"Miss Lonelyhearts," "Wise Blood," - LSU Digital Commons - Louisiana [PDF]

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1977

The Mad Preacher in Three Modern American Novels: "Miss Lonelyhearts," "Wise Blood," "Light in August.". Rebecca Roxburgh Butler Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

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77-28,664 BUTL ER , R e b e c c a R o x bu r gh , 1943T H E M A D P R E A C H E R IN T H R E E M O D E R N NOVELS: MISS L O N E L Y H E A R T S , WISE L I G H T IN A U G U S T .

AMERICAN BLOOD,

Lo u is ia na State U n i v e r s i t y and A g ricultural and M e c h anical College, P h . D . , 1977 Literature, American

Xerox University Microfilms,

REBECCA

ALL

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ROXBURGH

RIGHTS

M ic h ig a n 48106

BUTLER

RESERVED

THE MAD PREACHER IN THREE MODERN AMERICAN NOVELS MISS LONELYHEARTS, WISE BLOOD, LIGHT IN AUGUST

A Dis se rt ati o n Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State U n iv e r s it y and A g riculture and Mechanical College in p a r t i a l f u l f i l l m e n t of the requirements f o r the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English

by Rebecca Roxburgh B u t l e r B. A . , Southeastern Louisiana C o li e g e , 1965 M. A . , Lo uisiana State U n i v e r s i t y , 1966 Augu s t , 197 7

EX A M IN A TIO N

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simultaneity of contradict ions th at is Hazel Motes as an indication

33 "The Crucial Departure," pp. 103, 109. 34 "The Sweet Savage Prophecies of Nathanael West," in The T h i r t i e s , ed. Warren French (Deland, Fla„: Everett/Edwards, 1967), p. 100. 35 "The Shadow and the Mirror: William Faulkner, p. 66.

Light in August , "

in The Novels of

11

t h a t O'Connor In t e n t io n a lly designed him as a rep resen tative of unresolved ambiguity. These suggestions, as well as other sources that examine how the r e l ig i o u s and the pathological coincide, such as William James' The V a r i e t ie s of Rel1g1ous Experience and Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, provided the d ir e c t i o n f o r th is combined study of three characters as one type, calle d here "the mad preacher."

The merger of

o r d i n a r i l y mutually exclusive realms, p a r t i c u l a r l y that of the r e li g i o u s and the psychological

(though there are others, such as the t r a g i ­

comic, a t work as w e l l ) ,

is a major feature of the mad preacher, but

there a re , 1n a d d it io n , many d e t a i l s of c h a r a c te r iza tio n which, when taken together, provide a des criptiv e d e f i n i t i o n and es ta b li sh the r e ­ quirements of the type.

I t is f i r s t to these p a r a l l e l s - - i n physical

descriptions, s e tt i n g s , preoccupations, r i t u a l i s t i c habits, family i n f lu e n c e s - -t h a t we w i l l turn in order to become acquainted with t h is f ig u r e .

II The f i r s t ind ic ati o n of the portrayal to come, even before a physical description Is given, is the a l l e g o r i c name of each mad preacher, names calculated to introduce th a t mixture o f contradictory impressions on which the cha ra cte rizatio n s t h r iv e : Gall Hightower.

Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes,

A ll carry androgenous overtones (Miss Lonelyhearts'

name In the opening sentence of the book is ref err ed to by both feminine and masculine pronouns), overtones that are e s p e c ia lly meaningful in the unsatisfactory rela tion s hip s each experiences with women.

In a d d iti o n ,

12

West uses an abb re v ia tio n , M1ss L, as a pun on the word, missal.

As

his story unfolds, the discrepancy between the vulgar sentim entality and the "sweet seriousness" contained within his name grows.

Hazel

Motes' name d ir e c ts a t t e n t io n to his eyes, t h e i r hybrid color and, on another l e v e l , t h e i r obstructed view, via the New Testament analogy. O'Connor fu r th e r emphasizes his inadequate vis ion with the nickname. Haze.

"Gall Hightower" implies both the tumult and the place of escape

with which so much of the man's l i f e

is concerned.

The fact that a high

tower would not provide a safe refuge but subject the c r ‘‘jpant to the storm’ s f u l l fu r y is a crucial

irony.

I t is p a r t i c u l a r l y s i g n i f i c a n t ,

also, that Hightower is the namesake of his " lu s t y and sacrilegious" grandfather.

Faulkner is recorded as c re d it in g the highly "suggestive"

naming throughout Light in August to "the t r a d i t i o n of the preEl Izabethans" and "my memory of the old miracle plays, the mor ality plays 1n e a r ly English 1 i t e r a t u r e . T h e r e

is more than a touch of the

medieval outlook in the rendering of a l l three men.

