," first published in 1932 in the New Yorker, contains a very real social message. At the time of its creation, Boyle says, "stories were written in protest, and also in faith, and they were not unlike fervent prayers offered up for the salvation of man." Through works such as "Black Boy," Boyle addresses the issue of racial discrimination in the United States. Yet Boyle makes it succeed on levels that extend beyond that of social fiction.
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Author Biography Kay Boyle was born to a wealthy family in St. Paul, Minnesota, on February 19,1902. While a child, she traveled with her parents throughout the United States and Europe. Boyle developed an early appreciation for art, literature, and social values. In her adolescence, Boyle began writing short stories and poems. While still a teenager, Boyle moved to New York City. There she got a job as an assistant to the editor of Broom magazine. Within a short period of time, Boyle's own work began appearing in that publication as well as in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Boyle married a French engineer, a man who shared her dislike for societal conventions and injustice. The couple moved to France, partly because Boyle believed that country was kinder to its leftwing political thinkers and its writers. The couple settled in Paris, where Boyle's literary contacts led to her acquaintance with many other expatriate writers, including Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. Soon, her literary associates were asking her to contribute to new publications. She also edited a journal called This Quarter. In 1927, she began publishing short stories in an avant-garde magazine called transition, and she published regularly in that journal for the next several years. By the 1930s, Boyle's work was appearing frequently in numerous American magazines, including the New Yorker. The stories from this period were collected in her first American book, Short Stories. She continued to work on novels and poetry, and many of her best-known novels were published in that decade. She also worked on translations, a children's book, and edited a short story anthology. Her personal life was less steady. By 1943, she was married to her third husband and had lived in many locations throughout Europe. Her experiences in Europe in the pre-World War II years influenced many of the short stories she wrote during this period. After the end of World War II, Boyle lived in the former West Germany, where she served as a foreign correspondent for the New Yorker. Her short stories from this period were informed by her experiences in the then-occupied, war torn nation. In the 1950s, Boyle fell victim to the American communist scare and McCarthyism. She lost her job with the New Yorker and returned to the United States. For a time, the Nation was one of the few magazines that would print her work. In 1961, she received her second Guggenheim Fellowship (the
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first was in 1933, the year after "Black Boy" was published). In the decades following, she taught at various colleges and continued her social involvement through her work for feminist and pacifist causes. Boyle died in Mill Valley, California, on December 27, 1992.
Plot Summary "Black Boy" begins with an unnamed narrator remembering an accident she had when she was about 10 or 12 years old and living with her grandfather in a seaside city. The girl likes to ride her horse along the beach while her Grandfather Puss likes to ride in the chairs along the wooden boardwalk, which are pushed by young black boys. Puss would fetch his granddaughter from the beach and then choose one of the many boys to push him in one of the chairs. He asks the boys their names but isn't really interested in knowing them. The girl has developed a friendship with one of the black boys. She often comes down to the beach— where the boy sleeps—early in the morning, and the two of them eat dog biscuits and talk. The boy talks about magical things—kings and camels and the Northern Lights. If he were king, the boy says, he wouldn't stay around here. One day, Puss comes to find his granddaughter so they can take a chair to look at an electric sign. He sees her sitting with the black boy. Once Puss and the narrator are up on the boardwalk, he says that he doesn't think it is a good idea for her to be friends with the boy because the boy might harm her. When she asks how, Puss suggests the boy might steal her money. The girl protests, saying that all they do is sit and talk. When Puss asks what they talk about, she claims that she doesn't know. The next morning when the girl wakes up, she remembers her grandfather's words. She decides to go for a horseback ride and not visit the black boy for a few days. She thinks that when Puss sees her riding on the beach, he will stop feeling ill at ease. On the beach, however, the narrator sees her friend sitting in their accustomed place under the boardwalk. The boy stands up to pat the horse, then takes it for a short ride, sitting easily. The boy says he has thought about being a jockey but doesn't care for their lifestyle as they have to watch what they eat. The girl gets on her horse again. She plans to jump over the dock. She tells her friend to watch.
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The girl and the horse race under the boardwalk to get a good start on the jump, but suddenly the girl's dogs rush down the beach, barking wildly and chasing a cat. They get under the horse's legs, and the horse gets frightened and jumps sidewise into an iron arch. The girl is thrown from the horse and loses consciousness. In a dreamlike state, she imagines that she hears someone crying. The black boy has come to the girl and holds her in his arms, murmuring soothing words. He carries the narrator back to her house and she nestles against the boy, seeking comfort. At the narrator's house, Puss comes out to meet them; without saying a word, he hits the black boy in the mouth.
Characters Black Boy The black boy and the narrator are friends. The black boy has a job pushing people in chairs to see the sights along the boardwalk. He lives on the beach and is quite poor. Despite his poverty, he has an active fantasy life. With his imagination, he can create a beautiful world in which he can be anything he wants to be. He is a bright and self-confident boy, whose caring nature and optimism belies the racist beliefs held by 1930s American society.
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world of civilization rather than the natural world. He holds racist beliefs and does not trust the black boy whom his granddaughter befriends, even though he makes no effort to get to know the boy.
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Narrator The narrator of the story is a girl about 10 or 12 years old. Her mother is dead, and the narrator lives with her grandfather, Puss, in an oceanside town. She spends a lot of time on the beach, sometimes riding her horse and other times talking to her friend, the black boy. The narrator is very observant and perceptive. She notices details about people and things that surround her, and she also clearly sees her grandfather's distasteful treatment of minorities. She is open-minded, going along with the black boy's fantasies and seeing the beauty in what his words describe.
Puss Puss is the narrator's grandfather. He has fussy and particular tastes. One of his favorite activities is hiring a boy to push him and his granddaughter in a chair along the boardwalk. He likes to look at the shops along the way. He is more at home in the
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Prejudice and Racism The prejudice that Puss has for African Americans is one of the major components of the story. Even before Puss speaks of his dislike for the black boy whom his granddaughter has befriended, his racism is apparent. He sees all the boys who make a living pushing chairs along the boardwalk as interchangeable. At this point in the story, Puss's racism evidences itself in his complete disregard for these black boys who nevertheless perform a service he finds valuable. When Puss realizes that his granddaughter has become friends with one of these boys, he lets her know in no uncertain terms that he does not want her to be friends with the boy because he ' 'might do you some kind of harm." He is hard-pressed, however, to explain what kind of harm that might be. He proposes that the black boy might "knock you
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Topics for Further Study Conduct research to find out more about the harsh economic circumstances under which many African Americans lived in the 1930s. Write up your findings in a paragraph or two. Boyle's prose and descriptions are very evocative. Imagine that you are an artist invited to illustrate an important scene from this story. Which scene would you pick and why? What stylistic choice would you make in rendering the scene? Analyze the black boy's commentary. How honest are his comments? What do his statements reveal about him? Why do you think this? Critics do not always agree on Boyle's use of metaphor; some think her metaphors are overdone while others think they are evocative. Explain your opinion of Boyle's metaphors in "Black Boy." Many critics have commented upon Boyle's vivid descriptions. Reread "Black Boy," taking careful note of how she describes the setting and characters. Write a fictional paragraph and try to use a descriptive style that imitates Boyle's.
down and take your money away." Puss's fears, however, are clearly unfounded. Earlier, the narrator had attested to her safety when she noted that wherever she went, her dogs always followed behind her. Ironically, it is the dogs that cause the narrator's accident when they scare the horse, which then throws the girl. Puss refuses to acknowledge the boy's helpfulness and compassion. Instead, his racist attitude causes him to physically attack the black boy. Boyle also comments on the social injustice of racism through the black boys themselves. All of the people who push the chairs are black boys. They have a hard, thankless job that is more suited to
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animals than humans. Through details like these that surround the black boy, Boyle shows the boys' poverty.
Childhood Although the story is written from the point of view of an older narrator looking back on a childhood incident, it presents the child's perception. The narrator beholds the world with a childlike fascination and credulity. For instance, the waves of the ocean became lazy women tiptoeing across the sand. The narration also reflects the purity of childhood. Instead of looking down at her friend because of his race, she compares his neck favorably to that of a white man. She embraces her friendship with the black boy, sensing that he can provide love and comfort. This would be unimaginable to the adult as typified by Puss, who could not look beyond the boy's race and social circumstances. The narrator, who maintains the more mature voice of the adult throughout, nevertheless remains true to the childlike persona. At the end of the story, as she recalls lying on the grass after her accident, her perceptions are those of a lonely child. She imagines her dead mother holding her and the wind crying over her pain. She feels "rocked in a cradle of love, cradled and rocked in sorrow." When the black boy refers to her as his "little lamb," he subtly emphasizes her youth and her need for a guiding adult figure.
Imaginary World The idea of an imaginary world figures prominently in the story. The black boy invents an entire world in which he has lived. In this world, he "could be almost anything I made up my mind to be." For instance, he could have been a jockey, only he chose not to because they have to watch their diet so carefully. He also dreams up prettier surroundings. Instead of the boardwalk creaking above, he creates a time when all sorts of wild and exotic animals came down to the ocean edge. Although he acknowledges that this is a "mirage," he also claims, "I seen camels, I seen zebras, . . . I might have caught any of one of them if I'd been inclined." Although the boy's claims cannot be proven, there is truth to some of them. He may not have been a jockey, but he does ride the girl's horse with surprising ease. The boy is extremely effective in his creation of the imaginary world, his escape from the impoverished, gritty world in which he really lives. Even the narrator is swayed, finding that
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every one of his words ' 'seemed to fall into a cavern of beauty."
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flower." Another black boy who pushes the carts has a face "dripping down like tar in the sun." All of these descriptions emphasize the extreme darkness of the skin color of these boys who work on the boardwalk.
Style Language Point of View The story is told from the first-person point of view. The narrator is a grown woman looking back on an incident that took place when she was about 10 or 12 years old. The reader is only privy to what goes on in the mind of the narrator. Yet, because the narrator has a keen perception of the world around her, the story clearly indicates the mores and values of the time period. Though the story is brief, the narrator fills it with vivid detail. The narrator's account of her grandfather's attitudes toward the black boys who push the chairs is particularly illuminating. While it shows the prevailing racist attitude of the time, the girl juxtaposes herself against her grandfather, showing her own openmindedness.
Symbolism and Imagery Boyle makes use of a great deal of symbolism and imagery in the story. The slow movement of the waves of the Atlantic Ocean is evoked through her comparison of them to "indolent" ladies who "gathered up their skirts in their hands and, . . . came tiptoeing in across the velvet sand." The dogs "wheeled like gulls." The narrator's horse is likened to a shy bird. The black boy is also described in comparison to other key elements of the story. His neck is long and shapely, more so even than a white man's. His fingers ' 'ran in and out of the sand like the blue feet of a bird." This phrase is perhaps most important because it has both a positive and a negative slant. On the positive side, Boyle compares the boy to an animal, and she infuses animals with worthy attributes throughout the story. On the negative side, Boyle also implicity equates the boy with the narrator's horse, since both of them are likened to birds. This comparison reinforces the idea that on the boardwalk above, the boy, doing the work of a horse, is regarded as little more than an animal that provides a physical service. Boyle also uses intense imagery to refer to the character's blackness. The boy was "as thin as a shadow but darker" and his face was "black as a bat's wing, nodding and nodding like a dark heavy
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Boyle uses rich language in writing the story, and her characters mimic this language. The narrator uses vivid metaphors and well-crafted descriptions, and the black boy's speech reflects a desire for true beauty. He describes a magical scene in which there used to be all kinds of animals come down here to drink in the dark.. .. They was a kind of a mirage came along and gave that impression. 1 seen tigers, lions, lambs, deer; I seen ostriches drinking down there side by side with each other.
The narrator responds to the boy's language: ' 'every word the black boy spoke seemed to fall into a cavern of beauty." When the narrator's grandfather wants to know what the two children converse about, however, she only replies, "I don't know. It doesn't sound like much to tell it." She understands that she and her friend are creating a better world but a made-up world just the same.
Historical Context The Great Depression The Great Depression, the period between the stock market crash of October 1929 and the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, was the worst economic crisis in American history. During that time, millions of Americans lost their jobs and sank into poverty. By 1932, the United States was solidly in the midst of the Great Depression, Industrial output fell to about half that of 1929, resulting in massive layoffs. About 12-15 million Americans were unemployed at the peak of the crisis. Wages had fallen by almost one third. More than 5,000 banks closed their doors.
Urban Living Conditions The depression hit many cities very hard. City governments, religious groups, and charitable organizations tried to provide direct relief to the needy, and neighbors relied on each other for help. Men and women waited in breadlines for bowls of
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Compare fc Contrast 1930s: Sixty percent of African Americans between the ages of 5 and 20 attend school. 1990s: In 1997, 13.4 percent of African-American students drop out of high school. 1930s: The annual median income for whites is $1,325, while the median income for African Americans and other minorities is $489. 1990s: In 1998, the annual median household income for whites is $42,000 and for African
soup and pieces of bread. Hunger was so widespread that one out of every five children in New York City suffered from malnutrition. Homelessness was also a serious problem in the cities. Some people lived in shantytowns, which were collections of makeshift shelters built out of packing boxes, scrap lumber, and other pieces of junk. They used newspapers as blankets.
Popular Culture in the 1930s Despite the hard times, Americans still sought entertainment. Many people played at home, listened to the radio, and attended movies. Radio shows that featured heroes who triumphed over evil, and gangster films, zany comedies, musicals, and cartoons all allowed people to forget their troubles, if only briefly. New forms of popular literature also arose during the decade, such as comic books featuring superheroes. Popular books of the period also offered a chance to escape. Many Americans managed to hold onto their automobiles, and millions of Americans took to the road for vacations.
The New Deal In the presidential elections of 1932, voters overwhelming supported Democratic candidate Franklin Roosevelt. He received 23 million popular votes in comparison to incumbent Herbert Hoover's 16 million popular votes. The Democrats also won
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Americans it is $25,500. In 1995, 9.9 million African Americans—29.3 percent of the African-American population—live in poverty. 1930s: In 1930, the population of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is 66,198. Atlantic City is a popular vacation resort. 1990s: In 1998, the population of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is 38,063. Voters legalized gambling in 1976, and today Atlantic City is best known for its casinos.
decisive victories in both houses of Congress. Roosevelt was thus poised to initiate his New Deal program, which involved a series of relief and recovery measures aimed at helping the American people and stimulating the economy. Roosevelt's administration increased confidence in the banking system, provided direct relief for the poor and hungry and employed jobless men and women, among other significant actions. The New Deal attempted to correct those inequalities that had such adverse affects on minorities. For instance, the Public Works Administration instituted the first nondiscrimination and quota clauses for hiring. Thus, Roosevelt became very popular with minority and African-American voters, who felt that at last someone in government cared about their special needs.
African Americans and the Depression African Americans faced especially difficult times as economic troubles added to the problems they already experienced with racial discrimination. African-American workers were often the first to be laid off. In northern cities, as much as 25 to 40 percent of African Americans were out of work by 1933, and in southern cities, unemployment rates rose as high as 75 percent. When African Americans were employed through federal job programs, many received lower wages than did their white counterparts. African Americans also were excluded from
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certain New Deal programs. Only one in four African Americans received any public aid during the Depression. If they did, they often received significantly lower payments than white families did. Because of a lack of political organization and strength, African Americans had little means to influence and improve this state of public affairs. Throughout the depression, the majority of African Americans remained poor and uneducated.
Critical Overview "Black Boy," which was originally published in the New Yorker in 1932, was collected along with 13 other stories in 1933's First Lover and Other Stories. Sandra Whipple Spanier wrote in Kay Boyle, Artist and Activist that nearly all of the stories in the volume "evidence the author's long-standing concerns with fresh language, the individual quest for identity, and the need for—and failures of—love." Spanier added that "a few chart new territory, moving away from the personal expression of personal experience toward communication of broader social concerns." This shift is particularly relevant as Boyle's work from the mid-1930s onward increasingly reflected the author's interest in and understanding of the events that shaped the international community as the world went to war. Toward the end of her career, Boyle stated that she had come to believe that it was the duty of a writer to chronicle the world as she knew it and particularly its key issues. "Black Boy," as much as Boyle's more well-known fictions focusing on Nazism in Europe, concerns itself with pressing social inequities, ones that needed to be addressed. At the time of its publication, many reviewers held a favorable opinion of First Lover and Other Stories. In the 1920s, Boyle had been concentrating on avant-garde fictions, and Karl Schriftgiesser of the Boston Transcript found these new stories to be "the matured work of an avowed experimentalist who has standards and subjects that are worth experimenting with." Reviewers tended to comment on Boyle's careful attention to words and expression. Boyle had already established a reputation for herself as a wordsmith, which led some critics to expect a great deal from any new work from her. As Gladys Graham wrote in the Saturday Review of Literature, "Miss Boyle has set herself too high a standard for continuous realization." Louis
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Kronenberger of the New York Times, however, believed the stories to show that Boyle had "not yet quite mastered her art." Still, Kronenberger recognized Boyle's uniqueness as a writer, stating: If without losing any of her lightness and grace and sensibility, Miss Boyle can bring into play more of the toughness that already seems latent in her work, and can use words a little more gravely, she should become as significant as she already is individual.
In 1946, Thirty Stories—a work that included stories produced during a period of 20 years—was published, and again, Boyle's use of language was a major focus. Rosemary Paris, reviewing this collection for Furioso, believed that Boyle did not manage to deepen and broaden her "initial very real ability" despite the fact that her subject matter was "the resounding materials of the contemporary world." Paris did find that "there are stories in this volume which come near the crystallization of substance and style which makes a good work of art" and specifically commended "Black Boy" as "very delicate and moving." However, Paris also used this story as an example of Boyle's sometimes overwhelmingly strong voice and manipulation of words. She writes that Boyle at times is an "undisciplined" writer, pointing out her inability to "resist the uncontrolled and unrelated imagery on which she relies for effect.'' Struther Burt, in contrast, who reviewed the collection for the Saturday Review of Literature, believed that Boyle's work showed "a unique gift for striking metaphor, granted as a rule only to poets." Although he recommended Boyle's European stories over her American stories, he still found these earlier stories to be "interesting as a study in the emergence of an artist; an artist with a beautiful command of language . . . and a passionate, impelling drive."
Criticism Rena Korb Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, Korb discusses how the personalities of the main characters are reflected through Boyle's choice of descriptive language. In the early 1930s, Kay Boyle was producing short stories at an astonishing rate. Over the course of that decade she published three short story collections in
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What Do I Read Next? Boyle's short story "White as Snow" (1933) is another story of a child's introduction to racial prejudice. Like "Black Boy," it is told from the point of view of a white child who does not understand discrimination, in this case against her African-American governess. Hugh Ford's Four Lives in Paris (1987) explores four American expatriates who lived and created in Paris in the 1920s. Along with his discussion of Boyle, Ford presents the composer George Antheil, social and political critic Harold Stearns, and New York editor Margaret Anderson. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn (1884) chronicles the voyage of Huck Finn, a poor white boy,
addition to numerous other works. Despite her prodigious writing, she rarely talked about her work. "Black Boy," first published in 1932 and collected in First Lover and Other Stories the following year, was one of the few stories that she spoke about to friends, chronicling the difficulties she had getting it published. Several magazines rejected it, including Harper's, which nonetheless told her that some of its passages were "magical." Boylefinallysucceeded in selling the story to the New Yorker. Later on, she also expressed satisfaction with the story because "it is completely simple, and moral without moralizing." Indeed, "Black Boy" is a brief tale about a preadolescent girl who becomes friends with a black boy who makes his living pushing people in chairs along the oceanside boardwalk. Despite her grandfather's warning that the black boy might want to do her harm, she continues to visit the black boy on the beach. One day, she is thrown from her horse and knocked unconscious. The boy picks her up and holds her comfortingly, but when he returns her home, the grandfather strikes him in the mouth. To maintain the simplicity of the story and its overarching message, Boyle relies on effective
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and his companion Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River. Huck learns to overcome racial prejudices during his journey. The Color of Water (1996) is a memoir by James McBride of growing up in a large, poor family with an African-American father and a white mother. He also recounts his efforts to find out more about his mother's path in his own quest for self-understanding. Richard Wright's Native Son (1940) addresses the issue of white America's responsibility for racial oppression. It tells the story of an AfricanAmerican man imprisoned for the accidental killing of his white employer's daughter.
language. Through her words, she draws clear portrayals of her characters and her setting. All of the characters—even the nonhuman ones—are evocatively described through careful metaphor. The waves of the sea are "indolent as ladies," the boys who push the chairs on the boardwalk have faces that drip "down like tar in the sun," even the narrator's horse is "as shy as a bird." Such language focuses attention on the fundamental characteristics of the story's elements while bringing them sharply to life. The details that surround the narrator, the black boy, and Grandfather Puss further identify the milieu in which these people are comfortable and shed light on their manner of regarding the world. Of the three characters, the black boy—who lives the most circumscribed life due to harsh economic realities—has the widest worldview. He is at home in the natural world, sleeping on the beach and spending hours with his eyes on the sea. He is identified with animals; the narrator notes that' 'his fingers ran in and out of the sand like the blue feet of a bird." Yet, his vision is not limited to the world in which he lives. He vividly imagines an Atlantic City that is not a hotbed of tourism but populated by exotic animals allowed to roam wild. His vision of
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these animals represents the boy himself and his longing for change. He says, "If I was a king, I wouldn't put much stock in hanging around here." It also demonstrates his self-sufficiency in his ability to create a better world for himself when none is forthcoming. Though he speaks with incorrect grammar, the boy is knowledgeable about myriad topics such as biblical kings, mirages, and the Northern Lights. He knows how to ride a horse "easily and straight." His preference for riding a horse bareback again shows his comfort in the natural world, and his rejection of the trappings of civilization befits him, for civilization has already rejected him. Despite his bleak circumstances, the boy still has the capacity for awe and respect. He regards the narrator's horse with eyes filled with a ' 'spark of wonder'' and when he rides the horse he was "quick with delight" but still had ' 'no thought of smiling." He takes his task of riding the horse seriously. Grandfather Puss's focus in life is exceedingly narrower. For instance, despite living in close proximity to the ocean, he chooses to remain on the boardwalk or in his house, only visiting the beach when the tide has gone down. Even then, he does not venture far. ' 'For a minute, he put one foot in the sand, but he was not at ease there," relates his granddaughter. His perception is bounded by the world above, on the boardwalk "over our heads" where "some other kind of life was in progress." That world contains the trappings of modernity, such as transportation in the form of rolling chairs and women in high-heeled shoes. Puss enjoys the chair ride because he likes to look at the store windows and the electric signs. His granddaughter comments to herself,' 'there was no hesitation about whether he would look at the shops on one side, or out on the vacant side where there was nothing shining but the sea.'' He also enjoys the dominance he has over the black boys who push the chairs. He might look for a "nice skinny boy" who would "put some action into it." Puss's reaction to the black boys who work on the boardwalk demonstrates a prevailing racist attitude of American society—which is further subtly alluded to in the fact that only black boys work pushing chairs. Puss regards the boys as little more than animals pulling a load. Though he asks the boys their names, he only does so "without turning his head" to actually look at them. His prejudice also extends beyond the African-American race. In casual conversation he remarks to his granddaugh-
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The details that surround the narrator, the black boy, and Grandfather Puss further identify the milieu in which these people are comfortable and shed light on their manner of regarding the world."
ter,' 'I saw another little oak not three inches high in the Jap's window yesterday." As befits her superior socioeconomic position, the girl can straddle both the world of her grandfather and the world of her friend, but she is not fully part of either. While she enjoys taking her horse to ride in the ocean waves, unlike her friend, she uses a saddle. She also spurs the horse on "with the end of my crop,'' which is in stark contrast to the boy, who would "never raise a hand to one [a horse], unless he was to bite me or do something I didn't care for." On the beach one morning, the girl notes that the ocean wind was "filled with alien smells." She enjoys sitting on the sand, but she makes the choice about when to descend to this world. At other times, she ascends as if from hell to heaven, where she is served by the black boys who pull her and Puss along in a chair with red velvet cushions—cushions fit for the king that the black boy will never be. The important difference between the narrator and her grandfather is that she does not share his racist opinions. Her observations show that she sees the people around her as just that—as people and not as people of a certain color. She describes the neck of the black boy as ' 'longer and more shapely than a white man's neck." However, she is still unable to ignore the prevailing attitude of black and white in the world. Her prose is full of references to color: Her grandfather wears a white moustache, she can see her friend sitting on the beach at night in the "clear white darkness," even the dangerous beams of the boardwalk into which the horse smashes are "tough" and "black." The message in the language is clear: racism is a pervasive and destructive element of society, affecting even those mem-
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bers who are open-minded. Indeed, even the narrator's neglect to name her friend, instead choosing always to refer to him as the "black boy" underscores this basic truth of her world. The inherent racism of society is also manifest in her desire to be superior to the black boy at horseback riding. Never before had she indicated an interest in jumping over the dock; previously she had only spoken of riding the horse in the waves and on the beach. Once she sees the skill with which her friend handles the horse, however, she feels a stir of jealousy. For the first time, she points out the fallacy of her friend's words. When he claims that he was going to be a jockey but changed his mind, she draws attention to the inconsistency of his story with the simple phrase, "Jockeys make a pile of money." Despite this momentary flash of jealousy, the narrator is openhearted toward the black boy. When her grandfather declares that he does not want her to continue the friendship, she feels the ' 'burden of his words." She decides her best course of action is to stay away from her friend for a few days. She wants to make sure that Puss sees her' 'riding high'' down the beach. Then she will be able to pick up her friendship with the black boy. Ironically, it is the effects of racism that lead her to the one place where she feels truly at peace. After she is thrown from her horse and loses consciousness, she feels ' 'rocked in a cradle of love, cradled and rocked in sorrow." It is her friend, the black boy, who gathers her in "long swift fingers of love untying the terrible knot of pain that bound my head.'' She puts her' 'arms around him and lay close to his heart in comfort." The black boy is equated with other symbols of comfort: her dead mother and a soft wind. His compassion is shown through his words: "Oh, my little lamb." The girl's peacefulness is extremely short-lived because when the black boy returns her from the beach, to the real world, the two children again come face to face with racism. Instead of thanking the black boy for helping his granddaughter, or even finding out what happened, Puss "struck him squarely in the mouth." Source: Rena Korb, Critical Essay on "Black Boy," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Joyce Hart Hart has degrees in literature and creative writing and focuses her published writing on literary themes. In this essay, Hart discusses the various
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methods the author uses to portray the overall themes of division and separation. From the title of "Black Boy" to the final scene in Kay Boyle's short story, the reader is conscious that this is a story about prejudice. But Boyle creates this tale of prejudice not by harping on the evils of racism but by building images of separation and division in every scene in her story. With her careful creation of metaphor and allusion, she subtly weaves her theme into her descriptions of nature and the mannerisms and thoughts of her characters. She sets both her characters and her readers on a collision course with that invisible dividing wall between white people and African Americans that exists in the narrator's world. Through a closer reading of Boyle's story, readers can appreciate not only the impact of that collision but also the artistic ability of the author in creating the setting around the conflict. Beginning with the first sentence of "Black Boy," Boyle places in the mind of the reader the concept that this is the story of divisions: "At that time, it was the forsaken part, it was the other end of the city." It is to this forsaken part of the city that the narrator heads, taking the reader with her as she rises early in the morning before most of her neighbors crowd the sidewalks and the beach. The forsaken beach becomes a sanctuary for the narrator, separating her from the noise and busyness of city life. But it is only the first of many separations. The beach itself is divided. There is the hard-packed sand close to the water where the narrator can enjoy a fast ride on her horse. There is also the softer ' 'drifts of dry sand'' where the narrator must retreat when the tide and the wind are high. The softer sand makes the narrator slow her pace, and even when she does this, the dry sand, driven by the wind, blows into her face and stings her. The distinction between the two types of beach environment is clearly marked not only with their various characteristics but also with the narrator's preference. Further division of the beach is apparent when the narrator describes the wooden promenade, or boardwalk, that runs the length of the beach. It is to this promenade that most of the city people head, including the narrator's grandfather. The grandfather has no patience with the sandy nature of the beach. This difference in character separates him from his granddaughter who loves the more natural setting. The grandfather prefers the man-made, wooden structure overhead, where, in the narrator's words,' 'some other kind of life [was] in progress.'' Here it is clear that the typical city person—women
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wearing high heels and the narrator's grandfather in his ' 'pearl fedora,''—come out only in fair weather with their minds and heads turned toward the shops on the promenade rather than toward the ocean and the open horizon. The boardwalk separates them from nature to the point that there is very little awareness that the beach even exists.
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The next division is very obvious. The white people are on one side of the transparent socioeconomic wall, wearing their hats and dresses and eyeing the most suitable drivers of the boardwalk's wheeled chairs. The black boys, of course, are on the other side. The wall of division is so thick at this encounter between the two groups of people that the grandfather looks at the young African-American men as if they were horses: "There's a nice skinny boy. ... He looks as though he might put some action into it." Boyle's depiction of this scene is reminiscent of slave owners eyeing new arrivals at an auction, belittling the human aspects of the slaves to justify their own inflated sense of selfworth. Further examples of this attitude are seen when the grandfather addresses the young man who is pushing the chair by making up names for him. It can also be deduced from the reading that the division between the world of his granddaughter and the young man, in the grandfather's mind, is so wide that he has no consciousness that his granddaughter might know the young man, which she does, although she does not admit it. The fact that she does not admit it signifies that there is also a division within her. Not only does she not tell her grandfather that she prefers the world that exists under the boardwalk on the beach, she also does not convey her attraction to the young man. She is aware of the wall that separates her world from the world of the young man, but she does not attempt to plow through it, at least not in the presence of her grandfather. Although the narrator is aware of the divisions that separate her life from that of the young AfricanAmerican man, she is not totally aware of how deeply those divisions cut into her. She describes the young man in terms of a "shadow'' and ' 'a dark heavy flower''; and in another passage, he becomes "black as a bat's wing" with "his face dripping down like tar," while his fingers are "like the blue feet of a bird.'' Readers might question if these nonhuman features are descriptive phrases that the narrator would use in depicting someone from her white world. Or is the narrator seeing the young man as the so-called other, the exotic one, the one
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only place in this story where the divisions temporarily fade away,"
removed to the outer limits of the prescribed definition of members of the dominant culture, the one who is considered "not normal?" The young man also appears to be affected by these internalized, psychological divisions as he dreams of being a king, dreams of being anything but the young man who must tolerate people like the narrator's grandfather. Later, he confesses to the narrator of seeing mirages of wild animals coming down to the ocean to drink. Boyle has the young man make references here to animals from both the African continent (lions, tigers, and ostriches) as well as from the North American continent (lambs and deer). In addition, the animals also represent a mixture of predator and prey. In the fantasies of the young man, these animals from mixed continents and crossed purposes are able to drink the water "side by side with each other." These imagined scenes are very much separated from the daily scenes that fill the young man's normal life. It is also interesting to note that the young man and the narrator meet under the boardwalk, right under the dividing line between the ocean and the structures of the city. In this space, neither in nature nor in sight of the eyes of black or white people, there exists a sense of suspension of all the definitions, a deterioration of all the divisions. The place under the boardwalk becomes a sort of mythological netherworld for the two main characters, the only place in this story where the divisions temporarily fade away. Another fascinating passage that shows the degree of separation between the lives of the two youths is Boyle's mention of dogs. The narrator states that she is free to go wherever she wants to go
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because she has her family dogs to protect her. In contrast, the young boy is not protected by a set of dogs, and it could be argued that he is less free than the dogs to wander through the obviously segregated society in which he lives. The reference to the narrator's dogs who shake "the taste of the house out of their coats" before running across the beach comes in stark contrast to the young man who has no house to go to or come from and who eats dog biscuits with worms in them, a food that, more than likely, would never be given to the narrator's dogs. It is at this point in the story that the grandfather discovers that the narrator has befriended the black boy. Boyle has the grandfather not only verbally express his dislike of this situation, she subtly alludes to the degree of separation between the grandfather's life and that of the young boy by first having the grandfather touch his white mustache, then "put his kid gloves carefully on his fingers." The mentioning of the word white emphasizes the color of the grandfather's skin as being different from the young man's, whereas the putting on of the gloves symbolizes a variety of possibilities. Kid gloves are expensive, for one thing, too expensive for a young man who lives on the beach to own. So there is the economic distancing. There is also a sense of separation in that the grandfather layers himself, protects himself from having to touch or feel the presence of the young man. The narrator is slightly disturbed by her grandfather's having pointed out the chasm that exists between the world of white people and black people. But like all Romeo-and-Juliet-type stories, when authority figures create artificial barriers between two people, the two people, in retaliation, attempt to build bridges. Not persuaded by her grandfather's argument that she must stay away from the young man, the narrator rides her horse over to where the young man is sitting on the beach. She rides on a leather saddle. In response to being offered the chance to ride the horse, the young man states that he's not used to riding in a saddle: "I ride them with their bare skin," he says. With this statement, Boyle once again shows the separation that exists between the narrator and the young man. The narrator is more comfortable riding on an expensive saddle, while the young man, whom Boyle keeps in the realm of the exotic, is the nature boy, the wild man. His life is filled with no frills, no extra comforts. He rides the horse with ease, sharing some second nature, intui-
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tive understanding with the animal. When he returns from his ride, he tells the narrator, in an ironic foreshadowing: "Some folks licks hell out of their horses.... I'd never raise a hand to one." There is then the final scene in which the bridge that the young woman and young man have tried to build across the chasm comes crashing down. It is at this point of the story that the young girl wants to demonstrate how she can overcome obstacles. She wants to ride her horse over the jetty, much as she wants to ride her own sense of justice over the prejudiced beliefs of her grandfather. She tells the young man that she is going to take her horse under the boardwalk to get "a good start.'' Remember that it is under the boardwalk where the two young people have met, where they have talked, where they have hidden themselves in that netherworld. It is from this point that the narrator believes that she can gain enough energy and power to rise above the obstacles that lay in her way. But dogs suddenly appear out of nowhere, little creatures much smaller than the horse. Little like the narrator's references to her Grandfather Puss. And it is the little creatures that upset the horse that throws the narrator into an iron arch. The laws of society hit very hard when one is thrown against them. The consequences of that collision is that the narrator passes out. Only in a state of unconsciousness does the narrator allow herself to be loved by a black man. It is possible that at the time this story was written, it was unthinkable that a white woman could love a black man. Or maybe this is another of Boyle's statements. Maybe it is only through unconsciousness that the barriers between the narrator and the young man could be totally disintegrated. No matter which statement is true, the narrator, while unconscious, releases her true feelings toward the young man:' 'I put my arms around him and lay close to his heart in comfort." Just as powerful as the iron arch and at least as damaging, the young man is thrown into the fist of the narrator's grandfather. There was no need to add any more information. The reader's imagination could fill in the blanks. For a young black man to be found holding the body of a young white woman, at the time of this story, was unfathomable. There were no excuses. All language would fail, like the narrator on her horse, to clear its way over the barriers. Source: Joyce Hart, Critical Essay on ' 'Black Boy," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
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Chris Semansky Semansky's stories, poems, and essays appear regularly in literary journals. In the following essay, Semansky analyzes the contradictions at the heart of Boyle's short story.
By naming the pier generically rather than putting it in, say, Atlantic
Boyle's concern in "Black Boy" is with social justice and the contradictions inherent in American society. She addresses these contradictions not only in the story' s setting, characters, and plot, but also in its style. However, she offers no resolution to the problem of bigotry or economic inequality. Rather, the acts of remembering and expressing themselves serve as symbolic markers for the necessity of social change. Boyle presents these contradictions through her use of juxtaposition. By placing the world above the boardwalk, populated by "rolling chairs, and women in high heels," alongside the world under the boardwalk and on the beach, where the narrator and the black boy play, Boyle highlights the differences between them. Symbolically, the boardwalk, home of the "Million Dollar Pier," represents the world of commerce and social conventions where Puss is most comfortable. By naming the pier generically rather than putting it in, say, Atlantic City, Boyle emphasizes the setting's symbolic and universal nature. What's morally important in the story are the ideas the characters and setting evoke. Literally a surface structure, the boardwalk teems with human-made things: chairs, shops, electric signs, the empirically verifiable world of commodities. This is where adults go to see and be seen, to conduct business and pursue pleasure. The world underneath the boardwalk, on the other hand, is the world of children and their innocence. The narrator and the black boy sit here among the "Great crystal jelly beasts" and "the wastes of sand," talking. Symbolically marked by its physical relation to the boardwalk, the world underneath the pier also represents instinct and nature, the organic and wild, as opposed to the artificial. The galloping horse and baying dogs run here. Literally, the beams the two sit near hold the pier up. Symbolically, this place represents the world of exploited labor, where the black boy fantasizes about what he would do if he were not working on the boardwalk. The boy's dreaming, his belief that his life could be otherwise, is what enables the world above to continue as it does. Seen in this light, the boardwalk—the world of the white man—could not exist without what lies underneath it.
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City, Boyle emphasizes the setting's symbolic and universal nature, What's morally important in the story are the ideas the characters and setting evoke."
Boyle's characters come close to embodying racial and class stereotypes. In his pearl fedora and ' 'belly pouting in his dove-gray clothes,'' the grandfather "was not at ease" on the beach, preferring the boardwalk's world of shops and monetary transactions. Puss's attitude towards people is stereotypical of a capitalist. He treats the black boy as if he were one more thing to be bought and controlled. His exchange with the boy regarding the boy's name illustrates the power of money to abuse and degrade others. By responding to whatever name Puss calls him, the boy literally becomes whoever Puss wants him to be. Even the grandfather's attitude towards his granddaughter is centered on money. He cautions her against spending time with the black boy, saying, "He might knock you down and take your money away." Puss's bigotry extends to other people as well, as he uses the epithet "Jap" to describe a Japanese person. In her study of Kay Boyle and her fiction, Kay Boyle: Author of Herself, Joan Mellen notes that Black Boy is one of Boyle's largely autobiographical stories of the 1930s and that Puss is modeled on her paternal grandfather, Peyton ' 'Puss'' Boyle, the family patriarch, a proud capitalist, and an overbearing man. The story is based on an actual incident that took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the family lived for a time. Boyle's relationship with her grandfather was mixed: she reviled his politics and the way he treated others but was dependent on him financially. Mellen sums up Boyle's attitude toward Puss (and her father) by quoting her: "I knew from my father and my grandfather what I didn't want to be, and the kind of person I really didn't have any respect for at all."
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Although the narrator describes the black boy in more positive terms, he is still marked by the kind of racial stereotyping common in the early 1930s, when the story was written. Alternately, the black boy symbolizes the oppressed and victimized working class, the force of nature, and idealized love. The boy works joylessly, pushing paying customers up and down the boardwalk in a rickshaw-like chair. The girl describes him: He never wore a smile on his face, the black boy. He was thin as a shadow but darker, and he was pushing and sweating, getting the chair down to the Million Dollar Pier and back again, in and out through the people. If you turned toward the sea for a minute, you could see his face out of the corner of your eye, hanging black as a bat's wing, nodding and nodding like a dark heavy flower.
Describing the boy's physical features in animal and plant terms foregrounds the girl's view of him as a black boy, someone closer to the natural world than the whites, someone mysterious, raw, instinctual, fully "other." The girl says: "His hair grew all over the top of his head in tight dry rosettes. His neck was longer and more shapely than a white man's neck, and his fingers ran in and out of the sand like the blue feet of a bird." His exotic appearance is matched by his fantastical story of seeing camels, zebras, and tigers down by the water, but when he tells the girl that he ' 'could be almost anything I made up my mind to be" and that he once wanted to be a jockey but gave up the idea because "[t]hey have to watch their diet so careful,'' readers see him as the child he is, with a child's innocence and hope for the future. The boy gradually becomes more humanized to the girl as well, after riding her horse barebacked with skill and grace and tenderly stroking its mane. Her love for the boy is obvious in the way she describes his response to her accident. As the story's narrator, the girl seeks to make sense of her past and her experience with the black boy and her grandfather, now dead. The actual setting of the story, then, is the girl's mind. Boyle pulls off her technique of juxtaposing the symbolic and the real in her characters and setting because the lens through which the story is told is memory itself. Imagery of light and darkness pervades the story, underlining the way in which remembered details emerge and subside in the process of remembering. A typical Boyle image, which juxtaposes opposites, comes when the girl describes seeing the black boy on the beach, "sitting there in the clear white darkness." Boyle similarly packs symbolic imagery into the girl's memory of the beach:
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It may be that the coast has changed there, for even then it was changing. The lighthouse that had once stood far out on the white rocks near the outlet was standing then like a lighted torch in the heart of the town. And the deep currents of the sea may have altered so that the clearest water runs in another direction, and houses may have been built down as far as where the brink used to be. But the brink was so perilous that every word the black boy spoke seemed to fall into a cavern of beauty.
Boyle symbolically evokes the uncertainty of the girl's memory, of any memory, in these images. Her impressionistic rendering of the girl's recounting of her experience with the black boy emphasizes the point that details are largely interchangeable and, in any case, not reliable. What are important are the girl's emotional response to the boy's words, and her moral response to the injustice of racial prejudice. By transforming the details of her own history into a work of art, Boyle transcends mere autobiography and creates an enduring portrait of a young girl's passage from innocence to experience. Source: Chris Semansky, Critical Essay on "Black Boy," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Sources Burt, Struther, Review of Thirty Stories, in Saturday Review of Literature, November 30, 1946, p. 11. Graham, Gladys, Review of "First Lover" and Other Stories, in Saturday Review of Literature, March 25, 1933, p. 501. Kronenberger, Louis, Review of "First Lover" and Other Stories, in New York Times, March 26, 1933, p. 7. Mellen, Joan, Kay Boyle: Author of Herself, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1994. Paris, Rosemary, Review of Thirty Stories, in Furioso, Summer 1947, pp. 81-82. Schriftgiesser, Karl, Review of "First Lover" and Other Stories, in Boston Transcript, March 25, 1933, p. 1. Spanier, Sandra Whipple, Kay Boyle, Artist and Activist, Southern Illinois University Press, 1986. Williams, William Carlos, "The Somnambulists," inlmaginations, edited by Webster Schott, New Directions Press, 1970, pp. 338^13.
Further Reading Bell, Elizabeth S., Kay Boyle: A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1992.
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Black Bell's book discusses Boyle's short stories. She also collects interviews with the author and critics' opinions of her work. Holt, Patricia, Publishers Weekly, Vol. 218, No. 16, October 17, 1980, pp. 8-9. Holt's essay, based on an interview with Boyle, provides an overview of the author's life. "Kay Boyle," in Current Biography: Who's News and Why, 1942, edited by Maxine Block, H. W. Wilson Company, 1942, pp. 101-04.
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This work provides a contemporary viewpoint of Boyle. McAlmon, Robert. Being Geniuses Together, Garden City, 1968. Boyle's friend, the writer Robert McAlmon, recalls the expatriate scene in Europe during the 1920s. The book includes supplementary chapters by Boyle. Mellen, Joan, Kay Boyle: Author of Herself, Farrar, Strass and Giroux, 1994. Mellen provides an in-depth portrait of Boyle as well as her literary endeavors.
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A Boy and His Dog Harlan Ellison 1969
Published in Harlan Ellison's 1969 short-story collection, The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, "A Boy and His Dog" is one of the author's favorite works. Critics also appreciated the story, and it won the 1969 Nebula Award (awarded by Science Fiction Writers of America) for Best Novella. Six years later, it was adapted as a Hugo Award-winning film, with Don Johnson starring as Vic. "A Boy and His Dog" is considered one of Ellison's most compelling stories, and the author expanded it into a novel in 1989. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic America, where Vic and Blood (his telepathic dog) must fight to survive. The story's violence, explicit sexuality, and coarse language shock many readers, although these elements support Ellison's harsh presentation of the future world. Set in a bleak environment and carrying dark themes, it is often read as a cautionary tale about what the future may hold.
Author Biography Harlan Ellison is a prolific editor and writer of novels, short stories, essays, and screenplays. His fiction includes crime stories, mysteries, mainstream fiction, and science fiction. Although he is most strongly identified with science fiction, he balks at being categorized. Ellison maintains that his
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June have sex repeatedly before Vic and Blood check to see if the roverpak is gone after the fire.
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When Vic returns to the boiler room, Quilla June knocks him unconscious and escapes. When Vic awakens, he is enraged and heads for the dropshaft that will take him to her underground hometown of Topeka. When he reaches the bottom, an automated green tram (called a ' 'sentry") shackles him and takes him to an office. There, a group of people led by a man named Lew tell him that he was lured to Topeka because too few of their men are able to father children. Vic agrees to help them repopulate the city, but he wants Quilla June first.
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Vic is told to walk around the city for the next week, so that the residents can get accustomed to him. Topeka is a picturesque city where older people rock on front porches, kids play hopscotch or throw sticks for their dogs, men tip their hats at ladies, and families visit the community swimming pool. The lawns are manicured, the streets are quaint, and people enjoy being social. Vic feels confined by the politeness and picture-perfect lifestyle. Determined to escape, he finds out where his guns are being kept and where there is another way out of Topeka besides the dropshaft. At the end of the week, Lew and two other men—one of whom is Quilla June's father—take Vic to Quilla June. When they get to the house, Vic and Quilla June go to the bedroom, where she starts crying and apologizing. Vic's vindictive streak fades, and he asks if she wants to escape with him. She says yes, and Vic kills her father and the other man, and they run out of the house past Lew and Quilla June's mother. After retrieving Vic's guns, they run for the escape route, but Quilla June stops to shoot some of the people chasing them. She even tries to kill her mother. Above ground, they find Blood waiting. Blood is famished because there is no food for miles around, and his wounds from the fight with the roverpak at the YMCA need attention. He warns them that the roverpak knows they are alive. Vic is concerned about how to take care of and feed Blood, but Quilla June wants to find safety. She thinks that because she and Vic have said they love each other, Vic will make her his first priority. At the end of the story, however, she is gone, and Blood has just eaten a huge meal. Although it is not stated explicitly, it is clear that Vic has killed Quilla June to feed Blood.
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Blood is Vic's telepathic dog. Vic and Blood have been together for three years, each helping the other survive in post-apocalypse America. Blood is a "skirmisher," which is a dog that is bred for intelligence, telepathic ability, and an acute sense of smell. He is descended from a German shepherd named Ginger, who detected drugs for the Los Angeles Police Department, and a puli named Ahbhu, who was the product of an experiment to develop telepathy in dogs. Crossbreeding such dogs resulted in skirmishers, who were used in the iast world war for their telepathy and their ability to smell trace amounts of fuel, poison gas, and radiation. Although Blood can sense the presence of certain kinds of people (especially women and dangerous gang members), he is a typical skirmisher in that he has lost his ability to hunt. As a result, he must rely on Vic to find food for him. Blood is highly intelligent and well-educated. He teaches Vic reading, history, math, and culture. He and Vic often tease each other, as old friends do. At the same time, he is a product of his harsh environment, and thus can be fierce and violent. His relationship with Vic is important, and he is threatened by and suspicious of outsiders like Quilla June.
Quilla June Holmes Quilla June is the girl sent to the surface to lure a young man back to Topeka. She is a teenager who is described as having a pretty face, thin build, medium height, long reddish hair, blue eyes, and a soft voice. Her family originally came from Oklahoma before the war, but now they live underground in Topeka. She is brave because she agrees to go to the surface alone, knowing that "downunders" like herself are routinely raped and killed. Quilla June seems timid and gentle at first, but her true nature soon becomes clear. Once she and Vic have sex, she is insatiable. Her capacity for violence is first revealed when she knocks Vic unconscious with a gun. When Vic kills her father and another man in front of her, she cries and vomits, but then she recovers and laughs as she shoots at and kills her fellow townspeople. Before she and Vic make their final escape to the surface, she even tries to kill her mother.
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Despite her violent streak, Quilla June desperately wants to be loved. When she escapes Topeka with Vic, she tells him she loves him and repeatedly asks him if he loves her. She seems satisfied when he says yes and then assumes that she will be Vic's top priority. Her naivete about devotion leads to her demise. She insists that Vic leave Blood behind while they seek safety, but Vic kills her in order to feed Blood.
Lew Lew is the head of the group of aging men who use Quilla June to lure Vic underground to Topeka. He is set in his ways but also sees the necessity of getting someone to help repopulate the city. Lew is not intimidated by Vic's rough ways and profane language, but he insists that Vic behave properly while he is in Topeka. His fundamental inability to understand Vic, however, is evident when he is surprised by Vic's violent escape from Topeka to return to the surface of the Earth.
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Media Adaptations "A Boy and His Dog" was adapted to film in 1975 by LQ/JAF Production Company. The adaptation was written and directed by L. Q. Jones, and the film starred Don Johnson as Vic. This film won the 1975 Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation.
Themes Division
Vic Vic is the narrator of the story, a teenage survivor of the apocalypse, who bands together with Blood to survive the violent world in which he lives. He is a "solo," a person who is not a member of a roverpak. Because of the realities of his environment, Vic is violent, unfeeling, and impulsive. Vic knows that Blood is more intelligent than he is, and he accepts Blood's role as a teacher. Although he claims that their relationship is fair and balanced, he maintains his role as the leader of their twosome and insists on being obeyed. He dismisses Blood's sound advice, such as when Blood warns him not to follow Quilla June underground. Instead, Vic allows his rage to dictate his actions. This decision is not surprising, because Vic is guided by his base needs and feelings; when he feels the desire for sex, he follows that impulse, and when he is threatened, he follows his violent impulse. In the end, the only human emotion Vic seems capable of feeling is loyalty, and he feels this toward Blood. Despite his violent tendencies, he tells the reader that he has never hit Blood. He has no context for understanding (and thus for giving or receiving) human love, and he feels little tenderness toward Quilla June. When faced with a situation in which Blood needs to be fed, Vic makes a practical decision and kills Quilla June to feed him.
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The societies described in "A Boy and His Dog" are marked by strong divisions. Above ground, there are solos, who do not belong to any roverpaks, but instead fend for themselves, often with the aid of a dog. The numerous roverpaks are similar to gangs. They are violent, unforgiving, and intolerant of being challenged. The cinema is referred to as "neutral ground," indicating the territorial nature of the rest of the surroundings. Vic puts himself in danger with a roverpak by preventing them from getting Quilla June and then by killing several of them. This episode demonstrates the violent nature of the divisive world, and it is clear from Vic's narration that this type of clash is common. In fact, one of Blood's functions is to help warn Vic of approaching roverpaks so that he can stay out of their way. The downunders represent another division of society. Although they are not internally divided, they live in tight-knit communities that avoid interaction with others. When Vic is in Topeka, he must spend a week wandering the city to allow the residents to become accustomed to him. The downunders are also important in the story because their existence (which is so different from that of the people living on the surface of the Earth) shows the reader that the Earth itself is divided into different realms.
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Topics for Further Study Read about dystopian literature. Other dystopic works include George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World, and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Why do you suppose some authors consider the future such a dark and frightening place? Can you relate to the human fear of the unknown future? Why or why not?
them to create a work of imaginative fiction. In "A Boy and His Dog," the story springs from the reality of the widespread destruction that would come from a nuclear war. Take a scientific fact (or facts) and create a premise for a science fiction story or film. Write it in the form of a proposal letter to a publishing house or a movie producer.
Imagine how the story would be different if Blood were not a dog but a different animal. Choose an animal and give it a history, a way of relating to Vic, and a name. Write a synopsis of the story in which you replace Blood with your new animal character.
Vic is a product of his violent environment. Choose a group of people who live in a harsh environment (such as prison), and research how these environments negatively shape the people who live in them. Prepare a presentation for your class in which you describe your findings. If possible, include information about programs to help bring positive influences into these people's lives.
Science fiction involves taking a scientific principle or a set of scientific facts and extending
Violence Violence is a major feature of "A Boy and His Dog." In describing the dwindling and mutating population on Earth, Vic relates a horrifying reality: The War had killed off most of the girls The things getting born were seldom male or female, and had to be smashed against a wall as soon as they were pulled out of their mother.
The story contains many violent scenes, such as when Vic prepares to rape Quilla June, when Vic and Blood fight the roverpak, and when Vic and Quilla June shoot their way out of Topeka. Describing the scene with the roverpak at the YMCA, Vic relates, Blood leaped, right over the crossbar of the guy's rifle held at ready, and sank his fangs into the rover's throat. The guy screamed, and Blood dropped, carrying a piece of the guy with him. The guy was making awful bubbling sounds and went down on one knee. I put a slug into his head, and he fell forward.
In addition to the violent scenes, the characters' attitudes clearly reflect the violent world in which they live. Vic always carries at least two guns, a
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knife, and a spike. He casually discusses sexual encounters, but the reader soon realizes that he is talking about rape. Quilla June allows Vic to kill her father before she herself tries to kill her mother. When Vic and Blood seek entertainment, they go to the cinema, where they enjoy violent and pornographic films. They both enjoy films that are bloody and extreme. Vic describes the film Raw Deal by remarking, "Gangsters, mobs, a lot of punching and fighting. Real good."
Style Dystopia Almost every element of "A Boy and His Dog" brings the dystopic setting to life. Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia; it is a depiction of a world (usually in the future) that is bleak, emotionless, and harsh. Ellison utilizes descriptions of the physical world in addition to language, attitudes, and culture to fully relate the story's dystopic setting.
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Ellison's descriptions of the physical landscape create a gloomy picture of post-World War III Earth. Vic mentions the "crumbled remains of the curb," the "melted stub of a lamppost," the "weedovergrown craters," and the "empty corpses of blasted buildings.'' Inside the YMCA, Vic notices a stench coming from a pile of dead bodies that were never buried after the war. Almost immediately, Ellison demonstrates Vic and Blood's severe language and attitudes. These characteristics are consistent throughout the story, reflecting their reaction to the hopeless world in which they live. They are products of their environment, so they speak with profanity and relate to each other harshly. Distrust is central to their world, which is evident in the way the characters interact with one another. Vic and Quilla June have no chance of ever achieving true intimacy, and it is hardly surprising that they betray each other. Vic and Blood are loyal friends, yet they often treat each other with disrespect and meanness. The culture of Ellison's dystopic world is cruel, violent, and divisive. In the absence of law, everyone knows that there are no consequences for violence, so they continue to victimize one another. Quilla June knows that she is being followed by someone who will rape her, and Vic knows that the roverpak searching the YMCA building will kill him if they find him. Vic is so accustomed to his violent world that when he stays in Topeka, he is bored and disgusted. He comments, "Inside a week I was ready to scream.... The clean, sweet, neat, lovely way they lived was enough to kill a guy."
Historical Context American Involvement in the Vietnam War The Vietnam War began with a gradual escalation of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia during the 1950s and early 1960s and lasted until 1975, with the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front fighting the South Vietnamese and the United States military. America became involved out of fear that if Vietnam became communist-controlled, communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia. At home, the war was unpopular. Demonstrations, sit-ins, and anti-war songs became common in 1960s America.
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In 1968, Richard Nixon defeated Lyndon B. Johnson in the presidential election, promising ' 'peace with honor." As he failed to make progress in peace negotiations, Americans at home became increasingly cynical. This attitude was reflected directly and indirectly; while protestors continued to voice their disapproval, others wrote songs, fiction, and drama reflecting America's deepening concern and cynicism. Despite the difficulties surrounding the war, Nixon won reelection in 1972. In January 1973, all participants in the Vietnam War signed the Treaty of Paris. Among the terms of the Treaty of Paris were the withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam (which occurred by the end of March) and a cease-fire. The war's casualties were immense; three to four million Vietnamese lost their lives, close to two million Laotians and Cambodians were killed after being drawn into the conflict, and more than fiftyeight thousand Americans died. The war cost the United States well over $130 billion. Despite the terms of the treaty, conflict persisted in Vietnam and, in 1975, North and South Vietnam were unified under communism.
Science Fiction Science fiction is a genre in which the author uses scientific facts to create fictional premises and worlds in far-off places or in the distant future. This type of fiction is generally adventuresome, fastpaced and highly imaginative, and contains obvious villains and heroes. Science fiction often incorporates elements of mythology, folklore, and medieval life. Science fiction is a relatively new genre, having begun toward the end of the nineteenth century and gained widespread popularity in the 1950s. Today, it has a sizeable readership and has become popular in television and film. As science advances, so do the possibilities of science fiction. While early science fiction often considered alien life forms, space travel, and human evolution, today's science fiction delves into issues of artificial intelligence, genetics, and computer technology.
Critical Overview Critics consider Ellison an important contributor to science fiction, despite his stance that he is not a
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Compare fc Contrast 1960s: The Vietnam War is the first war that is brought into American homes via television. Instead of reading about battles and fallen soldiers in the newspaper, Americans tune into the news to see actual footage. This is shocking and disturbing, and it helps fuel the anti-war movement. Today: American television audiences routinely view violence around the world. Wars, uprisings, riots, police chases, and stand-offs are common, and Americans expect to see footage of such events. 1960s: In 1968, Stanley Kubrick produces the classic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on the novel by Arthur C. Clark. The film centers on space travel, extraterrestrial life, and a computer named HAL.
science fiction writer. A prolific author and editor, Ellison is praised for his contributions to the genre and for his work in elevating it in the eyes of the reading public. Thomas Dillingham of Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Eight: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers comments, There can be little doubt... that Ellison has been an important force in the field, publicizing good writing, insisting on the dignity of his own and his colleagues' work, and writing some very fine stories himself.
In St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, a contributor observes that Ellison's body of work' 'is more multifaceted than that of perhaps any other science-fiction author, and because of the variety of things he does . . . he continues to be an important force in science fiction.'' "A Boy and His Dog" is ranked as one of Ellison's strongest and most memorable stories. In Extrapolation, John Crow and Richard Erlich describe it as a ' 'cautionary fable employing satire and
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Today: Steven Spielberg teams up with Stanley Kubrick Productions to produce the film A. I. This film centers on artificial intelligence and concerns an android boy who is programmed to love. He finds himself caught between the human world and the android world. 1960s: Because the Cold War still threatens world peace, the specter of World War III generates fear. Tension between the United States and the Soviet Union continues to fuel the arms race, and much emphasis is placed on which "superpower" has greater nuclear capability. Today: The break-up of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s signaled the end of the Cold War. As a result, the threat of World War III seems more distant and unlikely to most Americans as they anticipate world events of the twenty-first century.
mythic patterns to define a future world that in some respects may already be with us." Commentators often address the story's violence, characterization, and setting. George Edgar Slusser of Science Fiction Writers notes that in this and other stories, ' 'man, as the victim both of oppression and of his own violent instincts, is condemned to hopeless struggle." Commenting on Vic and Blood's rolereversal and dependence on each other, he adds, "Fascinating here is the chain of bloody dependencies established, a chain based on reversals of station." Commenting further on the relationships between the characters, Joseph Francavilla, in Phoenix from the Ashes: The Literature of the Remade World, emphasizes the loyalty between Vic and Blood. He explains: Part erotic witch and part earth mother, Quilla June is by the end of the story the sole representative of downunder and Vic's only hope for permanent, heterosexual love. Yet he rejects this possibility, a sacrifice on his part since women are rare and precious commodities above, and kills Quilla June for food to save the starving Blood.
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Francavilla is also struck by the dramatic setting of post-apocalypse Earth. He writes,' 'Ellison's post-holocaust landscapes are unique, not only because they are symbolic hells . . . but also because there is no indication, promise, or hint that the world will be rebuilt." He further observes that in these settings, time seems to have stopped. In ' 'A Boy and His Dog," this element of frozen time is especially pronounced because the landscape above is timeless in its own way, while the downunder setting of Topeka is timeless in a completely different way. While one is destroyed and hopeless, the other is a seemingly perfectly preserved version of pre-World War I America. Responding to the shocking sex, violence, and language in the story, many critics argue that these disturbing elements are appropriate in context. A St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers contributor, for example, notes that the story is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, adding: Roving gangs and roving independents, called "solos," occupy the surface of the planet; these young toughs, mostly male, are the same sort as those who roam inner-city streets today. Their language must be realistic and accurate to carry the story.. .. And without the obscenities and the violence, the reader would be less able to contrast the destructive aggressiveness of the surface group to the equally destructive non-participation of the below-grounders.
' 'A Boy and His Dog'' is in many ways typical of the author's work. Ellison's writing is often dark, disturbing, and controversial. In Bloomsbury Review, Tom Auer remarks, Ellison's prose is powerful and ingenious but often angry, sometimes sinister, occasionally gloomy, and often with an edge that can cut quickly to and through the heart of his subject, and that of his reader for that matter.
Criticism Jennifer Bussey Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey explores the significance of the role reversal that characterizes the relationship between Vic and Blood in Ellison's story. As indicated by the title, ' 'A Boy and His Dog'' is about the relationship between the two main charac-
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Through Vic's reversion to an animal state as a result of his environment and Blood's acceleration to a highly evolved state as a result of genetic manipulation, Ellison makes a strong statement about the power of external and internal influences,"
ters in the story, a teenager named Vic and his telepathic dog named Blood. Among the many unusual qualities of this story is the role-reversal that characterizes this human-canine relationship. Ellison inverts what the reader understands as the dynamic between a person and a dog, making the human the more impulsive character and the dog the more thoughtful one. The author's use of inversion in the story reflects the dramatic changes that have taken place on Earth since the War demolished it physically, socially, and culturally. Ellison's presentation of inversions also suggests that perhaps the present is not as stable as the reader might think. The relationship between Vic and Blood shows how something that is taken for granted in the present— the dynamics between people and their pets—might be inverted in the future. Because Vic is human, the reader expects him to be levelheaded, dominant, caring, and intelligent. He should be Blood's guide, providing for his needs and taking charge of navigating them through the human world. Instead, Vic is impulsive, instinctual, uneducated, and weakened by his base drives. Ellison relates Vic's animal nature on the first page when Vic tells Blood to find him a woman because he needs sex. When Blood teases him, Vic is too blinded by his sexual drive to respond good-naturedly; he is mad at Blood for not immediately responding to his needs. For Vic, sex is not a mutual, loving act; it is rape, and his only concern is fulfilling his need, without regard for the woman he finds. Vic is also violent, sometimes in reaction to being physically threatened, and sometimes in reaction to having his lifestyle threatened. He, Blood,
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What Do I Read Next? Ellison's 1993 Mefisto in Onyx is a novel combining crime novel characters with supernatural elements. When a district attorney suspects that a convicted man is innocent, she persuades a man who can read minds to uncover the truth. Critics praise the book for its pace, originality, and characterization. Robert A. Heinlein's classic science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a man brought up by
and Quilla June are threatened by the presence of the roverpak in the YMCA, so Vic reacts by hiding and killing as many of them as he can. This is an example of the basic "fight or flight" instinct, and Vic never chooses flight. In his environment, there is no way to run away from a situation safely, so he has learned to respond to danger with violence. Later, when his carefree, roaming, crude lifestyle is threatened by the leaders of Topeka, he responds like a caged animal. In essence, he wants to return to his native habitat. Blood, as a dog, could be expected to be an instinct-driven, submissive, and obedient creature who constantly seeks his master's approval. Instead, Blood is the intelligent one in the relationship. He is educated, clever, clear-thinking, and wise. While Vic is impulsive and short-sighted, Blood is levelheaded and strategic, thinking through his plans and choices. He is Vic's instructor, teaching him reading, math, history, and culture. Blood is more intuitive than Vic is, and he has a better understanding of their society. Blood tries to act as Vic's advisor. When Vic is irrational, Blood attempts to reason with him and guide him to make better decisions. He warns Vic that he does not trust Quilla June and that Vic should not pursue her underground. Although he is rational, Blood is also able to be fierce when necessary. His complex nature is best revealed in the scene in which he and Vic fight the roverpak at the
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Martians who arrives on earth as a foreigner. This Hugo Award-winning novel continues to intrigue readers with its plot, characters, and controversial topics. George Orwell's 1984 (1949) is a classic novel describing a dystopic future in a new region called Oceania. The main character, Winston, is in danger because he questions the all-powerful, all-seeing Big Brother.
YMCA. Blood attacks by going for the throat, but he also devises a plan to try to fool the roverpak into thinking they (Vic, Blood, and Quilla June) are all dead. In considering the role-reversal in the relationship between Vic and Blood, an important distinction must be made. Vic has reverted to an animallike state as a result of his environment, while Blood has evolved to a more rational state as a result of genetic engineering. Vic is genetically the same as present-day readers, but his extreme environment makes him very different. On the other hand, Blood is nothing like present-day dogs. He is evolved by design. Ellison supports the dynamics of the rolereversal in his characterization of Quilla June. Although she lives in a seemingly pleasant city underground, she has a very violent nature. Ellison makes the point that the artificiality of the picket fences and gumball machines of the recreated preWorld War I city can mask, but not erase, the horrors of the war that sent them all underground in the first place. The environment, then, is not restricted to the immediate and visible world, but includes the realities of the history that created it. Through Vic's reversion to an animal state as a result of his environment and Blood's acceleration to a highly evolved state as a result of genetic manipulation, Ellison makes a strong statement about the power of external and internal influences. The story becomes a twist on the long-standing
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psychological debate about the dominance of "nature" or "nurture." The debate most often centers on the question of whether nature (genetics) or nurture (environment) affects creatures more powerfully. Ellison's story focuses more on the fact that neither alone is enough to yield a self-sufficient creature. These two characters are brought together because each needs the other. Neither is fully capable of functioning alone. In spite of his animal-like survival skills, Vic needs Blood to help warn him of danger and to provide intelligent counsel. And for all his intellect and keen sense of smell, Blood still needs Vic to find food for him and to care for his wounds. Beyond the practical aspects of their relationship, Ellison demonstrates that the bond between Vic and Blood is forged in part by the same force that brings people and animals together today— loyalty. Even in the extreme environment and bizarre circumstances of the story's dystopic setting, there is something vaguely familiar in the inverted relationship between Vic and Blood. Source: Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on "A Boy and His Dog," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Cody Walker Walker teaches writing and literature courses at the University of Washington. In the following essay, Walker tracks the ways in which Ellison's story suffers from misogynistic and adolescent posturing. When Marlon Brando, in the 1953 film The Wild One, is asked what he's rebelling against, he answers, "Whaddaya got?" It's an iconic moment in twentieth-century art: a young man casting off societal constraints. In Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," Vic adopts this spirit of amorphous protest. He rails against "squares" with "nice whitewashed fences"; he turns manicured poodles into dog chow. What he doesn't do is demonstrate the advantages to be found in the rebellious stance. Vic gains freedom of a sort, but he remains frozen in his own misogynistic and adolescent postures. It's a trade-off with which Ellison appears comfortable. Ellison's work has long trumpeted the outsider, the dissenter, the man neither caste- nor clockconscious. By calling his 1988 short story collection Angry Candy, Ellison allied himself with another self-proclaimed rebel, the poet e. e. cummings. The allusion is to cummings's "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls," a satiric poem in
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There's no interesting irony or cathartic terror or unsettling surrealism—what remains is Ellison, very much present, saying 'look what I can get away with."'
which upper-class ladies exercise their "comfortable minds" by bandying "scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D." The ladies' social consciences are eased by knitting sweaters. The moon, meanwhile, offers protest, rattling in the sky "like a fragment of angry candy." Ellison's characters confront orthodox thought just as angrily as cummings's moon does. In '"Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," Ellison's hero is accused of being a non-conformist. ' "That didn't used to be a felony,'' he replies. "It is now," the totalitarian figure shoots back. "Live in the world around you." But Ellison's characters are rarely able to live in the worlds around them. "A Boy and His Dog" illustrates the problem neatly. Vic devotes much of his time "aboveground" searching for sex—a search that, more times than not, is unsuccessful. Lured "downunder," he learns that the townspeople of Topeka plan to employ him as a stud service. For someone whose taste in movies runs to ' 'Big Black Leather Splits,'' this development is, as Vic says, "too good to be true." But rather than continue to revel in his good fortune, he finds that within a week he's "ready to scream." For Ellison's Topeka is full of cummings's Cambridge ladies—conservatives too self-content to notice a wider world around them. Vic sees them as "squares of the worst kind," "lawanorder goofs," Better Business Bureau bumblers who rake lawns, collect milk bottles, and listen to oompah bands in the park. Existence for the Topekans is a collective experience; Vic is, by definition, a solo. He's also, by Ellison's reckoning, a natural man, a figure who acts on instinct and who feels kinship with the mountains and forests and moon. He balks at the Topekans' ' 'artificial peas and fake meat and makebelieve chicken and ersatz corn''; he denounces the
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"lying, hypocritical crap they called civility." Vic imagines himself on the side of the truth-teller, the outlaw, the man who can't be bullied or bought. Trapped in the tin can of Topeka, among people with comfortable minds, he sets forth to free himself, brass balls and rattle in hand. In the introduction to his story "The Crackpots," Ellison writes disparagingly of the "faceless gray hordes of sidewalk sliders who go from there to here without so much as a hop, skip or a jump." That hopping and skipping sound like child's play is no accident; Ellison's prescription for society's ills usually involves a return to adolescence. The' 'aboveground" scenes of "A Boy and His Dog" resemble a teenage boy's fantasy, complete with movies and gymnasiums and naked girls. (The fantasy is even educational, as Vic notes the manner in which Quilla June puts on her bra. ' 'I never knew the way chicks did it," he confesses.) Gestures toward youthfulness abound: Vic and Quilla June have sex on a wrestling mat; goods are exchanged by the barter system; the Metropole Theater is run by a rascally roverpak named Our Gang. And, of course, there's the story's conclusion. Boys do love their dogs. The conclusion demands attention. A young woman who has been objectified throughout the story (as ' 'that girl" or ' 'that Quilla June'') is killed and cooked and made into dog food. (L. Q. Jones, who wrote and directed the screen version of Ellison's fantasy, turns Quilla June's predicament into a terrible joke. "She said she loved me," Vic tells Blood. The dog replies, "Well, I'd say she certainly had marvelous judgment, Albert—if not particularly good taste." Boy and dog laugh; credits roll.) Ursula K. Le Guin, in her introduction to The Norton Book of Science Fiction, writes that patterns of misogyny in science fiction are "often so brainlessly repetitive as to debase stories otherwise inventive and imaginative." In "A Boy and His Dog," Vic imagines women to be sub-human and disposable ("All the ones I'd ever seen had been scumbags that Blood had smelled out for me, and I'd snatchn'grabbed them"). Some of Ellison's best-known stories—' 'The Prowler in the City' 'and ' 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream''—feature women in appalling situations. Even a relatively mild work, "The City on the Edge of Forever" (Ellison's Hugo Award-winning Star Trek script), turns on the need for a female sacrifice. On the DVD version of A Boy and His Dog, the director talks about reactions to the film after its 1975 release. "The first time out," Jones says,
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"women's groups went bonkers." While it would be folly to suggest that the movie shouldn't be seen or the story shouldn't be read (Ellison has long spoken forcefully against censorship), it's fair to consider the strategies of either work in terms of artistic effect. The problem with the level of misogyny in the story is that it's not in service of anything greater than itself. There's no interesting irony or cathartic terror or unsettling surrealism— what remains is Ellison, very much present, saying ' 'look what I can get away with." And ' 'look what I can get away with" is an adolescent posture. ' 'Look what I can get away with'' also contains a dash of self-congratulation, and that's a deadly ingredient for protest art. The most effective works of social protest are often the quietest: Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska to name a few. Too much hullabaloo and muscle flexing turn the focus away from the target and toward the one doing the targeting. (Ellison's novella All the Lies That Are My Life was published with six afterwords by six different writers; the narcissism of the venture is almost comic.) "Strange Wine,'' the 1976 Ellison story that Le Guin selected for The Norton Book of Science Fiction, shows Ellison in a more restrained, less smug, mode. Willis Kaw lives on Earth but believes himself to be an alien. Plagued by earthly troubles and longing to return home, Willis commits suicide—only to find that he is indeed an alien and that his home planet is a place of true torment. (Earth, it turns out, is known throughout the galaxy as "the pleasure planet.") An interesting study of relativism, "Strange Wine" shows Ellison working with familiar themes, but without the self-congratulatory tone that can be so crippling to his art. In the introduction to his Collected Poems, cummings writes that "it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves that the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs." Along with a love for compound-word coinages, cummings and Ellison share a presumption about their readerships that is dangerously exclusionary. Cummings expects support as he knocks down old ladies; Ellison wants cheering as he battles the "squares." To react otherwise would be to incite the moon's wrath or be labeled a Topekan. But life is more complicated than either of these positions allows for, and art has a responsibility to address those complications. Ask a Cambridge lady the right question and you may find a passion for zoology, or printmaking, or higher
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mathematics. Explore a place like Topeka (either the current city, or Ellison's "downunder" version) and you're likely to encounter some free spirits in the mix. (Quilla June is certainly a free spirit, but Ellison so exaggerates her lust for sex and blood that she becomes cartoonish rather than complex.) Yes, the world needs more harlequins, more rattlers, more hoppers and jumpers, but it also needs more people who can ask questions, who don't presume to have everything and everyone figured out. There's nothing squarer than thinking inside of a box. Introducing the second edition of Paingod and Other Delusions, his 1965 story collection, Ellison writes, "I'm the same as you: the deaths of a hundred thousand flood victims in some banana republic doesn't touch me one one-millionth as much as the death of my dog did.'' Ellison, in fact, is not the same as any of his readers, and much of his fiction—"A Boy and His Dog" included—celebrates those who recognize and claim their own uniqueness. Unfortunately, the celebration often turns smug. Vic knows himself to be an individual, but he puts this knowledge to a boastful and uninteresting end. Stuck in his adolescent fantasy, he murders Quilla June and expects thanks from readers and dog alike. A mature reader is likely to ask, "What else do you got?" But Vic's pockets are as empty as his posturing. Source: Cody Walker, Critical Essay on "A Boy and His Dog," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
John Crow and Richard Erlich In the following essay, Crow and Erlich explore mythic elements in Ellison's novella and the subsequent film adaptation. Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, as novella and film, is a cautionary fable employing satire and mythic patterns to define a future world that in some respects may already be with us. The "boy" is Vic (Don Johnson) and the "dog" is Blood (voice by Tim Mclntire); their world is the American Southwest in 2024, shortly after World War IV and the near-total destruction of the human race. Vic is a "solo" operating with his dog, Blood, competing for survival and sex with other solos and their dogs and, also, with "roverpaks," small tribes formed in the wake of the destruction of all other social order. Blood, however, is not the ordinary Canisfamiliaris of our world. By means of biological engineering, carried out to produce "skirmisher dogs" for the military, dogs have become more intelligent and, also, capable of telepathic communication with
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humans. Their sense of smell has been modified to be ultra-sensitive to humans so that they can locate enemies. Consequently, many of them, including Blood, have lost the ability to find their own food. But these dogs find men to forage for them. The men cooperate partly because dogs are useful in the fight for survival, but primarily because the newmodel dogs are as competent at tracking down females as they are at locating enemies—a highly valuable skill in a world with a diminishing female population. Even among dogs of this new type, though, Blood seems extraordinary. Not only is he the sharpest' 'tail-scent'' around, he is also intellectually more sophisticated than Vic and emotionally more mature than any of the humans we see in the world of 2024. In Blood, we have one of the variations in mythic patterns and folk motifs that make both Ellison's novella and Jones's film so fascinating and disturbing. At first glance, Blood seems much like the wise magic animal of folk and fairy tales who comes to the aid of the hero when the hero is at an impasse. But Blood goes beyond this role to become Vic's link to the lost pre-war civilization, teaching him reading, arithmetic, recent history, and ' 'Edited English'' grammar. He becomes the culture-bearer of the bombed-out wasteland, superior to Vic in everything but the necessary skills of animal survival. The normal relationship of human and animal is inverted. This inversion and others that follow acquire significance when we see them against the structural pattern of the story. The pattern is the basic descent-containment-reascent pattern of initiation, which in primitive societies is usually a formalized ritual designed to bring a boy into manhood. It is also appears in myths of the hero, where the hero undertakes the task of renewing the wasteland. Through the many variations of the pattern, the task confronting the protagonist remains the same: to maintain conscious "human" control over the unconscious "animal" instincts and responses, thereby overcoming fear, fatigue, inattention or disobedience, or the temptation to indulge appetites such as hunger or the sex drive. Since the sexual appetite presents such a powerful and persistent temptation to the hero, the feminine becomes a symbol of the danger of losing consciousness and regressing to instinctual, unconscious motivation. On the other hand, the feminine can function as mediatrix of the life force that brings renewal to the wasteland. In myth, the feminine has either positive or negative
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In myth, the feminine has either positive or negative value according to whether she overwhelms the hero and renders him ineffectual by depriving him of human consciousness or joins him in the task of rejuvenating the wasteland."
value according to whether she overwhelms the hero and renders him ineffectual by depriving him of human consciousness or joins him in the task of rejuvenating the wasteland. All the elements of this mythic situation are present in both the film and the novella: the bombed-out wasteland incapable of the renewal of life; the feminine sexual lure into the descent, represented by Quilla June Holmes (Suzanne Benton); a hero divided between using good sense and pursuing his sexual desires; and the necessity for rebirth (the goal of initiation). The need for rebirth is implicit in the first part of the narrative in the images of the wasteland—the radiation-scorched plain—and, symbolically, in the preoccupation of all males with tracking down the few females who remain above ground. The impossibility of rebirth is implicit in the brutality and violence of the sexual relationship in Vic's world. With a few exceptions, the women in this world hide from men, and, if found, are brutally raped and sometimes killed. As the film opens, Blood and Vic have tracked down a female only to find her already the captive of a roverpak. A long-distance shot gives us Vic and Blood's view of the departing rovers, and we hear in the distance a young boy's voice exclaim excitedly, ' 'Did you see how she jerked when I cut her?" Vic finds the woman stabbed to death and expresses his view of the pity of it all: ' 'Ah, why'd they have to do that? She was good for three or four more times yet." Masculine and feminine are alien and hostile to one another; rebirth in such a world is impossible.
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Cheated by the roverpak out of his own chance for rape, Vic takes Blood to a "beaver flick," where Blood picks up the scent of a woman, disguised as a solo. Vic and Blood track her to a bombed-out YMCA, stand off a roverpak whose dogs have also picked up a female scent, and discover a woman from the downunder who is not only desirable but willing—very willing. Quilla June Holmes is an escapee (apparently) from the State of Topeka, one of the subterranean retreats of American middle-class civilization, and she has never had such a good time. From Vic's point of view she has only one flaw: she is concerned about love, offending Vic's sense of propriety and wounding his ego by suggesting that he does not know a thing about it. Their discussion of love introduces into the film the concept of relatedness between masculine and feminine that could promise a renewal of the wasteland. Unfortunately, at this point Quilla June bashes Vic over the head with a flashlight and disappears back into the downunder, leaving behind the keycard that opens the access shaft to the underground. This sets up the descent of the hero into the underworld, for Vic, much to Blood's disgust, loses whatever good sense he once possessed: lured on by his desire to get even and his desire for Quilla June, Vic decides to follow her downunder. The pattern seems true to the usual psychological significance of mythic descents. The loss of "human" intellect reduces the hero to the animal level, and he descends into the womb of the Earth Mother to struggle with the unconscious forces of instinct, passion, and, quite possibly, death. As Blood remarks sarcastically, Vic is acting like a putz, phallic man, ruled by his lower rather than his higher human nature. The argument between Vic and Blood makes clear the baseness of Vic's macho motivation. To pursue Quilla June, Vic leaves Blood, hungry and badly wounded from the fight with the roverpak, to fend for himself. The inversion between man and animal is starkest at this point. The next inversion follows closely. The underground that Vic discovers is anything but a region of the spontaneity, disorder, and passion of the Earth Mother. Vic descends through a hell not of chaos, but of machinery, pipes, cables, and wires. Cryptic labels, valves, color-coded gadgets of various types add to the clutter of an extensive life-support system for the underground city, all of which disappear as Vic leaves the shaft and enters the city itself. The downunder is innocent of any sign of highly developed scientific technology. It is America circa 1915— River City in parody, complete with marching bands,
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community picnics, overalls, straw hats, and gingham dresses. The only anomalies are a public address system with a Big Brother voice, giving recipes, homespun advice, notices to the public—and Michael. Michael is a big, husky hayseed who enforces rigid order for the ruling Committee; and as we discover later, he is a humanoid robot, backed up by several immediately available replacements. The Committee is comprised of a female secretary (Helen Winston) and two mean-minded, dessicated old men (Jason Robards and Charles McGraw). They recognize only one crime: "Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority''; and they assign only one punishment: death by "natural" causes— which means summary execution by Michael. This underground world is, in short, the antithesis of the underground of myth and fairy tale. It is a sterile, rigidly structured, time-denying society, as mechanistic as the life-support machinery concealed in the shafts surrounding it. But there is a sense in which locating this ossified society in the underground world of unconsciousness conforms with the usual significance of mythic undergrounds. For we become most unconscious in our habitual acceptance of cultural forms, in the sacrifice of human intellect by failing to question these forms— until, little by little, our social behavior becomes as automatic as breathing. A character of Ellison's describes the process in mechanistic terms: "Men often become too much like their machines... Then they blame the machines for dehumanizing them." And "machinery," is not only technological gadgets but also social forms. Civilized society produces traditional forms as constraining as the tabus of the most primitive culture; and it can produce its own rigid orthodoxies, and orthodoxy, in George Orwell's words, "means . . . not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconscious." Orthodoxy is the highest value in Topeka. Consequently, the underground world is even more of a wasteland than the world above ground. In the downunder consciousness is repressed; and any attempt to become conscious, to examine the system, becomes "Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority" and a prelude to absolute unconsciousness at Michael's hands. Accordingly, rebirth is as impossible in the downunder as it is in the wasteland above, a situation that becomes apparent when the captured Vic discovers that he has been lured down below by Quilla June to perform stud service on the young female population, the
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males having lost their fertility in the sterile mechanistic world. Vic is delighted to oblige, but his "service'' is a good deal less pleasant than he expects. The film, in an improvement on the novella, shows Vic, mouth taped shut, strapped to a table and connected to an aseptic machine of gleaming chrome and glass. Down the hall stretches a seemingly endless line of conventionally gowned, sad-faced "brides." Each ' 'bride'' is brought to a flowery arch at the entrance to the room where Vic is captive, a clergyman in full vestments intones a marriage ceremony, the machine hums and clicks—and Vic ejaculates, his semen neatly transported into a test tube. Quilla June rescues Vic, not so much because she likes what he does, but mostly because she has planned a coup to take over the downunder and intends to manipulate Vic into using his fighting ability to help her succeed. The Committee aborts the coup; and Michael brutally executes Quilla June's co-conspirators, a small band of ineffectual boy friends. After Vic finally destroys this Michael, he and Quilla June escape up to the surface, where they find the deserted and starving Blood near death from hunger and from the wounds he sustained helping Vic defend Quilla June. Quilla June, fearing pursuit, demands that Vic leave Blood and continue their escape. But Blood needs food immediately; and Vic, who has recovered a human consciousness during the struggle below, decides to provide it from the most obvious source in the barren landscape. The film closes with Vic and Blood setting off into the sunrise to look for Overthehill—a place where "food grows right out of the ground!" The final image implies what Ellison makes explicit at the end of his novella: "It took a long time before I stopped hearing her . . . asking me: do you know what love is? Sure I know. A boy loves his dog.
The film, like Ellison's novella, demands consideration of just how consciously our own society is proceeding into its technological future. It also has in its political implications a strong condemnation of any complacent "silent majority" who would deny time and change by a mechanistic application of outworn values. Both Ellison's story and Jones's film present a two-level world: on the surface we have "man in a state of nature," a la Thomas Hobbes, a life of "perpetual war of every man against his neighbor''; in the downunder we have a
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mechanized incarnation of Hobbes' Leviathan—a totalitarian society where people have renounced freedom, individuality, and, most of all, consciousness, for stability and order. This Hobbesian dichotomy presented in a mythic structure suggests the horror of a world not future, but present, a world where our surface struggles move in patterns dictated by our unconscious subservience to traditional forms. Jones's film, like Ellison's novella, cautions us that the blighted wasteland of 2024 may become reality, the result, not so much of man's unrestrained animal nature as of his social, political, and technological machinery. As Susan Sontag observed in "The Imagination of Disaster": "The dark secret behind human nature used to be the animal—as in King Kong. The threat to man, his availability for dehumanization, lay in his own animality. Now the danger is understood as residing in man's ability to be turned into a machine." Vic's discovery at the end of the film that' 'a boy loves his dog'' places the center of value in Blood, the intelligent animal with a capacity for love. Blood waits for Vic even in the face of starvation: the dog loves his boy. Blood's love surpasses merely unconscious, "phallic," love; it far surpasses the power-hungry manipulation of passion represented by Quilla June. And in the end, Vic's love matches Blood's. The end of the film is appropriately grotesque, but in the world of 2024 it is the best resolution we can hope for: Blood's breakfast fire glowing dimly in the foreground, he and Vic walk off together into the sunrise, joined by consciousness and love. Source: John Crow and Richard Erlich, "Mythic Patterns in Ellison's A Boy and His Dog,'' in Extrapolation, Vol. 18, No. 2, May 1977, pp. 162-66.
Sources Auer, Tom, "The Latest Dangerous Visions of Harlan Ellison: The Slayer of Great Beasts Strikes Again (& Again)," in Bloomsbury Review, May/June 1994. Crow, John, and Richard Erlich, "Mythic Patterns in Ellison's 'A Boy and His Dog,'" in Extrapolation, Vol. 18, No. 2, May 1977, pp. 162-66.
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cummings, e. e., A Selection of Poems, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Dillingham, Thomas F., "Harlan Ellison," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 8: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers, Gale Research, 1981, pp. 161-69. Ellison, Harlan, ed., Dangerous Visions, New American Library, 1967. , Paingod and Other Delusions, Pyramid, 1965. Francavilla, Joseph, "Mythic Hells in Harlan Ellison's Science Fiction," in Phoenix from the Ashes: The Literature of the Remade World, edited by Carl B. Yoke, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 157-64. Le Guin, Ursula, and Brian Attebery, eds., The Norton Book of Science Fiction, Norton, 1993. Slusser, George Edgar, "Harlan Ellison," in Science Fiction Writers, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982, pp. 357-68. Sullivan, C. W., Ill, "Ellison, Harlan (Jay)," in St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, edited by Jay P. Pederson, St. James Press, 1996, pp. 299-302.
Further Reading Dowling, Terry, ed., The Essential Ellison: A Fifty-Year Retrospective, Morpheus International, 2000. This comprehensive volume provides an overview of Ellison's prolific writing career, beginning in 1949. Because it contains both fiction and nonfiction in its twelve hundred pages, it is an excellent resource for students of Ellison's work. Friedman, Norman, The Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War, United Sates Naval Institute, 1999. In this historical overview, Friedman reviews the events leading up to, during, and ending the Cold War in a way that demonstrates how they are interrelated. The bulk of his analysis is spent on the 1950s and 1960s, although significant occurrences in the 1980s and early 1990s are also discussed. Roberts, Garyn G., ed., The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prentice Hall, 2000. This anthology combines the works of many of the foremost authors of science fiction, such as Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, and H. G. Wells, with those of some unexpected authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and Charles Dickens. By presenting a wide array of authors and styles, the editor seeks to demonstrate the universality and long-standing appeal of science fiction and fantasy.
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The Challenge In 1958 (at the age of twenty-two), Mario Vargas Llosa won first place for his short story "The Challenge'' in a fiction contest sponsored in Peru by Revue franfaise. His prize was a trip to Paris, a city he had longed to visit and to which he later returned to seriously pursue writing.
Mario Vargas Llosa 1958
Among the themes common in Vargas Llosa's fiction is that of establishment of power by means of violence. Although "The Challenge" was written very early in his career, this idea is already forming. In the story, the Gimp demonstrates his strength, power, and believability by killing the man he challenged, Justo. That the Gimp wants his opponent to surrender rather than be killed has less to do with the theme of power than with the particular character of the Gimp. The sense of disillusionment often portrayed in Vargas Llosa's work is also present in "The Challenge"; when Justo loses the fight, his father is left with the hollow victory of knowing that his son fought bravely.
Author Biography Mario Vargas Llosa was born on March 28,1936, in Arequipa, Peru. His family was well to do, and when his parents separated shortly after his birth, Vargas Llosa accompanied his mother to live with her parents. Her father was a diplomat, so many of
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Vargas Llosa and his wife left for Spain, and when Vargas Llosa's grant ended, the couple moved to Paris so he could continue working on his novel about his years in the military academy. Vargas Llosa had loved Paris since his first visit in 1958; that trip was a prize he won in a fiction contest for his short story "The Challenge." Vargas Llosa's first novel, The Time of the Hero, was published in 1963 and catapulted Vargas Llosa into the ranks of writers associated with the ' 'boom'' in Latin American literature. This novel, based on Vargas Llosa's military academy experiences, was condemned by military leaders, and one thousand copies were burned. This controversy only increased public interest in the book.
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Vargas Llosa's formative years were spent moving from place to place in Latin America. In 1950, his parents reconciled, and he and his mother went back to live with his father. The father-son relationship was strained, because Vargas Llosa's father believed the boy had been spoiled by his years with his grandparents, and he saw the boy's interest in writing as too feminine. To offset these "inadequacies," he sent his fourteen-year-old son to Leoncia Prado Military Academy. Vargas Llosa considers these years to be among the worst of his life. Vargas Llosa's years at the academy did not squelch his interest in writing, and when he was older, he longed to travel to Europe to focus on writing. He completed his undergraduate work in literature and law at the University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and then earned a grant to study in Spain. While in college, he had married his aunt (by marriage) Julia. The union between the nineteenyear-old man and the thirty-two-year-old woman was a scandal in the family. During his college years, he had supported himself and his wife by securing work as a reporter with local television stations and newspapers. Another important development during his college years was his introduction to the world of politics, a forum that would become his passion for the rest of his life.
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Vargas Llosa continued to write and became increasingly involved in politics when he returned to Peru. His leadership in a protest movement eventually led to his presidential campaign in 1989. His party advocated democracy, a free-market economic system, and personal liberty. Despite losing the race, Vargas Llosa brought credibility to his party because of his stature in Peru. Today, Vargas Llosa lives in Spain with his second wife. They have three children. He continues to write and is often mentioned as a Nobel Prize candidate. His work includes novels, short stories, literary criticism, essays, journalism, and drama.
Plot Summary As the story opens, the narrator, Julian, is sitting at the River Bar with his friends Leon and Briceno. Leonidas, an older man, arrives and joins them. He informs them that Justo (another member of the group) will be fighting the Gimp at the raft that night. When Leonidas leaves, Briceno says that Justo is likely to lose, and the others tell him to be quiet. Julian goes home briefly, changes clothes, wraps up a knife and puts it in his pocket, and tells his wife he will be back later. He returns to the River Bar, where he talks to the owner, Moses, who has already heard about the fight. Because Justo is his friend, Moses offers to help in any way he can. He fears for Justo and tells Julian that the Gimp and his friends were in the bar the previous night, bragging about how they were going to get Justo. When they finish talking, Julian notices Justo sitting alone. Justo tells Julian how he ran into the Gimp and his friends and
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how they challenged him to the fight. Julian shows Justo the knife he has brought, and Justo says he will use his own. They finish their beers and go to meet Leon and Briceno. Leon and Briceno show confidence in Justo's ability to win the fight with the Gimp, despite earlier doubts. The four young men arrive at the raft, which is actually a huge carob tree that fell into the river years ago and moves only slightly every year. They see that the Gimp and his group are already there, and members of the two opposing groups exchange hostile, sarcastic words. Leonidas arrives, to the surprise of the fighters and their friends, but he insists that he has as much right to be there as any of them. Julian checks out the Gimp's knife; he examines the width, length, weight, and sharpness and declares it fair. Before having his own knife examined, Justo asks Leonidas why he is there. Leonidas replies that he came because he wanted to come. Chunga checks out Justo's knife and declares it fair. Justo and the Gimp prepare to fight, and Leonidas approaches Justo with words of advice about how to win the fight. The fight begins slowly, but soon escalates. Both fighters manage to knick the other, but eventually Justo is seriously hurt. Still, he refuses to surrender, and the Gimp pleads first with Julian (who was once his friend) and then with Leonidas to make Justo give up the fight. Justo refuses, and the fight continues. Soon, Justo collapses. The Gimp and his group slowly leave the area while the others pick up Justo's lifeless body. Leon turns to Leonidas and says, "Don't cry, old-timer. I've never known anyone brave as your son. I really mean that." When the young men offer to take Justo's body to Leonidas' hut, he says, "Yes."
Characters Briceno Briceno is one of the young men in the central group of friends in the story. He speaks his mind, such as when he announces that he thinks the Gimp will kill Justo in the fight. When he sees Justo, however, he expresses nothing but confidence in Justo's ability to win the fight.
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Chalupas Chalupas is the Gimp's most vocal supporter on the night of the fight. He belittles Justo and has an air of hostility about him.
Chunga Chunga is one of the Gimp's supporters. He is the one responsible for checking Justo's weapon to be sure it is acceptable.
The Gimp The Gimp is Justo's opponent in the fight. Despite being crippled, the Gimp is strong and skilled at fighting. The Gimp is confident in his ability and, according to Moses, was set on challenging Justo to a fight. The Gimp is like the other men in the story in that he participates in talking tough before the fight. Despite his talk, he does not actually want to kill Justo, as seen when he pleads first with Julian then with Leonidas to get Justo to give up the fight. The Gimp is described as being very ugly. He is quite tall, has a dark, pimply complexion, and is beardless. He has small eyes, long cheekbones, and thick lips. His left foot is lame, and there are rumors that he has a huge scar on his left foot from a pig bite, although nobody has ever seen the scar. At some point in the past, the Gimp and Julian were friends, although no explanation for the estrangement is offered. Still, toward the end of the fight, when the Gimp fears he will have to kill Justo to stop him, he pleads with Julian to make Justo surrender. The Gimp seems to understand that Julian values friendship, so he calls on him, in the name of past friendship, to save Justo for the sake of present friendship.
Julian Huertas Julian is the story's narrator. He is levelheaded, loyal, and trustworthy. He is the man on Justo's side who is given the responsibility of looking over the Gimp's weapon to be sure it is acceptable. Julian is married and has a son, but little is said about his relationship with his family. Julian is not afraid of the Gimp or his friends. When Chalupas speaks to him in a threatening way, Julian responds with insults.
Justo Justo is a skilled fighter who is challenged by the Gimp. Justo is Julian's friend, and he relies on the support of the other young men in his social
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group when he goes to fight the Gimp. Julian describes Justo as looking "like a kid, a woman: from [a certain] angle, his features were delicate, soft." From another angle, however, Justo's large purple scar across his face is visible. It extends from the corner of his mouth to his forehead.
Leon Leon is one of Julian's friends; he is also a supporter of Justo in the fight. His compassion is seen at the end of the story when he tries to comfort Leonidas by telling him that he has never seen anyone as brave as his son.
Leonidas Leonidas is an older man who is friends with the central group of young men (Julian and his friends) in the story. Leonidas lives alone just outside of town in a small hut. He shows up on the night of the fight, which seems to surprise everyone. He is not afraid of the Gimp or his friends and chastises them for questioning his right to be there. Just before the fight, he whispers advice to Justo to help him with the fight. At the end of the story, the reader learns that Leonidas is Justo's father.
Moses Moses owns the River Bar, where Julian and his friends sometimes go to have a beer. When Moses hears about the fight, he offers to help even though he feels that Justo's chances of winning the fight are not good.
Themes Loyalty Each character portrayed in "The Challenge" is loyal to either Justo or the Gimp. The battle lines are clearly drawn throughout the story, as no characters attempt to stop the fight or arbitrate the tension between the two sides. Although Briceno and Moses express doubt about Justo's ability to win the fight, they remain loyal to their friend. Loyalty is presented as something that is grounded in friendship and personal relationships rather than in a selfserving need to be on the winner's side. When Briceno sees Justo before the fight, he never shows his uncertainty to Justo but expresses nonchalance and confidence in his friend's ability to win the fight. He knows that Justo will not back down from fighting the Gimp, and his loyalty prompts him to be
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supportive in words and actions. Similarly, Moses offers to help in any way he can, despite his belief that Justo may not win. The type of loyalty portrayed in ' "The Challenge' ' is loyalty within the parameters of fairness and honor. The fighters and their supporters adhere to an agreed-upon set of rules, and they do not interfere in the fight. This shows that they are loyal to their friends (Justo and the Gimp) to the extent that they will respect their decision to fight to the end, even if it means death; to do otherwise would be to compromise their friends' dignity.