Josephine Herbst

mentions the "old Mystery Plays" p a r a l l e l while discussing Miss Lonelyhearts as a l l e g o r y . ^

And O'Connor avowedly pursued the anagog-

ical depth of the "medieval commentators on Scripture" because she saw Op i t as "a way o f reading nature which Included most p o s s i b i l i t ie s , , "

36 Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner, e d ., Faulkner in the University ( C h a r l o t t e s v i l l e : The Univ. of Va. Press, 1959), p.- 97. 37 "Miss Lonelyhearts: An A lle g o ry ," Contempt) 3 (1933), r p t . in Thomas H. Jackson, e d . , Twentieth Century I n t erpretations of "Miss Lonelyhearts" (Englewood Cl ^ ^ s , N.J. : Pr entic e-H all , "197TJ, ’ p ." "97. 38 "The Nature and Aimof F i c t i o n , " Mystery and Mariners, ed. S ally andRobert Fitzge rald (New York: F a r r a r , Straus, } 959), pp. 72-73

13

The naming of these men 1s a p a r t i c u l a r kind o f p l u rl s ig n a t to n that allows the authors a highly economical means o f extending and under­ scoring t h e i r ambiguities.

Every time the name appears another

reverberation is sounded between the sets of paired opposites that structure the c h a r a c te r i z a t io n .

The mad preacher is an ectomorph, t a l l , even gaunt, whose s k u l l , sharply v i s i b l e beneath his skin, takes on the function of a memento mori r e f r a i n .

In f a c t , he c l e a r l y f i t s Robert Burton's description of

the melancholic: expression," and

"lean, withered, hollow eyed," bearing an "uncheerful " s m e lly ." ^

His physical features are managed, as is

his name, so as to make the most of t h e i r symbolic suggestiveness. West e x p l i c i t l y lin ks Miss Lonelyhearts1 physiognomy with the Judeo-Christian heritage:

"his Old Testament look" is equally t h a t o f

"the New England p u rit a n .

His forehead was high and narrow.

was long and f le s h l e s s . ho of."^

His nose

His bony chin was chaped and c l e f t l i k e a

Anyone s k i l l e d in the a r t o f reading such correspondences can

see the columnist's destiny in his face, as does Shrike, his feature e d i t o r , who with one look c l a s s i f i e s him as one of "the priests of twentieth- century America" ( p . 9 ) .

39 The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed„ Laurence Babb ( D e t r o i t : State Univ. Press, T96f>), pp. 131-133.

Mighlgan

40 Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933; ^pt. New York: Avon, 1959), p. 9. A ll subsequent references to the t e x t of the novel are to t h is e d i t i o n .

14

In the same way, Hazel Motes, much to his annoyance, Is repeatedly recognized as a preacher.

Like Miss Lonelyhearts, he is dressed in a

cheap s u i t , and a f e l l o w - t r a v e l e r , Mrs Hitchcock, I d e n t i f i e s his black, broad-brlrrmed hat as the kind "t hat an e l d e r l y country preacher would wear."4 ^

Likewise, the ta xi d r i v e r who takes Motes to a p r o s t i t u t e ' s

address assumes th a t he is a preacher because of his hat as well as "a look 1n [ h i s ] face somewheres" ( p . 2 1 ) , and the p r o s t i t u t e , Leora Watts, c a l l s i t "t hat Jesus-seeing hat!" ( p . 37).

Motes' face is t y p i c a l l y

angular, with "a nose l i k e a s h r ik e 's b i l l " set eyes.

( p . 10) and compelling, deep-

His eyes bear much of the symbolic weight of the c h a r a c t e r i ­

z a t io n , as what Hazel sees and what others see in him combine to assis t the s t o r y ’ s thematic ambiguity.

Even the removal o f his eyes, the r e ­

s u lt of his s e l f - b l i n d i n g , does not diminish t h i s magnetism:

his

landlady finds h e r s e lf staring into the burned out sockets, where "she saw him going backwards to Bethlehem" ( p . 119). Hightower, th in when young, is s t i l l

ta ll

but "misshapen" a t f i f t y ,

his skin "the color of f l o u r sacking and his upper body . . loosely f i l l e d

like a

sack f a l l i n g from his gaunt s h o u l d e r s , F a u l k n e r

focuses on his face to convey the d u a l i t y and distance at the heart of the defrocked m in i s t e r ' s character:

"His face is at once gaunt and

flabby; i t is as though there were two faces, one imposed upon the other, looking out from beneath the pale, bald skull surrounded by a

41 Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood (1949; r p t . 1n Three by Flannery O'Connor, New York: Signet, T 9 6 2 J , p. 9, All subsequent references to the t e x t of the novel are to t h i s e d i t i o n . 42 William Faulkner, Light in August (1932; rpt. New York; Random House, 1950), p. 68. All subsequent references to the text of the novel are to th is e d i t i o n .