Machismo According to Sara Castro-Klaren in Latin-American Writers, the word machismo refers to exaggerated masculinity; American Heritage Dictionary adds that machismo is characterized by aggressiveness, virility, and emphasis on physical courage. Vargas Llosa came face to face with machismo during his years in the military academy, and in ' 'The Challenge," the characters depict this quality. In the story, machismo is portrayed in a variety of ways. The challenge issued by the Gimp to Justo to meet him at the raft to fight comes when Justo finds himself surrounded by the Gimp's group at a bar called the Sunken Cart. A fight immediately breaks out, but a priest stops it. This indicates that Justo finds himself alone on the Gimp's "turf," and he is punished for this. The tough talk by everyone involved in the fight is also an example of machismo. Each fighter and his friends try to intimidate the others by saying things that are snide and/or threatening. Their comments have nothing to do with actually warning the other men but are attempts at posturing for a superior position. That the fight is carried out in an up-close, hand-to-hand manner also reflects machismo. Justo and the Gimp are skilled knife fighters, showing that they are not afraid to get physically close to their opponents despite the obvious danger.
Style Descriptions Julian, the narrator, provides detailed descriptions of characters' appearances, settings, and actions. He also has a tendency to use similes in his descriptions. He remarks that the Gimp (once a friend of his) is
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Topics for Further Study To what extent do you think Latin American culture drives the action of this story? Choose three different countries with varying cultures and summarize how the story would be the same or different as a result. Look for similarities and differences across cultures and also bear in mind what you understand human nature to be. Think about how this story portrays a certain type of fighting. Compare it to modern American gang-related violence to see what similarities and differences there are. Is there a code of honor in each type? Are there established rules? Is there closure or resolution? Try to account for the
much taller than all the others. In the dark I couldn't see but could only imagine the face armored with pimples, the skin, deep olive and beardless, the tiny pinholes of his eyes, sunken like two dots in that lump of flesh divided by the oblong bumps of his cheekbones, and his lips, thick as fingers, hanging from his chin, triangular like an iguana's.
Later, while Justo's knife is being approved by one of the Gimp's friends, Julian describes the setting using descriptive sensory words and phrases: For a few minutes, we were silent, inhaling the perfume from the cotton plants nearby, borne by a warm breeze in the direction of the bridge. On the two sides of the riverbed in back of us the twinkling lights of the city were visible. The silence was almost total; from time to time barking or braying ruptured it abruptly.
As peaceful as the description of the landscape is, Julian soon describes the action of the fight as Justo and the Gimp begin to focus on defeating each other. His description is interesting, because he begins by describing the two fighters up close and gradually moves outward. This suggests that he is focused on the fight but may also be attempting to distance himself emotionally from an unpleasant outcome. Julian explains: For a few seconds they stood motionless, silent, surely saying with their eyes how much they hated each
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differences between the two approaches and suggest motives for each. Read about Vargas Llosa's strained relationship with his father. What relevance might this have to the relationship between Leonidas and Justo in "The Challenge"? Does the author's background provide you with any insight into the fictional characters, or vice versa? Using your conclusions, prepare a brief presentation for a middle school English class in which you demonstrate that there is often a relationship between an author's personal experience and his or her writing.
other, observing each other, their muscles tight under their clothing, right hands angrily crushing their knives. From a distance, half hidden by the night's warm darkness, they didn't look so much like two men getting ready to fight as shadowy statues cast in some black material or the shadows of two young, solid carob trees on the riverbank, reflected in the air, not on the sand. As if answering some urgently commanding voice, they started moving almost simultaneously.
As the fight escalates, Julian says that Justo moved in and away from the Gimp at the same time, shaking the poncho, dropping and keeping up his guard, offering his body and whisking it away, slippery, agile, tempting and rejecting his opponent like a woman in heat.
Again, Julian uses simile to enhance his description of the constant movement of his friend in the fight.
Minimal Characterization Although the narrator knows the characters very well, he provides little comment on them. While he gives surface information, such as where Leonidas lives and what the Gimp looks like, he never talks about his broken friendship with the Gimp or why there is tension between the Gimp and Justo. When Briceno sees Justo before the fight and expresses confidence in his ability to win, Julian
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merely says that Briceno seems to have decided to adopt this approach in talking to Justo; Julian is apparently not sure. This lack of knowledge is more characteristic of a passive third-person narrator than of an involved first-person narrator. The story reads as if Julian assumes the reader knows the characters. He describes how the characters relate to one another (to a limited extent; the reader does not know that Leonidas is Justo's father until the end) and leaves the rest for the reader to infer. Vargas Llosa seems to use this technique in order to challenge the reader to become involved in the story and to make assumptions and draw conclusions without being told what to think about the characters.
Historical Context Latin-American Literature Prior to Vargas Llosa's arrival on the literary scene, twentieth-century Peruvian literature was dominated by the works of Jose Carlos Mari£tegui, Cesar Vallejo, and Jose Maria Arguedas. Maria'tegui's work reflects his belief that Peru's people provide the key to understanding the country's past and future. Vallejo's poetry, prose, and drama gained special recognition after he took his life in 1938. His work reflects his belief in the importance of solidarity among human beings. Arguedas drew on the works of Maridtegui and Vallejo as he wrote about rural and urban life in Peru. In the 1960s, there was a "boom" in LatinAmerican literature. During this period, the work of prominent Latin-American writers received international attention and acclaim. As a result, related areas also expanded, such as translation, literary criticism, and North American graduate programs related to Spanish-language studies. The type of fiction that developed during the boom was new in that it was less documentary-like in style, presented the characters' inner lives, and offered different ways to interpret reality. This last element provided the foundation for magical realism, a type of fiction that is strongly associated with Latin American writers and has gained a substantial following worldwide. Magical realism is a type of fiction that is realistic and conventional on the surface, but contains elements such as the supernatural, fantasy, or myth. Writers whose work is credited with contributing to the boom include Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
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Jorge Luis Borge, and Julio Cortazar. Many of their works are considered enduring masterpieces of modern literature. In addition to being one of the youngest writers associated with the Latin American boom, Vargas Llosa is also the main Peruvian writer of the period.
Realism in Literature Realism in literature, which became especially prominent around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, refers to an author's factual, lifelike rendering of people, things, and events. Such writing is often concerned with realistic consequences of decisions made by characters. Most realistic writers are interested in democracy and frequently depict life among common people. Realism often reflects the tendency to move away from neatly plotted stories with distinct beginnings, middles, and endings, because life does not happen this way. Realists do not cater to readers' needs for satisfying conclusions with all loose ends resolved. Instead, they prefer to represent an episode (or episodes) from real life, leaving questions unanswered and a degree of uncertainty about where the characters will go after the story ends. Vargas Llosa combined the realism he admired in many European literary works with his own innovations. He added multiple perspectives, interior monologues, and fragmented narratives.
Critical Overview Mario Vargas Llosa is considered one of the foremost writers in Latin American literature. Although his novels receive the most critical attention, his short works are also praised for their realism and their use of innovative techniques. Many top literary critics and writers, including Salman Rushdie, admire Vargas Llosa. Critics like Rushdie (in New Republic) and Regina Janes (in Reference Guide to World Literature) note that Vargas Llosa's career reflects the author's growing confidence in his ability to write complex fiction. His early works, these critics note, are more straightforward, yet are equally compelling. "The Challenge" typifies this observation because it is a simple story of an arranged fight between two men, supported by their social groups, yet the story is written in such a way as to encourage the reader to look more deeply into the characters' motivations.
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Compare & Contrast 1950s: Fights between opposing groups are settled by arranging a time and place for a fight between two men, one from each group. The fights are often (but not always) carried out according to rules of fairness, and other members do not interfere with the fight. Weapons are generally fists or knives. Today: Interpersonal violence tends to be the result of criminal activities and heightened political tensions rather than simple grudges. The accessibility of guns has raised the stakes of such violence. 1950s: The political atmosphere in Peru is changing. Dissatisfied groups determined to see improvement are challenging current authorities. In 1956, President Prado begins making sweeping changes, but economic instability and inflation cause riots and strikes. Students organize protests on campuses, and citizens are making their voices heard. The economy does not improve
In the context of Latin American literature, Vargas Llosa is considered one of the most important modern writers. His use of realism, combined with effective innovations and complexities, has earned critical and popular acclaim. The author believes that Latin American authors have a responsibility to communicate socially responsible themes and messages, and critics often cite these as strengths in his works.
Criticism Jennifer Bussey Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey dis-
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significantly until a 1959 series of government initiatives is enacted. Today: Over the past fifty years, new political parties have emerged in Latin America. Peruvians have experienced coups, military rule, and democracy in an effort to establish a stable form of government. While the political climate is still tense and often unstable and border disputes are still a reality, the emphasis has shifted from trying to change existing regimes to trying to form workable new approaches to government. 1950s: Roman Catholicism is not only the predominant religion in Peru but also the established religion by law. Other religions are allowed to practice freely, however, and there are small numbers of Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. Today: Roman Catholicism remains the predominant religion, with 90 percent of the population practicing.
cusses Mario Vargas Llosa's use of irony in the characterization of the Gimp in "The Challenge" and how this irony reveals complex themes. Mario Vargas Llosa's short story ' 'The Challenge'' is a seemingly straightforward story about a fight between two men, Justo and the Gimp. Although Vargas Llosa tells the reader little about them and thus does not fully develop any of the characters, he provides enough information about some of the characters to allow the reader to make assumptions and draw conclusions. Vargas Llosa relies more on irony than descriptive narrative to reveal the character known as the Gimp, and in doing so the author also portrays valuable lessons about judging a person. According to William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman in A Handbook to Literature, irony refers to ' 'the recognition of a reality different from appearance." In characterizing the Gimp, Vargas Llosa leads the reader to make certain assumptions about him based on his appearance and public demeanor,
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What Do I Read Next? Edited by Roberto Gonzales Echevarria, The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories (1999) is a collection of the work of more than fifty writers. Ranging from the sixteenth century to the present, this anthology enables the reader to follow the development of short fiction in Latin America. Vargas Llosa's memoir, A Fish in the Water (1994) traces the author's experiences from his early days of strife with his father through his military school years and impressive career as an
Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World (1981) is considered by many to be the author's masterpiece and has, therefore, received considerable critical attention. It is the story of a Brazilian preacher whose apocalyptic prophecies earn him a sizeable following.
The Gimp's appearance is not heroic or inspiring. He is described as a man who is taller than most, with a lame left leg. This information tells the reader that the Gimp also moves somewhat clumsily, probably swaying back and forth a bit when he walks. In many situations, this would be the type of man the reader would expect to be the follower, not the leader, in his social group, especially a group that emphasizes fighting and dominating others. His nickname is an outward acknowledgement by the public that he is lame, and his acceptance of this nickname reflects the character's acceptance of his physical limitations. In fact, Vargas Llosa never gives the Gimp's real name. In addition, his rough features and hard appearance give him a menacing, unapproachable quality. Together, these physical qualities suggest a person who is not a stereotypically strong, bold hero. His emergence as a leader respected by his peers is ironic, then, because all outward clues suggest a completely different social standing.
ters' actions validate this appearance. In ' 'The Challenge," however, the Gimp not only adheres to rules of fairness, he also displays compassion when he is winning the fight. He pleads with Julian and Leonidas to make Justo surrender the fight, presumably so the Gimp does not have to kill him. This casts doubt on Moses' earlier comments to Julian that the Gimp was talking tough the night before about how he would "cut [Justo] up into little pieces." Even if the Gimp did make such comments, the truth about his character is revealed more honestly in his actions during the fight. It is ironic that the Gimp tries to spare Justo's life in a fair fight because the Gimp is presented as a tough, relentless fighting machine. In reality, he possesses at least some degree of compassion. When the fight ends with Justo's death, the Gimp does not brag to his friends or his enemies, he simply walks quietly away. This is the last time the reader sees the Gimp, and it shows him as the unlikely victor in a physically demanding forum. Although the reader is led to take Justo's side in the story, it is difficult to hate the Gimp for killing him.
Despite his lame leg, the Gimp is the winner of the fight with Justo. Moreover, he wins by respecting the rules of the fight, when such a character might be expected to cheat. Too often, writers portray characters who appear as though they may have bad characteristics and then have the charac-
Another way in which Vargas Llosa uses irony in portraying the Gimp is in the pig imagery that describes him. First, the reader learns that there is a rumor that the Gimp's lame foot carries a large scar (shaped like a cross) from a pig bite he received many years ago. Although nobody has ever seen
but then he shows that these assumptions do not comprise a true picture of the Gimp.
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author to his days as a presidential candidate. Because it is autobiographical, this book allows the reader insight into Vargas Llosa's background as well as into the author himself.
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this scar, the rumor persists. During the fight, it is dark, but Julian imagines ' 'the Gimp sweating, his mouth shut, his little pig eyes aflame and blazing behind his eyelids, his skin throbbing, the wings of his flattened nose and the slit of his mouth shaken by an unconceivable quivering . . . " This language clearly casts the Gimp in the image of a pig; more specifically of a pig fearing for his life. This imagery is significant because it likens the Gimp to an animal that is typically slaughtered. The men are fighting with knives, which is the instrument commonly used to slaughter pigs. That the rumored scar on his foot is in the shape of a cross suggests that the expected slaughter (of the pig) will be sacrificial, as the cross symbolizes the Christian belief in Jesus' willingness to be sacrificed on the cross. Although the setting of this story is never given, it is probably Peru, since much of Vargas Llosa's work is set in his native land. If it is not Peru, it is another Latin American country, as evident in the characters' names, which means that Roman Catholicism is the prevailing religious belief. This is significant because the cross—in the form of the crucifix, a cross bearing Jesus' body—is quite common among Catholics. The pig imagery associated with the Gimp creates tension and confusion about what sort of person the Gimp is. Is he a lowly pig to be slaughtered and therefore a villain? Or is he a sacrificial figure meant to die for the good of others and therefore a heroic figure? Either way, the pig imagery seems to foreshadow the Gimp's death. This expectation of the Gimp's death sets up another of Vargas Llosa's uses of irony, because whether the Gimp is villainous or heroic, he wins the fight by killing his opponent. He is the one who takes a life with his knife rather than being slaughtered with a knife like a pig. Among Vargas Llosa's works, the theme of the powerless attaining power (often through force or violence) presents itself time and again. If the Gimp is supposed to be understood as unsympathetic livestock, his victory demonstrates that, sometimes, unlikely people ultimately gain power. On the other hand, if the Gimp is to be understood as a noble sacrifice, his use of force and violence in the fight takes away his opportunity to fulfill his destiny. If that is the case, then another of Vargas Llosa's themes—the folly of abused power— is depicted. Clearly,' 'The Challenge'' is a complex story in which characterization and themes emerge from the tension created by irony. The irony used in portraying the Gimp demonstrates that truth is found in action and that it is
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The author's use of irony catches the reader off guard and forces him or her to consider complex questions about the Gimp and, by extension, other people and situations."
dangerous to make snap judgments of people based on their appearance. The reader's opinion of the Gimp has likely changed somewhat from the beginning of the story, because his actions demonstrate an opposing, though equally valid, reality about his character. Beyond the Gimp's nickname, physical appearance, and associations with the pig, there is something admirable in his character. He is brave, skilled, and compassionate. These qualities are revealed to the reader not through the narrator's comments, even though he and the Gimp were once friends, but through the Gimp's actions: Vargas Llosa empowers his readers to make decisions about what sort of person the Gimp may or may not be. Regardless of readers' conclusions, the truth about who he is has little to do with what the Gimp says or what is said about him but instead is found in his actions. This is an important message o f ' 'The Challenge." What the Gimp appears to be, he is not. He seems to be weakened, slow, and inhuman, yet the fight shows that he is strong, capable, and compassionate yet determined to preserve his honor and his life. On the outside, the Gimp looks like he might be a bad person but after all, he turns out to be rather heroic. In creating a character who is easy to misjudge and difficult to admire even at the end (he wins the fight by killing Justo, the narrator's friend), Vargas Llosa teaches a lesson about impressions and patience in understanding another person. The author's use of irony catches the reader off guard and forces him or her to consider complex questions about the Gimp and, by extension, about other people and situations. By showing the reader who the Gimp is, instead of simply telling, Vargas Llosa places demands on the reader that lead to a greater understanding of the Gimp in the end.
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Source: Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on "The Challenge," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Rena Korb Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, Korb explores the many ambiguous elements of Vargas Llosa 's story. In Vargas Llosa's prizewinning story "The Challenge,' ' the meaningless death of a young man takes place within the confines of an unstable, impermanent world. In the environment that Justo and his friends inhabit, nothing is what it seems. Actions, people, and even relationships constantly shift and transform. Appearances cannot be trusted. This motif fixes the moral framework in which young men such as Julian and Justo grow up, helping to explain why violence, and their falsely brave reactions to it, outlines their lives. In marked contrast to this motif, "The Challenge" opens with firm roots in the mundane, realistic world. "We were drinking beer, like every Saturday," Julian narrates, "when Leonidas appeared in the doorway of the River Bar. We saw at once from his face that something had happened." At this early point in the story, situations are still what they appear to be. Bad news is conveyed in the usual way, by a' 'pensive'' expression on a person's face or a voice with a "strange" inflection. Julian and his friends soon find out what causes Leonidas to show concern—that evening their friend Justo will fight a tough rival known as the Gimp. This news sets in motion a chain of events that plays out against the wavering realities that delineate the rest of the story. No longer are things as they seem; these senses—eyes and ears—can no longer be relied upon. To enhance this feeling, Vargas Llosa imbues the narrative with details that show just how unreliable appearances can be. Some of these details are small; for instance, although the men live in a city, the outskirts, "where the dunes started," are only walking distance away; or as he leaves home, Julian bumps into his wife, who holds their sleeping son in her arms, giving Julian "the impression he was dead." Other telling details surround the men and the upcoming fight. The Gimp, so-called because of a lame left foot, is actually an agile, skillful fighter. His gang jumped Justo that afternoon not like men but "like mad dogs" whom even the priest called "animals." Indeed, although the rivalry between the Gimp and
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Justo has developed from their city personas, the place it will finally end is outside of the city, distant enough that only the ' 'twinkling lights'' are visible. Paralleling these disparities, Julian and his friends are forced to hide the truth from themselves and the other people who surround them. Julian lies to his wife about where he is going that evening and when he will return. More significantly, Briceno does not tell Justo that he believes that "the Gimp's going to kill'' him. Instead, at the fight Briceno and Leon "seemed to have agreed on showing confidence and even a certain amount of light-heartedness in front of Justo." To carry out their goal, they lie about Justo's fighting prowess. "You're going to cut him to shreds," says Leon, and Briceno backs him up, adding, "The Gimp couldn't touch you." Briceno, however, tries to stop the fight through the blatant subterfuge of suggesting it be postponed because there is not enough moonlight to see. Such dishonesty can be dangerous. This danger, physically symbolized when Julian hides his knife in his pants pocket, is ultimately borne out in Justo's death. From the moment that Julian leaves his house on this deadly evening, every action is overshadowed by shifting perception. At the bar where he stops off first, the changing nature of reality is reinforced when Julian and the owner discuss the Gimp. While Julian describes this foe's face as "really funny when he's mad," the owner says that the night before, when the Gimp was angry with Justo, "he looked like the devil." Justo's own appearance this evening is deceptive: "Seen from the side and against the darkness outside, he looked like a kid, a woman: from that angle, his features were delicate, soft." However, once Justo turns around and faces Julian,' 'the purple scar wounding the other side of his face, from the corner of his mouth up to his forehead'' destroys that image. The situation that evening, as well as the feelings of the men involved, is clearly amiss. The four friends descend to the riverbank differently than usual, along a longer, narrow path. The unusualness of the evening, despite the gang's brave talk, is demonstrated by Briceno's unfamiliarity with the terrain, and going down the path he "tripped and swore.'' The' 'raft,'' where the fight is to take place, is not even a raft but rather a tree that fell into the dry riverbed. Its impermanence and instability is reinforced through Julian's description: "It was very heavy and once it went down, the water couldn't raise it, could only drag it along for a few yards, so
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that each year 'the raft' moved a little farther from the city." All that is constant are the instruments of danger, for in comparing his knife with Julian's, Justo declares them to be "the same."
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Nowhere, however, are Vargas Llosa's careful details more relevant than in the fight scene, when, again, nothing is what it seems. The Gimp's knife "felt like a piece of ice" when Julian checked it over. The poncho that Leonidas wears becomes a shield that Justo wraps around his arm, and later, after the men's ponchos have fallen off in the heat of fighting, it comes to resemble "a many-faceted rock." Justo and the Gimp "didn't look so much like two men getting ready to fight as shadowy statues cast in some black material or the shadows of two young, solid carob trees on the riverbank." As the fight is about to begin, the Gimp is hardly a man but a "limping shadow [that] slid toward the center of the space the two groups had marked off." The moon is hidden that evening, shrouding the scene in darkness. When Julian first approaches the Gimp's gang they do not recognize him, and Julian's answer to their questioning who's there— "Julian.. .. Julian Huertas. You blind?"— underscores the complete blindness that Justo and his friends insist on maintaining; all of them know who will be the winner this evening. This murkiness is literally reinforced as Julian examines the Gimp's knife, which he only can do by the' 'feeble light'' of a match. When he throws Justo's knife to the Gimp's friend to examine it, it falls on the ground, and Julian must resort to "groping on the sand in search of" the weapon. The surrounding blackness forces the witnesses to "strain" their eyes "vainly" to see what is happening. Because of this, Julian's description of the fight is unreliable. However, Julian refuses to admit this. "I wasn't able to see their faces," he acknowledges, "but I closed my eyes and saw them better than if I'd been in their midst." Such a blatant misstatement is Julian's attempt to assert some measure of control over this hopeless situation, even to the minimal extent of elevating it to a fight filled with honor and courage rather than admitting it is merely a brutal, senseless fight between petty rivals. The partially viewed fight itself illustrates the slippery nature so prevalent in the story. The Gimp's movements and his circling around Justo are like' 'dancing." Justo, no longer an angry young man, responds by ' 'offering his body and whisking it away . . . like a woman in heat.'' At one point, the
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this deadly evening, every action is overshadowed by shifting perception."
"adversaries, as close as lovers, formed a single body." Not surprisingly, the deadly blows come as a result of Justo's inability to accept the simple truth— the Gimp is the superior fighter. Justo, "his usual sneering mask intensified by anger and his lips moist with rage and fatigue," attacks the Gimp. To emphasize this deliberate obfuscation, Vargas Llosa uses words that relate to vision; as Julian narrates, ' 'I opened my eyes just in time to see Justo pounce madly, blindly on the other man.'' Justo's refusal to accurately assess his own ability as a fighter leads him to give his opponent "every advantage, offering his face, foolishly exposing his body." Significantly, although Justo's friends witness the final knife thrusts, they are unable to really understand what is happening. They can't tell "who was who ... whose arm delivered which blows, whose throat offered up those roars that followed one another like echoes." All that they can see with certainty are the ' 'naked knife blades in the air... blazing, in and out of sight, hidden or brandished in the night as in some magician's spectacular show." The Gimp attempts to bring an end to the fight before it takes its final turn. In a ' 'voice we all knew but which we wouldn't have recognized if it had taken us by surprise in the dark," the Gimp shouts out to Julian to tell Justo to give up. At this crucial moment, Julian again is rendered blind to his friend's needs. Unable to answer, he turns for Leonidas's opinion and thus fails to witness the fatal cut. Significantly, the hand with which Justo launched his final attack on the Gimp was the one that he had been holding over his face "as if he wanted to drive some horrible sight away from his eyes." As Justo opens his eyes fully to the ' 'bitterness of his defeat," he dies. Yet, in this twisted environment, even death cannot be constant. Justo's body becomes that of a "limp, damp, cold .. . beached
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jellyfish." His friend's shoulders, now for carrying Justo, become a coffin. The evening culminates, taking on greater power and emotional resonance, with the revelation that Leonidas is Justo's father. This is a surprise ending, even though Vargas Llosa has strewn many clues along the path of the story: Leonidas was the first person to show discomfort with the fight and to react to it; Leonidas insisted that he knew the truth about Justo's scar; Leonidas showed up unexpectedly to watch the fight; the Gimp called Leonidas ' 'Pop'' three times and begged him, after Julian, to tell Justo to stop fighting. These clues are among the very few elements that can be taken at face value; however, they are obscured by the uncertainty of the other details of the story. However, this new knowledge helps clarify the shadowy world of false appearances and duplicity in which these young men live. Writes Dick Gerdes in Mario Vargas Llosa, "[t]he reader comes to realize that the characters' lives are based on appearances, deceit, and fatalism.' ' By the story's end, all that is certain is that the rule of violence and machismo will prevail.
of social injustice and revolution. It was a violent world that surrounded the young author as he pursued his own struggle through adolescence in the late 1940s and 1950s in Peru. The year was 1959 when "The Challenge" was first published as part of a collection of short stories entitled Los jefes, translated as The Cubs and Other Stories. The author was recently graduated from college. The images and experiences he writes about in this collection he retrieved from his life beginning at the age of ten. At ten, he had moved to Piura, Peru, and lived there for two years with his grandparents, aunts, and uncles. From Piura, he moved to Lima to live with his father and mother. At fourteen, he was sent to a military school. Throughout this period of his life he began to learn about machismo, hatred, love, and honor. The author says in his autobiography, Making Waves, that "memories of Piura" were the inspiration for several stories in The Cubs. He says of his youth,' 'Peruvians of my age grew up in the midst of this tender violence—or violent tenderness—that I tried to recreate in my first stories." Vargas Llosa describes Piura as being
Source: Rena Korb, Critical Essay on "The Challenge," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Ray Warren Warren has a master of fine arts degree in writing from Vermont College and writes young adult fiction. In this essay, Warren explores the narrative voice as it reflects the author's experience and defines the story.
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full of incidents that fired the imagination. There was La Mangacheria, an area made up of mud and reed huts, where the best chicha bars could be found, and La Gallinacera, located between the river and the abattoir. Both districts hated each other and there were sometimes pitched battles between mangaches and gallinazos.
"The Challenge" reflects the turmoil of living among mixed classes, close to the streets, and at a time when honor was all important.
' 'The Challenge," by Mario Vargas Llosa, contains a strong feel of the emotional undercurrents that were a part of the author's world as a boy and young man. Writers acquire inspiration and material from their environment, from experience and observation. Vargas Llosa, one of the great contemporary South American writers who helped bring South American themes and their writers to the attention of the world, has continuously pulled from the intrigues of his life. As the author says in ' 'Is Fiction the Art of Living," an article written for the New York Times, "as in everything I've written, I began with experiences still vivid in my memory and stimulating to my imagination and then fantasized something that is an extremely unfaithful reflection of that material."
The author's impressions by other writers is apparent in "The Challenge." In the 1950s, he and his friends were reading mostly North American and European writers: Henry Miller, Joyce, Hemingway, Proust, Malraux, Celine, Borges. "But, above all, Faulkner," he says in Making Waves. Nicholas Shrady, in a New York Times article, "Why He Jilted Sartre," quotes Vargas Llosa as saying, "The world out of which he [Faulkner] created his own world is quite similar to a Latin American world." There were mixed cultures, traditions, and races in both environments, ' 'all forming a difficult coexistence full of prejudice and violence." In "The Challenge," as in other writing by the author, social conflict and violence have a prominent role.
"The Challenge" defines an ever prominent theme of Vargas Llosa: the coming of age in a world
This short narrative at first appears to be a scene from a larger work. Its faceless characters are
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minimally described, as if the reader already knows them. From its first line, ' 'We were drinking beer, like every Saturday, when Leonidas appeared in the doorway of the River Bar," the story's telling is straightforward and minimal. It is with Leonidas's arrival that the plot becomes apparent. There is to be a fight between their friend and a feared rival. Vargas Llosa maintains his theme of hatred, machismo, relationships, and honor by limiting his settings. "The Challenge" reads like a play. The boys disband, then come back together with their friend, Justo, who is to face the evil and ugly adversary, the Gimp. It takes only one sentence to describe their walk to the riverbed, where the fight is to take place. This leaves the biggest scene—the fight—for the rest of the telling. The only character with a physical description is the Gimp, but this description is given only after he has been built up as a legend to be feared. In the darkness of the fight scene, the narrator imagines the Gimp's face as "armored in pimples," with "olive skin and beardless," and "tiny pinholes of his eyes," and with "his lips, thick as fingers, hanging from his chin, triangular like an iguana's." By giving this much attention to him, whether he did so consciously or not, Vargas Llosa has made the Gimp more real than the other characters, bigger than life, so to speak. Even the Gimp's lameness has a mysterious quality, said to have been the result of a pig's bite while he was sleeping,' 'but nobody had ever seen that scar." Justo, the boy who is to fight the Gimp, is only described throughout the story by a few mannerisms such as his "usual sneer," a "brusque gesture," and ' 'walking on the sand with firm steps, his head up." Justo's feelings of hatred, anger, and impatience combined with his quick movements during the fight give him his physicality. The reader knows little about him other than what is surmised. The narrator and his other friends are a mix of observers and victims. The focus of the story remains on the action and emotions. The tension of the life-and-death duel between the adversaries is increased by the darkness of a moonless night. Knives are inspected and approved by both sides as per the unspoken rules. Both fighters assume a familiar stance, crouching low, and moving in rhythm with the other. Each has a poncho-covered arm held high to protect his face. One boy is tall, ugly, lame, and a seasoned opponent. He is known and feared, even respected.
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Realist fiction is a compilation of reality and rings true even when it is beyond the reader's experience,"
The other boy is small by comparison but quick, with an attitude that seems to have gotten him into this situation. He has some fear, but he has more hatred and anger, and he is not about to back down. An audience of close friends supports both fighters. Even Leonidas, the old man, has come to support Justo. Another writer who intrigued Vargas Llosa was Jorge Luis Borges. Nicholas Shrady says in his New York Times article that' 'the appeal of Borges's fantastic tales of gauchos, knives, labyrinths, and tigers was powerful" for Vargas Llosa. This description is intriguing in light of Vargas Llosa's fight scene. The fighters proceed much like two animals stalking each other, circling, crouching, then lunging and retreating, seeking to fool the other into dropping his guard. The labyrinth analogy is an apt one. The fighters move, not only within a circle but toward and away from its center until, at last, one fighter suddenly finds himself alone in the center of the labyrinth, victorious. Then there is the journey back to the outside, the walk home, with kudos or regrets, praise or sorrow, and the lessons learned. Honor is either maintained or lost, whether in life or death it seems not to matter. Throughout the fight the author keeps readers in suspense, even to the retreat from the center, when readers finally learn of the puzzling relationship between Justo, the smaller fighter, and the old man. Leonidas obviously had an investment in the outcome of the battle. At its outset, he instructs Justo as a trainer might at a boxing match and gives him his poncho for protection. His final instruction is, "Carry yourself like a man." It is not until the fight is over and the damage done that readers discover the father/son relationship between the two. Stranger yet is the reaction of Leonidas just prior to the end of the fight. He is implored by The Gimp to stop Justo, who is obviously wounded. Leonidas's reply: "Shut up and fight."
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Why did Leonidas respond so? What was the relationship between him and his son? And what was the strength of his honor, his code of morality? Was the honor for his son's sake or his own? Perhaps both. There are many questions readers are left with that bring the story full circle, bring it to the point of its existence. What was the author showing the reader, telling him or her, and on how many levels does it play out? Certainly there is the obvious historical connection with culture and society in the authors life, not only in Piura but also on a larger scale, that honor is often more important than outcomes. Then there is the question of Vargas Llosa's relationship with his own father. When the author was young, his father, Ernesto Vargas, had abandoned his mother and him. When he was twelve, his father and mother reconciled, and young Mario was sent to Lima to live with them. Vargas Llosa says, in Making Waves, that living with his father meant "submitting to the discipline of a very severe man who was a stranger to me." Mario disliked his father and disliked Lima, where he witnessed even greater social injustices. Leonidas and Justo, likewise, appeared to be estranged. There is definitely an unseen, unknown element between the father and son of the story, and a possible connection with the author's experience. At fourteen, Vargas Llosa's father sent him to the Leoncio Prado Military School, as the author says, because he was writing poetry. In his memoir, A Fish in the Water, quoted by Alan Riding in a New York Times article, ' "The Misadventures of Mario Vargas Llosa," the author says, "To write poems was another of the secret ways of resisting my father . . . since I knew how much it irritated him." Paraphrasing his father, in Making Waves, the author says ' 'a poet is condemned to die of hunger—and for my manhood—because poets are always homosexuals." Was this to save Mario, his father, or both? Was it about honor? Was it a father's duty? Vargas Llosa had his own understanding that may well have impacted his characters in stories yet to come. Mario despised military school, but it became the inspiration and setting for his first novel, The Time of the Hero. Writers give their experiences, thoughts, and emotions to their characters. Was Vargas Llosa making a statement to or about his father? Was this a conscious act or perhaps unconscious? Either is possible. Even without making specific statements about their beliefs or feelings, authors will use them
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to move a story forward, or feed them to a character for motivation and direction. Realist fiction is a compilation of reality and rings true even when it is beyond the reader's experience. Even as some of the author's earliest published writing, "The Challenge" brings together observation, emotional experience, and imagination. Its telling takes the reader into a reality, though far removed from his or her own, that is a place of feeling and as real in a deeper sense than a mere entertainment. Source: Ray Warren, Critical Essay on ' 'The Challenge, "in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Sources Castro-Klaren, Sara,' 'Mario Vargas Llosa," in Latin American Writers, Vol. 3, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989, pp. 1421-36. Gerdes, Dick, Mario Vargas Llosa, G. K. Hall & Co., 1999. Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman, "Irony," in A Handbook to Literature, Seventh Edition, Prentice Hall, 1996, pp. 277-78. , "Magical Realism," in A Handbook to Literature, Seventh Edition, Prentice Hall, 1996, p. 304. Janes, Regina, "Vargas Llosa, (Jorge) Mario (Pedro)," in Reference Guide to World Literature, 2d ed., St. James Press, 1995, pp. 256-58. Riding, Alan, "The Misadventures of Mario Vargas Llosa," in New York Times, May 15, 1994. Rubel, David, ed., "Mario Vargas Llosa," in The Reading List: Contemporary Fiction, Henry Holt and Company, 1998. Rushdie, Salman, "Peruvian Master,'' in New Republic, Vol. 191, No. 15, October 8, 1984, pp. 25-27. Shrady, Nicholas, "Why He Jilted Sartre," in New York Times, March 10, 1991. Vargas Llosa, Mario, "The Country of a Thousand Faces," in Making Waves, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. , "Is Fiction the Art of Living?" in New York Times, October 7, 1984.
Further Reading Christ, Ronald, "Talk with Mario Vargas Llosa," in New York Times Book Review, April 9, 1978, pp. 11, 32, 33. Christ interviews Vargas Llosa about his fiction and his experiences. While many interviews with the author concentrate on the political turmoil in Latin
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America, this interview pursues the author's writing more deeply. Colchie, Thomas, ed., A Hammock beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America, Plume, 1992. Colchie's anthology of short Latin American fiction includes the work of twenty-six writers. The stories are written both by established writers and by emerging voices in Latin American letters, and the book is organized by geography. Kristal, Efrain, Temptation of the Word: The Novels of Mario Vargas Llosa, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999. Kristal provides critical analysis of Vargas Llosa's career as a novelist, commenting at length on the
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author's importance among Latin American writers since the 1960s. Kristal notes how Vargas Llosa's fiction taps into the intense political climate of his native land and suggests divisions in his writing according to political ideologies. World Literature Today: Mario Vargas Llosa Issue, Vol. 52, No. 1, Winter 1978. This entire issue is devoted to exploring the life and work of Vargas Llosa. A variety of contributors comment at length about such topics as Vargas Llosa's belief that Latin-American writers have a responsibility to be socially aware.
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The Country Husband John Cheever 1954
"The Country Husband," first published in 1954, appeared in John Cheever's 1958 collection of short stories, The Housebreaker of Shady Hill. This collection offered various points of view reflecting life in the New England suburb of Shady Hill. "The Country Husband'' is considered one of the best stories in the book, and besides winning a 1956 O. Henry Award, it was included in the 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Stories of John Cheever. "The Country Husband" has many of Cheever's trademarks. It is set in the suburbs, features a character at a crossroads, and reveals the spiritual bankruptcy of many aspects of suburban life. It is a complex yet accessible story that portrays a lifestyle that was common fifty years ago yet continues to be meaningful for readers today.
Author Biography John Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on May 27, 1912, the second son of Frederick and Mary Liley Cheever. Cheever's home life was difficult; he had a tumultuous relationship with his brother, and his parents were cold and distant. Expelled from Thay er Academy at the age of seventeen, Cheever went to New York City. Cheever's career started almost immediately upon his arrival in New York. He befriended the
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director of Yaddo, a writers' colony in upstate New York. At Yaddo, Cheever met e. e. cummings, John Dos Passos, and James Agee. Still seventeen, Cheever sold a story to New Republic, and five years later he was a regular contributor to the New Yorker. His connection to the New Yorker endured for decades, which led some critics to categorize his short stories as being strictly in the New Yorker style and, therefore, a narrow appeal. When he won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for The Stories of John Cheever (which includes "The Country Husband"), however, he was taken seriously by readers and critics. Cheever is called the American Chekhov because just as Anton Chekhov portrayed the lives of everyday Russian people, Cheever portrayed daily life in middle-class America. Cheever married Mary Winternitz on March 22, 1941, and they eventually had four children. In 1942, he enlisted in the Army, where he was a scriptwriter for training films until his 1945 discharge. He continued to write for magazines, compiled collections for publication, and started working on novels. Cheever won the National Book Award in 1958 for his first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle, although he is better known for his short stories. His novels address the same ideas as his short stories and feature the same New England suburban settings. Most of his characters are white, middle-class, Protestant, family people whose crises emerge from growing dissatisfaction with their lives. As he grew older, Cheever found it increasingly difficult to deal with his alcoholism and was confused by his sexual orientation. His drinking problem began in the 1950s, and in 1975, he checked himself into a rehabilitation program. Over the years, Cheever's problems with his marriage and the realization that he was bisexual created further turmoil. Cheever died in Ossining, New York, on June 18,1982, of kidney and bone cancer. He is buried in Norwell, Massachusetts.
Plot Summary ' 'The Country Husband'' opens as Francis Weed, a middle-aged family man, is aboard a plane that is making an emergency crash landing in a corn field. When he returns home, his wife, Julia, and their four children are uninterested in his experience. Francis,
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however, feels that he has been given a second chance to live life. After dinner, Francis goes to his backyard garden where he thinks about his experience and listens to the usual sounds of his suburban neighborhood. The narrator tells the reader that the Weeds are social people. Julia is especially wrapped up in the social life of Shady Hill, the New England suburb in which they live. The next evening, Francis and Julia attend a party, and everything seems as usual. When Francis notices the maid, he recognizes her. He recalls a time during the war when he was in France and saw a woman publicly humiliated for living with a German officer. Her head was shaved and she was forced to walk out of town naked. The maid is this woman, but Francis tells no one about this compelling incident. He knows that the party-goers are content pretending that nothing bad has ever happened or ever will. Francis and Julia return home to a new babysitter, a teenager named Anne Murchison. Francis is instantly fixated on the girl; he drives her home and feels sorry for her when she tells him about her father's drinking problem. Francis becomes obsessed with the girl, imagining that they will have a
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sexual relationship. These fantasies make him feel alive and seem to embolden him to acts of rebellion, such as insulting one of the leading members of Shady Hill society. One day, Francis arrives home to find Anne in the hallway. He brazenly kisses her (she resists) and is seen by Gertrude, a neighborhood girl who is also standing in the hallway. He tells Gertrude not to tell anyone what she saw. The narrator does not say what Anne does after the kiss. Later, Clayton Thomas, a young man in the neighborhood, visits the Weeds. Clayton has no tolerance for the artificiality of Shady Hill and plans to move to New York with his mother. He also plans to marry Anne when she finishes high school. After Clayton leaves, Francis and Julia have a fight that almost leads to Julia's leaving. The next day at work, Francis is asked to help Clayton find a job, but Francis undermines him instead. At this point, Francis decides to see a psychiatrist to help him deal with his feelings for Anne. The psychiatrist recommends a distraction, so Francis takes up woodworking. As the story ends, Francis is in the cellar making a coffee table.
Donald Goslin Donald Goslin is one of the Weeds's neighbors. He plays his piano in the evenings, usually selecting "Moonlight Sonata." He plays it at his own tempo rather than strictly following the sheet music.
Dr. Herzog Dr. Herzog is the psychiatrist whom Francis visits toward the end of the story. After seeing Francis for a week, Dr. Herzog convinces him that he (Francis) needs a distraction to serve as therapy. He suggests woodworking, which Francis seems to enjoy.
Maid At a party, Francis recognizes the maid on duty. He recalls an incident during the war in which a French woman who has lived with a German officer is publicly humiliated by having her head shaved and then being stripped naked. He realizes that the maid is the woman he remembers. Although little is told about the maid's character, Francis's memories of her indicate that she is proud yet vulnerable.
Anne Murchison
Characters Gertrude Flannery Gertrude Flannery is a little girl who lives in the Weeds's neighborhood. She drifts from house to house, either making herself comfortable on other people's porches or walking right into their homes. Those who do not know Gertrude's family think her home life must be miserable, but her parents are actually attentive and caring. Gertrude stays away from home and wears ragged clothes as a form of rebellion. Neighbors have trouble getting rid of Gertrude because she generally ignores them when they tell her it is time to leave. When Francis kisses Anne in his house's foyer, he is surprised to discover that Gertrude is standing right in the hallway. Gertrude never tells anyone what she has seen, which makes the reader wonder what else the child may have seen in the neighborhood. Her character is significant for this reason: the residents of Shady Hill keep up appearances, yet Gertrude probably knows many of the residents' secrets.
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Anne is the Weeds's new babysitter. She reveals to Francis that she is unhappy because of her home life; her father is an alcoholic. Although Francis becomes obsessed with Anne, she seems oblivious to the magnitude of his feelings. When he kisses her, she resists, but nothing else is said about her reaction. Francis learns from Clayton that he and Anne plan to marry when she finishes high school.
Mr. Nixon Mr. Nixon is one of the Weeds's neighbors. He has a bird-feeding area in his backyard and yells at the squirrels every evening.
Miss Rainey Miss Rainey is Francis's secretary. She sees a psychiatrist, Dr. Herzog, three times a week. Miss Rainey is a capable worker. When she is offered a better job, she tells Francis that she is quitting.
Clayton Thomas Clayton is the son of one of the Weeds's neighbors. His father was killed in World War II,
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and now Clayton and his mother live alone. He attends college, but his mother is running out of money. He anticipates not being able to complete his education. Clayton is honest, opinionated, cynical, and self-aware. He feels that he is still growing as a person and, thus, looks for opportunities to strengthen his character. Clayton is the only character in the story who calls the people of Shady Hill "phony." He believes that they spend too much time perpetuating their own myth of perfection, so he is happy that he and his mother plan to leave soon. He plans to leave school, find a job in New York, and move there with his mother. He also plans to marry Anne when she finishes high school.
Francis Weed Francis Weed is the protagonist of the story. The reader meets him as he is aboard an airplane that is making an emergency crash landing. After he survives the landing, he is a changed man. He is more impulsive and less inhibited. He says what he thinks, indulges in fantasies about the babysitter, and acts imprudently. Although his marriage to Julia is comfortable, Francis becomes obsessed with a new teenaged babysitter, Anne. He buys her a bracelet (but never gives it to her), imagines where he will take her when it comes time to drive her home, and impulsively kisses her. He tells himself that he is in love with her, but he also feels guilty for wanting to abandon his family to be with her. His fantasies about the girl cause him to act selfishly, as when he undermines the job search of Clayton, Anne's fiance. Despite his fantasy world, Francis seems committed to maintaining his life as it is. When his wife threatens to leave, he talks her out of it, and he ultimately decides to see a psychiatrist to help him deal with his feelings for Anne. Francis seems to be having trouble adjusting to the lifestyle he has chosen for himself. Although he is dissatisfied with the superficial world in which he lives, he seems to prefer it to the unknown.
Helen Weed Helen is the oldest child of Francis and Julia. She is an adolescent who is going through a stage in which she is unimpressed, distant, and jaded.
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Henry Weed Henry is the older son of Francis and Julia. He and Louisa are about the same age and enjoy antagonizing each other.
Julia Weed Julia is Francis's wife. She is a homemaker who feels that her husband does not fully appreciate her. Julia is very involved in the community' s social life and is popular with the Weeds's circle of friends. The story's narrator comments that "her love of parties sprang from a most natural dread of chaos and loneliness." This insight suggests that Julia is not fulfilled by her role as a wife and mother. Julia becomes exasperated with the changes she sees in her husband after the plane accident. She feels he is becoming hostile and chides his rude behavior. Her attitude reflects how she values her social standing over understanding the ramifications of her husband's near-death experience.
Louisa Weed Louisa is the younger daughter of Francis and Julia. She and Henry are about the same age, so they are competitive and argue with each other.
Toby Weed Toby is the youngest child of Francis and Julia. He is preschool-aged and is very attached to his mother.
Mrs. Wrightson Mrs. Wrightson is an established member of the Shady Hill community. She is older than Francis and is very hurt when he insults her at the train station. As a result of this snub, she excludes the Weeds from her anniversary party.
Themes Appearances In "The Country Husband," Cheever shows that appearances do not necessarily reflect reality. The people of Shady Hill, including the Weeds, maintain an illusion of happiness and control. Francis endures a life-threatening experience, yet outwardly, life goes on as before. During a party hosted by a married couple named Farquarson, Francis recognizes the maid as a woman he saw in France during the war. He remembers that she was publicly
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Topics for Further Study After finishing the story, think about the title. Why do you think Cheever chose it? Is it meant to lend insight into one of the characters or is it intended to support one of the story's themes? Write an essay in which you offer an explanation for the title. Be sure your points are drawn from the text and quote the story where appropriate.
would you draw? Make some notes about this. Then read an overview of Cheever's career (Twayne's Authors Series is a good one) to see if your conclusions are in line with published criticism on the work. What does this exercise tell you about how individual works fit into the broader scope of an author's work?
Read another of Cheever's best-loved short stories, "The Swimmer," and compare it to "The Country Husband." If you had to draw conclusions about Cheever's entire body of work (style, construction, characterization, themes, etc.) based only on these two stories, what conclusions
Think about a time when you had a defining or life-changing experience, positive or negative. How did the experience affect you? In retrospect, do you believe that your experience ultimately had a greater or lesser impact than you imagined it would at the time?
humiliated for living with a German officer, yet he never considers sharing her story with any of the other guests because "[t]he people in the Farquarsons' living room seemed united in their tacit claim that there had been no past, no war—that there was no danger or trouble in the world."
teenaged babysitter and speaks rudely to Mrs. Wrightson. In doing so, he appears to feel that he is being true to himself rather than playing the social games expected of him.
Francis knows that life in Shady Hill means keeping up appearances. He doesn't like this practice but he goes along with it. He begins to lose some of his inhibitions, however, after his neardeath experience. Thinking about his lifestyle, he has certain regrets; the narrator explains, "Among his friends and neighbors, there were brilliant and gifted people—he saw that—but many of them, also, were bores and fools, and he had made the mistake of listening to them all with equal attention." Clayton is the only resident of Shady Hill who openly criticizes the culture of the community. Francis seems to envy Clayton because he is planning to leave Shady Hill to make a life elsewhere, and because he plans to marry Anne.
Second Chances Surviving the crash landing gives Francis a sense that he has a second chance to live his life and that he can live it differently. Almost immediately, he indulges in inappropriate fantasies about the
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His wife, Julia, is a kind and decent person, but the marriage lacks connection and passion. In the spirit of second chances, Francis fixates on Anne, imaging that a sexual relationship with her will make him feel alive. He tells himself (and his psychiatrist) that he is in love with her, but he is really in love with the idea of youth and a promising future. When Francis speaks rudely to Mrs. Wrightson, he feels energized for having said exactly what was on his mind without regard for the consequences. As she walks away, Francis feels liberated: A wonderful feeling enveloped him, as if light were being shaken about him. . . . The realization of how many years had passed since he had enjoyed being deliberately impolite sobered him.... He was grateful to the girl [Anne], for this bracing sensation of independence.