15

f r i n g e of gray h a i r , from behind the twin motionless glares of his spectacles1’ ( p . 7 7 ) .

Hightower's "rank manodor" Byron Bunch i n t e r p r e t s

as " ' t h e odor of goodness,'" n a t u r a l l y repugnant " ' t o us th a t are bad and s i n f u l ' "

( p p . 26 9,2 61 ).

This reversal of normal association, usually

grounded in C h ri s tia n t r a d i t i o n , sometimes broadly humorous, sometimes pointedly grim, is yet another of the techniques of a n t i th e s is th a t pro­ duce the ambiguity of the c h a r a c t e r i z a t io n .

I l l n e s s and neglect are a special category of the physical charac­ terizations. individual

To nourishment, grooming and comfort th i s abstracted

is i n d i f f e r e n t .

Miss Lonelyhearts dismisses his lengthy

sickness as "unimportant" because he believes i t to be symbolic of but i n f e r i o r to the s p i r i t u a l contagion with which he is preoccupied ( p . 59). His fa sc in a tio n with the suff ering and the crip pled is s i m i l a r l y a function of his concern with symbolic, rather than a c t u a l , r e a l i t y . Wounds as well as i l l n e s s , s e l f - i n f l i c t e d and otherwise, are endured stubbornly by Motes.

His boyhood penance of walking in r o c k - f i l l e d

shoes, and discomfort from an incompletely healed war wound, both cite d e a r ly in the novel, recur and are i n t e n s i f i e d :

he adds glass to

the rocks, wraps barbed wire around his chest, and blinds himself with ly e .

Nothing in O'Connor is too painful to escape her comic double-play,

however:

when Mrs. Flood discovers her boarder's barbed wire h a b i t, her

shock becomes indignation as she considers such p r ac ti ca l consequences as the laundry:

" ' I t ' s easie r to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes,'

in the voice of Hiah Sarcasm" ( p . 122)..

she said

Hightower's haphazard e atin g,

dress and hygiene are , again, in d ic a t i v e of this qeney"ie contempt thus ex Dressed by the mad preacher f o r V s own pnrrnr.

Jn s

respects the

16

most self-conscious of men, as he stri des through the town ta lk in g to himself, he 1s oblivious to his appearance and the support i t lends to the generally held b e l i e f th a t he 1s quite mad:

"The s h i r t is white but

1t 1s not fresh; his c o l l a r is s o il e d , as is the white lawn cravat care­ le s s ly knotted, and he has not shaved f o r two or three days.

His panama

hat 1s soiled , and beneath i t , between hat and skull against the heat, the edge and corners of a soiled handkerchief protrude" ( p . 269), The novel's settings extend the s p i r i t of melancholy that grows out of the c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n s .

The s u i t a b i l i t y of se tt in g to character

is p a r t i c u l a r l y intense in these cases because of the mad preacher's Imaginative need for symbolically app ropriate, s p e c ia l ly chosen places, habitats that he can, as i t were, decorate in keeping with his accidie . Miss L, for example, chooses a room "as f u l l o f shadows as an old steel engraving" ( p . 16) where he n a i l s an ivory Christ d i r e c t l y into the w a l l , hoping to produce the e f f e c t o f w r it h i n g .

The Essex is Motes' sp e c ia lly

chosen "place to be" ( p . 4 3 ) , a r at - c o lo r e d vehicle with windshield wipers that " c l a t t e r l i k e two i d i o t s clapping in church" ( p . 4 4 ) , and which serves, consecutively, as a p u l p i t , a bedroom-kitchen, a dream-coffin, and a murder weapon.

Jefferson is the place special to Hightower's

imagination, and he "knows," before his a r r i v a l t h e r e , exactly how the house he w i l l "some day own and l i v e in" ( p . 423) looks, the dark l i t t l e house, a l l but concealed by low growing maples and crepe m yr tle , and the darkened study, lined with books of " r e l i g i o n and history and science" where the grandson can look out on the s t r e e t where his grandfather passed on his l a s t r i d e .

The mad preacher's quarters are designed to

protect his much prized i s o l a t i o n , usually in darkness.

17

Each man prizes c e r t a in symbolic possessions unique to him — M1ss L's disassembled c r u c i f i x , Motes' autonomous car, Hightower's f a t h e r ' s patched Confederate coat — but there 1s other symbolic imagery t h a t recurs from novel to novel, Imagery that reemphasizes t h e i r immo­ b i l i z i n g melancholy and t h e i r overwhelming sense of loss, associated, as i t often i s , with family deaths, physical pain, and a b r u t a l iz e d , im­ poverished, reduced humanity.

The s p e c if ic applicatio n of these motifs

w i l l be examined in the chapters that t r e a t the novels i n d i v i d u a l l y , but l i s t i n g them here w i l l drawn characters:

suggest t h e i r s u i t a b i l i t y to such a b s t r a c t l y -

the rock and the stone, the shadow and the ghost,

signs and headlines, and m ir ro r r e f l e c t i o n s . Through these de sc rip tiv e elements of c h a r a c te r iza tio n - - names, physical appearance and neglect, s e tt i n g s , prevalent imagery — a d e f i ­ n i t e picture of the mad preacher begins to take shape.

His melancholy

is that of a man stricken by a conviction of the inherent corruption of the material world, both as he sees i t in his surroundings and as he embodies i t .

Another major p a r a l l e l , the American Protestant heritag e,

is offered as the source of both his habit of viewing the o b jective world symbolically and his contemptuous ( i . e . , C a l v i n i s t i c ) assumptions concerning man's e f f o r t s and achievements.

Related to that heritage,

and a major Instance of the p r i n c i p l e of d u a l i t y basic to a l l

three

novels, 1s the d is clp le /o p p o site who ministers to and f i n a l l y abandons each o f these unorthodox preachers:

Shrike f o r Miss Lor.elyhearts,

Enoch Emery f o r Hazel Motes, and Byron Bunch for Gail Hightower.

In

cooperation with these external and l a r g e ly s t a t i c components of the conventional design, a dynamic pattern common to a l l establishes i t s e l f .

three characters

Just as the de sc r ip tiv e d e t a i l s repeat themselves

18

from the beginning to the end of each man's story, so the process of these men's l iv e s 1s a r e p e t i t i v e one.

Movement without progress, the

I n f i n i t e r e p e t i t i o n o f an unchanging pattern of defeat - - t h i s 1s the kind of action i d e n t i f i e d with the mad preacher. One o f the most s i g n i f i c a n t of these r e p e t i t i v e patterns is the s o l i t a r y preoccupation t h a t , day a f t e r day and on into his dream l i f e , th is fig u r e pursues, turning over and over in his mind, l i k e a puzzle which presents but one, unsatisfactory s olu ti o n, the meaning of his melancholy.

Most maddening to

ized r e a l i t y he envisions with r e a l i t y he experiences.

him is the discrepancy between the i d e a l ­ his mental eye, and the rough,

i r r e g u la r

When these r e a l i t i e s c o l l i d e the r e s u l t is

c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y described in terms of c i r c u l a r or retrograde movement, as in t h i s passage by West (Miss L, daydreaming in a barroom, has been punched in the mouth):

"His anger swung in large drunken c i r c l e s " ( p . 28).

Hazel Motes' c o l l i s i o n s t y p i c a l l y send him "in the opposite d ir e c tio n " ( p . 69) or impel him to t r y "to move forward and backward at the same time" ( p . 27).

Gail Hightower's c i r c u l a r i t y is well represented in his

own image of the "c lassic and serene vase" ( p . 4 19), as he once supposed the seminary, and, most thoroughly, in the "wheel of thinking" metaphor of Chapter 20.

Moreover, Motes and Hightower would subscribe to Miss L's

conviction that "his confusion was s i g n i f i c a n t " (p„21), in contrast to the " a r b i t r a r y " order of t h e i r respective communities. R it u a liz e d action is another r e p e t i t i v e p a t t e r n — Miss L's compul­ sive neatness, which leads him to attempt to arrange the skyline; Motes' automatic, inappropriate assertions of self-righteousness; Hightower's sermons and his evening v i g i 1s--wh1ch simultaneously demonstrate both the intense need f o r a r e l i a b l e order and the f a i l u r e to find one of

19

unequivocal s ig n ific a n c e .

We see the character tra v e l In c i r c l e s .

Miss

L a l t e r n a t ln g ly seeks out s u ffe rin g people, f a l l s to help them, and withdraws to his room.

Hazel Motes, c h ild and man, fig h ts and fle e s

the perverted mysteries of the c a rn iv a l te n t and Hoover Shoats, always resolving his own confusion in severe physical penance.