In the end, Francis is seemingly content again. He is changed as a result of his ordeal in the airplane but not in the way he expected, which was to live boldly and selfishly. Ironically, his decision to em-
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brace his second chance leads him not to an exciting new life but to the same life with the addition of a new, home-based hobby: woodworking. He is still a conventional man living in American suburbia.
Style Complex Narrative Style At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes with detachment the airplane's near-crash. The narrator communicates facts rather than capturing the intensity of human crisis. As the story unfolds, however, the narrator enters Francis's mind, telling the reader about his thoughts and feelings. The result is that the reader finishes the story with the sense that the airplane incident is not particularly engrossing, but the character's reaction to it is. The narrator begins as a passive observer but becomes a commentator who frequently interprets the changes that take place in Francis. One of the first insights into Francis's psyche is revealed when he sees Anne. Francis is drawn to her innocence, purity, and youth, as the narrator relates: All those endearing flaws, moles, birthmarks, and healed wounds were missing, and he experienced in his consciousness that moment when music breaks glass, and felt a pang of recognition as strange, deep, and wonderful as anything in his life.
The narrator's intimate knowledge of Francis's inner experiences is shown in minor incidents, too. After Francis insults Mrs. Wrightson, for example, the narrator tells the reader, ' 'Even the smell of ink from his morning paper honed his appetite for life, and the world that was spread out around him was plainly a paradise." Without this insight, the reader might only see Francis reading his paper and have no idea that the smell of the ink makes him feel alive or that he perceives his setting as perfect. Similarly, the narrator reveals Francis's feelings of guilt. In one episode, he is in his office thinking about Anne, when [t]he photograph of his four children laughing into the camera on the beach at Gay Head reproached him. On the letterhead of his firm there was a drawing of the Laocoon [a Hellenistic sculpture of the priest who angered and was punished by the goddess Athena for warning the Trojans not to accept the Greek horse], and the figure of the priest and his sons in the coils of the snake appeared to him to have the deepest meaning.
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Simile Throughout "The Country Husband" the narrator uses similes to describe Francis's inner and outer experiences. The similes show that Francis's perceptions of his world and of himself change. The world becomes a more engaging place where elements are interrelated and where feelings are sometimes intense. When Donald, a neighbor, begins his usual playing of "Moonlight Sonata," the narrator says it is like an outpouring of tearful petulance, lonesomeness, and self-pity—of everything it was Beethoven's greatness not to know. The music rang up and down the streets like an appeal for love, for tenderness, aimed at some lovely housemaid—some fresh-faced, homesick girl from Galway, looking at old snapshots in her third-room floor.
Cheever uses these similes in at least three ways. Besides bringing the moment to life for the reader, he projects Francis's feelings of longing into the music, and he also provides foreshadowing in the image of the young servant girl. Francis's idealized image of this Irish servant contrasts with his recognition of the maid whom he remembers as having been humiliated during the war. In other passages, Cheever uses brief similes. The narrator comments that Anne's "perfection stunned him like a fine day—after a thunderstorm." And after the insult to Mrs. Wrightson, "The sky shone like enamel." These similes show how the plane crash affects Francis's subsequent interpretation of experience.
Historical Context 7950s America During the 1950s, the United States experienced dramatic social change. World War II had ended. Men returned home from the war changed by their experiences yet eager to begin new chapters in their lives. They came home to their families and took over as the traditional heads of their households. Some took advantage of the G.I. Bill, which offered financial aid for college tuition to those who had served in the war, while others resumed their previous careers. Women, who during the war had occupied jobs formerly performed by men, were expected to return to their domestic family duties. Children had been born and/or had grown up while their fathers were away, which often made family adjustments difficult and awkward.
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Compare & Contrast 1950s: In schools, children are taught how to react in the event of a bomb threat from a foreign nation. Such precautions are considered a necessary part of living in the Atomic Age. Today: Now that the Cold War is over, most Americans feel little threat of a full-blown nuclear war. In schools, children have fire drills and, in certain parts of the country, tornado drills. 1950s: The suburbs are considered an appropriate environment for rearing children and belonging to a tight-knit community. Because so many people in the suburbs seek a sense of community, various activities, organizations, and social networks emerge. Today: People move to the suburbs for the same reasons that they moved there in the 1950s.
At the same time, it was an era of swelling patriotism and hope for the future. The United States came out of the war victorious, and the use of atomic bombs in Japan was believed to have secured America's place as a global superpower. However, the introduction of nuclear weapons also inspired fear and anxiety. Although the United States was the only nation to use nuclear weapons in the war, other countries possessed nuclear capability. In preparation for what many considered an inevitable nuclear war, many Americans built bomb shelters for their families. The Cold War, an era of struggle and suspicion between the United States and the Soviet Union, began. Distrust gave rise to McCarthyism (a political stance opposed to subversive elements and involving personal attacks on individuals without substantial evidence), which intended to get rid of communist influences. Unfortunately, the results were disastrous and led to the persecution of innocent people. On the surface, the 1950s were a light-hearted, innocent time of poodle skirts, sock hops (school dances), hula hoops, and the emergence of rock and roll music. The economy boomed, and new appli-
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While some of the organizations and gatherings are different, the motivations to participate are the same. 1950s: Most of the country's population growth takes place in the suburbs. This dramatic growth is due to a rise in marriage and birth rates following the war. In addition, federal programs for veterans make housing more affordable. Instead of living in the city, families enjoy spacious homes with front and back yards. Today: Life in the suburbs is no longer a novelty, but suburbs continue to grow; in fact, the desire to live in the suburbs and population growth continue to push suburbs outward from urban areas into traditionally rural or agricultural areas, a phenomenon called suburban sprawl.
ances and conveniences for the home made middleclass life more comfortable.
Suburban Life Suburbia expanded in the 1950s, as large numbers of single-family homes were built on small tracts of land to accommodate post-war affluence and the baby boom. Life in the suburbs reflected the desire of families to get out of crowded urban areas and enjoy a more relaxed pace as well as to own at least a small piece of land. Those who worked outside the home faced a daily commute into the city where there was a higher concentration of office buildings, manufacturing facilities, and job opportunities. Evenings and weekends were often taken up with activities such as golf, gardening, card-playing, community organizations, church events, and children's sports and recitals. Many residents of suburbs, however, felt pressed to conform to an idealized concept of suburban life. The media often portrayed life in the suburbs as a near-utopian existence in which everyone was
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friendly, social life was vibrant, and people were carefree. The reality, however, rarely met those expectations. Writers such as Cheever and John Updike sought to reveal the emptiness that many suburbanites felt.
Critical Overview Since its publication,' 'The Country Husband'' has been praised by critics. The story has received particular attention for its portrayal of suburban life. In The American Short Story: Continuity and Change, 1940-1975, author William Peden deems "The Country Husband" "one of the best of Cheever's excursions into the suburbia." Calling the story "a minor masterpiece of contemporary fiction,'' Robert A. Hipkiss in Studies in Short Fiction encourages the reader to consider "how much of the upper-middle-class suburban angst it includes." He explains that the story portrays the struggle between the individual and the community that focuses on issues concerning conventionality, making peace with the past in favor of a better future. Because Francis is portrayed within the context of the suburbs, he makes an unusual protagonist. Robert G. Collins comments on this point in Mosaic: A Journal/or the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature: This protagonist looked as if he had little future other than taking up an anesthetizing hobby; yet, he would become the literal alien, the man who moved out of his skin, that restricting and soiled garment, and drifted into new worlds searching for a real image to correspond with his continuing need.
' 'The Country Husband'' is often commended for its underlying complexity. Cheever introduces many elements in the story, yet they work together to create the larger picture of Francis Weed's world. In Studies in Short Fiction, Lawrence Jay Dressner observes: This story may indeed be seen as a marvel of structured complexity; its multitudinous elements, so casually "thrown together," come to be seen not as random but as essential elements of an intricately organized structure, an aesthetic object, a work of art.... [T]he story's ending, in which a number of earlier characters and themes are briefly remembered and loose ends are deftly tied up one after another in rapid succession, is the most dramatic display of the story's presumed unity in variety....
Dressner, along with other critics, also praises Cheever's use of imagery. He comments that the story ' 'repeatedly expresses, through imagery, incident, and diction, a tension between the domestic
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and the wild. The wild is figured as free, heroic, powerful, large-souled, and masculine, the domestic as confined, cowardly, weak, petty, and feminine." Hipkiss remarks that Cheever uses "the types of images that create the richness of emotional awareness for the reader as he comes to know Francis Weed's Shady Hill. These types are the images of war, myth, music, and nature." He adds, It is the imagery of the story .. . that makes us realize just how rooted in our humanity and our American value system Francis Weed's fate really is. This story is Cheever's art at its most intense and elegant best.
While James O'Hara of Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 102, American Short-Story Writers, 1910-1945 praises Cheever's use of language, he finds it problematic in the last line of the story: "Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." O'Hara explains that this allusion to James Hilton's famous 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, with its mountain journey to the otherworldly paradise Shangri-La is, in itself, a beautiful closing line, lifting the reader's gaze from the printed page into a shimmering vision of Shangrila [sic]. It is also, unfortunately, a neat and easy way of ducking the problems of Francis's consciousness and future, and thus it indirectly calls attention both to the limitations of the short story as a narrative form and Cheever's own powers as a practitioner.
Criticism Jennifer Bussey Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey compares John Cheever's 1954 story, "The Country Husband," with the 1999 American film, American Beauty. One of John Cheever's most anthologized stories, "The Country Husband," is a depiction of life in the American suburbs in the 1950s. The depiction is not flattering, as the main character, Francis Weed, feels empty and unfulfilled in his superficial world of parties and pleasantries. Similarly, the 1999 American film, American Beauty, depicts a middleaged suburban man, Lester Burnham, who finds his life unsatisfying. Both Francis and Lester have come to a crisis although they have come by very different paths. Francis has survived a near-death
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What Do I Read Next? Cheever's 1978 The Stories of John Cheever won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This collection contains the best of Cheever's short fiction spanning his career, providing the new student of his work with a solid starting point. The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), the 1958 National Book Award winner, is the story of Leander Wapshot, a ferryman who abandons his family
experience. Lester has reached the boiling point via what is today understood as a mid-life crisis. The ways in which these two men respond to their crises are similar, but the outcomes are very different. Cheever's work is often commended for its ability to speak to generations of readers. The themes, subjects, and characters continue to be relevant because Cheever finds the universality in his characters' situations. This relevance is certainly seen in "The Country Husband"; the modern-day Lester in American Beauty is in many ways an updated version of the same character. Both men decide to change after allowing themselves to be trapped in unsatisfying, conventional lives. In each case, the desire for change becomes focused on a teenaged girl. For Francis, it is his new babysitter, Anne; for Lester, it is his daughter's friend, a cheerleader named Angela. The ways in which the two men eventually release their fantasies, however, are very different. Francis seeks psychiatric help to deal with his feelings. The psychiatrist recommends woodworking as a hobby to distract him (which seems ultimately doomed to address the core problem that led to Francis's obsession with the girl). Lester, on the other hand, lets go of his fantasies through the choice not to act on them. This is one of the ways in which American Beauty is a decidedly modern take on Cheever's story. While Anne would never approach Francis for sex, Angela attempts to seduce Lester. Realizing that Angela is inexperienced, how-
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and his two sons. The sequel, The Wapshot Scandal, was well received. Gustave Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary (1857) is the story of a dissatisfied woman who seeks a more invigorating life for herself. She pursues younger men but remains unfulfilled. Although deemed scandalous at the time of its publication, the work is considered a classic by modern standards.
ever, Lester comes to see her as she is—a young, naive girl. To go through with his fantasies would be to take advantage of her, and he cannot do it. Another important similarity is that both men live in suburbia. The portrayal of the surface of this lifestyle is largely unchanged from the 1950s, when Cheever's story takes place. Although American Beauty is set almost fifty years later, the two neighborhoods appear basically the same on the outside. People are superficially friendly to one another other, men mow their lawns, women work in their gardens, children play outside, and residents are expected to present themselves a certain way. But in both cases, there is much more going on below the surface than is evident. Francis and Lester know that there is ugliness below the surface, and they are both frustrated by everyone else's refusal to acknowledge it. They are also, at least initially, unwilling to act as nonconformists. When they decide to rebel, they do so in very different ways. While Francis acts out by making rude remarks to one of the neighborhood ladies, Lester rashly quits his job, intentionally choosing a permanent change. He happily goes home and acts like an adolescent, refusing responsibility and later taking a job at a fast-food restaurant. The problems beneath the pristine suburban surfaces in these two stories seem to be quite different, too, although Cheever never tells much about the neighbors' lives. In "The Country Husband," the problems seem to be isolation and loneli-
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ness (as with the piano player and the neighbor yelling at the squirrels) and hidden marital strife. In American Beauty, however, the problems are even more disturbing. The Burnhams' new neighbors are a family in which the son is a drug-dealing peeping Tom who likes to videotape the Burnhams' teenaged daughter, and the father is a strict retired military man whose intense prejudice against homosexuals belies his attraction to men. Comparing these two stories is important because their similarities demonstrate what has become a reality of American life. Life in the suburbs is not—never was—the Utopian dream it once seemed. Further, people living in the suburbs seem no more likely to own up to their own flaws than they were in the 1950s. What is also telling is the differences in the two stories. Besides the differences in the ways in which Francis and Lester rebel, the ways in which they resolve their fantasies, and the types of problems found behind closed doors, these stories have starkly different endings. ' 'The Country Husband'' ends with Francis happily making a coffee table. He is pursuing his new hobby in hopes of forgetting about Anne and leading a normal life again. In American Beauty, Lester is murdered by the next-door neighbor. Interestingly, the scenes leading up to this denouement suggest that nearly everyone close to Lester is capable of this act. Both stories are disturbing, but in different ways. Cheever's can be interpreted as hopeful, with Francis rehabilitated to stable suburban life by simply getting a hobby. (Francis's rehabilitation can also be interpreted as his failure to escape bland conventionality.) Lester's flouting of suburban convention leads to his violent death. These dramatic differences indicate that the dark underbelly of American suburbia has grown much darker and that the consequences of rebellion have become much more severe. Source: Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on "The Country Husband," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Lawrence Jay Dessner In the following essay, Dessner explores domesticity and gender roles in Cheever's ' 'The Country Husband.'' On more than one occasion, John Cheever described his short story "The Country Husband" (1954) with uncharacteristic satisfaction. In a 1973 interview, he spoke of the "seizure of lunacy when everything comes together. That is, of course, the most exciting thing about writing. I totally despair
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Both stories are disturbing, but in different ways. Cheever's can be interpreted as hopeful, with Francis rehabilitated to stable suburban life by simply getting a hobby . . . Lester's flouting of suburban conventions, however, leads to his violent death."
[and then] observations, emotions, and so forth all of a sudden calcify." A moment later Cheever called to mind an instance of this apogee of his experience of his art: There is a short story of mine called "The Country Husband," which closes with something like seventeen images, including a dog with a hat in his mouth, 1 believe, and a railroad train, and a star, and a cat wearing a dress, and a man and his wife, and so forth. They are all sort of thrown together, and it's quite marvelous. It is one of the most exciting things that can happen to anybody, I think . . . 1 must admit it's very exciting. I run out of the room saying "Look! Look!"
This story may indeed be seen as a marvel of structured complexity; its multitudinous elements, so casually "thrown together," come to be seen not as random but as essential elements of an intricately organized structure, an aesthetic object, a work of art. While the story's ending, in which a number of earlier characters and themes are briefly remembered and loose ends are deftly tied up one after another in rapid succession, is the most dramatic display of the story's presumed unity in variety, its themes are echoed and repeated in variation and parody throughout its 10,600 words. Indeed, "A miniature novel'' is what Vladimir Nabokov found it, "beautifully traced, so that the impression of there being a little too many things happening in it is completely redeemed by the satisfying coherence of its thematic underlacings" (Nabokov). Although the story has been repeatedly anthologized and is often described with admiration (Waldeland, Morace, Hunt), neither the extent nor the coherence of its
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i While Cheever's approved male figures reject domesticity as a matter of course, this female who does so is seen as a droll sport, a paradoxical freak."
"thematic underlacings" have been critically examined in a deconstructive reading that questions its structural and ideological unity, the foundational assumptions of its binary oppositions, a reading that asks: What is this work hiding? What is in this wellwrought urn? "The Country Husband" is structured as an elegant comedy, a farce with slapstick's precise coincidental timing. Many of its characters survive ominous but in the event harmless perils. The reiterated motif of narrow escapes leads readers to disregard those elements of the story that do not match or complement the pattern, structure guiding the hermeneutic impulse. The story's central action, its most dramatic potential disaster, concerns Francis Weed, the eponymous protagonist, who resides with his wife and their children in the Cheeverian suburban of Shady Hill, and who falls desperately in love with Anne Murchison, their 18-year-old babysitter. Francis himself sees his infatuation as a potential disaster as it threatens him with' 'a trial for statutory rape" and puts in jeopardy his marriage and his family's standing in their hypocritically unforgivingly moralistic community. In farce's exaggerated despair, he lists his alternatives: taking some physical exercise, religious confession, a Danish massage parlor, or "he could rape the girl or trust that he would somehow be prevented from doing this or he could get drunk." He chooses none of these, but no destructive consequences materialize— for him. Indeed, he finds "some true consolation" in the basement woodworking which a psychiatrist had recommended. The comic denouement of the story's central plot is echoed by a series of thematic counterparts. The story begins when "the airplane from Minneapolis in which Francis Weed was traveling East ran into heavy weather.'' The passengers variously cry,
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drink, contemplate their own mortality, and, whistling in the dark, sing; the plane lands safely, if violently, in a cornfield, and all aboard walk away unharmed. The passengers "filed out of the doors and scattered over the cornfield in all directions, praying that the thread would hold. It did. Nothing happened." It is typical of Cheever's artistry that that thread is picked up, so to speak, some 20 pages later when we learn that Weed's "village hangs, morally and economically from a thread; but it hangs by its thread in the evening light." Such repetition of images, as of thematic patterns, gives comfort, or pleasure, perhaps because of the implication in the world of the literary work that we are under the care of a providential power, one that remembers and does not change, one that does not permit threads to break, chaos to come. Cheever's practice—any such practice—necessarily conflicts with language's inescapably problematic relationship to the world to which it points, although seeing past the comforting allusions implied by balanced structures to those threads that indeed break requires the unusually critical attention that we now call deconstruction. Offered a circus full of obediently bouncing balls, if we are to see things clearly, we need to watch carefully for the balls that do not bounce. Near the story's end, there is a parodic version of Weed's harmless fall from the sky. Young Toby Weed, underweight and readily overtaken by tears, seeking in his child's way to change his life, recapitulates his father's crash landing: ... he goes to the closet and takes his space suit off a nail ... He loops the magic cape over his shoulders and, climbing onto the footboard of his bed, he spreads his arms and flies the short distance to the floor, landing with a thump that is audible to everyone in the house but himself.
Audible, but without serious harm to body or soul. Nor was there real cause for fear when "Francis gave his name and address to [the psychiatrist's] secretary and then saw . . . a policeman moving toward him. 'Hold it, hold it,' the policeman said. 'Don't move. Keep your hands where they are.'" The policeman "began to slap Francis' clothes, looking for what—pistols, knives, an icepick?'' The supposed danger disappears and is explained with farce's straight-faced directness: "Finding nothing, [the policeman] went off and the secretary began a nervous apology: 'When you called on the telephone, Mr. Weed, you seemed very excited, and one of the doctor's patients has been threatening his life, and we have to be careful.'"
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In this instance, the pattern of the comic, of the harmless and risible escape, deflects attention from the psychiatrist's other patient and his harrowing rage. Similarly trivialized into laughter and the aesthetic pleasure of repetition had been young Toby's unredeemed desperation and Weed's option of "rap[ing] the girl." There is no comic reduction of the plight of Francis Weed himself: "It was his life, his boat, and, like every other man, he was made to be the father of thousands, and what harm could there be in a tryst that would make them both feel more kindly toward the world?'' Neither Francis nor the narrator of his story dwell on the needs or pains of others. Anne Murchison, the woman in question, as Weed well knows, is engaged to be married, nor does he have any reason to expect that she would welcome such a "tryst," but Anne's function is limited to serving Weed's "love" and Cheever's art. The paradigm of "heavy weather," of threat, from which no harm ensues is repeated in the lives of minor characters, human, animal, and even vegetable. Jupiter, a neighbor's retriever, is, like Francis, "an anomaly," "out of place in Shady Hill." Of irrepressible high spirits, he cannot resist mischief. He goes where he pleases, ' 'ransacking wastebaskets, clotheslines, garbage pails, and shoe bags." Consequently, "Jupiter's days were numbered", but at the story's end Jupiter takes his place in the parade of similarly anomalous survivors of Shady Hill's infamous propriety:' 'He prances through the tomato vines, holding in his generous mouth the remains of an evening slipper." A delicious slipper, no doubt, and who would spoil the neatly-structured party by inquiring after its inconvenienced owner? "Sunk in spiritual and physical discomfort," a "miserable" unnamed cat wanders into the story's closing parade and reprise of characters and themes. An anonymous keeper of the decorum thought necessary within the bounds of Shady Hill has covered the cat's unseemly nakedness and figuratively contained its proverbial propensity to libidinous expression: "Tied to its head is a small straw hat—a doll's hat—and it is securely buttoned into a doll's dress, from the skirts of which protrudes its long, hairy tail." Like Francis himself, like Nora in A Doll's House, the cat has been tamed and "buttoned" "securely," its sexuality made domestic if not childish, but, visible below this doll's dress is the hairy, phallic, protrusion whose presence signals a failed emasculation, another triumphant survival of an ostensible disaster.
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In an early passage that embodies the story's essential paradigm, and whose imagery is also linked, tonally and thematically, to its closing page, Weed, and/or his narrator, notice the threatened but surviving flowers at Anne's home. Hand in hand they "went up a narrow walk through a front garden where dahlias, marigolds, and roses—things that had withstood the light frosts—still bloomed, and made a bittersweet smell in the night air." The weather threatened, but at least for the time being, the succinct fact here, as at the opening airplane crash, is that "Nothing happened", "things" survived. The marriage of Francis and Julia Weed survives the husband's temptation and the wife's supposed failings. Indeed, Julia never learns of the bracelet Francis bought for Anne, and when Francis forces Anne into an embrace, her struggle is interrupted, luckily for him, by the presence of little Gertrude Flannery, whose silence Weed purchases cheaply. True to the farce tradition, no sooner does Gertrude exit than Julia's voice is heard calling Francis to come upstairs to dress for that evening's party. The marriage survives as well the argument that develops when Julia discovers that her husband has insulted Mrs. Wrightson, Shady Hill's social arbiter: '"Damn you, Francis Weed!' Julia cried, and the spit of her words struck him in the face." Francis insists on his need to express his feeling; Julia argues for discretion and vigorously describes how their lives and their children's lives would be diminished without acceptance into the social life of their community. Francis "did something then that was, after all, not so unaccountable, since her words seemed to raise up between them a wall so deadening that he gagged. He struck her full in the face. She staggered and then, a moment later, seemed composed." Although Cheever's narrator does what he can to justify Francis's action, Julia announces she is leaving. As she packs a suitcase, tersely, Francis apologizes and assures her of his love. Julia accuses him of "subconscious" cruelty to her. She sobs. Both argue with increasing vehemence. Dissolution if not disaster seems at hand; but when she announces her departure, Francis bursts out with ' 'Oh, my, darling, I can't let you go!" He takes her into his arms, and the threat immediately disappears. Blandly, as if suddenly awakened from a dream she has already forgotten, Julia says,' 'I guess I'd better stay and take care of you for a little while longer." No motivation for Julia's shocking volte-face is supplied, but its suddenness, its coming at the crucial, the very last moment, the mildness of its
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irony, and its completeness in putting an end to the threat, allow it to be readily drawn into the farce pattern of narrowly escaped disasters. The scene displays Julia to be tied to provincial and conventional thinking, meanly vindictive, foolish, and astonishingly weak-willed, but this repetition of the story's thematic pattern suppresses any nascent sympathy for the ordeals to which she has been subjected. In addition to its structural use of the farcically narrow escape, "The Country Husband" repeatedly expresses, through imagery, incident, and diction, a tension between the domestic and the wild. The wild is figured as free, heroic, powerful, largesouled, and masculine, the domestic as confined, cowardly, weak, petty, and feminine. While the wild is preferable, the domestic is seen as necessary, civilization's regrettable but inescapable emasculation. The military, in which masculine freedom and power is regimented, ordered, controlled, is made a middle term between these poles. Ridicule of domesticity, with varying degrees of scorn, often expresses the narrator's comic disappointment with a world out of joint, infected, as it were, with the tell-tale appearance of the feminine. Devoted to housekeeping and to assuring the family's social acceptance, Julia herself is an epitome of the domestic. She taunts her husband with what, to her, remains a crucial shortcoming. At their wedding, years ago: ' 'And how many of your friends came to the church? Two!" Her husband's habit of dropping his clothes, ' 'all over the floor where they drop", had become intolerable to her. Domesticity is gently mocked when the narrator notices in the interior of the airplane that crashes "the shaded lights, the stuffiness, and the window curtains [which] gave the cabin an atmosphere of intense and misplaced domesticity." Later the waiting room of Weed's psychiatrist's office is a crude token gesture toward the sweets of domestic bliss: a place arranged with antiques, coffee tables, potted plants, and etchings of snow-covered bridges and geese in flight, although there were no children, no marriage bed, no stove, even, in this travesty of a house, where no one had ever spent the night and where the curtained windows looked straight onto a dark air shaft.
Among the thematically related participants of our story's concluding parade is Gertrude Flannery, who is defined and exhausted by her Dickensian attribute, her refusal to "go home." The child's clothing is "ragged and thin," and she herself is "skinny . . . and unwashed." "She never went home of her own choice." Gertrude' s repudiation of
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the domestic hearth is not, however, a response to any insufficiency of domestic comfort or kindness. Like Francis Weed and his avatars—although she is female—Gertrude too "had been born with a taste for exploration, and she did not have it in her to center her life with her affectionate parents." That she is female adds spice to the story's satiric rejection of Shady Hill's conventional domesticity and the femininity associated with it. While Cheever's approved male figures reject domesticity as a matter of course, this female who does so is seen as a droll sport, a paradoxical freak. It is Mrs. Wrightson's insistent interest in her difficulties in purchasing curtains for her livingroom windows that evokes Weed's bluntest expression of his preference for masculine freedom over the domestic narrowness of the feminine. Shady Hill's leading society matron and Weed, its potential "leper," in Julia's phrase, meet at the commuter railroad platform. The woman chatters away about her living room windows:' 'You can imagine what a problem they present. I don't know what to do with them." Her companion can stand it no more: "I know what to do with them," Francis said... "Paint them black on the inside, and shut up." There was a gasp from Mrs. Wrightson, and Francis looked down at her to be sure that she knew he meant to be rude. She turned and walked away from him, so damaged in spirit that she limped. A wonderful feeling enveloped him . . .
Weed's counter to Mrs. Wrightson's conventionally feminine and trivial concern for interior decoration incorporate the same conventionally masculine interests echoed through the story, black-out curtains being both the least decorative, least domestic, of all possible curtains, and an appurtenance of warfare. No wonder Weed feels triumphant as Mrs. Wrightson limps away! He has confronted his community's icon of respectable domesticity with his habitual resource, the spirit of machismo and manly camaraderie in its most concentrated form, war. Not a page in "The Country Husband" is without at least one explicit mention of war or battle, or a metaphor or allusion in which the idea is made present. Some of these references occur in the narrator's voice, others in Weed's voice or in indirect dialogue; some occur in that ambiguous terrain where the minds of the narrator and the protagonist— and even the implied author or Cheever himself— cannot be distinguished. Just as Cheever as author creates the twists and turns of the story's plot that suit Weed's desires, privileging and marginalizing
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characters and traits as Weed would do himself, so does Cheever as narrator give expression to Weed's reliance on the language and imagery of war. In effect, Cheever, or the implied author,' 'Cheever,'' is both the narrator and the protagonist of "The Country Husband," which is in effect a first-person account, related in the third person. The first reference to war and its camaraderie occurs as Weed's plane heads for its crash-landing. Its pilot "could be heard singing faintly, 'I've got sixpence, jolly, jolly sixpence . ..'" That an airplane pilot's voice should indeed be heard, however faintly, in the cabin of a commercial airliner, is not easy to credit, but the moment's and the song's connection with military camaraderie is quite conventional. When the passengers are led from the downed plane to "a string of taxis,'' an anonymous observer reinforces the military parallel when he says: "It's just like the Marne." While Cheever's personal war was World War II, the story's references conflate a variety of military conflicts. The Weed household's domestic tranquility is such that when Julia Weed asks her children to wash their hands for dinner, ' 'this simple announcement, like the war cries of the Scottish chieftains, only refreshes the ferocity of the combatants." When asked to go upstairs to fetch his daughter, "Francis is happy to go; it is like getting back to headquarters company' ', the military refuge of the shirker of duty and risk. Julia's "guns are loaded" for the coming argument with her husband, who speaks of his home as a "battlefield." She repeats the metaphor in denying it and then the narrator, speaking for Francis, repeats it twice. In a moment of nostalgic reflection, Francis recalls a family outing and asking a bagpiper to play "a battle song of the Black Watch." Toby Weed, conflating the Lone Ranger's gunplay with Buck Rogers, changes into his space suit from a cowboy outfit, complete with "silver bullets and holsters.'' Cheever's supposed desire to engage in combat with his infantry unit, becomes Francis Weed's memory that he has served and is transformed into the story's repeated references to wars American and foreign, contemporary, legendary, and historical, indeed, to a fantastic amalgam of masculine military imagery. Francis dreams of ' 'crossing the Atlantic with [a transfigured version of Anne Murchison] on the old Mauretania.'' The ' 'old'' Mauretania was commissioned in 1907 and scrapped in 1935. It and its fated sister ship the Lusitania, were "the first Atlantic liners in which it was the invariable rule to dress for dinner in first class." Both ships were as fast as
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they were luxurious. Both had been designed to be convertible to military use. The first Mauretania was used to transport troops and the wounded. The second Mauretania was commissioned in 1939 and retired in 1965. She was used as a troop transport and after the war she carried prosperous and celebrated passengers, such as Lana Turner and her bridegroom. Weed's sexual fantasy is bathed in the composite, supposed glamour of high life, Hollywood, and the World War of his father's generation. Neither the subtext in which masculine warfare's freedom and camaraderie contrasts with feminine domesticity nor the plot pattern in which farcical escape from danger dissolves pain into laughter always survive what seems the psychological needs of both the narrator and the implied author, or of that imagined composite the text tempts us to call Cheever/Weed. In two dramatic episodes those needs overpower the mode of the comic and override the neat balance of the male/female, free/domestic patterning. The first of these episodes concerns the new maid passing the drinks at the Farquarsons' dinner party. Weed recognizes her: A soldier on a three-day pass in the fictional French town of Trenon, he ' 'had walked out to a crossroads to see the public chastisement of a young woman who had lived with the German commandant during the Occupation." He remembers the formal accusation of the collaborator, her "empty half smile behind which the whipped soul is suspended,'' her skull shaved clean, her nakedness, her tears. The narrator lets Weed meditate on memory and war, themes "the atmosphere of Shady Hill made . . . unseemly and impolite.' ' The French woman has survived her disgrace only to have become that most domestic of the domesticated, a domestic servant, literally, "a domestic." Five times in a page, the narrator refers to her as a "maid." The French woman is like Weed in that both reject the constraints of social loyalties and responsibilities, but unlike him, she is pitied, not admired, for her independence and her assertion of her emancipation. Weed's recognition of her is rather the occasion for Weed to see himself as the suffering superior of his insensitive neighbors who "seemed united in their tacit claim that there had been no past, no war—that there was no danger or trouble in the world." The French woman has survived the disaster of rejection and punishment by her community, but there is no laughter at her remarkable transformation and escape into safety, no delight in her remembered rejection of her society's norms of
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behavior. Her rejection of the social contract parallels Weed's assault on Mrs. Wrightson, but such freedom from the constraints of community and family are in Francis's eyes available only to males. The French woman has survived, but only to serve cocktails and dinner in suburbia. Like Gertrude Flannery, her rejection of domesticity is not an occasion for admiration. It is rather a time for a vivid depiction of the denigration of a woman and the drawing of gender-based lines: rebellion is admirable when men do it. Women may be pitiable, as freaks or failures, but their unconventionality is not a badge of honor. The French woman does not have a place in the story's final parade in which "everything comes together," and Gertrude only appears there to be scolded for being away from home. The story's supposedly unifying and unified structure leaves these escapes, these selves, out of the celebration. Seeing the French woman again at the Farquarsons' evokes Weed's fantasy, complexly intertwined with his memories of military service in Europe, of taking the Mauretania to Paris with the babysitter. This in turn prompts a vision of skiing, the activity he sought "that would injure no one" and that helps him "seek . . . with ardor some simplicity of feeling and circumstance." Weed's skiing on a "snow-covered mountain" is explicitly linked here with the primal relationships of man and nature and with "the mountains" of the story's last sentence: ' 'Then it is dark; it is night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." This imagery is in turn glossed by an explicit reference to Hannibal's Alpine exploits: the Weeds' host says of his wife: "... I still bite her shoulders. She makes me feel like Hannibal crossing the Alps." ' 'The Country Husband'' ends then with an allusion to the warrior who "ranks among those half-dozen great soldiers whose work broke down barriers and cleared the way for larger ideas of civilization." Mounted on elephants, his army crossed the Alps, outsmarting the Romans he outmaneuvered and outfought for many years, the thread holding, until he was forced by circumstances to abandon his position and his goal of conquest. The fabulous if unspecified "kings in golden suits" pick up the golden hair of a women who appears to Weed as an apparition, the color of the thread on which survival depends, and the gold of Toby Weed's pistol belt. But the multitudinous resonances of the dark night's parade imply a completeness, an exhaustiveness, a moral and structural integrity, that the story's tacit ideological hierarchy lacks.
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The other major discordant episode concerns Anne Murchison's fiance Clayton Thomas. To make Weed's pain at his loss of Anne particularly grievous yet absurdly funny, her fiance is a pompous and insolent puppy. Weed's encounter with Clayton does not lead to another narrow escape but to disaster for the younger man. Clayton, who comes by on an errand and stays to chat, is capable of saying: "I think people ought to be able to dream great dreams." His religion he says is: "Unitarian, Theosophist, Transcendentalist, Humanist." He ' 'thought of making a retreat at one of the Episcopalian monasteries, but I don't like Trinitarianism." This embarrassing boy turns out to be Weed's successful rival, saying of Anne: "Oh, she's wonderful, Mr. and Mrs. Weed, and we have so much in common. We like all the same things. We sent out the same Christmas card last year without planning it, and we both have an allergy to tomatoes, and our eyebrows grow together in the middle." Clayton, however, is special in that he bears the scars of the unspeakable, of war. His "father had been killed in the war, and the young man's fatherlessness surrounded him like an element. This may have been conspicuous in Shady Hill because the Thomases were the only family that lacked a piece; all the other marriages were intact and productive." No sooner is Clayton out the door than the argument begins that ends with Francis striking Julia. Soon thereafter Weed is asked by a friend of Clayton's impecunious mother to help her son find a job. Not only does Weed refuse the request, his damming characterization of young Clayton is patently unfair. Weed has his revenge. This thread has broken. The circle of those privileged to partake, without ironic denigration, of the special freedom from domesticity and conventionality associated with warfare has narrowed still further. It contains at last only the truly masculine: Francis Weed/John Cheever and those approved of by him, the dog Jupiter, and the unreconstructed cat. "The Country Husband" ends, to Cheever's reported delight, on ' 'a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." Francis Weed leaves the story not only as a survivor of potential disasters, but as a king and a great military hero. The last bricks of the story's "thematic underlacings" are slid into their elegantly appointed places. The joys of farce modulate to an equally satisfactory aesthetic calm, in the splendor of which the story's ideology and the unsatisfied needs and aspirations of others are forgotten, or present only
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in the fading memory of their punishments and marginalization. When Francis Weed returns home after his airplane crashes, he finds his children "absorbed in their own antagonisms." "Francis makes the mistake of scolding Louisa for bad language before he punishes Henry," for which his daughter "accuses him of favoritism." "Damn you!" Louisa had cried, but, "just then," Julia entered, as if on cue, oblivious of the children's discontent, which immediately swelled into slapstick's domestic anarchy. Henry's well-earned punishment is forgotten in the comic confusion, but Francis finds time to harangue his other daughter for reading True Romance.' 'Damn you, Francis Weed!" Julia later cries, upset at his endangering the family's social acceptance in Shady Hill and his leaving his laundry for her to pick up as an expression of his disdain for her. Again the reiterated curse is forgotten in the tumult of the farcical reconciliation. The "heavy weather" that threatens Francis Weed blows itself out in a gale of laughter. He reigns supreme, and alone, in a golden suit, riding an elephant. Source: Lawrence Jay Dessner, "Gender and Structure in John Cheever's 'The Country Husband,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 31, No. 1, Winter 1994, pp. 57-68.
Robert A. Hipkiss In the following essay, Hipkiss discusses the darker aspects of suburbia in Cheever's ' 'The Country Husband.'' "The Country Husband," John Cheever's 1950s story of the well-to-do suburb of Shady Hill, is a minor masterpiece of contemporary fiction. Consider how much of the upper-middle-class suburban angst it includes: the tension between the individual's emotional needs for personal, individualized recognition and the responsibilities he must exercise toward others; the brittle order of man-made conventions, undermined by the instinctive, chaotic selfishness of animal biology; the would-be hero's visions of an Elysian future fractured by the triphammer echoes of history; and, through it all, the terrible failure of human communication, with the resultant condemnation to loneliness and imprisoned desire of the imaginative suburbanite in an unimaginative land. Cheever' s studies of life at the apex of American middle-class culture are stories that depend less on plot than on images, and it is the mixture of the types of images that creates the richness of emotional awareness for the reader as he comes to know
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The goddess of love, rampant and free, is not permitted in Shady Hill."
Francis Weed's Shady Hill. These types are the images of war, myth, music, and nature. They create in "The Country Husband" a prose-poem of broad dimensions and subtle intensity. The war imagery begins with Francis Weed's fellow airplane passenger's reference to the Battle of the Marne after the plane has crash-landed in a cornfield. His attempt to develop conversation and an outlet for feelings after the life-threatening event is stifled, however, by "the suspiciousness with which many Americans regard their fellow travelers." Upon reaching home, Francis Weed enters a house that represents conquest in its Dutch Colonial exterior and its living room that is "divided like Gaul into three parts." Francis's competitive business success has earned him his colonial estate in Shady Hill, but, like Gaul, it will be hard to preserve. His encounter with the barbarians, his children, quickly shows his own lack of sovereignty. The call to dinner,' 'like the war cries of Scottish chieftains", increases the ferocity of the children. When his wife asks him to bring his daughter downstairs to dinner, he welcomes the chance to get away from the battle. Upset with the children's behavior at the table, he asks if they could not have their dinner earlier, only to find that Julia's "guns are loaded." He protests that he does not like coming home to a "battlefield" and finally retreats into the garden "for a cigarette and some air." At the dinner party his own experiences in World War II are brought back to him dramatically by discovering that the serving maid is the same woman who had her head shaved and her body stripped naked by French villagers because she slept with the occupying German commandant. Once again, though, a reference to the barbarism in human nature is prohibited by the unspoken demand for blind belief in the invincibility of social order and decorum. "The people in the Farquarson's living room seemed united in their tacit claim that there had been no past, no war ..." These are members of the successful upper middle class of our society, and they have sought and want at all costs to
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believe that they have found in Shady Hill an untroubled paradise, the appropriate reward for their labor and intelligence according to the values of a properly regulated Protestant American universe. Francis cannot help but feel that more is involved in his growing sense of isolation than the failure of communication and sexual connection between himself and his wife. It seems to him that the forces of disorder that he feels within him are also the very forces that threaten Shady Hill and civilization in general. When he insults Mrs. Wrightson by telling her to paint the inside of her curtains black, he is not only counterattacking her busybody conventionality but suggesting that Shady Hill defends itself from the bombardment of fresh emotions by a kind of wartime blackout, ironically not really foiling the enemy but using the only defense it really has, its refusal to see the light. Yet, like the brigadier in "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow," one of Cheever's later stories, although Francis may have a secret urge to see all of Shady Hill and its instinct-denying, nature-suppressing conventions blown to bits, he also recognizes that to give way to those warring impulses would be to destroy what he and the others of his class have so painstakingly created as a bulwark against the havoc that those forces can wreak. Julia makes that point so well that, unable to gainsay it, "he struck her full in the face." At the close of another party in the endless rounds of talking and sipping that Julia has scheduled them into, the host squeezes his wife and says, "She makes me feel like Hannibal crossing the Alps." She gives him the man's necessary sense of conquest, although they have been married sixteen years. Sadly, all Francis can do is dream of such feelings, for his marriage has become an empty one of household arrangement, financial support, and the need to keep up appearances in order for the Weeds not to lose their social attractiveness. At the end of the story, after Francis has begun his woodworking therapy, we are told that it is a dark night (and in Cheever darkness is often the source of mysterious creation, of images that either threaten or console), "a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." Francis is at least free to dream of heroic conquest and sexual success. The romantic vision is his sole outlet for his frustrated, warring lust in conventional Shady Hill. The war imagery emphasizes the brittleness of convention in containing the urges of the libido, man's drive to power and procreation. The mytho-
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logical images suggest the fatal inevitability of the situation. As the passengers of the plane scatter in all directions across the cornfield, they pray that the thread will hold. The Fates have not fully spun that thread. Atropos is not ready to cut it. Later at a party, thinking of driving the babysitter home, Francis thinks the Fates are on his side: ' 'The thought that he would drive Anne Murchison home later that night ran like a golden thread through the events of the party." After having his hopes dashed and realizing the futility of his idealized love of Anne Murchison, he visits a psychiatrist. A week or ten days later he is still a seemingly conventional householder in Shady Hill, but it is now described as a village that ' 'hangs, morally and economically . . . by its thread in the evening light." The American Protestant order is precarious, but for a time it holds, and that must suffice for those who live there. The emblem of lurking Satanic disorder in Shady Hill is the god of ungovernable appetite, heroic power, and intelligence, the black retriever, Jupiter. That this Jupiter is a dog, an animal associated more with Jupiter's son Mars than with the supreme deity of the Romans himself, merely emphasizes that the natural impulses of freedom and dissolution are stronger than man's insistence on order and construction. Jupiter's first appearance comes as he is crashing through the tomato vines in the Weeds' garden with part of a felt hat in his mouth, acting as a scourge on order and decorum. We are told that' 'his retrieving instincts and high spirits were out of place in Shady Hill." He has an "intelligent" but "rakehell" face and the head of a heraldic symbol. He may be out of place in Shady Hill, but his lineage and type go back much further than most of that town's human pedigrees. The servants of the new aristocrats would soon poison him, Francis thinks, and immediately succeeds that thought with the vision of Julia blowing out the dinner candles in a parallel act of romantic defeat. Those candles, incidentally, are six in number and were lit at the beginning of the Weeds' chaotic dinner at home after Francis's return from Minneapolis aboard the emergency-landed aircraft. He had returned to his home,' 'his creation," and found his wife lighting the six candles in a "vale of tears." Man was created on the sixth day, and the problems the Weeds face are peculiarly human problems, not to be solved by romantic dreaming. Jupiter has his human counterpart in Gertrude, the little girl, characterized as a "stray." The best
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attempts of her parents to make her dress neatly and respect others' privacy go for naught because she was "born with a taste for exploration ..." Like Jupiter she retrieves objects (babies from cribs), and she is always where a person least expects to find her. She is witness to Francis's kissing the babysitter, much to his dismay, but, so far as we know, she never does tell anyone about it. She is, like a family dog, "helpful, pervasive, honest, hungry, and loyal." It is Jupiter who has the last scene in the story, prancing through the tomato vines, endangering the order of the garden, with the remains of an evening slipper (memento of parties and romantic escape) in his generous (often hungry) mouth. Jupiter enforces the theme of inevitable and enduring romance, of man's appetite for adventure, conquest, and love, which will not be suppressed by the conventions of Shady Hill. So Francis still dreams in the end of Hannibal crossing the Alps. In Shady Hill "things seemed arranged with more propriety than the Kingdom of Heaven." Passing the statue of Atlas on Fifth Avenue during a work day in the city, Francis thinks "of the strenuousness of containing his physicalness within the patterns he had chosen." Like Laocoon, who appears on the letterhead of his firm's stationery, he feels caught in the serpent's coils. The Trojan judge Laocoon broke an oath of celibacy to Apollo and later warned the Trojans not to accept the Greek gift of the wooden horse. Francis has been tempted to break the marriage vows and has also seen, perhaps too clearly for his own good, that the perfect order of Shady Hill is a kind of Trojan horse, an artifice that contains within its awesome structure the destructive, repressed desires of those denied their Hellenic queen. Serpents are also, biblically, the age-old symbol of sexual desire, and Julia's substitution of manners and party-going for love that is private, "sweet and bawdy and dark" makes Francis ripe for adultery and the mental projection of an ideal love into the vulnerable look of Anne Murchison, the babysitter. His repression also causes him to mistake an older woman wearing glasses for Anne on the commuter train and gives him a vision of Venus passing through on a train past his platform. After insulting Mrs. Wrightson, "he thought again of Venus combing and combing her hair as she drifted through the Bronx. The realization of how many years had passed since he had enjoyed being deliberately impolite sobered him." Some time afterward, Julia's response to his enjoyment is that he cannot expect to live ' 'like a bear in a cave''
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as a resident of civilized Shady Hill unless he wants to be "a social leper." The goddess of love, rampant and free, is not permitted in Shady Hill. Moreover, Shady Hill expects its citizens to be accepting and kind toward one another without discrimination, and Francis is beginning to see that such a waste of self upon its many fools and bores makes his own life less meaningful and satisfying. As the use of myth suggests, Francis Weed's frustrations are both biological and social and part of the inevitable state of civilized mankind. Along with the battle imagery and mythological references, Cheever provides periodic musical accompaniment, suggestive of Francis's and Shady Hill's unmet emotional needs. Music in the Weed home is specified by a Schubert waltz album set upon a polished piano rack, a part of the contrived House Beautiful setting that Julia has made of her living room. Music is first heard when Francis is in his garden after his ' 'battlefield'' dinner. The music consists of Donald Goslin's almost nightly performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," and as he plays it, it expresses "tearful petulance, lonesomeness, and self-pity ..." in short, Francis's own, feelings of the moment. Julia too tries to escape loneliness, a key reason why the Weeds are such party goers: "... if she had gone out seven nights a week, it would not have cured her of a reflective look—the look of someone who hears distant music,'' he music of another party somewhere else. After the conventional dinner at the Farquarsons' and Francis's recognition of the servant as the woman humiliated at the crossroads during the war, the appearance of Anne Murchison in his own domicile gives him a pang of recognition of her beauty and need for love as sharp and pure as "when music breaks glass." Music here signifies the fullness of his need, the breaking point of his restraint, and the projection of his imagined fulfillment. That night he will dream of her "filling chamber after chamber with her light, her perfume, and the music of her voice." After insulting Mrs. Wrightson, the point after which he must either retreat once again into conventional behavior or develop the hardihood of the social renegade, he realizes that the girl's "music" might lead him to a trial for statutory rape and feels caught in Laocoon's serpent's coils. When the music becomes a subject for prosaic thought, it has certainly lost the overwhelming force of epiphany. The sharpness of his need is now blunted by psychiatric consultation and
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his busying himself with "simple arithmetic" and the "holy smell of new wood" as he builds his own crucifix—in his case, a coffee table. The music that he hears at the end is that of Donald Goslin worrying the "Moonlight Sonata" once again. Francis has retreated, and convention has won, though he will still see in the darkness the vision of Hannibal crossing the Alps. Throughout the story, in conjunction with allusions to war, myth, and music, nature imagery and its associated images of civilized containment develop the tension that Francis speaks of in the thematic passage where, upon seeing the statue of Atlas holding up the world, he "thought of the strenuousness of containing his physicalness within the patterns he had chosen." We are told in the first paragraph, with the description of the plane flying into the cloud that was so dense it reflected the plane's exhaust fires, that Francis had been in heavy weather before but never shaken up so much. The entire story is one of "heavy weather" for this frustrated, middle-aged suburbanite. The clouds reflect his own exhausting fires of middle age as he sits looking at them. The opposition of those fires to his own domestic situation is set forth in this scene, where we are told the exhaust fires blazed outside (among the natural elements of which fire is normally a part) while inside the plane "the shaded lights, the stuffiness, and the window curtains gave the cabin an atmosphere of intense and misplaced domesticity." Curtains here suggest the willful, self-blinding artifice civilized man uses to shut away the vision of nature that threatens him. Here that vision reflects man's exhausting energies in an indifferent gray world. Curtains also perform the same service, or disservice, in the psychiatrist's office where they screen from view the void of the air shaft and screen in to the patient's view a waiting room that is a hollow representation of domestic bliss. Moreover, as indicated earlier, when he tells Ms. Wrightson what to do with her curtains, he is telling her that what Shady Hill curtains out is even mere threatening than it supposes. After the plane makes its landing in the cornfield, the corn and, later, the slum gardens ready for harvest show a fecundity that completely opposes Francis's recent recognition of his own nearness to death. At home the late summer sunlight is ' 'clear as water.'' There are roses on the piano and the smells from the kitchen are appetizing. His senses have been made keen by the overall experience, but the
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roses are only part of the decorative scheme in the living room, and the dinner is not enjoyed. The gardens of Shady Hill are, like Julia's roses, an attempt to contain nature for private enjoyment in a restrained way. But like the Garden of Eden these gardens have their invaders. Jupiter crashes through the tomato vines in the Weeds' garden and through the roses in Mr. Nixon's. The squirrels haunt Mr. Nixon's bird-feeding station as well, causing him to cry out at this long-lived depredation in the fashion of a character in a morality play, cursing one of the Seven Deadly Sins or perhaps the Devil himself: "Rapscallions! Varmints! Avaunt and quit my sight!" After insulting Mrs. Wrightson, Francis feels thankful to Anne Murchison ' 'for this bracing sensation of independence." Although it is only a sensation, and one that will be short-lived at that, the birds sing and "the sky shone like enamel." Even the smell of ink on the morning paper invigorates him. He knows he is probably undergoing "an autumnal love of middle age," but that categorization does not diminish his feeling of arousal, of being now, for the moment at least, a healthy animal, ready to gratify his lust, expressing his feelings, sensorily and sensually awake at last. The very next paragraph, however, puts a damper on the high spirits he describes. His secretary, Miss Rainey (like Francis's own the name is suggestive), sees a psychiatrist three mornings a week, and he wonders what a psychiatrist would say to him. His thoughts lead then to thought of legal censure and his own Laocoon-like situation. The would-be satyr finds himself contained within the social codes, and the scene shifts from sporting in the woods to the interior of his office with its reproaching photograph of his own children and the Laocoon letterhead. The "moral card house" almost comes tumbling down upon him when he finds Anne in his house when he gets home. Once again her appeal is equated with nature's wholesome beauty: "Her smile was open and loving. Her perfection stunned him like a fine day—a day after a thunderstorm." Then he is seen kissing Anne, but it is Gertrude who sees, and Gertrude is a kindred spirit who probably does not require the quarter he gives her to keep her quiet. He scares the little "stray" with a look that expresses "a wilderness of animal feeling." That same evening, as the thought of driving Anne home after the party runs through his head like a golden thread, as he talks, he already smells the
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grass where he will park to make love to her,' 'deep enough into the brushwoods to be concealed." Two paragraphs later his wife tells him that the babysitter has been driven home by someone else. Just as he is about to surge outside the bounds of convention, propelled by animal lust and lured by romantic fancies, he is again stopped by the actions of one of the ever-watchful others in his tight little regulated universe of the work-to-home, city-to-suburb existence. A former Boy Scout and one who believes in self-discipline, Francis tries to regulate his own bodily needs with exercise, but he only feels more toned up and ready for adventure. His senses, honed by the exercise, make the air seem to smell sharply of change. The "change" he finds, though, is merely the annual event, scheduled by his regulating wife Julia, of having the family photographed for their Christmas card. He is reduced to writing and tearing up love letters to the babysitter, writing— at Julia's desk—while the family waits for him with the photographer downstairs. We are told that "the abyss between his fantasy and the practical world opened so wide that he felt it affected the muscles of his heart." The natural, physical world is both the source of his frustrated animal drive and the scene into which he can project only a fancied fulfillment. Acting like a combination of George F. Babbitt and Miniver Cheevey, Francis Weed fails in his private, fearful attempt to break through the bounds of human artifice and the web of obligations and social rewards that comprise Shady Hill life. Francis is too timid, too conventional himself, to make the break. He cannot even effectively criticize his environment. It is not Francis Weed who catalogs the frustrations of Shady Hill. It is the only fatherless son in the community who does so, doubting Clayton Thomas, who tells Francis that the people drink too much, have pretentious houses ("all the dovecotes are phony"), clutter up their lives, fear change and "undesirables," and have a future composed of more commuting trains and parties. Of course, Clayton is callow philosophically and emotionally, but it is Clayton, nonetheless, who makes Francis see the people and objects in his surroundings in their true colors,' 'like a bitter turn of the weather." It is Clayton who will carry off Anne Murchison and escape the bounds of Shady Hill, and it is Francis Weed who will stay, more dependent on others' opinions and values than ever now that he is under the care of a psychiatrist. Francis is a would-be Hannibal who has never seen the Alps and whose only contact with the woods of
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satyr and nymph is his own touch on the "holy" wood that he is shaping into another Shady Hill living room adornment, nature refined and confined and unsatisfied. ' 'The Country Husband'' leaves its protagonist in a fragile equipoise that is remarkable for the concatenation of desires, inhibitions, fancies and facts that have inevitably placed him there. It is the imagery of the story, the images of war, myth, music, and nature, that makes us realize just how rooted in our humanity and our American value system Francis Weed's fate really is. This story is Cheever's art at its most intense and elegant best. Source: Robert A. Hipkiss, '"The Country Husband'—A Model Cheever Achievement," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 4, Fall 1990, pp. 577-85.