Hightower r e ­

tre a ts to the a t t i c , to the seminary, to Je ffe rs o n , and, f i n a l l y , to his study and his p riv a te version of the past. The r e p e t i t i v e nature of his experience serves to confirm for each man his i d e n t i t y and his vision of the world.

This i d e n t i t y , while ad­

m it t e d ly u n s ati s fa c to ry , has the v i r t u e of being thoroughly f a m i l i a r , since the mad preacher is a character who has consciously patterned himself on a family model, endeavoring, both out of love and f e a r , to make himself a r ep lic a of a lo s t f a t h e r or grandfather.

This im ita ti o n

of an impressive family predecessor helps to ex pla in , on the n a r r a t i v e l e v e l , the abstraction that dominates these in h e r i t o r s of a seemingly bankrupt t r a d i t i o n .

They are not wholly in d iv id u a li ze d because they

are "possessed," in the t r a d i t i o n of Hamlet, by a u t h o r i t a t i v e ghosts. Their appropriation of the parent's power requires a proportionate surrender of that risky p r i v i l e g e of i n d i v i d u a l i t y . a l i z e s his abdication thus:

"'And a f t e r a l l ,

Hiqhtower r a t i o n ­

I have paid,

bought my ghost, even though I did pay f or i t with my l i f e ' "

I have ( p . 429).

Because West believed t h a t , for the purposes of f i c t i o n , "In America . . . fa m ilie s have no h i s t o r y . h e chose Dostoevski's Father Zossima to

43

"Some Notes on Miss L. , " Contempo 3 (15 May 1933), r p t . in Jay Martin, ed , Nathanael West, Twentieth Century Views (Fnnipwood C l i f f s , N. J .: Pr e ntic e -H all ,~H 971, p. 66.

20

fill

the ro le of the awesome p a t r ia r c h , l in k in g him 1n M1ss L's Imagina­

t io n with his actual f a t h e r , a Baptist m in is t e r .

As he s t riv e s to

Imaginatively recapture the s p i r i t u a l bounty th a t he associates with these two f i g u r e s , his resignation comes to match Hightower's: order has with in i t the germ of d e s t r u c tio n ' " ( p . 51 ).

"*Every

And Motes, gazing

a t his l o o k - a l i k e , Solace L a y f l e l d , The True Prophet, grimly resolves, in the imagery of his grand father's sermons, ' " I f you don't hunt i t down and k i l l

it,

it'll

hunt you down and k i l l you1" ( p . 91).

Because, in each instance, the imitated parental f ig u r e is asso­ ciated in the mind of the younger man with C h r i s t , a set of reciprocal correspondences between his family r e la t io n s h ip s and B i b l ic a l analogues is made to reverberate.

Many of the spe c if ic p a r a l l e l s have been the

subject of those a lr e a d y - c it e d ex p lic a tio n s t h a t followed the r e li g i o u s metaphor:

the " v i r g i n " Mary Shrike (and the medal that hangs between

her breasts— won f o r the 100-yard dash) and the handicapped d i s c i p l e , Peter Doyle; Motes, a runaway in the t r a d i t i o n o f Jonah, in t e n t on seducing and teaching the "innocent" Sabbath L i l y , and his eyes that "see not" u n t i l he casts "the beam out" and becomes the blinded seer; Hightower, the f a i t h l e s s shepherd, Joe Christmas, the s a c r i f i c i a l Lena Grove, the madonna in faded blue.

v ic tim ,

In th is context i t is easy to

see how the quest f o r order, which is f re q uently presented in romantic terms in a l l

three novels, t ra n sla te s i t s e l f into a pursuit or im ita ti o n

of the C h r i s t - l i k e l i f e , at le a s t a l i f e measured against that standard o f conduct:

the precepts and imagery of Protestant C h r i s t i a n i t y are

learned a t home and invested in the family members.

This correspondence

works so well because the B i b l i c a l stories themselves are family s t o r i e s - the Holy Family being the culmination of a l l those Old Testament fa m ilie s

21

whom Faulkner preferred because* Instead of representing ideas, he said, they were simply people, " a l l t ry in g to get something f o r nothing or . . . to be braver than they a r e . " 4^ The very q u a l i t i e s that make the fa m ily such a meaningful vehicle f o r the representation o f r e l i g i o u s mysteries have also come to serve equally well the discoveries of depth psychology.

Thus i t is on this

ground of common experience tha t these two kinds of knowledge, o r d i n a r i l y considered incompatible and freq uently treated as diametric opposites, are jo in ed.