Sources Bodine, Paul, "Cheever, John," in Contemporary Popular Writers, edited by Dave Mote, St. James Press, 1997, pp. 79-80. Collins, Robert G., "Beyond Argument: Post-Marital Man in John Cheever's Later Fiction," in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1984, pp. 261-79. Dressner, Lawrence Jay, "Gender and Structure in John Cheever's 'The Country Husband,"' in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1994, pp. 57-68. Hipkiss, Robert A., '"The Country Husband'—A Model Cheever Achievement,'' in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 4, Fall 1990, pp. 577-85. Morace, Robert A., "John Cheever," in Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography: The New Consciousness, 1941-1968, Gale Research, 1987. O'Hara, James, "John Cheever," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 102, American Short-Story Writers, 1910-1945, Gale Research, 1991, pp. 26-42. "Overview of John Cheever," in Discovering Authors, The Gale Group, 1999. Peden, William, "Metropolis, Village, and Suburbia: The Short Fiction of Manners," in American Short Story: Continuity and Change, 1940-1975, Houghton Mifflin, 1975, pp. 30-68.
Further Reading Bosha, Francis J., ed., Critical Response to John Cheever, Greenwood Press, 1993.
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This review of critical commentary on Cheever's work includes assessments of works ranging from his first to his last. Cheever's individual works are considered and placed in broader literary contexts. This book includes essays written specifically for this volume along with a lengthy interview conducted with Cheever shortly before his death. Donaldson, Scott, ed., Conversations with John Cheever, University Press of Mississippi, 1987. Donaldson compiled twenty-eight interviews with Cheever, covering topics from subject matter to writ-
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ing habits. For readers and writers, these interviews reveal how and why Cheever wrote about what he did and how he developed his craft over the course of his career. Gottlieb, Robert, ed., Journals of John Cheever, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Originally gathered by Cheever's son, these entries reflect over thirty-five years of the author's life. The journals (which originally comprised twenty-nine notebooks) are edited here to give insight into the man behind the fiction.
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The Destructors Graham Greene's "The Destructors" was first published in two parts in Picture Post on July 24 and 31, 1954. Later that year, the story appeared in a collection entitled Twenty-One Stories. Because Greene arranged the stories in reverse chronological order, "The Destructors" was the first story in the collection.
Graham Greene 1954
' 'The Destructors'' disturbed its readers, yet it remains one of Greene's most anthologized short stories. Despite its setting in post-World War II England, the story is universal in its reflection of human nature. The story contains many of Greene's hallmarks, most importantly that of placing people who have the capacity for good and evil in situations where they must make a choice between the two. The boys in "The Destructors" are still young enough to be innocent, yet they make cruel and selfish choices. This story is also a link to Greene's earliest fiction in which he often portrayed young people being initiated into the adult world. Commenting on this story and three others ("A Chance for Mr. Lever," "Under the Garden," and "Cheap in August"), Greene declared that he was completely satisfied and had never written anything better.
Author Biography Graham Greene was born in Hertfordshire, England, on October 2, 1904, to Marion (first cousin of
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During World War II, Greene did intelligence work for the British government in West Africa. His experiences at home and abroad inspired works like "The Destructors" and The Heart of the Matter. In addition to his novels of intrigue, peopled with spies, criminals, and other colorful characters, Greene wrote short stories, essays, screenplays, autobiographies, and criticism. He is considered one of the most important English writers of the twentieth century, and his honors include consideration for a Nobel Prize. His works are popular with critics and readers; they have been translated into twentyseven languages and have sold over twenty million copies. Greene died of a blood disease in Vevey, Switzerland, on April 3, 1991.
Plot Summary Graham Greene
the writer Robert Louis Stevenson) and Charles Henry Greene, a school headmaster. An introverted and sensitive child, his early years were difficult because of his strict father and boarding school bullies. At sixteen, he suffered a psychological breakdown and went to London for treatment by a student of Sigmund Freud. While in London, Greene became an avid reader and writer. He met Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, who became lifelong literary mentors to him. His other influences were Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford. After graduating from high school in 1922, Greene attended Oxford University's Balliol College where he received a degree in history in 1925. While at college, Greene became interested in politics, especially Marxist socialism (but not communism). This sometimes created tension in Greene's friendship with the conservative writer Evelyn Waugh, although the two remained steady friends for many years. In 1926, Greene converted to Catholicism for his fiancee, Vivien Dayrell Browning, whom he married the following year. The couple eventually had two children. Greene is generally considered a Catholic writer despite his insistence that the conversion was not his greatest literary influence.
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' "The Destructors" is about a group of teenage boys who call themselves the Wormsley Common gang, after the area where they live. They meet every day in a parking lot near a part of town that was bombed during World War II. Almost everything in this area is destroyed although one house stands with minimal damage. This house is owned by Mr. Thomas (whom the boys call Old Misery), an old man who lives alone. One day, the gang's leader, Blackie, suggests that they spend the day sneaking free bus rides. T. (whose full name is Trevor) has another idea. He has been inside Mr. Thomas's house and suggests that the boys take advantage of the old man's upcoming two-day absence to demolish the house from the inside. T. becomes the gang's new leader. When the boys meet at the appointed time the next morning, T. has already organized his directions for the boys to demolish the house. By the end of the day, the house is in shambles: the floors are torn up, the fixtures are smashed, the electrical cords are all cut, and doors are destroyed. After everyone but Blackie has left, T. shows him ' 'something special," Mr. Thomas's savings of seventy one-pound notes. T. explains that he and Blackie will burn the notes one at a time to celebrate. After they are finished, they go home. The next day, the boys meet again at the house to complete the destruction. They take out the staircase, demolish the inner layers of wall, knock down the floors (it is a multi-story house), and flood
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what is left. Before they are finished, one of the boys runs in and announces that Mr. Thomas is on his way home. Mr. Thomas was not expected until the next morning, so T. locks him in the outhouse until morning. Not wanting to physically hurt the old man, the boys give him a blanket and food. The next morning, a driver starts up his truck, and as he pulls out of the parking lot adjacent to the house, he hears crashing. At first he is confused, but then he realizes that his truck was tied to a support beam of the gutted house, bringing it down. The driver lets Mr. Thomas out of the outhouse, and although the old man is devastated, the driver cannot stop laughing. He explains that it is not personal, but he thinks it is funny.
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Media Adaptations "The Destructors," along with two of Greene's other short stories ("The Basement Room" and "Under the Garden"), was adapted as a television series in England in 1975 by Thames Television. The series included thirteen episodes.
him and asks him how he can laugh, the driver is unable to control himself.
Joe Blackie Before T. becomes the leader of the Wormsley Common gang, Blackie is its head. He is described as a just leader who is not jealous and wants to keep the group intact. He also distrusts anything having to do with the upper class. As the gang's leader, Blackie suggests such activities as seeing how many free bus rides they can sneak and breaking into Old Misery's house without stealing anything. When the gang sides with T. instead of Blackie, Blackie initially feels betrayed and privately sulks. He then decides that if the gang is going to succeed in the feat of destroying the house, he wants to be a part of it for the fame. Once he rejoins the group, he is fully committed to T.'s leadership and to contributing to the destruction of the house. In fact, when the gang's confidence in T.'s leadership falters, Blackie pulls the group back together. This demonstrates that the group as a whole is more important to him than the personal glory of being the leader.
Driver At the end of the story, an unsuspecting driver finally brings down the house. The driver's truck is tied to the gutted house so that when he pulls out of the adjacent parking lot, the entire house crumbles. At first, the driver is astonished and confused, but once he realizes what has happened, he responds with a fit of laughter. Even when Mr. Thomas faces
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Joe is a member of the Wormsley Common gang. He is simply described as a ''fat boy,'' and he is the first to vote in favor of T.'s plan to destroy the house.
Mike A member of the Wormsley Common gang, Mike is the only one who is surprised when T. becomes the leader. Mike has always been easily surprised and gullible; when he was nine, he believed someone who told him that if he did not keep his mouth shut, he would get a frog in it.
Summers Summers is the only member of the gang who is called by his last name. He is a thin boy who is a follower. When, on the second day, he complains that the destruction of the house is too much like work, he is easily talked into staying and helping.
T. Trevor, who goes by T., is the new leader of the Wormsley Common gang. He is fifteen years old and has gray eyes. He is a member of the gang all summer before taking leadership in August, when he suggests a dramatic change in the gang's activities. His father, an architect, has recently lost social ranking, and his mother has an air of snobbery about her. If T. had seemed like an easy target to the boys, they would have teased him for these things in the beginning.
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T. initially says very little when the gang meets, but as he positions himself to take leadership, he talks more. He intrigues the gang with his plan to pull down Mr. Thomas' house, a feat unparalleled in the gang's history. The unprecedented plan, coupled with the air of intrigue surrounding T., makes the boys in the gang eager to accept his plan.
Mr. Thomas Mr. Thomas, who is called Old Misery by the boys in the gang, is an old man who lives in one of the last standing houses in its neighborhood. He was once a builder and decorator but now lives alone, emerging once every week to buy groceries. While he expects his property to be respected by the boys, he is not so disagreeable that he refuses to allow the boys on his land or to use his outdoor bathroom. Mr. Thomas is nai've about the ways of the boys. He never expects that they will regard his offer of chocolates with suspicion, and he certainly never imagines that when he agrees to show T. around his house, T. will betray him. Mr. Thomas believes that the old ways, in which youth respected their elders, are still alive. By the end of the story, however, he realizes that he was terribly misguided.
Trevor SeeT.
Themes Innocence The boys in "The Destructors" are in their teens, which is the age at which childish innocence is gradually left behind in favor of worldliness and sophistication. For the boys in the story, however, their innocence is already gone, replaced by cynicism, selfishness, and rebelliousness. When Mr. Thomas arrives home early, T. is surprised because the old man had told him he would be gone longer. Greene writes, ' 'He protested with the fury of the child he had never been." Not only have these boys grown up during the war years, they live in an environment that serves as a constant reminder of that harrowing experience. They meet in a parking lot near an area that was destroyed by bombs during the war, and they are seemingly unaffected by it
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because it is such a normal part of their life. In reality, the war years have claimed their youthful innocence, leaving them disillusioned and determined to create their own world order, but all they really know is destruction. Part of innocence is surrender to the imagination. In "The Destructors," however, imagination takes an ugly turn. T. uses his imagination to devise the plan to destroy Mr. Thomas's house. Greene writes that the boys "worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become." The imagination used to plot the demise of the house is the opposite of the imagination used to create it. In innocence, a person's imagination is applied to think of a better world, but the boys have lost their innocence. They can only imagine a worse world.
Power ' The Destructors'' is a study of shifting power. Blackie initially holds the power of leadership in the gang, and he is a basically good leader. Although he encourages mischief, it is the kind that does not hurt anyone. In his hands, power is the ability to lead others. When T. takes over leadership, however, the gang changes dramatically. He gets the members to participate in a cruel plan to destroy an innocent man's home, a home that is a treasured piece of England's past. In T.'s hands, power is the ability to destroy. His brand of leadership is different; when Blackie arrives on the first morning of the destruction (the day after T. assumes leadership), "He had at once the impression of organization, very different from the old happy-go-lucky ways under his leadership." When Summers arrives on the second morning, voicing his preference to do something more fun that day, T. will not hear of it. T. knows he is more powerful than Summers is, so he reminds him that the job is not done and that Summers himself voted in favor of the project. He succeeds in pressuring the boy to stay and help finish the destruction. In the changing social structure of this small community, the balance of power is shifting. The boys forcibly take power in the community, and it is executable power. They have the ability to make changes in people's lives and to intimidate others. Mr. Thomas, on the other hand, thinks he has power that he no longer possesses. He believes that he has authority based on the social order of the past, in
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Topics for Further Study Compare the Wormsley Common gang with modern American gangs. Consider factors like membership, recruitment, enemies, activities, and motivations. What similarities did you find? Present your findings in a collage made up of drawings, photos, maps, headlines, text, and anything else that is appropriate. Choose a European country (not England) and research what its young people were like after World War II. Prepare a lecture to deliver to a group of high school freshmen in which you present your findings and encourage the students to imagine how they would react in similar circumstances.
which he, as an elder in the community, would be respected and obeyed. The shift in power seen in "The Destructors" signals the changing social order and does not bode well for the future.
Style Paradox Greene demonstrates the instability of postwar England in his presentation of opposing forces throughout' "The Destructors.'' The tension created by these forces reflects a society that has survived trauma but is deeply changed by it. Social dynamics are undergoing change, and the youth no longer feel connected to the past, as previous generations did. Greene's writing often incorporates paradoxes, and in this story, paradoxes are used to communicate the atmosphere of the community in which the Wormsley Common gang functions. Greene's use of paradox in the story is evident in T.'s attitudes toward Mr. Thomas. On the one hand, he sets about destroying his house, treating
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At the end of World War II, the Allied Powers emerged victorious. The Allies included twentyeight countries, but the central nations were Great Britain, the United States, France, and Russia. Explore art (paintings, sculptures, photography, etc.) created during this period in these nations to see what themes, feelings, and moods are expressed. Do you find that the art celebrates the Allied victory or that it reflects the devastation of war? Compile reproductions of the works you find most compelling and make an exhibit demonstrating how art reflects the experiences of nations.
him disrespectfully, and regarding him with suspicion. At the same time, however, T. does not hate him. His intention to destroy Mr. Thomas's life is not personal but is rooted in his desire to get rid of the last vestige of traditional beauty in the war-torn landscape. Although his destructive behavior is not personal, the consequences are deeply personal for the old man, but T. is unable to consider such consequences. A related paradox in the story is when T. takes Mr. Thomas's seventy one-pound notes, but not for personal gain. Instead, he takes them only to burn them. In other words, T. takes items that are inherently valuable, but he has no interest in making use of that value. T.'s attitude toward Mr. Thomas's house is paradoxical, too. He knows the house is beautiful, but his feelings about beauty, especially as they relate to social classes (the house is an emblem of the upper class) makes it easy for him to destroy it anyway. Another example of paradox is in the truck driver who ultimately brings the house to its final destruction. While the reader expects this man to react with feelings of guilt or horror, he laughs. He has no part in planning the destruction, nor does he have any feelings toward the old man or what he represents; yet, his reaction is not what is expected.
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He lacks sympathy or compassion and bursts into uncontrolled laughter, saying, "You got to admit it's funny."
Allegory Beneath the surface of "The Destructors" are allegorical elements that enable Greene to comment about postwar England. The various characters in the story represent the older generation and the traditions of the past and the younger generation and its rejection of the empty promises and values of the past. Mr. Thomas stands for the old ways and the past belief in the authority of elders. He initially expects to be able to tell the boys what to do and what not to do simply because he is older than they are. In the determination to destroy Mr. Thomas's house, the work of a respected English architect, Greene demonstrates that the longstanding class struggle, as represented by property, is intensified. The lower class, represented by the gang, is not satisfied to watch the upper class enjoy valuable property; instead, they succeed in destroying it and somehow achieve a closer balance between the haves and the have-nots. The story is also an allegory about power. T. joins the group and soon takes the power away from Blackie. Once he has secured the power in the group, he immediately initiates changes by raising the stakes of what kind of mischief they will seek. T. becomes a sort of dictator in the group, giving orders and making unilateral decisions. In the wake of World War II, these are disturbing images of a new generation of power-hungry young people emerging from the wartime experience. Readers may interpret this as a message about the price of war or as a warning of what may come if something is not done to reverse current trends.
Historical Context Modernist Period in English Literature The modernist period in English literature began in 1914 with the onset of World War I and extended through 1965. It is a literary period that reflects the nation's wartime experiences (World War I and World War II), the emerging British talent of the 1920s, and the economic depression of
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the 1930s. Toward the end of the period, literature and art demonstrate the nation's growing uncertainty, which became especially pronounced after World War II; this uncertainty would give way to hostility and protest in the postmodernist period. During the early years of the modernist period, the foremost fiction writers were E. M. Forster, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, and Somerset Maugham. One of the major accomplishments of this period was the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, a work that continues to be respected as a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature. In the 1920s and 1930s, the novels of D. H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh were harshly critical of modern society, expressing an attitude shared by many English men and women of the day. In the 1930s and 1940s, novelists such as Greene wrote traditional fiction that was well-crafted enough both to stand up to innovative fiction of the day and to gain a wide and loyal audience. Many writers of this period (Greene included) were born at the turn of the century, near the end of the Victorian Age. These writers were reared in an environment of romanticism, which often meant leading a relatively sheltered childhood that left them ill-prepared for the realities of adult life. This background, combined with events of the first half of the twentieth century, led writers such as Greene to question the values of their past and to reevaluate the world in which they lived as adults. This reevaluation is seen in Greene's fiction as he explores morality and creates characters who possess the capacity for both good and evil.
Teddy Boys During the 1950s in England, the reality of organized groups of teenagers set on being disruptive and disrespectful caused public concern. Known as teddy boys, these groups of boys banded together in the name of delinquency and destruction. In many ways, they were the precursors to the modern-day gangs. These groups of boys are regarded as products of the postwar society in which they lived, having been exposed to violence and instability as children. The teddy boys got their name from their choice of attire; although they were generally working-class boys, they chose to wear Edwardian-style suits traditionally worn by young upper-class men. This suit, commonly known as teddy style, com-
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Compare fc Contrast 1950s: Since its election victories of 1945, the Labour Party is working on bringing certain industries under government control. Based on socialist principles, the Labour Party's objectives are to distribute resources evenly among English citizens and to blur the lines of social class. Its influence is on the decline, however, since the Conservative Party reduced the Labour Party's majority in parliament in the 1950 elections. Today: After two Conservative prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and John Majors, Labour Party leader Tony Blair is now England's prime minister. English voters seem to vote in cycles, much as American voters tend to alternate over time between Democratic and Republican leadership. 1950s: The emergence of rock and roll music in
bined with the delinquent behavior of its wearers, caught the attention of the press. The teddy boys were not just creative in their delinquent behavior; they also made irreverent changes to their suits, such as adding bolo ties, that they had seen in movie westerns.
Critical Overview Greene is considered one of the most important writers of his generation although most of the criticism of his work focuses on his novels. Still, there are similarities between his novels and his short stories, such as his sympathetic portrayal of flawed characters, the degradation of the individual in the modern world, the need for moral compromise in certain situations, and the harsh realities of violence and cruelty. Greene's writing style is also consistent among his novels and shorter works.
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the United States leads to the style's popularity around the world. Teenagers are drawn to its energy and spirit of rebellion. Having endured the war, many teenagers in England are uncertain and cynical, and rock and roll music appeals to their spirit of defiance and to their drive to create a new identity. Today: Rock and roll music has evolved into a variety of types, including pop, alternative rock, punk rock, heavy metal, and funk. England's contributions to rock and its descendants are considerable. Besides the many contemporary English bands enjoying worldwide success (including Radiohead, Oasis, Dead Can Dance, and Stereophonies), formative bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones continue to influence musicians today. These two British groups consistently top every poll, list, or survey of the best bands and albums of all time.
Renowned English writer Evelyn Waugh describes Greene's writing style in Commonweal as "not a specifically literary style at all. The words are functional, devoid of sensuous attraction, of ancestry, and of independent life." Perhaps this is why Richard Jones of Virginia Quarterly Review concluded that the key to Greene's popularity is ' 'probably his readability," which attends to "the main business of holding the reader's attention." Waugh likens Greene's style to that of the cinema, where the camera moves from one setting to another, settling on a character, surveying his or her surroundings, and so on. As a result, there is no direct connection made between the storyteller and the reader. Jones makes a similar observation: "[Greene] resorts to the tricks of the cinema—swift juxtaposition of scene, character, and tone—and is often, because of this, slick and ambiguous in his effects." These techniques also apply to Greene's short stories and are evident in "The Destructors." "The Destructors" is regarded as one of Greene's most accomplished and important pieces
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War II blitzkrieg of London—are ripe for it, and Greene makes the most of his opportunity.
Also examining the political landscape of the story, Neil Nehring of Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 162: British Short-Fiction Writers, 1915-1945, asserts that Greene's admission late in life that he had anarchist tendencies in his work should have been obvious in works like "The Destructors." Nehring comments, Anarchism is central to 'The Destructors,' for the story's thesis—'destruction after all is a form of creation'—is adapted from anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's famous line that 'the passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!'
On the other hand, Jesse F. McCartney of Southern Humanities Review sees the gang as symbolizing democratic socialism struggling against privilege and conservative politics.
The English 'teddy boy' style of dress
of short fiction. In Understanding Graham Greene, R. H. Miller writes: 'The Destructors' may be Greene's best story and perhaps one of the finest in the language. It has all the qualities that have come to be expected in the short story: focus, compression, pace, and that element of surprise, that epiphany that brings one to recognizing a powerful truth. It works as both parable and allegory, parable in the sense that it is a narrative in a relatively contemporaneous setting that makes a clear moral point, allegorical in the sense that it 'signifies' on several levels.
Critics often comment on the story within the historical context of the postwar era in England. Miller observes that the story reflects conditions in England in the postwar years when the gradual recovery ushered in unexpected shifts in social and political dynamics. Many communities (like the one in the story) lay in ruins, and once Mr. Thomas's house is destroyed, Miller writes, "the landscape of Wormsley Common has rational consistency." In Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume Seven: Writers After World War II, 1945-1960, Richard Hauer Costa observes: By reversing every assumed value 'The Destructors' flips innocence [represented by the boys] into an unaccustomed controlling position over corruption [represented by society]. Time and place—the World
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Other critics are quick to note that the story resonates with today's audience because what is disturbing in the story continues to be part of daily life. Nehring, for example, remarks that the story "certainly has an air of prophecy, and Greene's prescience [foresight] in this case seems to be intentional." Nehring adds that the actions of the Wormsley Common gang are only the beginning of the changes to come. Looking to the future, Miller notes, "'The Destructors' will remain a disturbingly powerful story and take on even more significance as time passes."
Criticism Jennifer Bussey Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey considers whether or not Graham Greene leaves open the possibility of redemption in his short story. In his novels and short stories, Graham Greene portrays ordinary people who have the capacity for both good and evil. They find themselves in situations in which these opposing impulses conflict, and they must make decisions about the path they will take. Many of Greene's characters choose evil, but
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Do I Read Next? William Golding's 1954 The Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys stranded on an island who revert to a primitive state as they govern themselves to survive. The book explores themes of innocence, human nature, and the human capacity for cruelty. This book was published the same year as ' The Destructors'' and is also written by a British author. Greene's The Heart of the Matter (1948) is the story of Major Scobie, a high-ranking Catholic police officer whose conscience leads him to marital troubles, religious struggles, and career
Greene often offers the possibility of redemption somewhere within the work. Perhaps this is the result of his conversion to Catholicism in his twenties. In the Catholic Church, there is always grace by which a sinner can receive redemption. By repenting, saying confession, and carrying out the instructions of the priest, a Catholic can receive forgiveness. More generally, by accepting Christ as the Messiah, Catholics believe there is always the possibility of forgiveness and acceptance back into God's family. In the disturbing short story "The Destructors,' ' a group of teenage boys willingly chooses the path of selfishness, cruelty, and evil when they victimize a helpless old man. Given Greene's propensity to offer his characters the possibility of redemption, the reader may wonder if he has done so here. In the story, redemption is at stake for two entities: the characters and England. First, there is the main character Trevor, or T., as he is called. He is described as never having really been a child, which suggests that his innocence was sacrificed long ago. He devises a plan that will result in the complete destruction of an innocent man's house, and the reason for this plan is simply that T. wants to destroy the last vestiges of the old social order and the traditions of the past. He knows the house is
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problems. Based on Greene's experiences while working for the British government during World War II, this novel was very popular with American readers at the time of publication. Edited by Philip Stratford, The Portable Graham Greene (1994) is a valuable resource for both new readers and long-standing admirers of Greene's work. It includes two complete novels, excerpts from ten others, short stories, essays, travel writing selections, and memoir excerpts, in addition to a thorough introduction and bibliography.
beautiful, valuable, and the only home to an old man, but he is not the least bit swayed by any of this. As T. takes over leadership of the gang and begins to assign the members their duties, Greene writes, ' 'It was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with the pain of puberty.'' T.'s cruelty is part of his nature so there is little reason to believe there is redemption in his future. He is on a path that will only lead to more cruelty against other people, and his lack of remorse suggests that he is unaware that he should even be thinking about redemption. Except for Blackie, the other members of the gang are followers. They are either incapable of making their own moral decisions or they are unwilling to do so. Blackie, then, is the most promising character in terms of redemption. He is basically a good person who rules the gang with fairness and dedication to keeping the group intact. While he enjoys mischief, he never suggests activities that will hurt another person. When he suggests breaking into Mr. Thomas's house, he is clear that they should just break in and not steal anything. When T. assumes leadership, Blackie ultimately decides to rejoin the group, but he does so, not because he loves the idea of being so destructive, but because his ambition leads him back into participation. If the
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, Greene seems to signal to the reader that it is reasonable to remain hopeful that redemption will come because not every character is hopeless."
group gains notoriety for the deed, he does not want to be left out of the excitement. These characteristics suggest that for Blackie, there is the possibility of redemption because if he joins the right group (a constructive, positive group), he will become an asset to society rather than continuing to be a hooligan. Because some of the boys seem to be hopeless in terms of the possibility of redemption, while Blackie stands out as a promising figure, it is unclear whether England is likely to be redeemed from this upset in the social balance of power. The characters make choices for themselves, but England is somewhat at the mercy of the decisions made by its citizens. Although England has emerged from World War II on the side of victory, the domestic costs are great: political, economic, and social instability and uncertainty. These are powerful factors that have the ability to destroy the country from the inside out, just as the boys destroy Mr. Thomas's house. There is a fundamental clash between the old generation and the new generation. The old generation is portrayed, in the character of Mr. Thomas, as weak, nai've, and powerless; the new generation is portrayed as selfish, cruel, violent, destructive, disrespectful, and unconcerned with the future. Who, then, will lead the way as England recovers from the war and looks to enter the future with strength, certainty, and promise? Greene offers no answer to this important question, and the future of England looks bleak. There is, however, another way to view the story that offers the possibility of redemption for England. The story can be viewed as a cautionary tale rather than as a harsh representation of an irreversible course. If the story is viewed in the tradition of Charles Dickens's Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come in A Christmas Carol, then the story
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portrays only one set of possibilities. It is a warning to a generation of readers who have the power to alter the outcome of England's social challenges. In this light, Greene remains true to his tradition of offering the reader a way to foresee redemption and hope. Greene seems to signal to the reader that it is reasonable to remain hopeful that redemption will come because not every character is hopeless. If the gang is seen as a microcosm of the larger English society, there are many Blackies. This inference means that there is hope within the story, and there is hope beyond the story, for England, if the reader chooses to see its ending as only one of many possible outcomes. Source: Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on "The Destructors," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Philip C. Kolin In the following essay, Kolin surveys symbolism in ' 'The Destructors.'' In "The Destructors," published in 1954, Graham Greene portrays a world in transition, a society moving away from respect for culture toward a delight in chaos. Greene's story has been variously interpreted as a parable on depravity; a political allegory on Churchill's defeat by the Labour Party in 1945; and an expostulation of a Bakunian anarchy. Set in blitzkrieged London after World War II, the story details the exploits of the Wormsley Common Gang as they destroy a magnificent old house built by Christopher Wren and leave its occupant, an old decorator and builder, Mr. Thomas, nothing to live in but his loo. The gang, alternately led by Blackie and Trevor, has been so accustomed to seeing destruction around them that they easily become destructors themselves. Their bleak and at times amoral pranks take place in a world of shadow and half lights; gray and black hues predominate to the exclusion of bright colors. These drab, achromatic descriptions fittingly characterize the gang's indifference to culture, beauty, and sentiment. They live in a gray-world without any clearly defined or firmly held commitments. Not without design, Greene has written one of his least colorful stories. The barren landscape symbolizes the erosion of aesthetic values in a postwar world. It is a dreary August; dark bomb-sites surround the Common. ' 'The tired evergreens kept off a stormy sun: another wet Bank Holiday was being prepared over the Atlantic, beginning in swirls of dust under the
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trees." Whatever refreshing color is suggested by trees or sun is dulled by the adjectives "tired" and "stormy." Limp trees and a gray, overcast sky, signs of an impotent nature, match the pale malaise of London's younger generation. A similar reference to an ineffectual sun ironically occurs in the name and description of one of the gang—Summers, a "thin yellow boy.'' Nor is Blackie, sometime leader of the gang, misnamed, since he helps to complete T.'s plan of destruction. Along with the dust, mud from debris and the new, inelegant buildings covers the streets. The sight is neither pleasant nor notable; it is nondescript and boring. "The gray wet common stretched ahead, and the lamps gleamed in the puddles." The gloomy street blends with the description of T. His eyes, which he seldom raises, are "as gray and disturbed as the drab August day." When he is not downcast, his gaze is "dark" or "implacable." A spectator of the war's callousness to culture and to sentiment, T. proceeds with scrupulous meanness to erase all vestiges of a society where emotions play a meager part. "All this love and hate [...] its soft, its hooey," he claims. Without the fortitude of love or the direction of hate, T. automatically leads the gang to work in shade or darkness. He maps out his plans "in the shadow of Misery's wall." Under, T.'s control, the gang scraps and shatters as "[S]treaks of light came in through the closed shutters." Not only is their plot clandestine, avoiding detection, but they seem to try to duplicate within the grim world outside. They labor on Sunday, the day of light and rest, well into the night. Summers and Mike both remind T. that it is growing dark; yet the gang continues to dismantle the house. When Old Misery is locked in his loo at night, he "saw a light, not the light of a lamp, but the wavering light that a candle might give." Nothing stops their "stealthy form of carpentry." If T.'s destruction is an attack on the values of culture and the bonding emotionalism that society fosters, it is also an assault on the colors that emblematize that culture. In order to destroy, T. and the gang have to de-color. Comically, this occurs when Blackie, in a fit of anger, "scraped a little paint off the rear mudguard'' of an old Morris in the park. The venerable car is a ready, immobilized target. Most vulnerable to the gang's attacks, though, is the old house with its rich, polished wood. "The dining-room was stripped of parquet, the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its hinges, and the destroyers had moved up a floor." China, glass,
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The barren landscape symbolizes the erosion of aesthetic values in a postwar world,"
ornaments, colorful objets d'art are smashed, reduced to debris. It is highly significant that T. and Blackie turn Old Misery's cache of pound notes, printed with the colors green and beige, into "gray ash" by burning them. The last burning note illuminates T.'s "brooding face." Of course, the practical plays a role in this symbolism: Ashes are usually gray. But again, a vivid symbol of cultural identity, here an image of the country's economic health, is transformed into the drab meaninglessness that gray suggests. Eventually, the room is "crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things." T. transforms colorful substances into gray shadows. When the gang finishes, all that exists is a ' 'shattered hollow house with nothing left but the walls." Gray is an appropriate color for emptiness. What tangibles they do leave Old Misery also typify the gang's values through color. Confined to his privy, Old Misery receives two gifts from the gang, both of them gray. The first is "a long gray sausage [which] was worked through the hold and fell in swatches over Mr. Thomas' head." That such meat in its casing is gray is not terribly shocking; but combined with the gang's other activities, the sausage suggests that even their food, their sustenance, assumes the dull and insignificant color of their bleak surroundings. Their second present is a gray blanket, which, like the sausage, falls over Mr. Thomas's body. When the lorry driver frees him from the loo, "He was wearing a gray blanket to which flakes of pastry adhered." Old Misery emerges wearing a symbolic mantle colored by the gang's senseless energy; even his blanket is dirtied by the crumbs of penny buns they had given him to eat with the sausage. The debris outside is thus matched by the disarray of the old man's new, gray covering. With design and skill, Graham Greene has carefully employed color in "The Destructors" to
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depict the cultural destruction in London after World War II. Apart from a passing comment on the convivial Blue Boar, and references to the yellowish Summers and the "tired evergreens," Greene's story is shaded in grays and blacks, hues that symbolize the valueless world of the Wormsley Common Gang. Their demolition takes place in a dismal month, on a gray street, underneath a stormy sun. So overwhelming is Greene's desire to show this gray world that he does not directly describe in color the perishable cultural artifacts that are in Old Misery's house. To do so would be giving them a power that they no longer possess. Source: Philip C. Kolin, "Greene's 'The Destructors,'" in Explicator, Vol. 58, No. 3, Spring 2000, pp. 158-60.
J. Gorecki In the following essay, Gorecki explores connections between ' 'The Destructors'' and Milton's Paradise Lost. In the course of a study devoted to the historical and spiritual contexts of Graham Greene's short-story masterpiece, "The Destructors," John Ower has pointed out that it recalls the Judeo-Christian story of Satan's rebellion against God. No one, however, seems to have observed that this account of a gang's assault on a beautiful old house possesses numerous and striking similarities to the grand working out of that story in Milton's Paradise Lost. Greene has provided no explicit testimony that he thought of the epic in constructing his tale, but his evident preoccupation with evil throughout his works suggests his awareness of Milton's treatment of the theme, or at least of the traditions which lie behind Paradise Lost. It may well be that, as Milton enriched his epic through allusions to older literature, so Greene has enhanced his own religious parable by drawing on Milton. But whatever the literary genetics of "The Destructors" may be, the parallels with Milton seem worthy of discussion. The opening scenes of "The Destructors" vividly conjure up the initial setting of the epic. The boys in the Wormsley Common Gang plan their daily mischief in ' 'an impromptu car-park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz"; around the carpark lie the remains of houses shattered by other bombs, including "some incendiaries." This bomb crater and its blasted surroundings take the reader back to the volcanic surface of Milton's hell, where the devils devise further mischief against God and
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where Satan, summoning them to assembly, treads a substance like "the shatter'd side / Of thund'ring Aetna'', possessing ' 'a signed bottom all involv'd / With stench and smoke." Amid the postwar wasteland, Trevor succeeds in committing the gang to his cunning scheme to destroy Mr. Thomas' house from within: 'We'd be like worms, don't you see, in an apple.' Amid the archetypal wasteland of hell, Satan commits his crew of demons to a war of "covert guile" directed against the newly created universe; as the bad worm in Eden, he incarnates himself in the serpent. Milton's universe, created by the Son (the Christ of historical times) and standing out from chaos and hell as a beautiful jewel—"hanging in a golden Chain / This pendant World''—attracts the destroyer Satan. Similarly, Mr. Thomas' house, built by CTzratopher Wren and standing up alone from the adjacent car-park and the remains of bombedhouses, draws upon itself the resentment of the alienated "hell hounds" of the modern wasteland. And is it too much to see a further significance for the religious parallel in the fact that Mr. Thomas' house is "No. 3" on its row? Satan himself, seeking to hurt the triune deity, must take out his spite on the creation of that deity. The object of the destroyer's rage in both epic and story lies in a garden, the wall around which must be penetrated by the attacker. Greene's Blackie, joining the other boys already at work on the house, approaches it as they have done,' 'from a lane at the rear of the garden, for fear of the policeman's beat along the main road . . . Blackie climbed the wall into Misery's [their name for Mr. Thomas] garden." After the first day's work, "to escape notice they climbed singly over the garden wall, into the car-park." The gang's furtive movements back and forth over Mr. Thomas' wall recall Satan's stealth in entering the garden of Eden. On his first entry, avoiding the angels at the gate, Satan vaults proudly over the unguarded wall of Eden: Due entrance he disdain'd, and in contempt, At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound Of Hill or highest Wall, and sheer within Lights on his feet
Trevor's acrobatics in getting himself and Mr. Thomas over the wall towards the end of the story, '' 'One foot here, one foot there, and over'", are on a par with Satan's gymnastics. Satan's comparison to a thief on this occasion of his first entry, "So clomb this first grand Thief into God's Fold", helps to provide a larger context for the theft which the boys commit in destroying Mr. Thomas' house. Trevor's disclaimer to Blackie concerning Mr. Thomas' money
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which they have found, '"We aren't thieves', T. said. 'Nobody's going to steal anything from this house"', only underscores that they are thieves indeed, on a grand scale, like their prototype. The gang's use of the wall at the rear of the garden ' 'for fear of the policeman's beat along the main road" is reminiscent also of Satan's second visit to Eden. For on that occasion, Satan, mingling himself with the waters of the Tigris to escape the notice of the guardians now aware of his first entry, slips under the wall of the garden. That the wall behind Mr. Thomas' garden is already a "smashed wall" may suggest that, Satan having penetrated the walls of Eden, all walls have been weakened: Mr. Thomas' house with its treasure of beauty, epitomized, in Trevor's report to the gang, by the '"staircase two hundred years old like a corkscrew'", lingers on insecurely in a fallen world. In the intensity of his urge to destroy the home, Trevor the destructor resembles Milton's Satan, who finds pleasure only in destruction. Announcing his plan to the gang Trevor states, "'We'll pull it down,' he said. 'We'll destroy it.'" Assigning the gang their tasks,' 'Trevor was giving his orders with decision: it was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with the pain of puberty." Later, well into the destruction, when the boy Summers suggests, '"Haven't we done enough?'" Trevor retorts, "'We are going to destroy this house.'" Trevor's relentless rage for ruin recalls Satan's soliloquy as he returns to Eden, ' 'bent / On Man's destruction'', to incarnate himself in the snake:' 'For only in destroying I find ease / To my relentless thoughts; and him [man] destroyed." He would so work upon the world ' 'that destruction wide may range", and announces that he has come ' 'all pleasure to destroy / Save what is in destroying, other joy / To me is lost." Trevor may deny that he feels hatred for Mr. Thomas himself:'' 'All this hate and love,' he said, 'it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie.'" But the rest of this passage, revealing as it does the destructive effects of his activity, testifies to a ferocious hatred for created or formed things: "and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things." The growing darkness in which this scene is set—"the light had nearly gone, and when they touched a switch, nothing worked—Mike had done his job thoroughly''— helps to carry the reader back to Satan's journey through the realm of Chaos and Night, in the course of which Satan makes a speech to Chaos offering to
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And is it too ouch to see a further significance for the religious parallel in the fact that Mr. Thomas' house is 'No. 3' on its row? Satan himself, seeking to hurt the triune deity, must take out his spite on the creation of that deity."
reduce the newly created world "To her original darkness and your sway." Trevor is doing his bit in his little corner of creation to reduce the formed to the unformed. That he and Blackie are at the time burning Mr. Thomas' savings and that the word 'destructor' means a kind of incinerator, further identifies Trevor with the tribe of Satan, the first destroyer, in whom a "hot Hell . . . always .. . burns." Through his method of destroying the house, Trevor, like Satan, is a parody of a creator. As Trevor and his wrecking crew methodically rip out the interior, Greene remarks that "Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction, after all, is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become." In this paradoxical activity Trevor resembles Milton's devil, whose destructive bent is an inversion of the creative powers of God and the Son. As numerous critics have observed, in striving to rival the diety, Satan is forced to parody it. For example, taken together with his offspring Sin and Death, Satan is parody of the Trinity; Pandemonium, the counter-heaven erected in hell, is but a place in which to plot the destruction of the new world; and the causeway that Sin and Death construct in book 10 between hell and the formed universe is only a means to bring all the destructive capacity of the demons to bear on the newly fallen world. Satan's parody of creation extends even to such actions as his circling the earth for seven nights while choosing the proper agent for its corruption, for this week of darkness contrasts with the week of light in which the Son creates the world. While the
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son rests from his labors on the seventh day, Greene's destructors, on the other hand, begin their work on the Sabbath, thus, like Satan, inverting the Son's program of creation and rest. Many more similarities between the epic and the short story could be adduced, such as the fact that just as Satan (disguised as a' 'stripling Cherub'' presents himself to the angel Uriel in the sun as one seeking directions so that he might admire the new work of God, so the boy Trevor goes straight to the front door of the house and asks Mr. Thomas to show him its remarkable interiors. Greene thus establishes the full significance of his delinquents by setting them in a pattern of rebellion against the beautiful and good given such memorable form by Milton. Source: J. Gorecki, "Graham Greene's 'The Destructors' and Paradise Lost," in Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 21, No. 3, Summer 1985, pp. 336-^0.
Hans Feldmann In the following essay, Feldmann explores a Western civilization approach to history in the context of Greene's ' 'The Destructors.'' Although Graham Greene considers himself primarily a novelist "who has happened to write short stories," he nevertheless believes that he has "never written anything better than 'The Destructors'." Written in 1954, the story tells of an exploit by the Wormsley Common Gang, a group of London youths who under the leadership of a fifteen year old boy demolish in two days a house that had been built by Christopher Wren. What is most perplexing about the story is its tone: the omniscient narrator, curiously uninvolved in the tale he is telling, provides the reader with no clue as to how he should respond to the destruction of the house. Carefully planned by Trevor, the story's protagonist, it seems to be neither a wanton nor a malicious act. The last scene of the story is especially baffling. Mr. Thomas, the owner of the house, has been released from the outhouse where he has spent the night while the gang completed the demolition. Standing before the hill of rubble that had once been his home, he is mildly indignant with the lorry driver who had unwittingly pulled away the struts that were the house's last supports. The lorry driver, convulsed with laughter, delivers an apology which concludes the story: "I'm sorry. I can't help it, Mr. Thomas. There's nothing personal, but you got to admit it's funny."
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To date, no critic of the story has admitted that the destruction of the house is ' 'funny''; and yet, no critic has successfully handled the ambiguous tone of the story that is undeniably established by the lorry driver's concluding laughter. Greene's sympathy, the critics assume, is with Mr. Thomas, or at least with the Wren-built house. In any case, it is not with the destructors. The assumption is understandable, considering Greene's reputation as a Catholic and conservative thinker, but it is an assumption that is not entirely supportable by the story itself. A careful reading of the text suggests that a large portion of Greene's sympathy is with the boys, and that if the destruction of the house is not wholly a laughing matter, neither is it the diabolical feat of satanic delinquents. Any effort to make sense out of the story requires that the destruction of the house be understood as a symbolic act. The critics who have commented upon the story have interpreted the destruction in various ways, but none has argued that Greene sanctions the act. Jesse F. McCartney, for example, reads the story as a political statement that has its genesis in Churchill's defeat by Alice's Labour Government in 1945. The house is "an emblem of the continuity of the human race," and its destruction disconnects the Wormsley Common Gang from "the consecutive and humanistic values of the past." John J. Stinson and John Ower offer religious interpretations of the story. For Stinson, the destruction of the house is "a parable-like comment on man's inborn depravity and the primacy of evil in the world." For Ower, the house represents "an ideal state of culture, in which the predominance of Christianity ensures both refinement and order"; "the destruction of the house indicates that, without the Church as a moral centre, civilization itself will fall." These critics provide interesting insights into the story, but the ambiguity of the story's tone and denouement remains. This ambiguity can be resolved only if the destruction of the house can in some sense be considered a positive act, a thing to be desired. Such an interpretation is possible if one reads the story as a judgment on the condition of Western civilization, a judgment that reflects an unorthodox view of history. Because Greene is a convert to Catholicism, the natural tendency is to assume his orthodoxy and to judge the destruction of the house by orthodox standards: it is a negative act, satanic and purely destructive—a final act. Such negative judgments are consistent with a tradi-
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tional conservative view of history, a view that conceives of history as the will of God progressing through time in linear fashion from beginning to ending, from Creation to Apocalypse. And Apocalypse is conceived of as that event, or series of events, which will bring time to a stop (whatever that might mean in a post-Einsteinian universe) and human history to an end. Ower, for example, writes that Trevor may be considered as "an agent of divine retribution and redemption, a destroying angel like those who . . . wreck the universe at the Apocalypse," and he goes on to note "the larger pattern of Salvation History" that the story suggests: "This extends from the rebellion of Lucifer, through Creation and the Fall, to Redemption and Apocalypse."
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But in the world of Greene's story, the house is obsolete, a grotesque relic on the verge of collapse in a modern waste land."
The view of history as the linear movement through time is conventionally Christian and can be traced at least back to St. Augustine. But historians within the Christian tradition have also conceived on non-linear theories of history. Giambattista Vico, whose cyclical theory of history greatly influenced James Joyce, comes immediately to mind. Cyclical theories of history, in fact, seem to dominate the modern Western artistic imagination, perhaps necessarily so, given the course of human events since 1914. Things are falling apart; the age is apocalyptic. But few writers, if any, now regard apocalypse as the end of human history. Whatever their attitude may be toward the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born, they understand that the end of Western Christian civilization is the inevitable consequence of historical process. The artist who is conscious of the process is caught between Matthew Arnold's two worlds, "one dead, the other powerless to be born." He is faced with a decision; his allegiance must lean to one world or the other.' 'The Destructors" is a testament of Greene's integrity as an artist. In spite of his intellectual commitment to Catholicism, he asserts that "destruction after all is a form of creation." In destroying the house, the gang works "with the seriousness of creators." Although Greene knows the house to be beautiful and its tenant to be sympathetic, he clearly accepts the destruction as the creative act of a bold imagination. He accepts, that is, a view of time and history as cyclical process, a process that inevitably involves the demise of Western Christian civilization.
The house clearly represents Western Christian civilization—its institutions, its attitudes, its dogma that excludes non-Christians from ' 'the larger pattern of Salvation History." It was built by Christopher Wren, the man, Trevor explains to the gang, "who built St. Paul's." Greene is careful to establish this point, for St. Paul is himself a chief architect of Christianity. Without the great apostle's proselytizing zeal, the Word may never have been established beyond the boundaries of Christ's limited range. But in the world of Greene's story, the house is obsolete, a grotesque relic on the verge of collapse in a modern waste land. It stands ' 'jagged and dark between the bomb-sites'' that have been paved over into an "impromptu car-park." It is a world without effective civil or spiritual authority: few cars are left in the car-park, for "without an attendant there was no safety"; and Mike, the youngest member of the gang, is freed from going to church on the day the destruction begins because ' 'his mother felt ill [and] his father was tired after Saturday night." Although the house is "beautiful" on the inside, something has gone wrong with the plumbing, and Mr. Thomas, who once was a builder and decorator, is "too mean" to repair the internal mechanism. Throughout the story Greene's imagery emphasizes the dominant mood of decrepitude and death. The "loo" stands "like a tomb in a neglected graveyard." The evergreens which line the lane behind the garden are "tired." The color "grey" settles over the story like dust: the plan to destroy the house is conceived on a "grey" and "drab August day," "grey ash" floats above the heads of the boys, the common is wet and grey, the blanket the boys supply Mr. Thomas with is grey, even Trevor's eyes are grey.
Careful attention to the details with which Greene describes the house, its tenant, and the process of destruction will demonstrate that Greene's allegiance leans toward the world still' 'to be born.''
Mr. Thomas, or Old Misery as he is called by the boys, is reminiscent of Eliot's Gerontion: he is a spiritually exhausted man who lacks the creative energy to grow and to build. His house is a decayed
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house, and he is "dithery" and "confused." He is "rheumatic" and "limps" and "stumbles" through the story. Like Madame de Tornquist in Eliot's poem, his faith in spiritual value has been reduced to a superstitious belief in horoscopes. Although generous (he gives the boys candy) and kindly at times, he is peevish and exclusive: he will build his wall up to keep the boys out of his garden. He is most like Gerontion in that he has lost his passion. Lacking any real intensity, he cannot keep his attention focused on what is happening to his house. As he sits locked in his "loo," he becomes progressively less concerned with the noises he hears. He wraps himself in the blanket and eats the buttered penny buns the boys have given him. When he finally emerges from the outhouse to confront the wreck of his home he cuts a comic figure, wrapped in the "blanket to which flakes of pastry adhered." He gives a "sobbing cry," but he acquiesces to the destruction with only mild indignation at the lorry driver's laughter. The question, of course, is what is the appropriate response to the destruction of the house, to the collapse of Western civilization. The horror of twentieth-century history has made Western civilization's weaknesses all too apparent. Its foundation undermined, its superstructure sagging, its internal machinery out of joint, its tenant weary and ineffective and without spiritual intensity, the symbolic house poses the question: What is to be done? Should it be propped up here and there with the hope that it will stand for another century or two? Or should it be torn down to clear the way for a new structure? Greene answers the question by having the boys dismantle the house methodically and without malice. During the process they express concern for its tenant and provide him with buttered penny buns so that he will not "starve." They are concerned, that is, with the continuity of the human race, even though they seek to destroy the system of belief that had sheltered man for a cycle of civilization. The idea of history symbolized by the feat is Hegelian and Viconian. The larger pattern of history is a dialectical process by which man's consciousness of spiritual reality is progressively enlarged through conflict. The systems man creates to manifest his spiritual consciousness ultimately harden with age and become inhibitive. Christian civilization, a system of belief in which a unifying providential principle has been immanent, is, like all systems, finally a human construct and subject to the debilitating effects of time. No longer reflecting man's deepest aspirations, the Christian system of
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belief is obsolete; in the dialectical process of history, the role of Christianity is over. If the system of belief symbolized by the house fails to reflect man's deepest aspirations, what is it that the destructors, especially Trevor, aspire to? Greene's answer is implicit in the central episode of the story, the scene in which Trevor and Blackie burn Old Misery's savings. Blackie wants to steal the money and share it. But "we aren't thieves," Trevor insists. "Nobody's going to steal anything from this house." Instead he holds a "celebration" and burns the pound notes. Blackie thinks Trevor must hate Old Misery, but Trevor denies it: "All this hate and love . . . it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie." Here is the story's major explicit indictment of Western civilization: in contemporary life everything, even human relationships, has been reduced to the cash nexus. Blackie, who thought Old Misery's gift of chocolates "a bribe," never does understand Trevor's motivation for dismantling the house or for burning the money. He does not comprehend the weariness and frustration with a materialistic civilization grown so overburdened with things it cannot be suffered anymore. By dismantling the house, Trevor is aspiring to be free of a civilization that has lost its perception of spiritual value and permits man only a quantitative means of selfdefinition. Burning the money is his rejection of the one value that is most responsible for the collapse of the spiritual core of Western civilization—profit, cash, the THING itself. The tenant of the house that Wren built had buried his life savings—a paltry sum of seventy pounds—in his mattress. Like the wary servant in the parable of the talents, that which was given him is taken away again, and with it his house. As Trevor and Blackie kneel in the middle "of half things, broken things, former things" and burn the money, ' The grey ash floated above them and fell on their heads like age." Ower reads this scene as a "celebration of a 'Black Mass'"; the floating ash, however, seems to fall upon the kneeling boys like a benediction. Burning the money is Trevor's ceremonial act of redemption from the restrictive materialism of "only things." Such an interpretation of the scene makes it difficult to regard Trevor as a satanic monster. At the worst, he represents that Hegelian principle of antithesis which, opposed to the thesis his civilization has become, will inevitably resolve the tension in a new synthesis of spiritual apprehension. The house, then, symbolizing an obsolete system of
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belief, inhibits the spiritual growth of the boys and must go; its destruction is a symbolic act freeing mankind from the restrictive past and delivering him to the future. As a Hegelian principle of antithesis, Trevor is both a destructive and a creative force. He destroys the old, but ' 'destruction after all is a form of creation." Even Old Misery, pondering ' 'with the wisdom of age'' in his outhouse, hears the boys make noises that sound ' 'more and more like a stealthy form of carpentry." In this final scene, the locus of Greene's sympathies is clear. Peevish Old Misery is funny, sitting on his "loo" and eating pastry through the apocalypse. Trevor, on the other hand, working with the "seriousness" of a creator, stealthily builds the possibility of a future for mankind. Source: Hans Feldmann, "The Idea of History in Graham Greene's 'The Destructors,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 1982, pp. 241-45.
Jesse F. McCartney In the following essay, McCartney examines the politics of "blitzed England" and Greene's story, ' 'The Destructors.'' Although Graham Greene's fiction has been widely praised and widely circulated, critics have focused rather narrowly on two exclusive features of it. Noting Greene's distinction between novels and "entertainments," they have provided genre studies; or, noting his Catholicism, they have discussed the religious themes in his fiction to the exclusion of other considerations. Such biases have resulted in oversights and distortions in the criticism of his work. For example, despite the genre studies just mentioned, critics have largely ignored Greene's short stories or deemed them unworthy of critical study. Greene himself relegated his short stories to an insignificant place in his canon (maintaining at most that he was a novelist who ' 'happened to write short stories"), and scholars have taken him pretty much at his word. In addition, their intense interest in Greene's religious theme has distracted them from a careful consideration of the social and political conflicts which are so often the source of the basic conflicts of his plots. As James L. McDonald asserts: "For far too many readers and critics, Greene is a 'Catholic' novelist." McDonald cogently argues that Greene's "deepest, most abiding concerns . . . have always been social and political, and only by recognizing them can we find a true unity and continuity in his career." Yet scholars have consistently failed
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The Vtormsley Common (Jang epitomizes democratic socialism in conflict with privilege and conservatism."
to notice Greene's persistent concern with social and political issues, and the political substructure of Greene's writing remains largely unexplored. In sum, then, scholars might have read Greene more closely, and they might have begun with his short story "The Destructors." It is a work rich in political implications, and Greene himself has recently said of it, "I believe I have never written anything better than 'The Destructors'..." Nevertheless, many readers of the story are puzzled by it. Obviously, a plot which involves the paradox of the artistic destruction of a fine work of art is strange, but it is considerably less so if one places the story and the characters in a more precise political and economic context. To do so reveals the story to be essentially a reflection of twentiethcentury British politics—particularly the politics of blitzed England as Greene observed it from 1945 until his writing of the story in 1954. The Wormsley Common Gang epitomizes democratic socialism in conflict with privilege and conservatism, and "The Destructors," though certainly no mere political allegory, depicts a blitzed world in which the traditional values of beauty, grace, individualism, and class distinctions are succumbing to the new values of materialism, efficiency, democracy and group activity. The story can be better understood when one recalls that the period from 1945 to 1951 witnessed the emergence of the Labour Party and sweeping social and economic reforms which represented the culmination of the decline of privilege. The First Reform Act of 1832 seriously called into question the privileged status of the aristocracy. King Edward's threat to create enough new peers to pass Lloyd George's "People's Budget" of 1909 if the House of Lords rejected it signaled another dramatic shift in the power structure of England. But the coup de grace came in 1945. The defeat of Churchill and the Conservatives in that year not only resulted in the formation under Atlee of the first majority Labour
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government but also marked a triumph for democratic socialism and a stunning blow to privilege. The nationalization of the Bank of England and other industries and the passage of the National Health Service Act of 1948 and other socialist programs marked a point of no return for England which Greene and other observers noted with mixed feelings. Out of this dynamic political situation "The Destructors" grew and developed in Greene's mind. The "destructors" of the title are the members of the Wormsley Common Gang, a group of adolescent boys who presumably adopt a name for their gang from the geographical area of London where their activities are centered; but, of course, the name suggests both worms and commoners. The image of worms is picked up later in the story as Trevor explains the manner in which the gang would destroy Mr. Thomas's house: '"We'd be like worms, don't you see, in an apple. When we came out again there'd be nothing there, no staircase, no panels, nothing but just walls, and then we'd make the walls fall down—somehow.'" That the gang consists of commoners who scorn the upper classes is apparent in the attitude of its members toward the name and background of the newest member, Trevor: When he said 'Trevor' it was a statement of fact, not as it would have been with the others a statement of shame or defiance... There was every reason why T., as he was afterwards referred to, should have been an object of mockery—there was his name (and they substituted the initial because otherwise they had no excuse not to laugh at it), the fact that his father, a former architect and present clerk, had 'come down in the world' and that his mother considered herself better that the neighbours.
Thus, by joining the gang and, like more recent revolutionaries, changing his name, Trevor repudiates the class system. The gang, however, is no rag-tag band of lawless revolutionaries. Indeed, as they work from the inside destroying Old Misery's house, they also, in many ways, conform to establishment traditions, as did the Labour Party. For example, though Trevor escapes the procedure somehow, the gang apparently sometimes accepts members through an ' 'ignoble ceremony of initiation." Thus they follow establishment traditions of ceremonies and inaugurations, but these "ignoble ceremonies" parody those long-honored by the nobility. Indeed, the gang punctiliously observes its rules and operates in a decidedly democratic fashion. Trevor is required by the "rules to state his name." Though the gang is
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sceptical of Trevor's reasons for entering Old Misery's house, there is "nothing in the rules against it." Trevor, however, while in Old Misery's house, has missed voting on the day's activities; and Blackie informs him, '"You can't vote now. You know the rules.''' This observance of rules and democratic procedures—particularly of voting—is stressed thus several times in the story. As always in politics, the question of leadership of the party becomes crucial. Indeed, the entire first section of the story is given over to the characterization of Trevor and Blackie and to their struggle for leadership of the gang. The opening line of the story appears to be an offhand remark that "it was on the eve of August Bank Holiday that the latest recruit became the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang." However, in the context of the story, with its emphasis on the democratic rule of the gang, the remark takes on more significance. It reveals that Blackie's fall and Trevor's rise to power are in accord with the tenet of democracy that there is no inherent or permanent position of rank or privilege and that even a neophyte can rise to leadership by demonstrating skill or charisma. What qualities characterize Blackie's leadership? Generally, Blackie is serious, responsible, disciplined, but unimaginative. He is essentially the doer, the worker, and is miscast as theorizer. He customarily presided when the gang "met every morning in an impromptu car park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz'' and proposed each day a "plan of operations" on which the gang voted, generally such uninspired plans as snatching free bus rides from unwary conductors. Blackie and the gang show no awareness of the future or the need for long-range planning; similarly, they are ignorant of the past, as is evidenced by their reaction to Trevor's announcement that Mr. Thomas's house was built by Wren. An anonymous and representative voice of the gang responds: 'Who's Wren?' 'The man who built St. Paul's.' 'Who cares?' Blackie said. 'It's only Old Misery's.'
Blackie sees the house merely as property belonging to a privileged individual, not as an emblem of the continuity of the human race, not as a creation of artistic significance for the heritage of England. Like the whole gang, he is cut off from consecutive and humanistic values of the past, is temporally isolated in a modern blitzed world to which he responds on a day-to-day, "impromptu" basis in reaction to the conservative values of the past.
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Indeed, Blackie wishes to spurn Old Misery and everything associated with him, but he assumes his responsibility as leader when the gang is confronted by the old man. Significantly, this confrontation is full of ambiguities, mistrust, and failures of communication or understanding. Old Misery accosts Mike, Blackie, and Summers as he returns from a trip to the market: He said glumly, 'You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?' Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had responsibilities. 'Suppose we are?' he said ambiguously. 'I got some chocolates' Mr. Thomas said. 'Don't like 'em myself. Here you are. Not enough to go round, I don't suppose. There never is,' he added with sombre conviction. He handed over three packets of Smarties. The gang was puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried in explain it away. 'Bet someone dropped them and he picked 'em up,' somebody suggested. 'Pinched 'em and then got in a bleeding funk,' another thought aloud. 'It's a bribe,' Summers said. 'He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall.' 'We'll show him we don't take bribes,' Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no sign from Mr. Thomas.
In their responses, the gang members epitomize the cynicism and self-righteousness so often manifested by opponents of political conservatives. Unable to believe that Old Misery is capable of genuine charity or generosity, they suspect him of having round or stolen the candy; but as children of the blitzed world, their understanding of sleazy politics based on the cash nexus leads them to conclude that the candy is a bribe, a conclusion in which Blackie quickly acquiesces and on which he formulates his policy of demonstrating through a juvenile game an unwillingness to compromise. The gang's suspicion of the upper classes extends to Trevor also, even after he has been accepted as one of the gang. The boys question his motives for visiting Old Misery's house, conceding that the only possible reason one might do so would be to "pinch" something. When he denies having pinched anything, they gather around him:' 'It was as though an impromptu court were about to form and try some case of deviation." The reference to "deviation' ' and the formation of a kangaroo court remind the reader of the rhetoric and the show trials of various (though not exclusively) Marxist regimes of this century.
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Blackie's plodding steadiness as well as his lack of imagination is reflected in his cool response to this situation. He did not wish to exclude Trevor because of his activities: "He [Blackie] was just, he had no jealousy"; but Trevor is expected to conform to discipline, and any hint of elitism is suspect. It was Trevor's use of the word beautiful to describe Old Misery's house that worried Blackie; it was a word ' 'that belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent." Blackie's rigidity and isolationism, however, are precisely his limitations in Trevor's mind. As political philosopher, Trevor sees that knowledge is power and defends his consorting with Mr. Thomas by saying, "I found out things." As the only member of the gang who fully understands that Mr. Thomas's beautiful house, with its spiral staircase which is two hundred years old, is the very emblem of privilege and elitism, Trevor alone conceives of the significance of destroying the house. When he explains that Old Misery will be away on the Bank Holiday and that the gang can then break into the house, one of the boys again assumes that, in their customary way of combating the establishment, they will pinch things from the house. It is against such corruption by things that Blackie and Trevor must continually fight. Blackie, ever the pragmatist, objects, saying that they want no trouble with the law. Trevor, the idealist, objects on other grounds: '' 'I don't want to pinch anything... F ve got a better idea . . . We'll pull it down . . . We'll destroy it.'" Again, the pragmatic Blackie objects: '"There wouldn't be time . . . I've seen housebreakers at work.'" Trevor responds with the timeless cry of the disestablished or disenfranchised: '"We'd organize.'" He also asserts that he has the knowledge necessary for accomplishing this destruction. Having presented this challenge to Blackie's leadership, Trevor even uses British political terminology in forcing the issue:'' 'You can stand down, Blackie, if you'd rather ...'" In the portion of the story that follows, the denouement of part one, the political implications are made even clearer. Blackie is voted down; he becomes a political cast-off. At first, as the gang pays ' 'no more attention to him than to a stranger,'' Blackie is angry; but his pragmatism and his fidelity to the party win out over his personal depression. He realizes that the gang just might succeed in wrecking Old Misery's house, in which case ' 'the fame of the Wormsley Common car-park gang would surely
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reach around London... Driven by the pure, simple and altruistic ambition of fame for the gang, Blackie came back to where T. stood in the shadow of Old Misery's wall." Moments later, "Blackie realized he had raised his hand like any ordinary member of the gang." Ultimately, Blackie resumes a position of leadership within the gang, and the democratic process comes full circle in the story as, indeed, it did in Churchill's ouster and subsequent re-election; and surely this important contemporary political event must have lurked in Greene's consciousness as a kind of model for Blackie's career, though Blackie otherwise represents Churchill's antithesis and I would again caution against an allegorical reading in favor of a symbolic one. This scene not only portrays Blackie as the committed worker, but it also portrays Trevor once more as the political theorist, the Trotsky of the group. In addition, it demonstrates the necessity of collaboration between worker and intellectual for the success of the group's schemes. Trevor conceives of the plan in the abstract and maneuvers politically to bring about its implementation. Moreover, he is at pains to preserve the purity of the concept. He insists later in the story that no one will take anything from the house, but that it will be destroyed absolutely; and when a gang member fears that each member will have to contribute to a collection to buy tools, Trevor reveals both his naivete and his idealism in his arch reply: '"I don't want your money. But I can't buy a sledge-hammer.'" Significantly, the pragmatic Blackie steps forward and says: '"They are working on No. 15.1 know where they'll leave their stuff for Bank Holiday.'" Section two of the story describes the beginning of the destruction of the house in such a fashion as to stress the commitment and the organization of the gang as they all share the labor of implementing their carefully-laid plan. Blackie, joining the group belatedly,' 'had at once the impression of organization, very different from the old happy-go-lucky ways under his leadership." This section again reiterates the image of opposite forces working to sustain the project—i.e., the image of the pragmatic politico balanced against the party theorist. After all the other boys have left, T. discloses to Blackie a bundle of pound notes he has found in Old Misery's mattress. Immediately, Blackie asks, '"What are you going to do? Share them?'" Such a proposal seems practical and in accord with general socialist principles of sharing the wealth
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confiscated from the rich and privileged; but Trevor is the artist, the idealist, the theoretician, and here, at least, he thinks in terms of aesthetic rituals rather than pragmatic ends. He responds: '"We aren't thieves . . . Nobody's going to steal anything from this house. I kept these for you and me—a celebration . . . We'll burn them . . . one by one.'" However, Blackie cannot comprehend the intellectual theorizing of Trevor except in terms of simple vengeance. As the ash from the burning notes falls on their heads, Trevor says: 'I'd like to see Old Misery's face when we are through...' 'You hate him a lot?' Blackie asked. 'Of course I don't hate him,' T. said. There'd be no fun if I hated him . . . All this hate and love . . . it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie,' and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things. Til race you home, Blackie,' he said.
These things, in Trevor's mind, do not represent material wealth to be redistributed; rather they become material symbols of the established classes and of privilege, objects to be ritually destroyed in preparation for a new era. This same emphasis on things and the absolute destruction of things as well as an emphasis on democratic procedures arises again in part three of the story when, as the boys convene for the second day of destruction, Summer protests that the activity is too much like work. Trevor responds sharply: '"You voted like the others. We are going to destroy this house. There won't be anything left when we've finished.'" In this section, too, Trevor appears as the dreamer, Blackie as the worker. This characterization develops particularly out of the crisis which occurs when the boys discover that Old Misery is returning early from his holiday. Trevor momentarily panics as he begs for time to consider how to finish the project. As Blackie learned earlier in the story, Trevor now learns that "his authority had gone with his ambiguity. He was [now] only one of the gang." Blackie—the doer, actor, worker—rescues the intellectual in distress. "T. stood with his back to the rubble like a boxer knocked groggy against the ropes. He had no words as his dreams shook and slid. Then Blackie acted before the gang had time to laugh, pushing Summers backward." Blackie whips the gang into line and then asks Trevor for his plan of action. Blackie "was the leader again," but now
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he merely implements Trevor's ideas and sees that the commands are executed. Greene finally makes quite clear that the initial conflict has been fully resolved through collaboration. Caught up in the group enterprise, ' 'the question of leadership no longer concerned the gang." However, Blackie's practicality remains useful; it is emphasized once again in passing in the concluding section of the story. The boys began to loosen the mortar between the bricks, but "they started too high, and it was Blackie who hit on the damp course and realized the work could be halved if they weakened the joints immediately above." Trevor is not mentioned at all in this last section of the story, his work—the planning of the destruction and the enactment of the ritualistic burning of the notes— presumably having been completed. "The Destructors," however, is not merely a story about the struggle between two personality types for leadership of a gang any more than it is merely a story about the destruction of an old house by delinquent boys. That fact is made clear by the introduction of Old Misery as owner of the house that Wren built: "Old Misery—whose real name was Thomas—had once been a builder and decorator. He lived alone in the crippled house, doing for himself." The nickname given Mr. Thomas by the boys suggests not only the personal emotional state of the old man but also the unpleasant aspect of English traditions built on privilege and class distinctions—the old misery inflicted on the masses by the conservative ruling classes. Mr. Thomas's house, like the landed and hereditary houses of England, indeed the House of Lords itself, is "crippled," debilitated, and weakened: "Since the bombs fell something had gone wrong with the pipes of the house and Old Misery was too mean to spend money on the property. He could do the decorating himself at cost price, but he had never learnt plumbing." In like manner, the Conservatives had been builders and decorators; particularly in the midst of war, Churchill and the Conservatives had stood for outer strength, appearances and form, but they failed to understand the inner problems of the nation brought about by the war and could not mend them. A man living in the blitzed world depicted by Greene was no longer capable of ' 'doing for himself'; and the Labour Party's plans for nationalization and government assistance through democratic socialism pulled Churchill's house down around him. Mr. Thomas, of course, never expects any accommodation with the Wormsley Common Gang.
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In a passage cited earlier, he approaches the gang "glumly." He voices "with sombre conviction" the conservative view that "there never is ... enough to go round," the traditional assertion and complaint against Labour policies of providing welfare services such as those provided by the National Insurance Act of 1946 and the National Health Service instituted in 1948. It is in section three of the story, however, that Old Misery most clearly epitomizes privilege and conservatism. The boys devise a scheme to lure Mr. Thomas to his outhouse and imprison him there so that they can complete the destruction of his house. (Incidentally, in the revised version in Collected Stories, Greene deliberately emphasizes the modernity of the boys by having them refer to the outhouse as the "lav" whereas Mr. Thomas consistently, refers to it as the "loo''; in earlier versions, both the boys and Mr. Thomas use only the term "loo.") In leading him to the loo supposedly to rescue a boy who has gotten stuck there, the gang forces Mr. Thomas to climb his own garden wall, thus revealing to him that they have sometimes climbed it. His response is reactionary, possessive but traditionally polite, quaintly displaying the native courtesy of the privileged as well as the crotchety, authoritarian instincts which insist on deference and protocol. Til have the wall built up,' Mr. Thomas said, Til not have you boys coming over here, using my loo.' He stumbled on the path but the boy caught his elbow and supported him. 'Thank you, thank you, my boy,' he murmured automatically .. . Tm not unreasonable. I don't mind you playing round the place Saturday mornings. Sometimes I like company. Only it's got to be regular. One of you asks leave and I say Yes. Sometimes I'll say No. Won't feel like it. And you come in at the front door and out at the back. No garden walls.'
The incongruity of Mr. Thomas's insistence on tradition and regular procedures at the very moment when he is about to become a political prisoner and when the final destruction of his house is going on a few yards away is overwhelming. He shares the naivete of Churchill and other Conservatives who failed to grasp fully just how far England had come in 1945. Later, after being locked in his own loo, he "felt dithery and confused and old." In the last scene of the story, Mr. Thomas is pictured as a pathetic old man who is outraged at the abrogation of his personal property rights. Conversely, almost everyone else in the last section views the destruction quite impersonally, including the unnamed representative of the gang who addresses the imprisoned Mr. Thomas:
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'There's nothing personal,' the voice said. 'We want you to be comfortable tonight.' 'Tonight,' Mr. Thomas repeated increduously. 'Catch,' the voice said. 'Penny buns—we've buttered them, and sausage-rolls. We don't want you to starve, Mr. Thomas.'
The impersonal nature of this act is echoed by the lorry driver who unwittingly pulls down the house, not knowing that the boys have attached a line from the house to his lorry. After pulling down the house, the driver rescues Mr. Thomas from the loo, only to be confronted with the indignant and outraged old man who keeps reiterating '"Afy house'" (italics mine). The lorry driver apologizes for laughing at the incongruous scene of destruction as Mr. Thomas upbraids him: Tm sorry,' the driver said, making heroic efforts, but when he remembered the sudden check to his lorry, the crash of bricks falling, he became convulsed again. One moment the house had stood there with such dignity between the bomb-sites like a man in a top hat, and then, bang, crash, there wasn't anything left—not anything. He said, Tm sorry. I can't help it, Mr Thomas. There's nothing personal, but you got to admit it's funny.'
Thus Trevor's prophecy that "not anything" would remain is fulfilled. The simile used to compare the dignity of the house to that of a "man in a top hat'' is the final identification of the house with the privileged class, and it is, of course, the same image which comes to Blackie's mind when Trevor uses the word beautiful earlier in the story to describe Mr. Thomas's house. In addition, the lorry driver's echo of the nameless boy's earlier plea that "there's nothing personal" not only reflects the impersonal nature of modern life but also reinforces Trevor's earlier disdain for human emotions and his insistence that there are only "things." Thus the gang symbolically destroys not only class distinctions and privilege but also dehumanizes ' 'itself' in the process by stressing neither beauty, individuality, love, nor grace but efficiency, democracy, collaboration, and unemotional commitment to group action. As Mr. Thomas's house falls, the story stands— complete, unified, closely woven. Yet it remains puzzling to many readers; and in conclusion, it seems worthwhile to consider the source of this effect. I should like to suggest tentatively that the source of that puzzlement resides both in Greene's own ambiguity regarding the changing political guard and also in the distance between his own
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religious conservatism and the general secular liberalism of most of his readers today. As an artist, Greene certainly must be aware that art and beauty traditionally have been the private province or concern of the aristocratic classes in Europe, and he naturally enough values the grace and elegance preserved through that conservative tradition as in Wren's architecture or other esthetic monuments. Yet as a modern intellectual very much in touch with contemporary politics, he certainly must be equally aware of the social inequities often fostered by that conservative tradition. However, the irony of that paradox is doubled, for the system which purports to correct those inequities—especially as the Labour Party attempted to correct them in England—too frequently substitutes a New Misery for an Old Misery, a blitzed, impersonal world without any esthetic sensibility or any sense of history. Thus, the ambiguous effect of the story lies partly in this double paradox inherent in the spirit of the author. Secondly, Greene's Catholic bias tends to make him sceptical of any temporal order; and though many contemporary readers may instinctively identify with the democratic procedures and the collaborative efforts of the Wormsley Common Gang, Greene himself is much more ambivalent toward worldly reformers or revolutionaries as is evidenced in many of his works—The Power and the Glory, Brighton Rock, and The Honorary Consul, to name but three. This distance between the world-view (or other-world view) of Greene and the Weltanschauung of the contemporary secular reader is also, then, a source of the puzzlement often produced by "The Destructors." Finally, however, the story satisfies the close reader by its perfect balance of one political viewpoint against another as the image of the spiral staircase held in suspension by "opposite forces" epitomizes the story, and these political viewpoints are much better understood when seen in the light of English politics of the decade immediately preceding the writing of the story. Source: Jesse F. McCartney, "Politics in Graham Greene's 'The Destructors,'" in Southern Humanities Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, Winter 1978, pp. 31^1.
John J. Stinson In the following essay, Stinson discusses the conflicts of order/chaos and good/evil in "The Destructors.''
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"The Destructors," a masterfully controlled and deeply resonant short story, occupies the final position in Graham Greene's collection, Twenty-One Stories. Although it is very possibly the best of all the stories save the lead-off story, "The Basement Room," and although it has been collected in several textbook anthologies including the widely used Story and Structure by Laurence Perrine, "The Destructors'' has as yet provoked no extended comment in print. The story, which concerns itself with a particularly egregious case of vandalism among London youth, has failed, perhaps, to be fully understood. ' 'The Destructors'' attempts not so much to provide a sociological or psychological explanation for the causes of juvenile delinquency (although it does do this to some extent) as it does to provide a parablelike comment on man's inborn depravity and the primacy of evil in the world. Greene's theological view, here as elsewhere, is strongly Augustinian, as is that of two of his British contemporaries who have written dark fables of youthful violence far better known than Greene's short story—William Golding in Lord of the Flies and Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange. To all three writers, children are far from being Wordsworthian repositories of heavenly innocence; they are used rather as stark but convenient representations of man's almost irresistibly strong pull toward evil. To all three authors, the liberal social ethic (scientism, empiricism, liberal humanism) is largely anathema since it fails, in their view, to take proper account of the extensively dark side of human nature; like so many twentieth-century writers they are opponents of rationalism (thus the frequent grotesques in Golding and Burgess), and are interested not so much in explanations of the causes of individual human behavior as they are in all-embracing comments on human nature. "The Destructors," however, achieves the success that it does because Greene gives it enough lifeinfusing blood to save it from becoming simply another pale allegory. After all, there is hardly anything original about the thematic appearance of original sin, especially in modern literature. The boys in the story are individual boys first and foremost; they are symbols of man's innate leaning toward depravity only secondarily. And unlike strict parable or allegory, the story ends in paradox rather than in resolution. But still there is a quite definite theological scaffolding upon which Greene has built an artistically meaningful story and a significant comment on the times in which we live.
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The boys in the story are individual boys first and foremost; they are symbols of man's innate leaning toward depravity only secondarily."
Order/Chaos Conflict Although there are several levels of conflict in the story, all are subsumptions of the Order/Chaos conflict. The underlying theological explanation for this ever-present conflict is suggested almost immediately by the obvious symbolism of the name by which the boys think of themselves: the Wormsley Common Gang. This suggests, of course, that the devil (the worm) is indeed abroad in the world, that he is a common denominator in at least some of the actions of all human beings, and that he lives even in the hearts of these boys who are, to all overt appearances, normal in every way. The story ultimately reveals that the boys, random survivors of the Blitz and dwellers in a decidedly post-Edenic world, are strongly predisposed toward forming the most appallingly thorough of partnerships with Chaos and Old Night. As a part of the larger Order/Chaos conflict, Greene insistently draws the reader's attention to what might best be called the plan/chance conflict. To modern man generally, as to the boys who are his representatives, chance seems to be the ruling principle in the universe. It is by chance that Old Misery's house, unlike those surrounding it on both sides, has been spared destruction during the Nazi bombings. The bombed-out lot on one side, cleared of its rubble, has become an ' 'impromptu car park'' (italics mine). The word appears again in the story when it is said that the boys formed an "impromptu court.'' Prior to Trevor's ascendancy to the position of gang leader, the boys' favorite pastime is to' 'take buses at random." Blackie, the old gang leader, is made to feel in a more personal way the element of chance in the world, the ' 'fickleness of favour'' as the narrator calls it, when the magnetism of Trevor's plan pulls the boys into regarding him (Trevor) as their leader. It is by chance that Old Misery returns home early before the work of destruction is completed, but it is also by pure chance that he is spotted
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on the train by Mike who has sufficient time to warn the other boys of the old man's approach. Greene makes some other quite distinct efforts at conveying the feeling that in the modern world especially, some dark force has brought about an abdication of plan, order and control. Chance almost totally prevails. Paradoxes in the story are tightly wound as is evident in the working out of the plan/chance conflict. We might well suppose that chance is to be equated with chaos, and we might choose, as do theologians and moral philosophers, to define evil as fundamental disorder. But Trevor, the diabolically cool agent of destruction, is the one character who, ironically enough, is possessed of a plan—a finely formed and resolutely wanton one. He is no victim of a devilish but momentary impulse, no real representative of the unleashed Id. Conversely, the boy whose name—Blackie—most directly suggests the devil, acts largely on impulse; it was under his leadership that the gang "took buses at random," and gave only fitful attention to any one activity. Blackie is, however, only a minor diabolist indeed; it is Trevor who is the representative of some deeper Unreason to which the boys give a ready response. Trevor might not seem at first to fit the demonic part which he is to play; he is ordinarily timid, deferential, even somewhat involuted. There is, however, a kind of larger logic to Trevor's actions, a logic which can be explained on the universal human level as well as on the individual psychological one. Trevor is revealed in the story as a kind of quintessential modern man, an inwardly anguished sufferer given over to a philosophy of radical materialism (or perhaps nihilism) that is born of a sick existential despair. "All this hate and love. It's soft. It's hooey. There's only things, Blackie," says Trevor. The other boys, themselves no believers in absolutes, would seem inclined to agree. It was they who could feel only scornful and embarrassed at Trevor's use of the word beautiful apropos of Old Misery's house. All of the boys, then, live in a frighteningly chill and empty world, a world devoid of moral values, decency, trust or beauty. When Old Misery quite benevolently gives them some candy, the boys react in the only way that their honestly cynical natures permit—with suspicion and resentment. Without knowing it, of course, the boys actually do long deeply for the orderly security of absolute values, for a fixed universe in which they can see their place and to some reasonable extent control their destinies. But to them, as to modern man generally, all absolutes are impossible of
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achievement save one—destruction. Through destruction, the reverse side of creation, man can become a god of sorts, or can at least play at it as Trevor does, or like a more famous and more anguished existential hero, the Caligula of Camus. We learn that the boys "worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction is after all a form of creation." The boys' "creation" obviously assuages somewhat an impotence that is both existential and social. No astute cultural commentators are needed to draw parallels and analogies to the youth of the world of today and the last few years. The ironies of the plan/chance conflict seem further revealed in the fact that Old Misery's house was designed by none other than Christopher Wren. It was Wren, who more than any other man, created both order and beauty out of the chaotic shambles that was London after the great fire of 1666. An astronomer and mathematician as well as an architect, Wren serves as a convenient representative for Greene of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rationalist. It is totally significant that it was World War II that disastrously weakened the foundation of Wren's house; that from then on it leaned precipitously and had to be supported by makeshift wooden struts. The rationalistic spirit, thoroughly beset since late Victorian times, seems too to have survived the unchecked horrors of World War II only as a lingering invalid. It is ironic, though, that it is Trevor, the man with a plan, who destroys Wren's plan—and symbolically, the whole preexistent world of apparent human order, form and control. Trevor, although closely in league with the dark forces of the universe, acts not out of motiveless malignity. He is not the Vice of the medieval morality play, nor is he lago, nor Satan himself. For one thing, Greene takes some care to outline a psychological basis for Trevor's planned deed of destruction. Keenly conscious of class distinctions, Trevor felt both his social and psychic universe shattered when ' 'his father had 'come down in the world.'" (There are overtones of Judaic-Christian myth in the phrase, too, with its allusion to the Fall.) The fact that Trevor's father had been an architect is not insignificant either. It seems likely that the boy's father was, at least in the world's terms, a failure as an architect. As a hyper-sensitive adolescent, Trevor is unable to accept this fact, but seeks instead, no doubt on a level largely subconscious, to avenge his father's hurt on the world of architecture. Old Misery was himself, we learn, once a "builder and decorator", and his house, designed by Wren, the dean of London architects, is conveniently lo-
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cated in the neighborhood, thus serving as a neat and ready object of vengeful attack. But underlying all other psychological factors, perhaps, is the trauma likely to have been suffered by most of the boys as a result of the war. Newborn babies at the very beginning of the war, they spent a significantly enough part of their psychologically formative years huddled, as Greene suggests, in parents' arms in the Wormsley Common underground station as Nazi bombs dropped in the streets above. Greene is careful to provide such psychological explanations, but he does so with sufficient subtlety and relative unobtrusiveness. The reader is not at all apt to get the feeling that he is being burdened with a too rigid schema or a series of explanations that are either perfunctory or contrived. Narrative comment in the story is held to a bare minimum; the progression and order of events is direct, economical, and almost wholly unimpeded.
Good/Evil Interpenetration To be sure, though, there is something enigmatic about Trevor, some inscrutably dark center of his being. But Trevor himself is quite definitely not evil incarnate. The student of Greene's fiction knows the strong proclivity of the author for the saintsinner paradox—his Manichean-like belief that good and evil are the opposed forces in the universe but that they everywhere interpenetrate in this postlapsarian world in ways which are endlessly confusing. Evil can be found in good men, and often great good in men whom the world calls evil. A recurrent paradox in Greene's fiction (regarded by some as heretical and by others as simply sentimental) involves the notion that the man strongly attracted toward evil, or even wholly given over to it, is more apt to find the path to salvation than the faceless entity who remains forever morally uncommitted. Greene is of course not without some good support in his theological view, despite his sometime trouble with the Roman Curia. We have the example of Christ's association with public sinners and his awful warning that it is the lukewarm that he spits from his mouth. Dante, as is well known, consigns his moral neutrals to a harsh if utterly appropriate punishment in hell's antechamber. In "The Destructors," then, one wonders whether Trevor should better be viewed as saint or sinner, savior or satan, an angel of vengeance with a fiery sword or a corrupt innocent, now become one of Lucifer's chief cohorts. The paradoxical—even grotesque—interpenetration of good and evil in the world is revealed
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further in the story by a corresponding mixture of literary modes. The bastardization of the old pure forms is forcefully underscored, for example, in the ending of the story which is both comic and tragic at once. Earlier in the story, the odd conjunction of good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly, could be found adumbrated in the paradoxes of Old Misery's house itself. It's something to do with "opposite forces," Trevor explains to the other boys, that supports the floating staircase in the centuries old house. And the house itself, which serves a complex double duty of representing the state of man after the Fall as well as the state of Western civilization in modern times, is beautiful to the eye, but rotten within—its foundation nearly collapsed and its plumbing no longer functioning. If the boys are, in Trevor's own analogy, "like worms . . . in an apple", the apple is already rotten. The house, representative of decadent modern civilization, is owned and inhabited by a man named Old Misery, and herein lies another meaningful paradox. Mr. Thomas certainly seems a benevolent enough old man, but actually he can be seen as a luciferan figure. What better name might the devil have, after all, than Old Misery? He offers candy as Satan offered the apple, but his gift would not bring knowledge of good and evil, but only forgetfulness. The boys would be narcotized into accepting the world as it is, and thus perpetuating "old misery." One message seems to be that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children (cf. the original sin motif and the social-psychological import of Trevor's father's "fall") and that the only real heritage bequeathed by current' 'civilization'' to its young is misery and anxiety. Seeing beyond false facades and seeing through "bribes" (Old Misery's gift of candy), the younger generation apprehends in an almost visceral way the dry-rot of corruption that is the world of today. Feeling gives rise to action, and those in a state of psychic disruption sometimes seek to make the world an illustration of some inner vision of chaos. Destruction has its own kind of inner logic and necessity. While it might be said that Trevor and the "gang" are harbingers of some strong dialectical principle that is currently in the process of working itself out within a large but dimly shadowed pattern of historical necessity, it can hardly be thought that they consciously see themselves as instruments of radical social change. Yet in their incongruous blend of thoroughly anarchic tendency and basic human benevolence (remember Trevor's solicitude for Old Misery's comfort when the old man was kept prisoner in his outhouse), they do rather strikingly foreshadow a most visible segment
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of the young generation of the nineteen-sixties—the young men that these same boys (Trevor and Blackie are fifteen in 1954, it would seem) were to become a few short years later. Definitive interpretation of' 'The Destructors'' is impossible, but non-definitiveness seems to come close to being the meaning itself. In the post-Edenic, usually seedy world which Greene has made his special province, absolutes are nearly impossible of attainment. Life in the world east of Eden is thoroughly composed of a whole series of paradoxes that are sometimes poignant, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes grotesque—sometimes all of these at once. Literature, being a reflection of life, should then not "cheat" by the imposition of false absolutes. The denouement of the story will only be adjudged thoroughly baffling until we understand it as a formal reflection of the author's Manichean vision. Various appropriate responses to the ending of the story are of course possible: satisfaction (the protagonists having accomplished their goal), laughter, disgust, frustration, resentment, puzzlement and disquietude, feelings of tragedy. The ending is precisely right for our complexly troubled modern times: monistically pure or set responses, emotional or intellectual, are woefully inappropriate in the complex and supercharged atmosphere of the modern world. The center cannot hold; the earth caves inward and the poles touch. In such a world tragedy and comedy collide; the sublime begins to slide toward the grotesque. Artistic anarchy is loosed upon the world.
Form and Meaning "The Destructors," though, is not an antistory; it has both form and meaning. Unlike most modern fiction of the kind which comments on the atomization of society and the fragmentation of the self, "The Destructors" is not disintegrative in its technique. It is difficult, in fact, to think of a contemporary story that makes anywhere near as richly meaningful an artistic statement, that is more highly and tightly wrought by means of narratively direct, straightforward, unpretentious technique. And as to meaning, the story is not absurdist, although it is, perhaps, within hailing distance of the Absurd. The story comes far nearer to standing in the tradition of the Christian grotesque, a tradition which sees man staring into the face of a devil immanent and active in the world, not into Nothingness. In this tradition, the dualities of human experience—mind/ body, heaven/hell, permanence/change, innocence/
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experience—are both motive force and central aspect of technique. The aesthetic puzzlement the reader might well experience at the conclusion of "The Destructors" should be at least somewhat mitigated when he sees it as falling largely within the grotesque mode. Schlegel sees the grotesque residing in "the unstable mixture of heterogeneous elements, the explosive force of the paradoxical, which is both ridiculous and terrifying." The ostensibly sudden collapse of Old Misery's house, both ridiculous and terrifying, gives the greatest explosive force to the intricately wired series of paradoxes so carefully prepared within the story. The grotesque invariably involves the sudden and shocking visitation of the irrational, the dark and demonic, upon the world of apparent human order and form. (A literal worm found in a literal apple is a kind of mild and everyday example of the grotesque.) Traditionally, then, the grotesque, whether Christian or absurdist, has been anti-rational in its thrust. And so it is here too. Old Misery, a man who insists on things being ' 'done regular'', is the rationalist who refuses to see the world as it is and who, by his own naivete, his own failure of moral vision, perpetuates ' 'old misery." The demonic elements in the world leap out in still more terrifying attack when their presence has gone undetected. The man who fails to take proper heed of the lessons of World War II by seeing into his own and others' heart of darkness, is morally culpable of giving the green light to further abominations. The Wormsley Common Gang, while representative of fallen man at large, are also representative of a new generation, and one wonders if, with some deeply intuitive understanding, they are not trying to teach the older generation the lessons of the past—and the recent present. If Greene is indeed saying, as he seems to be, that in this late hour, man must come thoroughly to know himself— most especially his dark potentialities—before he can save himself, he is striking exactly the same thematic note as Golding does in Lord of the Flies. "The Destructors," though, defies interpretation as a strict fable, since any view of man which sees him as a paradoxical and ever-mysterious creature can posit no single meaning. It is man's mixed nature that gives rise to both his tragedy and his triumph. East of Eden man's estate is an excruciatingly intermediate one. Typical of many outhouses, the door in Old Misery's has a star, perhaps a symbol of man's illimitable aspirations, his nobility, and the light of his intellect. But the ' 'loo'' itself is a place of excremental function, a constant re-
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minder of the soul's humiliating imprisonment within the body, of the inevitable human progress of decay. It is here that Old Misery sits disconsolately as the Wormsley Common Gang achieves its only possible absolute, that of destruction: "There wasn't anything left anywhere." For the boys this is a moment of triumph, for Old Misery of tragedy, for the lorry driver, of irrepressible laughter. The event itself, defying a fixed and absolute interpretation, is the natural culmination of a story full of the types of paradox that the sons of Adam are heir to. Universal in its import, "The Destructors" is, though, a poignant Song of Experience aimed most directly at
D e s t r u c t o r s
Miller, R. H., "Short Stories, Plays, Essays," in Understanding Graham Greene, University of South Carolina Press, 1990, pp. 149-76. Nehring, Neil, "Graham Greene," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 162: British Short-Fiction Writers, 1915-1945, Gale Research, 1996, pp. 125-39. Spurling, John, Graham Greene, Methuen, 1983, pp. 71-75. Waugh, Evelyn, "Felix Culpa?," in Commonweal, Vol. 48, No. 14, July 16, 1948, pp. 322-25.
Further Reading
our own day and age. Source: John J. Stinson, "Graham Greene's 'The Destructors': Fable for a World Far East of Eden," in American Benedictine Review, Vol. 24, No. 4, December 1973, pp. 510-18.