The v i r g i n Mary Shrike is also the forbidden Mother and

Shrike the p o t e n t i a l l y ca str a ti n g Father; the Doyles are another parentp a i r , the s ire n /C irc e/A ph ro dit e and her castaway/beast/Hephaestus. Hazel Motes' mother, laundry s tic k in hand, becomes the p u n it iv e witch with the magic a b i l i t y to see through a t r e e , or, in another phrasing, she plays the part o f the Super-Ego to Motes' f a t h e r ' s I d .

Hightower's

f a t e 1s th a t of the c h ild born to aging parents who is f ix a t e d in the n a r c i s s i s t i c stage.

The comic impact of this blending of the r e l ig io u s

and the psychiatric t e s t i f i e s to the inco ngruity, p a r t l y o f the language, but e s p e c ia lly of the sense or order, of degree and decorum.

The mad

preacher is a f ig u r e o f incongruity l a r g e ly because he is dis p lac ed -as a newspaper advice columnist in Miss Lonelyhearts' case, as a throw­ back, as Mrs. Flood put i t to Hazel Motes, to a more "gory" time when "b oiling 1n o i l , or being a s a i n t , or walling up cats" was "normal" ( p . 122), as the suspected reincarnation of his grandfather in Hightower's

44

Gwynn and Blotner, p. 167.

22

s tory — and his displacement c a r r i e s both r e lig i o u s and psychological Implications tha t o r i g i n a t e 1n his fa m il y r e la t i o n s h ip s . The family context provides f o r a presentation of these complex issues that Is at once simple and dramatic.

In the family arena the

ch il d f i r s t experiences the power of the parent, from whom he also learns about God, the Father of a l l .

T h e re a fte r , the circumstances of his e a rly

experience are repeated and elaborated upon with a calculated ambiguity: the confusion of the mad preacher, struggling to i d e n t i f y a source of order 1n his world, is the old confusion of the natural with the super­ na t u r a l, mediated through the imagination of the i n i t i a t e .

For example,

each of these characters eventually s h i f t s his attachment from his f a th e r to a fig u r e whose imaginative appeal

is more s a ti s f y in g :

Father

Zossima f o r Miss Lonelyhearts, Asa Hawks f o r Motes, Gail Hightower I for Hightower I I .

These new models are c l e a r l y su b sti tu te s , both for

the actual parents and the u ltim a te s p i r i t u a l parent.

And the function

of these parental figures is that of the euhemerus, a heroic model from the past th at can be imitated but never surpassed .^

Such an im ita ti o n

1s necessarily i n f e r i o r , carrying i m p l i c i t l y i t s own defeat.

To review b r i e f l y , the c h a r a c te r iz atio n s of Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower develop along two l i n e s , the dynamic and the s t a t i c .

The s t a t i c a t t r i b u t e s — names, body type, s e t t i n g , symbols,

imagery— are embedded in the dynamic s t ru c t u re , a c yc lica l r e p e t i t i o n t h at contains three stages:

1) loss, 2) the search f o r a replacement

45

Eric Berne, The Structure and Dynamics of Organi z a t i o ns and Groups, (Ph iladelphia: L ip p in c o t t, 1 963), pp. 9/1-101.

23

from the past, 3) confirmation of d e f e a t.

The imaginative r e c r e a tio n ,

In stage two, of a l o s t order through memory, dream and r e f l e c t i o n 1s c e n t r a l , both In sequence and 1n importance, to t h i s character I n t e r ­ pretation.

The Im i t a t io n of a model, f o r Instance, becomes par t of the

grotesque nature of the novels as i t I l l u s t r a t e s one of the ways that man can become mechanical, can subvert his own humanity.

Unless the

agency of the imagination receives due emphasis, a one-sided, s p l i t view of the character seems i n e v i t a b l e , as the introductory summary of the c r i t i c i s m i l l u s t r a t e s .

And although the temptation to resolve the

confusion surrounding the mad preacher impels us to choose sides, such a resolution does violence to the i n t e g r i t y of the c haracter.

He must

remain both mad--in the several senses of that work— and a preacher— a rh e t o r ic a l f ig u r e of moral e x ho rt a ti o n.

Robert Burton presents the

matter with l y r i c economy in item number seven from "The Argument of the Frontispiece" of The Anatomy of Melancholy: But see the Madman rage down r ig h t With furious looks, a g a s t ly sight. Naked in chains bound doth he l i e , And roars amain he knows not why? Observe him; f o r as in a glass, Thine angry p o r t r a i t u r e i t was. His pic ture Keep s t i l l 1n thy presence; Twixt him and thee, the r s no d i f f e r e n c e .

46 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Mel ancholy: A Se_\ec t_ij)n, ed. Laurence Babb { D e t r o it : Michigan S„ U„ Press, 1965), inside cover.

CHAPTER 2 :

TRAPPED IN A METAPHOR

Only i symbol? He who asks th i s question shows that he has not understood the dif fer e n c e between signs and symbols nor the power of symbolic language, which surpasses in q u a l i t y and strength the power of any nonsymbolic language. Paul T i l l i c h , Dynamics erf Faith The present period is characterized by a terminological tower o f Babel. Jolande Jacobi, Comp!ex/Archetype/ Symbol in the Psychology of C. G, Jung

Before we can move on to the p a r t i c u l a r world of each mad preacher we must prepare ourselves for the language spoken there.

That language,

l i k e the c r i t i c i s m suranarized in Chapter 1, is d u a l i s t i c ; the p o l a r i t y in the novel's d ic tio n in a l l l ik e lih o o d inspired those many dicho­ tomized readings.

The disease-health opposition is a prominent one.

Miss Lonelyhearts uses the words, "sick" and "complex" and "cure," while Shrike, his a l t e r - e g o , lin ks by inversion the medical metaphor to the r e li g i o u s realm in this r e t o r t to Goldsmith in the chapter, "Miss Lonelyhearts and the Cripple": "Don't c a l l sick those who have f a i t h . I t is you who are sick" ( p . 72 ).

They are the w e ll.

Although Hazel Motes c arr ie s a shrapnel wound which seems to be related 24

25

to "a t e r r i b l e pain 1n his chest" and "a hard hollow cough" ( p . 100), his preferred word pa ir 1s "clean"-"unclean," an Old Testament, rather than a medical, metaphor.

In Hightower's memory his f a t h e r , a "phantom,"

stands as the paradigm f o r paired contra diction ; his p a r t ic i p a t i o n 1n the C i v i l War "was proof enough th a t he was two separate and complete people, one of whom dwelled by serene rules in a world where r e a l i t y did not e x i s t " ( p . 415).

Faulkner immediately o ffe rs a t e l l i n g l y d i f ­

fe re n t view of the same model:

"The f a t h e r who had been a minister

without a church and a s oldier without an enemy, and who in defeat had combined the two and become a doctor, a surgeon" ( p . 415).

The healing

inte gra ti o n embodied here is seldom glimpsed and even more r a r e l y a r t i c u l a t e d in the community of the mad preacher. The power t h a t abst raction holds over th is f ig u r e makes i t s e l f f e l t through his language, a language f u l l

of forced p o l a r i z a t i o n , e i t h e r - o r

categories, black-and-white evalua tion , a language that r e l i e s heavily on the metaphors of antagonism and d i v i s i o n .

I t is sobering to observe

t h i s cha racter's f a i l u r e to resolve or transcend these s im p li s tic dichotomies.

I t is c h i l l i n g to recognize in his own language the source

of the deadening c a t e g o r i c a l.

The mad preacher experiences his own

helplessness most acutely when he fe el s the noose of overdetermined terminology tig h ten in g .

Miss Lonelyhearts juggles terms of "morality"

and "medicine" ( p . 2 3 ) , stru g g li n g , f o r example, to define "adultery" e i t h e r as "a sin" or as th e rap eutic , "capable of steadying the nerves, r elaxing the muscles and cle arin g the blood" ( p . 33 ).

The exercise proves

inconclusive, and the episode, l i k e so many others, demonstrates only "the completeness of his f a i l u r e "

( p . 45).

Hazel Motes encounters a

s i m ila r impasse when, a f t e r in s is t i n g that "blasphemy" and "fornicatio n"

26

are "only words" ( p . 3 4 ) , he ts stunned to learn that Sabbath L t l y Hawks 1s a ''bastard":

"the thing 1n his mind said th a t the t r u t h did not con­

t r a d i c t I t s e l f and th a t a bastard could not be saved in the Church Without Ch rist" ( p . 69).

Tears run down Hightower's face as he stamner-

ing ly endeavors to negate Byron Bunch's d e c la r a t io n , 11'But you are a man of God"' ( p . 319).

When Hightower's s e l f - r e v e l a t i o n reaches i t s ultim a te

horror, i t comes in the form of a "sentence" t h a t "seems to stand f u l l sprung across his s k u l l , behind his eyes: I must not think t h i s .

I don't want to think t h i s .

I dare not think t h i s " ( p . 429).