Sources Costa, Richard Hauer, "Graham Greene," in Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Vol. 7: Writers After World Warll, 1945-1960, Gale Research, 1991. DeVitis, A. A., "Graham Greene," in Twayne's English Authors Series Online, G. K. Hall and Co., 1999. "Graham Greene," in Newsmakers 1991, Gale Research, 1991. Jones, Richard, "The Improbable Spy," in Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 55, No. 2, Spring 1979, pp. 338^9. McCartney, Jesse F., "Politics in Graham Greene's 'The Destructors,'" in Southern Humanities Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, Winter 1978, pp. 31^1.
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Bloom, Harold, and William Golding, eds., Graham Greene, Modern Critical Views series, Chelsea House, 1992. Noted literary scholars Bloom and Golding explore Greene's life and career in this installment of their Modern Critical Views series. Besides reviewing Greene's biographical information, the editors examine Greene's body of work, commenting on themes, style, and influences. Cassis, A. F., ed., Graham Greene: Man of Paradox, Loyola Press, 1994. This collection of fifty-seven essays and excerpts includes writings by the author, interviews, and writings about Greene by others, all of which give the reader a sense of what kind of man Greene was personally and professionally. Topics covered include writing, Catholicism, and the writer's role in modern society. Contributors include Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Burgess. Thomson, David, England in the Twentieth Century, 1914-1979, Viking Penguin, 1990. Thomson provides an over view of world events of the twentieth century (including both world wars, the depression, etc.) as they relate to England, in addition to reviewing important domestic issues and events. Thomson's study stops just short of Margaret Thatcher's career as prime minister.
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Don't Look Now Daphne du Maurier 1970
When Daphne du Maurier wrote the short story "Don't Look Now," sometimes referred to as a novella for its length, she was firmly established as a popular writer. However, as Nina Auerbach notes in British Writers, though du Maurier was an immediate success when she first started publishing in the 1930s, she was also immediately "dismissed by the cultural establishment as too readable to be literary." Her work was criticized as being mere romantic escapism, but this opinion never seemed to dim du Maurier's efforts, considering she wrote until her last days. "Don't Look Now," published in 1970, is a tale of the supernatural involving a British couple vacationing in Venice to escape the pain of their young daughter's recent death. An encounter with two sisters at a cafe, and the blind one's claim that she can "see" the deceased child sitting with her parents, launches a series of events that ends violently. The story was made into a suspense movie a few years after it was published and has remained one of du Maurier's best-known tales.
Author Biography Daphne du Maurier was born in London on May 13, 1907, the daughter of renowned actor Gerald du
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Maurier and granddaughter of artist and author George du Maurier. The author of seventeen novels and numerous short stories—many of which have been made into movies and television shows—du Maurier was also a playwright, essayist, and respected biographer. Millions of readers have made her one of the most beloved, but critically ignored, authors of the twentieth century. Du Maurier and her family lived in a comfortable world insulated from hardships. Most of du Maurier's youth was spent sailing, traveling with her friends, and writing stories, which a well-connected uncle shepherded into publication. Many see her charmed and relatively easy life as one of the reasons why du Maurier's writing is much more conventional than that of her contemporaries who were busy experimenting with avant-garde techniques such as stream-of-consciousness and who were writing on war and poverty. In 1931, du Maurier published, to critical acclaim, her first novel, The Loving Spirit, a romantic family tale. The novel so impressed thirty-fiveyear-old Major Frederick Browning that he sailed a small boat past the du Maurier country home in an effort to meet the young author. Browning and du Maurier married in 1932, and in 1946 du Maurier became Lady Browning when her husband was knighted. She and Browning had three children and a comfortable life, but all was not straightforward in du Maurier's personal life; she was widely known to have had a number of affairs, both heterosexual and lesbian. Rebecca, her most famous and well-considered novel, was published in 1938 and received Britain's National Book Award. In 1940, Rebecca was made into a movie, which won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. Other du Maurier novels and stories have been made into films, including ' 'Don't Look Now," originally published in 1970, and "The Birds." Du Maurier continued writing nearly to the end of her life. In 1971, a collection of her horror stories, including "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now," was published as Don't Look Now (released in Britain as Not After Midnight). She died in Par, Cornwall, England, on April 19,1989. According to Nina Auerbach in British Writers, the cause of death was "stubborn self-starvation."
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Plot Summary In Torcello ' 'Don't Look Now,'' opens with John, a British tourist in a small town outside of Venice, noticing two elderly twin sisters sitting at a nearby table. He and Laura, his wife, create wild scenarios to describe the sisters and their possible business in Torcello. The couple joke like this for some time, giving John some hope that his wife is getting over a recent traumatic event. Laura decides to follow one of the sisters into the bathroom to see if she is a woman or a cross-dresser. Meanwhile, John thinks about the recent death of their five-year-old daughter, Christine. Her death was a huge blow to Laura, and John hopes that their vacation will ease her pain. A few minutes later, Laura emerges from the bathroom looking shocked. She tells John that the sister in the bathroom explained that her twin is a blind psychic. She had been staring at John and Laura because she had "seen" Christine sitting between the couple, laughing and happy. "You see, she isn't dead, she's still with us," explains Laura happily. John is not so pleased at this turn of events. "It's what I've been dreading. She's gone off her head," he thinks. John is doubtful and worried but,
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because Laura seems happy, he grudgingly accepts the incident. Later at a cathedral, Laura is engrossed with the architecture and art. John suddenly sees the twins, much to his dismay, although Laura does not, and the blind sister's eyes are fixed on him. He feels ' 'an impending sense of doom" and is unable to move, thinking, "This is the end, there is no escape, no future." He becomes angry and grabs Laura for a walk along a canal.
Back in Venice, Later That Evening John and Laura, relaxed and back in their Venetian hotel room, make love and get ready for dinner at a restaurant. They take a walk before dinner but get lost in the tangled back streets of the city. Suddenly, John sees from the corner of his eye a small child, in a cloak with a hood covering her head, running away from someone. Laura has already moved up the street and does not see the incident, and he does not share it with her. They find a restaurant, but just as they sit at a table and order drinks, John sees the twin sisters being seated, too. He is suspicious that either the sisters are following them or Laura told them where they would be eating that night. Much to John's dismay, Laura sees the women and goes over to speak to them for a long while. When Laura returns to their table, John is drunk and angry. Laura tells him that the blind sister has had another vision that Christine is unhappy and that John is in danger and must leave Venice as soon as possible. This talk enrages John, and they fight. Laura also tells John that the blind sister believes that he is psychic but doesn't know it yet. When they return to their hotel, there is a telegram waiting for them, stating that their son, Johnnie, back in England, is sick and may have to undergo surgery for appendicitis. Laura decides that this means that their son is the one in danger and not John.
The Next Morning Laura wants to leave immediately for England to be with Johnnie, but John is less concerned and feels that booking a train for the next night should be sufficient. Laura is insistent and manages to secure a
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seat on a charter flight with a group of British tourists. John must drive by himself to Milan to pick up the train, and he is not happy about it. After Laura leaves, John takes a ferry to San Marco to pick up his car. He is sure he sees his wife, looking distressed, on a ferry returning to Venice. She is with the twin sisters. John returns to his hotel, but no one has seen or heard from his wife or the sisters. A check with the charter company confirms that the plane left on time with all its seats filled. Although this would seem to indicate that Laura indeed took her reserved seat on the plane, John nevertheless constructs a scenario in which Laura never intended to catch the plane and instead' 'made an assignation with the sisters." Or possibly, he thinks, the twin sisters somehow tricked Laura, in her agitated state, and kidnapped her. John goes to the police station to report Laura's disappearance. While there, John meets a British couple who tell him about a murderer loose in the city. A policeman listens to John's story, including his suspicions about the twin sisters' possible involvement. John returns to the hotel and places a phone call to the headmaster's house, whose wife assures him that Johnnie has gone through the surgery well. He is relieved at the good news about his son but shocked when she puts Laura on the phone. He tries to explain to Laura his confusion about her whereabouts. Later at the hotel, the police show up to take John to the station, where they are holding the twin sisters for questioning. John tries to explain the mixup to the police and apologizes to the twins. The sighted sister explains to John,' 'You saw u s . . . and your wife too. But not today. You saw us in the future." On the way back to his hotel, John sees the frightened little girl in the cloak and hood again, this time with a man in pursuit. He is worried for her, especially now knowing about the murderer. He follows her into a room and bolts the door against the man chasing her. The hood slides away, and the little girl turns out to be a "little thick-set woman dwarf . . . grinning at him." John hears police outside the door, but the dwarf throws a knife at him, which sticks in his throat. As John dies, he realizes that his vision of Laura and the sisters on the ferry is the future when his wife returns to Venice to pick up his body.
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Characters The Blind Twin Sister The blind twin sister appears with her sighted twin sister at the restaurant where Laura and John are having lunch in Torcello, Italy, near Venice. She is from Edinburgh, has a shock of white hair, and often stares toward John as though she sees him. John guesses that she is in her mid-sixties. She is the psychic one, according to her sister, and has studied the occult for many years. During lunch in Torcello, she "sees" Christine sitting between Laura and John, describing her right down to one of her favorite dresses, and adds that Christine is doing well and is happy. The blind sister tells John that he, too, has a psychic gift and can see into the future. The sighted sister often speaks for the blind sister and helps her walk.
Christine Christine is John and Laura's daughter, who has died from meningitis at age five. She is described as a "waxen, dark-haired sprite." According to the blind sister, Christine is always with her parents and is usually happy. But later in the story, Christine, according to the blind sister, is worried about her father and the danger that awaits him if he stays in Venice.
The Dwarf
Media Adaptations In 1973, Paramount Pictures released Don't Look Now, a film adaptation starring Julie Christie as Laura and Donald Sutherland as John. The film, directed by Nicolas Roeg, is available on VHS or laser disc from Paramount Home Video.
When their son Johnnie becomes ill, John is not as anxious, or as eager to return to England, as is Laura. He believes that the headmaster and his wife will take care of his son just as well as he and his wife would. His major concern is that Laura and he have some time to relax and be together as a couple. John tries to protect his wife as if she were a fragile creature. When John hears a cry on the street and first sees a hooded character that he assumes to be a child in distress, he is glad that Laura is not around. He is worried that such a sight would ' 'have a disastrous effect on her overwrought nerves.'' His response to Laura's wanting to believe that the blind sister has seen Christine is conciliatory and almost paternalistic.' 'He had to play along with her, agree, soothe, do anything to bring back some sense of calm," he believes.
When John first sees the dwarf, he mistakes her for a young, frightened child running through the streets wearing a hooded jacket. John's second sighting of the dwarf is at the end of the story. He follows the dwarf into a room and, thinking that he has rescued the frightened child of the day before, he bolts the door. With a closer look, John realizes that the child is actually a small woman, barely three feet tall, with gray hair. She laughs and suddenly throws a knife at him, which hits him in the throat and kills him.
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John is married to Laura. While he is not a heartless man, he has trouble sympathizing with the depth of Laura's grief over the death of their child. He has brought Laura to Venice because this is where they spent their honeymoon, and he hopes the trip will lighten her mood. Laura's eagerness to believe the twin sisters' stories about Christine makes John uncomfortable at first and then angry later when the twins show up again at dinner.
Laura is John's wife and is most likely in her twenties or thirties, as their physician notes that she and John are "both young still" and that she can bear another child. She is on vacation in Venice with John to get over the death of her youngest child, Christine, from meningitis. Laura and John also have a son, Johnnie, who is in school in England. She and John seem to be comfortably middle-class because they have traveled overseas a number of
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Johnnie is Laura and John's school-aged son, who develops appendicitis while the couple is vacationing in Venice. He is described by John as "a tough o n e . . . someone in his own right,'' separated from Christine by a number of years.
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times, own a car, and can afford to send their son to a boarding school. Laura desperately wants to believe the blind twin's story that she has had a vision of Christine, laughing, sitting between Laura and John at lunch. Her grief and guilt over Christine's death are somewhat mitigated by the thought that her child is happy and doing well, even though she is not living on Earth. Her grief at losing Christine exacerbates her response to the news that Johnnie may have appendicitis. She tells her husband that she has lost one child and does not want to lose another and wants to return to England immediately. Laura seems to be at her best when she is in control of what is happening. Her mood improves when she has something to do that is constructive, such as when she must arrange to return to England to take care of Johnnie or when she follows a guidebook to learn about the art in a cathedral.
The Sighted Twin Sister The story begins with John noticing twins having lunch at a nearby table. The sighted twin is a physician from Edinburgh, tall and dressed in a slightly masculine fashion, and is responsible for her blind sister. According to John, she looks exactly like her blind sister except that her hair is less white. She is forgiving, and although she is upset that John has accused her and her sister of some wrongdoing in the case of Laura's disappearance, she accepts John's apology and has no intention of filing a complaint against him. In a vision of the future, John sees the sighted twin and her sister with his wife on the boat going back into Venice.
Themes The Supernatural The story is, at its core, a tale about seeing and talking with the dead, as well as about psychic visions and premonitions. Laura and John have lost their daughter but meet up with a blind woman who has visions of the dead child and can hear her warnings to her father. John's death is a result of his denial of supernatural forces at work. The blind sister has not always been blind, but discovered that losing her sight enabled her to see into another world. She had always studied the occult and similar topics, and the two sisters now keep a diary of supernatural happenings. After John
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apologizes for implicating the sisters in his wife's apparent disappearance, they explain that when he saw Laura with them on the boat he was probably experiencing a premonition. He still does not believe in such things, but the sighted sister assures him that this has probably happened to him before, but he chose not to acknowledge it. "So many things happen to us of which we are not aware," she says. ' 'My sister felt you had psychic understanding." By the time the story comes to its violent conclusion, John realizes too late that this is true and that the scream and the child/dwarf running the previous day were a warning vision.
Mystery and Confusion A sense of mystery infuses du Maurier's story from the opening lines. John starts off by warning Laura that two women across a restaurant are trying to hypnotize him and that she should be careful about simply turning around to look at them. The couple launches into a lighthearted game of guessing and imagining who these women might be: are they jewel thieves or murderers, or are they even women at all, but men dressed in drag? When Laura follows one of the women into the bathroom to see if she is really a he, the one left at the table stares at John but doesn't acknowledge John's smiles. As well, du Maurier reveals only a bit about the sadness that Laura holds, waiting until the story is well on its way before she uncovers the mystery of her daughter's death. In fact, Christine's death is mentioned at first by John as the narrator, without many details, and it is only later that the cause of her death is divulged. The mysteries continue, even after Laura discovers that the women are simply sisters traveling together and that one is blind, which explains her failure to respond to John. The blind sister is purportedly psychic and has seen John and Laura's dead child sitting between them at the restaurant. This upsets John because he is convinced that something suspicious is brewing with these sisters, and that they must want something from him and Laura. John's concern deepens when he sees them at a church later and again at dinner that night, where they tell Laura that he is in some kind of danger and should leave Venice immediately. John's suspicions about the sisters increase when he apparently sees them on a boat with Laura at a time when Laura should be on a plane to England. More confusion and mystery appear in the story, from when John mistakes a murderous dwarf
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Topics for Further Study A couple of times in the story, John and Laura find themselves wandering lost around the streets of Venice, a city known for being difficult to navigate. Find a tourist map of Venice, and locate the churches they visited. See if you can discover where they were when they were lost. Also look at a map of Italy to see how close Padua and Torcello are to Venice. Du Maurier does not offer much background information on John and Laura. Consider what you know about the couple, and create biographies for them that include where they were born, what they studied in school, what they
for a child in a hooded coat to when he can't figure out where his wife is and to the couple's becoming lost in the tangled streets of Venice and hearing an unidentifiable scream. Very often, as well, a sense of danger and fear accompanies the mystery and confusion in the story.
Relationships John and Laura have what seems to be a conventional but generally satisfactory marriage. John obviously loves his wife, but he acts as if she is exceedingly fragile and must be protected when, ironically, he ends up being the one who is in danger. Their relationship is full of denial: they come to Venice to get away from the pain of their daughter's death, and John is willing to let Laura believe anything so long as she is not depressed. When she first tells him that the blind sister has seen a vision of dead Christine sitting next to them, he panics and doesn't want to consider what this means, as long as Laura is happy. "He had to play along with her, agree, soothe, do anything to bring back some sense of calm," he narrates. Most of all he does not want to discuss what has happened. He eventually becomes angry and argues with Laura about the sisters. As well, when he hears a scream and sees a child running in fear, he never tells Laura about it, even though she is just around the corner.
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were like as children and young adults, and how they met. Also imagine what kind of work John and Laura do at the time of the story and what kind of life they have in England. Investigate psychic visions or premonitions. What is the latest scientific research on them? Also, explain whether or not you believe that such phenomena are real and why. Learn about meningitis. What are its causes and symptoms, and how is it treated? Does it appear more often in some parts of the world, and are some people more susceptible to it than others?
He wants to cover it up, fearing that the incident would have "a disastrous effect on her nerves." Meanwhile, Laura's relationship with the sisters is a warm one. They seem to give her what she needs emotionally. She is able to speak with them about Christine, something she has not really been able to do with John, who simply wants her to get over their daughter's death. Laura expresses the joy that she now feels, knowing that Christine is happy in the afterlife, according to the blind sister. She explains to John,' 'You know what it's been like all these weeks, at home and everywhere we've been on holiday, though I tried to hide it from you." Though John tries to connect with Laura, he ultimately fails, and it is up to the sisters to do so. And in the end his inability or unwillingness to listen to women is the cause of his death.
Style Foreshadowing Almost mimicking the story's visions and premonitions, du Maurier has filled the narrative with moments that point to some future event. She uses foreshadowing to indicate that trouble is coming
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soon, such as when John sees what he thinks is a small child wearing a hooded jacket fleeing danger through the streets and jumping from boat to boat across the canal. He has an uneasy feeling about what he has just seen but does not express this to Laura. Barely twenty-four hours later, John sees the same little girl running for her life, and he follows her, calling out that he will protect her. But when he gets into a room with the "little girl," she ends up being a "little thick-set woman dwarf." The dwarf stabs John and, as he dies, he sees again his wife and the twin sisters on a boat—something that he saw earlier in the day but did not recognize as a premonition—and understands that he was and is now seeing them in the future as they return to Venice to pick up his body. The boat is moving down the Grand Canal,' 'not today, not tomorrow, but the day after that, and he knew why they were together and for what purpose they had come." In fact, most of the foreshadowing points to John's death. The story opens with the couple joking that the two women in the restaurant are murderers, traveling around the world, changing their appearance with each stop—not unlike the murderer dwarf who first looks like a child. When John sees his wife on a boat inexplicably sailing back to Venice, only later does he understand that this was a foreshadowing of his own death. And when he visits the police station to report his wife's mysterious disappearance, he meets with another British couple who mention that there is a murderer loose in Venice. Talking with the police officer later, John mentions the murderer. The officer responds, ' 'We hope to have the murderer under lock and key very soon," pointing to just a few hours later, when John will mistakenly bolt the door to a room where he is trapped with the murderer and will hear the police just outside the door.
Humor and Sarcasm Du Maurier has John and Laura use humor and sarcasm to break the tension of the atmosphere around them, heavy with the memory of their dead daughter. The story opens with the two joking about a pair of sisters sitting at another table in the restaurant. They imagine that the sisters are crossdressers, which causes Laura to laugh almost hysterically. John has succeeded in distracting her thoughts from their dead child, and "her voice, for the first time since they had come away, took on the old bubbling quality he loved." He continues thinking about the need for humor and jokes, adding,' 'if
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we can pick up the familiar routine of jokes shared at holiday and at home . . . then everything will fall into place." John reacts to the possibility of psychic visions with sarcasm. After seeing the sisters at the church, he suspects them of "touring the world, making everyone they met uncomfortable." And when Laura tells him that the blind sister believes him to be psychic, he answers, "Fine, my psychic intuition tells me to get out of this restaurant now," wanting to get as far away from the sisters as possible. After the sighted sister explains to him that the twins can deliver any message from their dead daughter "in the spirit world," John envisions the sisters "putting on headphones in their bedroom, listening for a coded message from poor Christine."
Historical Context Venice Venice is an ancient seaport city in northeastern Italy, famed for its beautiful buildings and art and considered one of the most romantic cities in the world. It is a favorite destination of honeymooners and lovers. The city covers more than one hundred islands separated by 177 canals. The Grand Canal, on which John sees Laura in a ferry, winds through Venice for about two miles. The four hundred bridges in the city are for pedestrians only. For centuries the gondola, a flat-bottomed boat propelled by a single oar, provided most transportation. Today, the gondolas are used almost exclusively by tourists, while motorized boats transport almost all freight and passenger traffic throughout Venice. Modern Venice has struggled with physical damage from flooding, pollution, and age, as well as the loss of population to other areas. While flooding has been commonplace throughout the history of the city, 1966 saw an especially severe flood. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) coordinated an international effort to renovate and preserve many of the city's historic structures.
England in the 1960s The London of the 1960s, in which John and Laura lived and worked, was a focus for much of the popular culture of the world at that time—Mary Quant's creation of the mini-skirt and the famous English model Twiggy made the city the focus for
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Compare ft Contrast 1960s: In 1966, Venice suffers some of the worst floods in its history. Today: Work continues throughout Venice to keep the city from literally sinking into the water that surrounds it. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has headed an effort to renovate and preserve the damaged historical buildings in the city. 1960s: British women make their presence known in the political world when 29 are elected as Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in 1964—the largest number since women were first allowed to stand for election in 1918.
much of the fashion world, while the Beatles and the Rolling Stones helped make England the epicenter of rock and roll during the decade. Pressure during the 1960s on British lawmakers to address the disparity between women's and men's salaries resulted in the Equal Pay Act of 1970, doing away with what were referred to as "men's rates" and "women's rates" for the same job. Women's political power also increased in the 1960s, with 29 women holding seats as Members of Parliament in the House of Commons in 1964—the largest number since women were first allowed to stand for election in 1918.
Critical Overview Du Maurier's reputation has been defined by the fact that most critics do not consider her to be a writer of "serious literature." According to Nina Auerbach in British Writers, "the name Daphne du Maurier was synonymous with atmospheric, feminine romance that was escapist rather than artistic.'' While many critics toss du Maurier in with a group of women writers who primarily wrote romances
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Today: Women's political power in Great Britain continues to increase substantially. After the 2001 general election, 118 women are Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Betty Boothroyd, speaker of the House of Commons from 1992 through 2000, is now a life peer—one who may sit in the House of Lords and exercise lifelong voting privileges. 1960s: More than 50 percent of men in England, like John, smoke cigarettes. Today: The smoking rate for men in England has steadily dropped over the past thirty years, recently leveling off at a rate of just under 30 percent.
and simple horror stories, Auerbach argues that she may be more closely aligned with writers such as Joyce Carol Gates, Isak Dinesen, Shirley Jackson, and Angela Carter—like these writers, du Maurier "extracts fear from ordinary social transactions." Auerbach believes that du Maurier has been wrongly categorized as a writer of escapist romances and that she is actually "an author of extraordinary range and frequent brilliance." However, as Wayne Templeton notes in Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists Between the Wars, a ' 'reassessment of the canon has led in recent years to the 'discovery' of several previously neglected figures in British literature," one of whom is du Maurier. Richard Kelly, writing in his Daphne du Maurier, celebrates the fact that the author's work took a traditional road that, he argues, appeals to women readers. Du Maurier wrote "old-fashioned novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a conventional audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality, and mystery," he says. Du Maurier rewarded her readers' loyalties, in fact, "by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories." He believes that "Don't Look Now," and her short story ' "The Birds'' and novel Rebecca
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A scene from the 1970 film adaptation of' 'Don't Look Now,'' directed by Nicholas Roeg
"stand out among her works as landmarks in the development of the modern gothic tale'' and establish the "twentieth-century sense of dislocation." According to Kelly, her writing ' 'set the stage'' for hundreds of "imitators" to write lesser stories for the Harlequin Romance series and others.
to the mysterious events in the story, Millar writes, ' 'Is Laura really dead? No. Are the sisters dead? No. Is the story dead? A bit." She argues that du Maurier is least effective when writing in the third person and that Laura and John are "superficial and dull."
But even an admirer of du Maurier, such as Kelly, can acknowledge that her stories may be less than perfect. In his article about du Maurier in Twayne's English Authors Series Online, Kelly acknowledges, "character, atmosphere, language, social commentary—all are of secondary interest to her" and adds that many of her characters are "manipulated by their contrived future." Du Maurier's world does not ask much introspection of readers, only that they come along for the ride. Even though Kelly lauds "Don't Look Now," he allows that du Maurier ' 'does not develop her characters to the point where we can have any strong feelings of sympathy for them. Instead, we watch with curiosity what happens to them."
But, ultimately, the readers have spoken, and du Maurier's work continues to be hugely popular. In 1969, she was made a dame of the British Empire for her literary distinctions, and many of her stories and novels have been made in major motion pictures, including The Birds, directed by no less than Alfred Hitchcock.
When the collection entitled Don't Look Now came out in 1971, Margaret Millar reviewed it for the New York Times Book Review. In her article, Millar notes that du Maurier has been ' 'a household word for more than thirty years,'' but the reviewer is rather unenthusiastic about the title story. Referring
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Criticism Susan Sanderson Sanderson holds a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing and is an independent writer. In this essay, Sanderson examines how a community of women is created in Daphne du Maurier's novella. Daphne du Maurier's short story, or novella, "Don't Look Now" is a tale of the supernatural, full of mysterious premonitions, blind soothsayers, and
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Yfhat Do I Read Next? Seaward is Brad Leithauser's 1993 novel about Terry, whose life is transformed when he sees what he believes to be the ghost of his wife, who drowned the previous year. Although Terry is a changed man, he is confused as to exactly what has brought about the change. Shirley Jackson's 1949 collection, "The Lottery" and Other Stories, is an eerie group of stories set in a world where nothing is at it seems. In the title story—Jackson's most famous work and some say one of the scariest stories of the
twentieth century—a small town conducts a frightening and terrible yearly ritual. Many say that Daphne du Maurier's 1938 classic novel, Rebecca, is a variation of the Cinderella tale. At the great Cornwall estate of Manderley, the timid second wife of Maxim de Winter lives with the haunting legacy of Maxim's first wife, the beautiful and cold Rebecca, who died in a sailing accident. Daphne du Maurier's collection Don't Look Now, published in 1971, contains five frightening tales, including "The Birds."
messages from the next life. Critics refer to it as a fine example of contemporary romantic horror writing, and the film made from the story sent chills up the spines of many moviegoers in the 1970s.
will become as it was before." John seems to hope that his life will not be changed by Christine's death and that Laura will simply forget about Christine— an attitude that marks him as immature.
But this story also looks at men's and women's relationships with each other. Nina Auerbach, writing about du Maurier in the book British Writers, notes that the author has developed an "emphasis on the animosity between the husband and the wife." Against John's sarcasm, disbelief, and fear, the primary female characters in the story—who outnumber John four to one—create a community of women whose actions denote strength and power. With the help of her fellow females, Laura takes steps to grow, while John is literally and figuratively left behind.
His hopes for an unaffected life are dashed, though, when Laura learns that the blind sister is able to "see" a happy Christine seated next to Laura and John as they eat lunch. Despite the fact that his wife is obviously overjoyed by this news, John's only thought is to move along to the next tour stop. He decides he must "play along with her, agree, soothe, do anything to bring back some sense of calm,'' but he is the only one losing his calm here. His response to Laura's discovery is, "What do I do? How do I cope?," and he desperately looks for a way to move her off the topic and onto something he can understand.
When the story opens, John and Laura look like any relatively happily married couple enjoying their vacation to romantic Venice. They are away from their child and can laugh and joke as if they haven't a care in the world. But after only a few paragraphs, the novella reveals a tense side to their merriment: they are on vacation to get over the death of their five-year-old daughter, Christine. John is tired of Laura's depression over the loss of their child and hopes that they can ' 'pick up on the familiar routine of jokes shared on holiday and at home... [and] life
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If the news has stunned and confused John, the experience has left Laura stronger. As she speaks of the sister's vision, her demeanor changes to one of control and strength. "The dazed expression," he notices, ' 'had given way to one of dawning confidence, almost of exaltation." Instead of being reassured by this, John panics that Laura is "going off her head." Here is an instance in which a supposed caretaker is the one in need of care, a theme that is repeated in this story a number of times.
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Against John's sarcasm, disbelief, fear, and stubbornness, the primary female characters in the story—who outnumber John four to one—create a community of women whose actions denote strength and power."
John sees himself as Laura's protector because, in his eyes, she is weak and fragile. He does not tell her about seeing the hooded character he assumes to be a child in danger, because it ' 'might have had a disastrous effect on her overwrought nerves." When John catches a glimpse of the sisters at the cathedral, he keeps this from Laura, too, believing that the old ladies are out to bother them or even to get money from them. When he thinks that Laura has disappeared, John begins to believe that the sisters have tricked her into getting off the plane. He imagines her being susceptible to the sisters' wild stories of premonitions and choosing to let the plane leave without her, "all without question." When John goes to the police station to report her missing, he agrees with the police officer that Laura has been "suffering the aftereffects of shock" and that she may be so stressed from the blind sister's visions of Christine that she could have had "a sudden attack of amnesia." In John's mind, Laura is not the master of her own mind or actions—someone must be controlling her as if she were a puppet. But Laura does come to know her own mind, with the help of the other three major female characters in the story: the elderly twin sisters and Christine's ghost. When the story begins, Laura is suffering from the grief of losing Christine to meningitis. By all accounts she has been depressed and not her usual self. John brings her to Venice to forget her grief and recapture her former happiness, but meeting the sisters and hearing their news about Christine is what puts Laura back on the road to recovery—not John. After Laura finds out about the blind sister's visions of Christine, she is exuberant
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and energized and can confess to John that she has been trying to hide her depression from him. ' 'You know what it's been like all these weeks,'' she says, "though I tried to hide it from you. Now it's lifted, because I know." After her confession to John, Laura feels a great sense of relief and begins to take more control over her actions. At the cathedral she wades into a crowd of sightseers, "undaunted," and begins studying a guidebook, "as had always been her custom in happier days." When the telegram arrives with information that their son, Johnnie, has appendicitis, Laura takes charge and handles the return trip to England. She seizes the phone from John and makes arrangements so that she is able to fly back home that afternoon. She is all organization and purpose, arranging for John's later departure and watching over the porter who has been assigned to find her a seat on a plane. John notices that Laura "no longer looked anxious and drawn, but full of purpose. She was on her way." In both the literal and the metaphorical senses, Laura is "on her way," leaving John and flying to England. The sisters have helped Laura with this progress, letting her know that Christine is happy in the afterlife and sympathizing with the pain she carries from losing her daughter—something John is unable to do. Indeed, as John fears, the sisters ' 'lure Laura beyond marriage into new, transforming perceptions," according to Auerbach. She is reborn, in a sense, as a confident woman, finding more strength in the company of women than in that of men. When John sees Laura in the passing ferry with the sisters, he misinterprets the scene on two levels: first, by failing to recognize it as a premonition; and second, by believing that Laura is helplessly under the spell of the sisters when, in fact, the sisters are supporting Laura as she returns to Venice to claim John's body after his murder. The sisters also serve as a conduit for Christine, who has two messages to share with her parents: first, that everything is fine with her, and second, that John is in extreme danger and must leave Venice immediately. Laura hears and appreciates both of these messages, but John, in his arrogance, will not listen. The four women have created a club, of sorts, a place where lives are renewed, but John rejects their attempts to include him, eventually paying for this with his life. The sisters act as wise crones, a little frightening but filled with vision and understanding. Laura chooses to listen to them, despite her husband's
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dismissal of their powers. Du Maurier has never been classified as a ' 'feminist'' writer and, in fact, according to Auerbach, "has become identified with a femininity distasteful to misogynists and feminists alike." But a close reading of "Don't Look Now" that focuses on the relationships between the main characters, combined with the understanding that du Maurier wrote this story late in her life, raises some interesting issues. For here is a story of two sisters and a female ghost helping another woman through a tough ordeal. Thanks to his own stubbornness, a female murders Laura's husband. Despite the fact that the story ends with John's violent and bloody death, the chronologically final scene of the story—John's unwitting premonition of Laura and the sisters returning to Venice to claim his body—is one of female companionship and bonding through troubled times. Source: Susan Sanderson, Critical Essay on "Don't Look Now," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Daniel Moran Moran is a secondary school teacher of English and American literature. In this essay, Moran examines the ways in which du Maurier's story dramatizes the human desire to impose order on strange and unexplainable situations. In The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), the biographer James Boswell recounts a remark made by the subject of his book: It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.
In this case, argument and belief are offered as contradictory approaches to the issue of ghosts: the fact that there has been no empirical evidence confirming their existence does not deter many people from a nagging suspicion that there may be instances where the dead return to the earth and show themselves to the living. Sometimes, these contradictory outlooks can be found in the same person (like Johnson himself). This notion that the belief in the supernatural lacks a logical "argument' ' yet simultaneously solicits an irrational but unshakable "belief is what drives Daphne du Maurier's "Don't Look Now," where John is presented as a man constantly searching for rational ' 'arguments'' to explain the unexplainable, only to eventually find his rational view of the world (and his deceased daughter's role within it) compro-
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Their very trip to Venice is John's attempt to bring Laura back to his world of level-headedness; he sees himself as something like a cult deprogrammer with a duty to restore his wife's wits to their 'proper' sphere."
mised by a growing' 'belief' in the supernatural. As the story progresses, John grows increasingly paranoid as his bulwark of logic is assaulted—and eventually toppled—by the existence of psychic phenomena. Many tales and novels dealing with the supernatural feature a character who begins as a rational thinker but ends as a believer in the paranormal (and scientifically impossible) events created by the author. For example, in Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelly's novel of the "modern Prometheus," Frankenstein tells his story to Robert Walton, an explorer and seeker of "knowledge and wisdom" who eventually accepts the ' 'strange and terrific'' story of how Frankenstein reanimated dead tissue. The mystery of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) is unraveled by Mr. Utterson, a dull, uninquisitive and methodical lawyer who, by the novel's end, understands the nature of his friend's odd behavior and experiments. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) is narrated, in part, by Dr. Arthur Seward, a psychologist in charge of an asylum who initially looks to science to account for the strange events occurring around him (since he lives in what one character calls the "skeptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century") but ends the novel chasing the elusive vampire through the hills of Transylvania. Even Shakespeare's Hamlet—who, before the events of the play, was a student at Wittenberg—revises his view of the world after meeting his father's ghost: he tells his scholarly friend,' 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." "Don't Look Now" draws on this convention of the logical protagonist in its depiction of John
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who, like Walton, Utterson, and Seward, finds his unshakable faith in logic and reason tested, and eventually broken, by the story's end. At first, the reader shares John's unease at the blind sister's sighting of Christine and empathizes with him when he expresses his fear that the sister's vision will prove unhealthy for Laura: "Oh God," John thinks after Laura tells him of the vision, "She's going off her head." Like many people do when confronted with the unexplainable, John struggles to impose order on a situation that defies it; his attempts to use rational (and Johnsonian) "argument" to account for the strange events that befall him are what drive the story. John's attempts to impose order on his little section of Venice begin as a joke but grow more desperate as the story continues. The opening scene (in which he and Laura conjecture about the nationalities and sexual orientation of the sisters) is merely a game, but one in which they (albeit laughingly) try to discern everything they can about this strange pair of women: "You know what it is," John tells Laura, "they're criminals doing the sights of Europe, changing sex at each stop." Laura (who has not yet learned of Christine's presence and is therefore still, like John, prone to explain away any oddities she encounters) adds,' They're a couple of pathetic old retired schoolmistresses on holiday, who've saved up all their lives to visit Venice. They come from some place with a name like Walabanga in Australia. And they're called Tilly and Tiny." Playing such a game makes John and Laura feel superior to the sisters, as John hopes his rational mind will prove him superior to whatever threatens it as the story continues. John's thoughts during the game also reveal a crucial component of his character: his slight yet detectable sense of superiority over his wife: Her voice, for the first time since they had come away, took on the old bubbling quality he loved, and the worried frown between her brows had vanished. At last, he thought, at last she* s beginning to get over it. If I can keep this going, if we can pick up the familiar routine of jokes shared on holiday and at home, the ridiculous fantasies about people at other tables, or staying in the hotel, or wandering in art galleries and churches, then everything will fall into place, life will become as it was before, the wound will heal, she will forget.
' 'At last she's beginning to get over it''—these are the words of a man who has grown tired of his wife's slow recovery to the world of jokes and holidays. John does not scorn Laura, but he does pity her and view her as one whose means of dealing
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with the immense grief of losing a child are a source of constant frustration and weariness. Their very trip to Venice is John's attempt to bring Laura back to his world of level-headedness; he sees himself as something like a cult deprogrammer with a duty to restore his wife's wits to their' 'proper'' sphere. His idea that "life will become as it was before, the wound will heal" is indicative of his shallow belief that a change of scenery will somehow ease the pain felt by a grieving mother. John hopes that the holiday ' 'could yet turn into the cure she needed, blotting out, if only temporarily, the numb despair that had seized her since the child died." The pragmatic John views Laura's emotions as an illness he must "cure" with this vacation; his means of dealing with Christine's death are never articulated by du Maurier because his approach to the problem is to view his daughter's death as an obstacle that needs to be overcome. As he later tries to make sense of his seeing Laura on the canal boat, John tries to make the way in which his wife approaches her grief more like his own. Of course, such a man with such an attitude is (like Dr. Seward and Mr. Utterson) one of a horror writer's favorite targets, since the writer can slowly convince the reader of the impossible events while simultaneously dramatizing this growing belief in the mind of a character. The crucial difference between John and Laura is that Laura immediately forfeits her social superiority over the sisters in exchange for the emotional comfort they provide with their news of Christine. In Johnsonian terms, Laura finds "belief much more convincing than "argument." Upon learning of Christine's ghostly presence, she becomes "happy, so happy" that she begins crying and remarks, "Neither of us need worry about anything any more." To Laura, the story is over. John, however, cannot fathom a mind so at ease with the unexplainable and a heart that counters grief in a manner so different from his own, which is why he immediately begins discounting the sister's vision as a ruse: ' 'Give them half a chance and they would have got money out of Laura—anything." Again the reader sees John as a would-be manager of his wife who finds the idea of Christine's presence a pebble in the shoe of his rationality. As the story progresses, John repeatedly attempts to account for anything that might threaten his superiority by failing to register on his logical radar: he thinks the sisters are con artists, he tells Laura that the first cry heard in the alley is that of "some drunk" and that the sisters "found a sucker" in her, he thinks the vision of
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Christine near the table is "damned stupid" simply because ' 'in earthly life she would have been tucked up hours ago in bed," he ascribes the blind sister's trance to "epilepsy" rather than a psychic vision and even finds himself agreeing with the policeman's plausible yet highly unlikely theory that he saw Laura on the canal boat with the sisters because Laura had ' 'a sudden attack of amnesia'' and therefore "clung to them for support." The reader, however, cannot shake the sense of paranoia—and, as du Maurier shows, neither can John, despite his struggle to remain rational. After learning of the murderer from the English tourists at the police station, John revises his previous description of the sisters as "freaks" to "diabolical" criminals who "might even be the murderers for whom the police sought"—but he immediately recognizes the dent in his logical armor by thinking, "This is the way people go off their heads." When the police officer tells John that' 'there will be some satisfactory explanation" for Laura's reappearance on the canal boat, John says nothing but thinks,' 'All very w e l l . . . but in heaven's name, what?" When he telephones Mrs. Hill for news of his son, thoughts of Johnnie "dying, or already dead" infect his mind. His increased consumption of alcohol adds to the idea that he is losing a battle with the irrational side of his mind—a battle which Laura never has to fight because she is naturally more emotional and less interested in her own superiority than her husband is in his own. Although he mocks the sisters' explanation of his own psychic powers (imagining them visiting he and Laura in England and holding ' 'a seance in the living-room, tambourines appearing out of thin air"), he leaves their hotel in a hurry once the blind one falls into her trance. As the story grows more and more ominous, the' 'Laura side'' of John's mind, like the murderous dwarf, grows more powerful and dangerous. At the very end of the story, however, John's mix of irony and alcohol will prove no match against an event so unexpected yet plausible. When he first sees the "child," he wonders why she is running "as if her life depended on it" and comes up with a wholly rational explanation: ' 'A man was in pursuit"—and this man must be the same man who had chased the child the other night and must also be the murderer presently being hunted by the police. Of course, this perfectly logical explanation turns out to be perfectly wrong, but the first-time reader is in complete accordance with John's theory. The story's ending comes as such a shock because, like John, the reader rationally but incor-
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rectly assumes that the child is the victim. When the child is revealed to be a maniacal dwarf, a reader may balk at the improbability of such a plot twist— but this improbability is the whole point. John's final thought—"what a bloody silly way to die"— perfectly reflects his personality: his death is "silly" because it comes about as the result of an absurd yet plausible event. By the time he acknowledges the validity of his own psychic powers (and, by extension, of the supernatural in general), he is almost a corpse. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in John's philosophy and it takes a knife-throwing dwarf disguised as a frightened child to drive this lesson home to John—a lesson that his wife and the sisters learned without any resistance. Du Maurier's story is, therefore, one that uses impossible, supernatural events to dramatize a common element of human nature: the desire for logical and emotional superiority. When the police officer asks John, "You not speaka the truth?," he could just as well be interrogating du Maurier herself, whose answer might be, Scientifically, no—but psychologically, yes. Source: Daniel Moran, Critical Essay on "Don't Look Now," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Martyn Shallcross In the following essay excerpt, Shallcross reviews the quality of the film adaptation of du Maurier's ' 'Don't Look Now.'' Although Daphne du Maurier has written many selections of short stories, many with supernatural and occult themes, none has grabbed the attention so successfully as 'Don't Look Now'. Throughout her career, she wrote about places rather than about people—and this particular story about supernatural or occult forces that led to a violent death in Venice conjured up wonderfully sinister visions of out-ofseason Venice, that most mysterious of waterlocked Italian cities, with its canals, crumbling buildings and eerily deserted hotels full of shrouded furniture. Daphne always preferred to stay in places out of season, so that she could absorb the atmosphere, and she used the insights she gained in her writing. Abroad, she was a different person, almost gregarious, and far more interested in eating out and socializing than she was at home. One of her holidays abroad was in Venice where she went with her son, and where she gained the background and ideas for 'Don't Look Now'. This story was published in
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Walking through the dark and brooding city of Venice, they catch glimpses of a small fleeing figure, clad in a red coat as their daughter had been when she was drowned."
1971 in a collection entitled Not After Midnight in the UK, and Don't Look Now in the United States. The book concerns a young couple, John and Laura Baxter, who have the misfortune to lose one of their two young children who dies of meningitis. In an attempt to overcome her grief, Laura accompanies John to Venice, where his work has taken him, and as they stroll through the city they catch glimpses of a small figure who looks from a distance just like their daughter. Laura has a series of encounters with two strange sisters, one of whom is blind and psychic. Laura's desire to believe that their daughter is still with them leads her to attend a seance, and she is told that the little girl has returned to warn of impending danger to her father. Laura is called back to England, but John sees her dressed in mourning, apparently going to the cemetery; a phone call to England establishes that she is safe. While she is away, John sees his daughter again, and pursues her through Venice, into a church; but it is not his daughter, it is a female dwarf, who murders him. Various elements went into the writing of 'Don't Look Now'. At the time of Daphne and Kits' visit to Venice everyone was talking about a series of murders, committed by someone the newspapers described as a dwarf. Daphne got the idea of incorporating such a person into her story when she saw a small girl running by a canal. 'She turned her head, and revealed herself to be an evil-faced dwarf,' she told me. Daphne also happened to be passing a canal when the body of a woman was being taken out, and in St Mark's Square she saw elderly twin women. 'Right from childhood,' she told me, 'I have always enjoyed the challenge and discipline of constructing short stories, and they are generally based on some sort of personal experience. In ' 'Don't Look Now",
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which is based in Venice, I saw the two old women, twins—one of whom was blind—sitting at a table in St Mark's Square, like some sinister sort of Greek chorus. In my story I gave the blind one psychic powers.' Two years after the story first appeared in print, there was also a film version made by the brilliant director, Nicolas Roeg. Whenever the death knell sounds for the British film industry, someone appears whose work seems to offer a guarantee of its continued existence. In 1973, that person was Roeg. He has a photographer's eye for striking visual detail and was a distinguished cinematographer before becoming a director. He can juggle images with great skill to build up a complex pattern of associations, though in Don't Look Now his sophisticated approach is held in check by the limits imposed by du Maurier's story and the conventions of the horror thriller. What attracted Roeg to Daphne du Maurier? 'Actually, it's rather a curious thing. As I read that short story, this premise never left my mind:' 'Nothing is what it seems in life." I thought this idea to be a wonderful disguise, and a great way to start a movie . . . Daphne writes from inside the human condition; all her characters have depth, that is why she is a wonderful writer . . . Also, the idea that nothing in life is what it seems sums up a lot of du Maurier's work, such as "The Birds" and Rebecca ... Francois Truffaut said to me, "Isn't it strange, Nick, we seem to make the same movie over and over again." This is why her work transfers so well to the screen, because it touches issues concerned with the human condition.' This was what first attracted Roeg to this story, and this multiplicity of levels also strikes a chord within him. His film of Don't Look Now explores the theory that behind one door there is another, and behind that door ... 'When I did the recce for the film,' said Roeg, 'I felt that Venice itself had some sinister qualities, and was not what it seemed. It has been called the most beautiful prison in the world, because you couldn't get away from it. In Don't Look Now there is not one shot of St Mark's Square. I did not want to fall into the trap that everyone seems to fall into when photographing this famous city.' It could be argued that Roeg outdoes Hitchcock both in terms of dazzling visual style, and the creation of an atmosphere of dread and foreboding. His first film as a director was Performance, a
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vehicle for one of rock's most unpredictable stars, Mick Jagger (and he would later direct the controversial David Bowie); he brought Daphne du Maurier's vision of out-of-season Venice, full of menace and dread, to the cinema screen in a brilliant personal statement. The film was cast with Julie Christie as Laura Baxter, Donald Sutherland as John Baxter, and Hilary Mason as the blind Heather. When Hilary Mason first visited Roeg at his London office, she was able to tell him that she already knew 'Don't Look Now', having read it some time earlier; 'I told him this and he took it as a good omen, because he is a very superstitious man.' Julie Christie would have difficult scenes to play as Laura, in which she would have to attend a seance, and before filming started, Roeg took her to a famous direct-voice medium so that she would have some background knowledge. From a casual opening showing a happy ordinary family, the film develops into a ghostly mystery involving telepathic powers. A series of repudiations and mistaken assumptions run round in a circle to the dimly foreseen disaster. The first shots are of the Baxters' pleasant rambling house in the English countryside, just after Sunday lunch. Their two children—a boy and a little girl wearing a red mackintosh—are playing quietly in the garden. Nothing could be more ordinary. John, who is a restorer of ecclesiastical artwork, picks up a slide he has recently taken of the interior of a Venetian church; as he examines it it becomes blotched with a bloodlike stain. Impelled by a mysterious premonition, he rushes into the garden—his daughter has fallen into a pond and disappeared beneath the surface. John dashes into the water after her, and seconds later is rocking her lifeless body in his arms. The young couple go to Venice, leaving their son at his boarding school. Baxter is there to help restore Venetian churches, Laura to get over her grief. During their stay they meet two strange sisters, one (Heather, played by Hilary Mason) blind and psychic. Walking through the dark and brooding city of Venice, they catch glimpses of a small fleeing figure, clad in a red coat as their daughter had been when she was drowned. The couple are trying to forget their tragedy, but Heather tells Laura she has seen the ghost of her daughter, and continues to describe her, and what she was wearing on the day she drowned. The child, she assures Laura, is very much with them. This news has a traumatic effect on Laura, who faints. When she is revived she feels a strange sense of
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elation that her little girl has not left her completely. John, on the other hand, is annoyed at the 'mumbojumbo' and refuses to have anything to do with Heather and her sister. He cannot, however, dissuade Laura from attending a seance one night at the small pension where the two women live. While Laura is there, John spends the evening getting drunk and wandering up and down bleak alleyways in the city. The blind Heather, meanwhile, tells Laura that her daughter has returned to warn her father that his life is in danger, and that he must leave Venice immediately. John does not take the warning seriously, but a couple of days later, when he is working high up on a rafter of a church, matching some mosaics, he is overcome by vertigo. It is only by clutching at a dangling piece of rope that he saves himself from almost certain death. Laura is called back to England because their son has had a slight accident at school. On the same morning that she has left John sees her dressed as a widow, standing with the two mysterious sisters alongside a coffin on a boat which is, he realizes, making for the cemetery. He calls her name, but she does not seem to hear him. He rushes to the police station, to report the incident, but the police are involved in the hunt for a murderer who has already claimed several victims. Although they are sympathetic to John's story, they hardly take it seriously. A couple of hours later he telephones England and finds Laura has arrived home safely. It is ironic that he thinks it is Laura who is in danger; we know already that he, too, may have second sight, and that he may be foreseeing his own funeral. While Laura is away, John sees his daughter again: he chases through the back streets of Venice, over bridges and canals and through the swirling mist, into a deserted church where he thinks his daughter has taken refuge. He follows the little figure in the red coat, and calls and talks, hoping for a friendly response. At last, the 'child' turns round and there—instead of his beloved daughter—is a hideously deformed female dwarf, who produces a machete and hacks John to death. His blood flows along the floor of the church, and the following images transform the earlier messages as the film comes to its dramatic and gruesome conclusion. Don't Look Now was filmed entirely on location in Venice and England, and in many ways it exceeds even Visconti's Death in Venice in its exploration of the city's atmosphere. Venice is the major moving force in both the du Maurier story,
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and in the Roeg film. An exciting psycho-thriller, it is full of visual and verbal shifts, about superstition and faith and the other-worldliness of religion. Repeated images, either juxtaposed or echoing more remotely, create surging associations. The opening sequences seem almost too calculated with their metronome precision of the red-stained glass, the red mackintosh, John throwing a packet of cigarettes, the little girl throwing her ball, the knockedover glass and the spreading stain as John rushes out, too late to save his daughter. When the bereaved couple reach Venice, red as a colour is associated not only with death, but with love and sex. The church is an ambivalent source of spiritual balance, and the spreading stain is like a forensic clue, linking with the Venetian police's frantic hunt for a maniac killer. (These sequences bring to mind a line of poetry from John Donne: 'I run to Death, and Death meets me as fast.') Many images run through the film, prefiguring danger, and music by the Italian composer Pino Donaggio complements these and the underlying sinister qualities found in Daphne's story. Roeg's expertly conceived visual metaphors sustain a powerful foreboding. His Venice, like hers, is a grey workaday city of shadows and lapping water, its hotels emptying for the winter. Never has it been photographed so well, and the whole film is so atmospheric and pictorial that the acting need only have been competent. It was, however, excellent. On its release, the film received stunning reviews: it was called an 'atmospheric, over complicated, but seriously frightening film', a 'stunning effective adaptation'. The Spectator declared: The best performance is given by Hilary Mason, as the blind psychic woman . . . genteel and ordinary, until shaken like a leaf in a storm by her psychic powers. She inspires the right mixture of disbelief, graduating into fear and respect.'
Alexander Walker, writing in London's Evening Standard, summed it all up when he wrote, 'We'll be lucky if such a film experience is repeated.' Daphne was pleased with it, too ... Seeing the US version rather than the British meant that Daphne missed the famous love scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, which was edited out so as not to upset American audiences. (Donald Sutherland told me, 'I enjoyed making the film immensely, although cinema audiences
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in the USA did not enjoy the picture that much.') At the time it was about as permissive as the contemporary cinema had ever offered. 'I still don't know what I missed, except from my son's graphic description,' Daphne said soon afterwards. 'The scriptwriters and director kept very well to the original, and what they put in helped to make the whole thing more convincing on the screen. All the reviews I have seen are very good, with the exception of the Daily Telegraph, but I don't see its readers turning out for an evening of suspense, from whatever quarter it might come!' She was also impressed by the acting of Julie Christie and Hilary Mason, which she described as 'superb'. Julie Christie told me that she enjoyed playing the part of Laura, and liked her as a person. Her memories of making the film included staying in a rented house on the Guidecca in Venice, and of doing a lot of night shooting, to capture the empty feeling of Venice out of season. 'Nick Roeg spent a lot of time with the lighting to create the sinister atmosphere of the picture, and giving Venice this eerie feeling of dread and menace. I enjoyed working with Donald, and I think we did make a convincing married couple. That film, along with DrZhivago, is one of my favourites—though, looking back, I never thought it would become a cult classic. Every time anyone mentions Don't Look Now, they immediately have sinister visions, due mostly to Daphne du Maurier's chilling story.' Don't Look Now was the first large-scale film for Hilary Mason, who won rave reviews for her portrayal of the psychic Heather. To generate more sinister tension, Roeg told her that the audience should be able to believe that Heather might be either good or bad. Her trance scenes were carefully directed; in the first, she recalled, he told her, 'You can make people believe you are trying to get Julie into your grasp when you tell her, "I can see your little girl.'" The second trance was difficult to get right, and Roeg continued to film the scene again and again, until Julie Christie and Hilary Mason were nearly hysterical. 'You are pushing the spirit out of you, it's coming from the depths,' Roeg urged them. It was Hilary's own idea that, in the last trance, when she tried to warn about impending doom, she should have an epileptic fit, an idea the director accepted. 'Roeg is a totally exhilarating man to work for,' she said, 'and he manages to obtain startling performances from his actors.' 'We filmed Don't Look Now during January and February 1973 in Venice, which was very cold
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and empty. Nick gave Venice sinister qualities, and I remember Julie Christie saying how wonderful the light was, like the inside of a pearl. I had to wear two pairs of contact lenses (which was very uncomfortable) because Nick wanted to photograph me really closely. With these in, I could only just see. At the end of the film, in a scene where Heather was supposed to be guided by her sister, Nick said, "Leave her, let's see what she'll do," and I kicked my toe against the steps as if I really were blind.
It is as landmarks in the development of the modern Gothic tale that film treatments of Daphne du Maurier's work stand out. Rebecca is a classic story of the 'other woman' with a twist. The continuity of time itself is in question in Don't Look Now as the future blends into the present. And in both that film and The Birds, forces arrayed against the protagonists leave their places in the accepted order, when lovable children and even harmless birds become evil, life-threatening creatures.
'Nick was very kind to Julie, who was understandably nervous and worried; she told Nick, "You want me to walk and talk at the same time." Her hair had to be recurled for almost every shot, because the damp in the air made the curls drop out; Donald Sutherland wore a wig.
Source: Martyn Shallcross, "Sinister Stories," in Private World of Daphne du Maurier, Robson Books Ltd., 1991, pp. 144-55.
'His vertigo scene in the church was difficult to film. The stuntmen didn't want to do it, and Donald did quite a lot himself. Watch that scene very carefully, and you'll notice a pole—that's Nick Roeg pushing Donald further out! The dwarf who murders him was a flower seller from Rome. She didn't need much make-up, she was exactly as you saw her on the screen. While she was on location in Venice she was escorted around the city by two fullsized circus people who looked after her. She would never have managed on her own, but she was an enchanting person, with a lovely smile—I think she made some money from the film.' During the 1970s Don't Look Now became a staple of programmes in film theatres all over the world, and surely it must be one of Roeg's most innovative films. He told me that the film did quite well in the States, and that it still plays to cinema club audiences all over the place. 'The calibre of writer Daphne was,' he said, 'is proved by the letter she wrote me . .. Lesser writers would have objected to the changes that I made but somehow I had captured Daphne's initial vision, and she was pleased with my results.' He has not yet attempted another du Maurier story, although Daphne felt that there were 'several awaiting a cunning hand'. 'Don't Look Now' is not only a tale of two civilizations, English and Venetian, but also a confrontation beween two kinds of mind, the rational and the superstitious. His adaptation of it just about finds a meeting point between psychological realism and Gothic fantasy; his treatment is such that the spectator is soon caught up in seeking the visual clues rather than finding the dramatic faults.
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Sources Auerbach, Nina, "Daphne du Maurier," in British Writers, Supplement 3, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996, pp. 133-49. Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson, Penguin Classics, 1986, p. 239. Kelly, Richard, "Daphne du Maurier," in Twayne's English Authors Series Online, G. K. Hall & Co., 1999. , Daphne du Maurier, Twayne Publishers, 1987. , "du Maurier, (Dame) Daphne," in Reference Guide to English Literature, 2d ed., edited by D. L. Kirkpatrick, St. James Press, 1991, pp. 513-15. , "du Maurier, Daphne," in Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers, 3d ed., edited by Aruna Vasudeva, St. James Press, 1994, pp. 201-02. Millar, Margaret, Review of Don't Look Now, in New York Times Book Review, October 17, 1971, pp. 56-57. Templeton, Wayne, "Daphne du Maurier," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 191: British Novelists Between the Wars, edited by George M. Johnson, Gale, 1998, pp. 85-94.
Further Reading Bakerman, Jane S., ed., And Then There Were Nine: More Women of Mystery, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985. This is a collection of essays about nine women mystery writers, including Daphne du Maurier. Forster, Margaret, Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller, Doubleday, 1993. Another recent biography, this one drawing on du Maurier's correspondence and interviews. Forster explores du Maurier's relationships with people of both genders, including her affair with Gertrude Lawrence. Norwich, John Julius, A History of Venice, Vintage Books, 1989.
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This book traces the rise of Venice from the fifth century through 1797, when Napoleon ended the city's thousand-year-old republic. Maps and photographs are included. Shallcross, Martyn, The Private World of Daphne du Maurier, Robson Books, Ltd., 1999. This biography includes information about how Du Maurier's stories were made into movies as well as details from her final, reclusive years.
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The Eskimo Connection Hisaye Yamamoto' s short story ' 'The Eskimo Connection,' ' published in 1983 in the Japanese-American magazine Rafu Shimpo, tells of the curious relationship between Emiko, a widowed Nisei poet living in Los Angeles and now primarily taking care of her grandchildren, and Alden, a young Eskimo in a federal penitentiary. Alden initiates a correspondence with Emiko, saying that he saw a poem of hers in a magazine and would like a critique of an essay he wrote for the prison newsletter. Emiko is, at first, very hesitant to respond to Alden, fearing that her negative impression of his writing would hurt him; and besides, she cannot imagine what they have in common. But she does answer his letter, and a twoyear relationship between the two unlikely correspondents is initiated.
Hisaye Yamamoto 1983
Yamamoto wrote this story late in her career, a good thirty years after she had received the first applause for her short stories but before she received the Before Columbus Foundations American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1986. "The Eskimo Connection" is a story of empathy between a woman, who spent time in the JapaneseAmerican internment camps of World War II as Yamamoto did, and a "fellow Asian American" as Alden refers to himself, who is living under similar restrictive circumstances. In fact, Valerie Miner in the Nation lauds Yamamoto's "multicultural casting" in many of her stories, including ' "The Eskimo Connection," and credits Yamamoto's "rich variety of experiences growing up in California" and
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other incidents, including living in an internment camp and working for the Catholic Worker, for giving her an unusually broad but sympathetic view of the world. King-Kok Cheung, in her introduction to Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, which includes ' The Eskimo Connection," also notes that Yamamoto's themes include the relationship between Japanese immigrants and their children, the adjustments made by the first-generation Japanese— especially the women—to living in America, and "the interaction among various ethnic groups in the American West."
published in various Japanese-American newspapers, including Rafu Shimpo and Hokubei Mainichi, as well as in literary publications such as The Kenyan Review and The Partisan Review. In 1986, Yamamoto was awarded the Before Columbus Foundations American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, and her work has been praised for its humanity and compassion and its ability to go beyond political rhetoric.
Plot Summary Author Biography Many critics and readers consider Hisaye Yamamoto, an essayist, poet, and short story writer, one of the most gifted of the post-World War II female Nisei writers. (The term Nisei refers to the generation of Japanese born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Japan.) Yamamoto was born to immigrant Japanese farmers in Redondo Beach, California, in 1921. She began writing at the age of fourteen and was a voracious reader in both AngloAmerican and Japanese subjects. She published her first literary piece at the age of twenty-seven. After the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto, along with more than one hundred thousand other Japanese Americans, was interned to an inland camp. The federal government considered the Japanese-American population, as well as a smaller number of German Americans and Italian Americans, a security threat during World War II. Yamamoto spent the years between 1942 and 1945 in a Poston, Arizona, camp, where she wrote for the camp newsletter and other camp journals. After the war, Yamamoto wrote for the Los Angeles Tribune, an African-American weekly newspaper. In 1949, she published her most widely anthologized short story, "Seventeen Syllables." She then received a John Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship (1950-1951), which allowed Yamamoto to write fulltime for a while. In 1952 her story "Yoneko's Earthquake" was selected for publication in that year's Best American Short Stories. Attracted by its pacifist ideals, Yamamoto wrote for the Catholic Worker and lived with her adopted son, from 1953 to 1955, on a Catholic Worker farm in Staten Island, New York. In 1955, she married Anthony DeSoto, and she eventually had four children with him. Since the 1950s she has regularly
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1975 "The Eskimo Connection" begins in the late winter of 1975, when Emiko Toyama, a Nisei poet and widow living in Los Angeles, receives a letter from a young Eskimo prisoner-patient at a federal penitentiary in the Midwest. Alden Ryan Walunga has read one of Emiko's poems in an old AsianAmerican magazine and wants her to critique an essay he has written for a prison publication. Emiko is very hesitant to continue the correspondence and to give Alden her impression of his essay for two reasons: she does not see what they could have in common, and his essay is a "brief but remarkably confused'' piece on the ruination of his native land that turns into a "sermon" on biblical prophecy. Emiko remembers an experience she had in the internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, which taught her what sensitive egos artists often have. As well, two other experiences she remembers remind her that "most egos are covered with the thinnest of eggshells." But Emiko eventually decides to respond to Alden's letter and provides him with some carefully worded suggestions about his writing. This begins a correspondence between the two, with Emiko learning numerous things about the prisoner: he spent two semesters at the University of Alaska and has read quite extensively; he is the third of seven children; he is being treated for depression with massive doses of Thorazine and attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the prison; and he has ' 'come to Christ'' and considers the study of ' 'His Word" the primary concern in his life. Emiko sends him Asian-American magazines and other material but is dismayed at the limits the prison puts on how many publications he may receive.
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Emiko learns how restricted Alden's life is in prison and wonders if prison is ' 'the relinquishment of every liberty that those on the outside took for granted." But she also notes that Alden is "an exuberant spirit even under these stifling conditions." He writes that he has received fifty dollars for a poem to be published in a New York magazine, and she congratulates him. Suddenly, Emiko stops hearing from Alden. She focuses on her life in Los Angeles as a grandmother and mother struggling to pay the bills and to take care of her family after the death of her husband, Mils. She feels that there is something "insidious" in the air, as most of her friends, neighbors, and relatives all seem to be getting divorces, even after many years of marriage. She wonders if she and Mils would have fallen to such a fate if he had lived longer. Alden begins corresponding again after a break of a few months, apologizing and saying that he has experienced a spiritual crisis. They exchange a couple of letters on how both of them are seeing changes and upheavals in their lives. Alden stresses to Emiko "the importance of holding fast to the Lord Jesus Christ." Emiko notes that Alden never writes of why he is in prison, so she decides that he is in prison for forgery, as a favorite neighbor of hers was in prison for this crime. Emiko considers that she is not very comfortable with the idea of putting people in prisons and is against capital punishment, but she acknowledges that there should be some system for separating those who are an immediate danger to the public from society.
1976 In February of 1976, Alden sends a Valentine's Day card to Emiko, noting that he is being transferred to the McNeil Island Penitentiary, near Seattle, and he wonders if she might be in the area to see him there. He also thanks her for the pictures she has sent him of her family. She writes him that family matters prevented her from meeting him, and later she feels bad for not making the effort to visit with him. In July, though, Emiko is scheduled to attend the wedding of her childhood friend's son in Seattle, and she believes that she is being given a second chance to see Alden. She makes the official arrangements to visit the prison, but the finished paperwork does not reach her by the time she must leave for Seattle. Emiko figures that she should not have too much trouble finishing it once she is in Seattle,
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especially since she is coming all the way from Los Angeles. But the prison authorities deny her permission to visit Alden, and she cannot understand why. When she returns home, the mail includes an official letter from the prison stating that, after all, she has been put on Alden's visitor list. Yamamoto writes,' 'Thanks a lot, she thought, knowing that she would probably never have the occasion to go to Seattle again." She reads the information included in the letter covering the numerous rules visitors must follow when visiting a prisoner. In his next letters, Alden does not talk much about Emiko's failure to secure a visit but writes that he will take classes at a community college in the fall and is busy working on his own translation of the Gospels from the Greek. He also sends her a story entitled "The Coffin of 1974," which Emiko finds disturbing with its dark and bloody images. It is the story of a young Eskimo man who kills his uncle and rapes and kills a female relative and dies afterward. But the story has a happy ending, as the young man does not actually die but is "reborn in Christ, a new man, washed clean of his sins." Emiko is stunned by the story and wonders if this is Alden's story of himself. She shakes off her concerns and returns the story to Alden with suggestions as to how to improve it. Alden's final letter to Emiko is in September, from the Seattle City Jail, where he has been transferred for his own protection after telling the McNeil Island authorities about a homosexual rape he witnessed. He also reports that he has been recommended for a transfer to Alaska, where he can be closer to his family. Because she is involved in "the mire of modern family life," Emiko does not answer his letter until almost Christmas, but it is returned by the jail, stamped "Unclaimed." She never hears from him again and simply decides that he must be too busy with his many projects and interests to continue being the pen pal o f ' 'some old woman" in California.
Characters Emiko Toyama In the story ' "The Eskimo Connection,'' Emiko is a Nisei poet and a widow living in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Emiko remembers living in one of the internment/relocation camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.
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Emiko receives a letter from a young Eskimo prisoner, Alden, asking her to critique his essay. Emiko is self-deprecating and wonders what Alden and she could have in common. She is hesitant about making a connection with Alden but eventually decides to make a few suggestions and return the essay to him. This begins their two-year correspondence. The entire story, while not written in a firstperson point of view, is told through Emiko. She has a sense of humor but can sometimes appear to be a bit naive. She does not want to know why Alden is in jail, preferring instead to create an image of his crime based solely on a neighbor of hers who was twice sent to prison for forgery. When Alden mails her a short story he has written about a young man who murders his uncle and rapes and murders a female relative, she is shocked and horrified and wonders if this is Alden's life. Emiko has a number of children, three of whom are still living at home, and grandchildren as well. She is the head of her household and is trying to make ends meet after the death of her husband, Mits. Mils left her some money but not a huge amount, and Emiko works hard at managing both the money and the minor family disasters that erupt from time to time.
Alden Ryan Walunga Alden is a prisoner at a federal penitentiary in the Midwest. He initiates correspondence with Emiko after reading one of her poems in an Asian-American publication. He is a Yupik Eskimo in his early twenties and is interested in writing. In his first letter to Emiko, he encloses his essay on how his native land has been "despoiled" and asks Emiko for a critique. She is hesitant for a number of reasons, including the fact that the essay eventually degenerates into a "sermon" on the biblical prophecy that the ruination of his land was part of what was supposed to happen before Christ's return. "The article was brief but remarkably confused," notes Emiko. But this eventually does begin their correspondence. Alden never reveals to Emiko why he is in prison, and Emiko never asks. But Alden does tell her about his family, his Thorazine treatment for depression, and his membership in Alcoholics Anonymous. He is also a voracious reader and spends a lot of time studying the Bible. Many of his letters to Emiko include religious sayings. Emiko sends him Asian-American literary magazines, but
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he is allowed only a limited number of pieces of mail and borrowed library books, frustrating his desire for more material to read and study. Eventually, he is transferred to a jail near Seattle, where he is able to attend community college classes. Finally, he is transferred to Alaska, where he will be closer to his family. Before his transfer, he sends Emiko a short story he has written about a young man who kills his uncle and rapes and kills a female relative.
Themes Loneliness In "The Eskimo Connection" both Alden and Emiko are victims of loneliness, although in different ways. Emiko's husband is dead, and she describes herself in terms of what she has lost: her husband and her poetry. As "an aging Nisei widow in Los Angeles with several children, three still at home, whose main avocation was not writing poetry but babysitting grandchildren," Emiko cannot imagine what she would have in common with a young Eskimo prisoner; but her isolation encourages her to accept Alden's offer to exchange letters anyway. Besides her family, Emiko appears to have connections with very few people. She mentions a friend from childhood and a neighbor who was once sent to prison, but that is all, until she begins her correspondence with Alden. The conversations in the story are primarily the written ones with Alden, and her relationships with others are only briefly paraphrased. Alden does not profess any loneliness, but his initial reaching out to Emiko through a letter indicates his desire to connect with someone in a way that might not be possible in prison. His loneliness is seen through his letters, as he reports that he works fervently on his Bible studies and his writing, filling the long days that face him as a prisoner in the Midwest. Although a short story that Alden has written and sent to Emiko indicates that he is probably not in good stead with his family, he is nonetheless separated from them by thousands of miles and prison walls. Alden's letters finally stop when he is transferred to Alaska, where he is closer to his family and is given the opportunity to attend community college classes, possibly mitigating the original sense of isolation that spurred his first letter to Emiko. Unfortunately, though, not much has
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changed for Emiko when the letters stop, and she ends the story on the same lonely note with which she began it.
Family and Family Life The images of family and family life in the story are varied, but all are affected by the stresses of modern life. Emiko is the head of a family that includes three generations: herself, her children, and her grandchildren. There do not appear to be any men around the family, and the only time she mentions her dead husband is when she wonders if they would have divorced, like so many people she knows, had he lived longer. Her children who are mentioned are daughters and seem to behave like young children, even though they are most likely adults or close to adulthood. She carries the main responsibility for the finances and struggles to "cope with the needs of her brood." Alden is part of a large family with seven children, which he attributes to "the Eskimo need for survival." But a short story he writes and sends to Emiko makes her believe that he has killed his mother's brother and raped and killed a female relative—hardly the image of a happy and close family. He is delighted, though, when he discovers that he will be transferred to a prison in Alaska.
Images of Men The only men mentioned at any length in the story are Alden, Emiko's neighbor, and her husband. None of the three is portrayed as particularly strong or successful: Alden is in prison, possibly for murder, and is taking "massive doses" of Thorazine for depression; Mils, Emiko's husband, is dead and has left her with the job of heading a multigenerational family without much support (and she wonders about their prospects for divorce had he lived longer); her neighbor has been to prison twice for forgery and is so fragile that he cries when Emiko removes a splinter from his hand.
Violence There is an undercurrent of violence in the story, beginning with the fact that Alden is in a federal penitentiary. Emiko does not know why he is there, but a particularly dark and bloody short story he has written gives her the idea that he has murdered two relatives. As well, Emiko reports being "pummeled by a dear friend" who did not appreciate Emiko's response to her poem; and Emiko's daughters are seen in a brief scene in which one drags the other around the house by
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Topics for Further Study "The Eskimo Connection" features only two main characters. Adapt the story as a play with only those two characters. Remember that they never meet each other and know each other only through their letters. How does this affect the way you stage the play? Investigate what led to President Reagan's 1988 decision to compensate each surviving JapaneseAmerican internee with a tax-free payment of $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government. What is your opinion of this decision? Have any other groups received similar payments? Do you think there are some who should receive such payments today? What kinds of crimes lead to imprisonment in a federal penitentiary? How are these penitentiaries different from other prisons? How many federal prisoners are incarcerated today, and how has this number changed from the 1970s, when Alden was in prison?
her hair, "rebelling at last against her sister's authoritarianism.'' Emiko also remembers seeing a television news report about five young people, who had kidnapped an heiress to express their' 'disillusionment with the establishment," being burned alive in their house after the police tried to take them into custody. She is horrified by the actions of the police and sympathetic to the young people, whom she sees as outcasts and desperate martyrs. The story ends on a violent note, as well, when Alden is moved to the Seattle City Jail for his own protection after he reports witnessing a rape in the federal prison.
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is Eskimo, and Emiko, who is Japanese American. They are different ages and come from different cultural backgrounds. Alden must deal with prison culture everyday, while Emiko struggles with the modern world of twentieth-century Los Angeles. In addition, Emiko, despite living in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II, cannot quite comprehend the limitations placed on Alden as a prisoner in the federal penitentiary. Indeed, the modern world is a cause of stress in the story, as it pushes against more traditional cultures. Alden's short story presents visions of a traditional walrus hunt alongside the image of a murder committed with a Remington magnum rifle. Alden's newly found Christianity is used to decry the destruction of his ancestors' land and, as well, his academic and intellectual excursions into his religion are in stark contrast to the rapes and other degradations of his prison environment.
Style Narrative Form Given that the bulk of Yamamoto's story is about the letters written between Alden and Emiko, "The Eskimo Connection" is written almost as an epistle—a writing form that presents letters written to someone or written between two or more people. (According to one of the letters, Alden has paraphrased the biblical epistles of Paul). But the critical difference between a true epistle and "The Eskimo Connection" is the point of view. A true epistle allows for multiple points of view; that is, the letters of all of the characters are presented without the intrusion or interpretation of a narrator. In contrast, in Yamamoto's story, nearly all of Alden's thoughts and words in his letters are told through Emiko's eyes. Only twice are Alden's own words actually presented somewhat in full: when Emiko includes a section of a letter Alden writes after he is transferred to McNeil Island Penitentiary, remarking how beautiful the place is; and when Emiko shares a small portion of Alden's short story. In addition, Emiko allows a few single words of Alden's to pepper her story about their relationship; and at the end of the story, she includes two phrases Alden uses to describe homosexual activity at the prisons. Essentially, this is Emiko's story, and she is
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the narrator, even though it is not written in a firstperson point of view. The question arises, then, as to how reliable a narrator Emiko is. Because all of the information transmitted through the story comes from Emiko, it is colored by her opinions and experiences.
Use of Humor and Self-Deprecation Yamamoto allows Emiko to be a character who can make fun of herself and uses humor to lighten an otherwise harsh situation. This is apparent immediately in the story when Emiko, a published poet, describes herself as ' 'an aging Nisei widow'' who is now involved with caring for her grandchildren rather than with writing poetry. The story closes on a similar note, although by this time there is a tinge of sadness to the self-deprecation. While she is not always light-hearted throughout the story, Emiko's sense of humor is apparent in the present and in her memories: she refers to the artists she knew in the World War II JapaneseAmerican internment camp as being vulnerable "creative critters," and she remembers being "pummeled by a dear friend whose poem she had made light of." As well, the strict rules that govern visits to Alden's prison are mocked when she reads that visitors must be careful of their attire and that such clothes as miniskirts and low-cut shirts are considered improper. The author writes,' 'Well, she would have to bear that in mind. No bikinis, either, she supposed."
Historical Context Japanese Internment Camps During World War II After the Japanese attack on American ships at Pearl Harbor in 1941, sentiment grew in support of relocating all Japanese Americans living along the West Coast to the interior of the country. Many in the western states, as well as those holding high positions in the United States government, feared a Japanese invasion and felt that the presence of those with Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast posed a national security threat. In March of 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order defining an area of the West Coast from which all persons of Japanese ancestry were to be excluded. The army forcibly relocated approximately 110,000
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Compare ft Contrast 1940s: Japanese Americans on the West Coast are rounded up and sent to internment camps, as many American leaders fear that their race makes them a national security threat. 1970s: Emperor Hirohito of Japan visits Los Angeles. Today: Los Angeles is home to the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. 1940s: Racial tensions are increasing in Los Angeles between whites and minority populations. Mexican Americans are portrayed in the media as dangerous members of criminal gangs. Some Hispanic men wear zoot suits, loose-fitting suits viewed by some as an affront to the war effort to conserve resources such as fabric. Amid this atmosphere and prompted by a reported fight between a small group of soldiers and Mexican Americans, hundreds of military men stationed in Los Angeles enter the city's eastside neighborhoods and beat men wearing zoot suits. Police arrest some six hundred Hispanics over the course of a few days. The Zoot Suit Riots end
evacuees (most of whom were American citizens) to ten relocation centers in western states. Smaller numbers of Germans, Italians, and people of other nationalities were also interned or forcibly relocated. Yamamoto lived in one of these camps during World War II. Barbed-wire fences surrounded the camps, and soldiers carrying guns patrolled the camp perimeters. Barracks hurriedly constructed of wood and tarpaper served as shelters with cots, blankets, and a light bulb; bathing, toilet, laundry, and dining facilities were communal. Some internees had access to small jobs, and a few even had gardens to grow food to supplement what was doled out, but there was very little to do on a daily basis at the camps. The internees had left their homes and businesses, and estimates of these losses amounted to approximately $350 million. The relocation dis-
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only when military authorities declare the area off-limits to military personnel. 1970s: Attempting to capture the kidnappers of heiress Patty Hearst, police surround and storm a Los Angeles house occupied by Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) members. Today: Thousands of basketball fans fill the streets in Los Angeles to celebrate the Los Angeles Lakers winning the National Basketball League Championship. The party quickly deteriorates, as hundreds of rioters decide to torch cars, loot businesses, and set fires in the streets. The twenty thousand who attended the game, as well as the athletes, are kept inside the Staple Center for their own protection. 1940s: In 1945 the divorce rate is 3.5 divorces for every one thousand people. 1970s: In 1975 the divorce rate is 4.8 divorces for every one thousand people. Today: The most recent divorce statistics show that there are 4.7 divorces for every one thousand people.
rupted family life and undermined the traditional authority of the father in these households. Those concerned with civil liberties were stunned to see that the United States Supreme Court failed to rule that the forced relocations violated the civil rights of the internees and were therefore unconstitutional. The last of the centers closed in 1946. In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill granting each surviving Japanese-American internee a tax-free payment of $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government.
Japanese-American Writing Three distinct groups of Japanese dominate the economic, political, and cultural history of the Japanese-American population: the Issei, those who
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immigrated to the United States; the Nisei, the second-generation, American-born children; and the Sansei, the children of the Nisei. An extensive but little-known body of Issei writing exists, but most of it is confined to Japanese libraries. The literature available to American audiences primarily includes several oral histories and biographies, such as anthropologist Akemi Kikumura's Through Harsh Winters, the story of her mother, and journalist Kazuo Ito's thousand-page tome on the Pacific Northwest entitled Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America. Nisei literature, mainly through short stories and autobiography, exhibits a dichotomy of sorts, between writers who see the tension between Japanese ethnicity and white society and those who do not. An author from the first category is painter Mine Okubo, who wrote Citizen 13660, an illustrated diary of her life at an internment camp. Hisaye Yamamoto is one of the most widely read members of the Nisei group, as is fellow writer Wakako Yamauchi. Some critics think that Monica Stone's Nisei Daughter failed to challenge white mainstream culture, but the autobiography was written before the term "Asian American" became a positive, widely used expression, and the concept of being "Japanese American" was not prevalent. The work of Sansei writers appeared in the period between the 1970s and the 1990s through poetry, drama, and prose. Work from the 1970s addressed larger societal issues such as the Vietnam War, feminism, and civil rights. Prominent works of poetry include Patricia Ikeda's House of Wood, House of Salt and Geraldine Kudaka's Numerous Avalanches at the Point of Intersection.
Critical Overview While Yamamoto's reputation as a writer primarily rests upon the stories published in the collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, many critics believe her to be one of the most gifted JapaneseAmerican short story writers of the twentieth century. Ruth Y. Hsu, writing in The Reference Guide to American Literature, notes that Yamamoto is "widely considered to be one of the most accomplished Japanese-American writers." And in her piece introducing Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, King-Kok Cheung asserts that many of
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Yamamoto's stories are on equal footing with the writing of such short story masters as Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O'Connor, and Grace Paley. Critics reading Yamamoto's short stories are struck by her compassion and empathy toward characters who are marginalized and ignored by society, such as Alden, the young Eskimo prisoner in "The Eskimo Connection." Cheung notes that Yamamoto's "sympathy is invariably with those who are on the fringes of American society." Hsu has noticed this as well, commenting that Yamamoto's interests lie "in the tales of the disenfranchised, tales largely left untold but for authors like her." This also includes characters such as Emiko, the widowed poet in "The Eskimo Connection," a woman who works hard to support her family amid the chaos that is Los Angeles. Yamamoto's voice, according to Cheung, is "at once compassionate and ironic, gentle and probing." As well, critics have noted Yamamoto's interest in other ethnic groups and in how they and the Japanese relate. Valerie Miner, writing in The Nation, alerts readers that "a distinguishing characteristic of Yamamoto's work is her multicultural casting" in many of her stories, including "The Eskimo Connection." The collection of stories in Seventeen Syllables is not just about Japanese Americans but also about African Americans, Chicanes, other Asians, and whites of differing classes—this multicultural focal point many attribute to the fact that Yamamoto has lived among a wide variety of people. Another focus of Yamamoto's is the family and the stress it undergoes every day in contemporary society. In her stories, parents and children have trouble understanding each other, families struggle to make ends meet, and women are in unhappy marriages. "Yamamoto writes with distilled realism about ordinary people experiencing romance, racism, and family responsibilities," writes Miner. Her plots are firmly rooted in families and the troubles and joys they bring. Mothers are critical characters to Yamamoto, as seen through Emiko and her role as a matriarch to a variety of people in "The Eskimo Connection." Gayle K. Fujita Sato recognizes this in The Oxford Guide to Women's Writing in the United States, where she notes that one of the primary themes exhibited in JapaneseAmerican literature since the 1920s is that of "a definition of home, through actual and symbolic mothering." hi 1986, Yamamoto received the Before Columbus Foundations American Book Award for Life-
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Criticism Susan Sanderson Sanderson holds a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing and is an independent writer. In this essay, Sanderson examines how the character Emiko Toyama in Yamamoto's short story, despite her denial of her role, serves as a sort of mother figure to people beyond her immediate family. Hisaye Yamamoto's "The Eskimo Connection" is told through the eyes of Emiko Toyama, a poet who self-deprecatingly refers to herself simply as ' 'an aging Nisei widow'' with very little to offer a young prison pen pal. She never directly calls herself a poet in the story, although art and writing have certainly played an important part in her life, at least in the past: she is a published poet; in the internment camp she "hung out sometimes with people who wrote and painted''; she has discussed poetry with fellow writers; and she sends literature magazines to Alden in prison. Her response to Alden' s requests to critique his writing has the tone of a woman experienced in thinking deeply about writing. The ironic tone that accompanies Emiko's description of herself mimics, in fact, the words Yamamoto used to describe herself in the Amerasia Journal (as quoted in Cheung's Introduction to Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories), saying that she must "in all honesty list [her] occupation as housewife." Cheung adds that Yamamoto's own words are often like her stories, "told by unreliable narrators and laden with irony," and cannot be taken literally. It is through this sense of irony that Emiko's full character is revealed. She pretends to be one thing—' 'just'' a mother—but her actions reveal the complexity of her identity. In the same way that she dismisses her artistic side, Emiko dismisses her maternal side. But through careful examination of Emiko's actions, and less attention to whom she says she is, Emiko is revealed as a sort of mother, a matriarch to those outside her family as well as to her own family. Gale K. Fujita Sato, in The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States, notes that most Japanese-American writing since
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the 1920s includes the theme of "a definition of home, through actual and symbolic mothering," and "The Eskimo Connection" is no exception. Emiko's mothering in the story takes on a variety of forms. Immediately she is seen as the mother and grandmother to her own family, ' 'her brood,'' as she later refers to them. Yamamoto gives Emiko children, but only the number of children still at home is disclosed—three—while the total number of her children is unspecified. Emiko also has grandchildren small enough to need babysitting, which she claims to spend much of her time doing instead of writing poetry. She is alone, handling this ' 'brood'' without her husband, who is now dead. Emiko's family appears to be a handful. In various places in the story she portrays the management of her family as a huge job, one that sounds as if it almost drowns her.' 'It was always something— dentist, doctor, marijuana, living together without marriage, distressing report cards, flu." Somehow, even on the small amount of money her husband has left her, she copes with the disastrous and the routine. Later in the story she blames a late response to one of Alden's letters on "wallowing in the mire of modern life." And when she is in Seattle for a wedding and calls her family, she reports that "she got the impression that the kids didn't care if she ever got back," again diminishing her role. But years later, she discovers that in her absence her daughters fought bitterly, one dragging the other around the house by her hair. Obviously, Emiko provides the stability this family needs in the face of modern pressures. But Emiko does not serve as a mother only to her immediate family. The story's main plot revolves around how she mothers the young Eskimo prisoner Alden in a long-distance fashion. He is far away from his native land, in a midwestern federal penitentiary, without a real home. Emiko's treatment of Alden, through her letters, gives him a home, a place he can come to, to brag, to share, to express fear and anger. True, she never actually meets him, but her mothering instinct clicks on almost instantly after she receives Alden's first letter, noting that he is ' 'young enough to be one of her children." At first she shies away from answering the letter, finding all sorts of reasons why continuing the correspondence would be a bad idea. But suddenly, "against her own better judgment," she sends him a letter with a gentle critique of the essay he has asked her to look over. With every letter, Emiko learns something new about him, and
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What Do I Read Next? The Big Aiieeeee!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature, published in 1991, is a collection, edited by Jeffery Paul Chan and Frank Chin, of over a century of writing by Asian Americans. May Sky: There Is Always Tomorrow: An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Camp Kaiko Haiku, compiled by Violet Kazue De Cristoforo, is a 1997 collection of haiku poetry written by Japanese Americans in Word War II internment camps.
Monica Stone's Nisei Daughter is the 1953 autobiographical account of a Japanese-American woman growing up in Seattle from the 1920s through the 1940s, including her family's World War II internment in Idaho.
Snow Falling on Cedars is David Guterson's 1994 novel about the trial of a Japanese American accused of murdering a fellow fisherman in a
' 'Seventeen Syllables'' and Other Stories, published in 1988, is a collection of fifteen of Hisaye Yamamoto's most famous short stories.
he responds to her attentions with the exuberance of a proud child showing off his accomplishments from school.
family, but lets the information about this tender gesture slip when she mentions that Alden thanks her for the pictures in a letter. Although he requests the pictures, Emiko's sending them opens her up as never before. It is after this that Alden asks if she is available to meet him en route during his transfer from the Midwest penitentiary to one near Seattle. But Emiko declines his first offer to meet, possibly because she knows that the reality of Alden might ruin the image she has of him. Her second attempt to see him fails, thanks to some official mix-ups, but her response is to make fun of the regulations, giving the impression that she is not terribly upset and maybe even a bit relieved.
Alden thrives under Emiko's nurturing, at least as reported by Emiko in the story. When he first writes her, he is described as a "prisoner-patient," receiving "massive doses of Thorazine" for depression. After a time, Emiko is happy to report that he "seemed to be an exuberant spirit," even under the oppressive conditions in prison. She is able to congratulate him on receiving payment for a published poem, and by the end of the story he has received a grant to attend community college. In his final letter to her, he rejoices with the news that he will be transferred to a jail in Alaska, near his family. After Emiko does not hear from him for a long while, she feels what any mother would feel after doing all that she could for her child: she assumes that he is very busy and happy doing the things he enjoys. Emiko tells the story of her relationship with Alden in an almost off-handed way; as she detracts from her experience as a poet, she also diminishes her role in Alden's life. For example, she never directly talks about mailing him photographs of her
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small town in the Pacific Northwest. Complications arise because of the relationship that the journalist covering the trial had with the accused man's wife before World War II and the internment of the town's Japanese Americans. The novel received the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award.
Emiko's family lacks men, with her husband dead and, apparently, with only daughters as children. Alden serves as the perfect son for Emiko. He shares her interest in literature and, from her retelling of his letter, works hard and stays out of trouble while he is in prison. True, it is ironic that' 'the good son" should be in prison, but Emiko studiously avoids thinking too much about why Alden might be serving time. When she does consider this fact, she decides to envision him as a forger, because a favorite neighbor was a forger, and then she launches into a small soliloquy outlining her discomfort with
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the idea of imprisonment. Her ambivalence comes, in part, from her own experiences at a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans, but there is a naive quality to her eventual admission that "there must be some system to temporarily segregate those who persisted in preying on others." It is almost as though she wishes to protect Alden, as she would a son, from the harshness of real punishment. Emiko also mothers another minor but critical character in the story, her neighbor who, years ago, was imprisoned for forgery, and of whom Alden reminds her. The way she ministered to her neighbor was very tender and maternal. Twice he asked her to remove splinters from his hand, and both times "he had begun whimpering and cringing" when she approached with the sterilized needle. At first, she thought he was joking but then saw that his tears were real.' 'He was one of the innocents of the world,'' remembers Emiko,' 'living about a foot off the ground." Part of Emiko's persona for Alden is derived from this sensitive neighbor who, like Alden, was both an artist and a felon. Yamamoto has created a character who,' 'against her own better judgment," makes a connection with someone very different from herself, thanks to the power of her maternal instincts. Her strength and power come from her role as a mother in her family, and this is extended beyond the bounds of her own home and into the lives of others. Emiko tries to downplay her matriarchal position and importance, just as she attempts to reduce her role as a poet, but the lesson of her experience with Alden shows that this is impossible; she can say all she wants about merely being ' 'an aging Nisei widow'' but the proof is in her actions. Source: Susan Sanderson, Critical Essay on "The Eskimo Connection,'' in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Marcey Carroll Carroll has a bachelor of arts degree in English from Oakland University. In this essay, Carroll explores the ways in which Yamamoto uses subtlety in her story to give power to repressed individuals. Sometimes, the words an author leaves unsaid are as important to the story as the written words on the page. In "The Eskimo Connection," Hisaye Yamamoto builds a story from broken glimpses into the lives of the two main characters, Emiko Toyama and Alden Ryan Walunga. The written correspondence that they share with each other is not constant, and what they write is not always definite or neces-
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Emiko's treatment of Alden, through her letters, gives him a home, a place he can come to, to brag, to share, to express fear and anger,"
sarily reliable. Yamamoto provides the reader with clues to the dialogue between the two but rarely uses the original text from the letters Emiko and Alden write. By giving fragments of a story, she emphasizes to the reader what may not be obvious about the characters to themselves and about the world in which they live. The story of Asian-American history, from the Eskimos to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, has been greatly ignored in most surveys of American history. Emiko and Alden, to a great extent, are unable to realize their own identities as prisoners, and Yamamoto uses this ignorance to give a voice to the hidden story of life for Asian Americans, on both an internal and external level. While Emiko is shocked at the conditions under which Alden lives, she never connects them to her own experience in the internment camp. Yamamoto makes one mention to Emiko's experience there, writing, "As a young woman in camp, she had hung out sometimes with people who wrote and painted and she knew what vulnerable psyches resided in creative critters." Using terms like "hung out" suggests choice, and if a reader knew little about American history, it might be difficult to understand that she was referring to something other than some sort of enjoyable day camp for young women. Emiko seems to ignore the fact that she was a prisoner in the camp. When she received word from Alden's prison office that she must get permission before sending a literary magazine, Yamamoto describes her reaction, ' 'That was what being in prison was, was it, the relinquishment of every liberty that those on the outside took for granted?" Emiko is forthcoming in her beliefs that prisons are not the answer for crime. Yamamoto makes a point against internment through the subtleties of Emiko's argument against prisons. She also questions the morality of government by having Emiko remember the story in which a govern-
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'The Eskimo Connection' is not simply a story about Asian Americans but one that forces all readers to look within themselves to identify the prisons in which each person resides and the ways in which the past has influenced everyone."
ment official thought it moral to financially reimburse people for property damage, while ignoring the true moral problem with the situation. In A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn tells how in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the army power to ' 'arrest every Japanese-American on the West coast . . . to take them from their homes, transport them to camps far into the interior, and keep them there under prison conditions." Emiko should be able to understand the circumstances under which Alden lives in prison because she shared a similar experience of not being free. That Emiko is seemingly unaware of the seriousness and unjustness of her past makes it all the more sad that she cannot relate it to her own experience. Yamamoto shows that not only is imprisonment of Japanese Americans by the United States government absent in the minds of the average Americans, it is also taken as a normal experience of life for those who were the victims of it. Yamamoto provides a voice for the words that Emiko cannot herself express. While Alden's imprisonment is more defined than Emiko's, he accepts his situation with little outward discontent. Yamamoto writes, "Alden Ryan Walunga seemed to be an exuberant spirit even under these stifling conditions.'' While Emiko feels guilty and sad for not being able to visit him, she notices that he is seemingly unaffected. Alden lives happily despite the restrictions on his life. In one letter to Emiko, he writes, ' 'There is lots of beauty in McNeil." After Emiko's failed attempt to visit him, instead of expressing disappointment, he finds happiness in her being on the visitor list, even
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though there is little chance of her ever visiting. In his first letter to Emiko, the article Alden includes begins by him expressing the unjustness of the Eskimo land being taken over and destroyed. He attempts to write a serious article outlining the ways in which his people and their land and culture have been taken over and, in many ways, taken away. For some reason, his devotion to Christianity prohibits him from making a clear argument, and Emiko finds his article clouded with confusion. That Yamamoto has Alden's article end in a Christian sermon is important because it shows what a powerful influence Western culture has had over him, even to the point that it damages his ability to fully realize the negative effects it has had on his own culture. The story that Alden later sends to Emiko, which she surmises as his story, is dark and bloody but has another happy and religious ending, mirroring his first article. The reader cannot truly know whether it is Alden's story or not. He is a medicated prisoner who is so devoted to Christianity that it has led to what Emiko feels is "self-delusion." Both characters' minds are barred from seeing themselves and their situations clearly. In addition to leaving the story of her physical imprisonment in an internment camp untold, Emiko also lacks a voice to express the unhappiness of the imprisonment in which she resides at home. Although Alden is in a physical prison, he still finds the inspiration to write. The reason why Emiko doesn't write anymore is unclear, although it appears she has simply gotten too caught up in the day-to-day tasks of life to find the inspiration or the time to devote to her creative side. Yamamoto provides little detail of the life of Emiko, naming her a widow but not giving a personality to her husband or to her kids. Emiko doesn't seem happy, but she does seem somewhat content with her situation. Yamamoto shows little closeness in the relationships that Emiko maintains, and Emiko seems to be lost in a world of taking care of daily business but not really living freely. She is so accustomed to living this way that, similar to her references to her internment, she is mute in voicing concern about her limited freedoms. Throughout the story, Emiko seems surprised by the vulnerability of humans. In reference to her former neighbor, she remembers him crying at the sight of a needle. Initially, she laughed at his reaction before realizing he truly was frightened. In addition, Emiko notices the fragility of marriage when she discovers many people in her life are seeking divorce after many years together. She is
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surprised to learn that something as sacred and seemingly eternal as marriage is vulnerable to destruction. Emiko never seems able to confront her own vulnerabilities, as if she is unwillingly restricted from doing so. In the introduction to Yamamoto's Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, King-Kok Cheung writes,' 'We must be attentive to all the words on the page to unbury covert plots, fathom the characters' repressed emotions, and detect the author's silent indictment and implicit sympathy." Yamamoto's subtle tendencies to leave things unsaid help the reader discover what the characters cannot alone express. Yamamoto explores many ways in which people are imprisoned, and the story fits into a broad prospective on American literature. When Emiko reads the regulations for visitations at McNeil Island, she notes that women are expected to dress a certain way, not wearing anything too revealing or closefitting. While Emiko makes a joke about this, she does not present her opinions on the matter. There is no dress code for male visitors. Yamamoto, with subtlety, makes a commentary on the ways in which women must limit their freedoms to be respected and accepted in certain situations. She makes the point that people share a lack of freedom and also a collective lack of ability to express concerns about their own limitations. Two seemingly different individuals make a connection based on the past, the present, and the future. Yamamoto quietly and subtly gives a voice to Asian Americans in a place where it is often lacking. She encourages people to seek connections to one another and to open up discussion so that important events in history and in individuals' lives do not go on ignored. Emiko makes a connection with a prisoner, whom she appears to have little in common with, through written communication. The Asian-American literary magazine is important to her and to Alden because it provides a voice that they themselves have trouble finding, and it gives them hope that one day they will speak and be heard. "The Eskimo Connection" is not simply a story about Asian Americans but one that forces all readers to look within themselves to identify the prisons in which each person resides and the ways in which the past has influenced everyone. Yamamoto ends her sad story not unlike the way Alden ended his, by providing a glimmer of hope for the future, that one day through literature and through open discussion, no one will be condemned to live without a voice for their experiences.
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Source: Marcey Carroll, Critical Essay on "The Eskimo Connection," in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.
Liz Brent Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses the theme of family in Yamamoto's story. In Yamamoto's "The Eskimo Connection," the narrator, Emiko