C l e a r l y , words

themselves, as moch as the concerns they represent, a r e, f o r the mad preacher, a force with l i v i n g strength. We can best understand how t h i s character th at I have been c a l l i n g the mad preacher constitutes a metaphoric fusion, rath er than a p o l a r i ­ z a t io n , of the f i e l d s o f psychology and r e l i g i o n by focusing on t h e i r comnon ground, language. The recent h is t o r ie s o f both psychology and theology, as w r it te n by such professionals as Szasz and Maslow, by T i l l i c h and Buber, demon­ s t r a t e a renewed a t te n tio n to and reassessment of terminology that p a r a l l e l s the twentie th-c entury f i c t i o n w r i t e r ' s reevaluation of the resources of language.

The search f o r the redeeming, r e s t o r a t i v e word,

and the frequent f r u s t r a t i o n of tha t search, is the stru cture that brings the t r i f o c a l conception o f the mad preacher into alignment.

I The uncomfortable f e elin g s that c e r t a i n words produce at c e rta in times f o r the mad preacher r e s u l t from his uncertainty as to whether

21

language has a l i f e and power o f I t s own or 1s simply an Instrument at his disposal, a tool that he wields.

Ernst Cassirer succin ctly d e t a i le d

both the psychological r e a l i t i e s and the r e l i g i o u s Implications of t h i s ambiguity 1n Language and Myth.

As Susanne Langer t r a n s l a t e s , "the

o r ig i n a l bond between the l i n g u i s t i c and the m yth ic o -r e li gio us cons­ ciousness is p r i m a r i l y expressed in the f a c t t h a t a l l

verbal structures

appear as also mythical e n t i t i e s , endowed with c e r t a i n mythical powers, tha t the Word, in f a c t , becomes a sort of primary fo rc e, in which a l l being and doing o r i g i n a t e . " 4^

I t is the force of the mythical e n t i t y

th a t informs Miss Lonelyhearts' "Christ" and Hazel Motes' "Jesus" and Gall Hightower's "ghost."

Ca ss ir e r, in his concluding passage, moves

from what might seem to be a f a t a l c r i s i s — "word and mythic image . . . have now cast o f f a l l

r e a l i t y and e f f e c t u a l i t y " - - i n t o a transforming

l i b e r a t i o n of the mind, which appropriates word and image "as organs of i t s own, and thereby recognizes them f or what they r e a l l y are: of i t s own s e l f - r e v e l a t i o n . " 48

forms

The extent to which th is l i b e r a t i o n oc­

curs, i f at a l l , f o r Miss Lonelyhearts or Hazel Motes or Gail Hightower w ill

be a meaningful issue a f t e r we have surveyed the t e r r a i n of

mythopoetic language a b i t more f u l l y . I t is a short step from the dawning awareness of the word's s e l f re v e la t o r y power in Cassirer to Thomas Szasz's analysis of the his tory of the word "hysteria" in The Myth o f Mental

Illn ess.

As Szasz recon­

structs the pioneering e f f o r t s o f the neurops ychiatrists , Charcot,

47 (New York:

Harper, 1946), p. 45.

48 C a s s i r e r , p. 99.

28

Janet and Freud, he finds t h a t the r e d e f i n i t i o n of some "malingerers" as "hysterics" exemplifies a s h i f t from moral and r e l i g i o u s c r i t e r i a to a "biophysical model" t h a t seemed to be more l o g i c a l , but a c t u a l l y remained grounded In the dynamics of "domination and Interpersonal control by stra teg ie s o f d e c e i t . " ^

The subjects as S a l p e t r l e r e , for

example, while feigning ignorance, produce the "symptoms" tbey under­ stood the eminent doctors expected to see 1n order to receive, f o r ex­ ample, b e t t e r food.

Another Issue of p a r t i c u l a r relevance to our

In t e r e s t in the converging concerns of psychology, r e l i g i o n and l i t e r a ­ ture 1s Szasz's discussion o f hysteria as a kind of language, iconic, nondlscursive, with a hidden meaning (not at a l l unlike l i t e r a r y tech­ niques of In d i r e c t i o n such as a l l u s i o n s , metaphors, l i n g u i s t i c finesses, j o k e s ) ^ and linked to "New Testament rules" that value "helplessness" and "the rewarding o f d is a b il i t y . " ^

A ll such i n e x p l i c i t communication

provides at l e a s t two rewards Szasz concludes:

"the challenge and

mastery of an ambiguous or polyvalent message" and a c e r t a i n assurance for "the speaker th a t he w i l l be held responsible only for the overt meaning of his m e s s a g e s . The Myth of Mental

I l l n e s s is pe rtin ent to

our In v e s t ig a t io n of the mad preacher both f o r i t s e x p lic a t io n o f the dangers inherent in borrowing "models" of conduct as well as f o r i t s

49 (New York:

Harper and Row, 1961, pp. 6-9

50 The Myth o f Mental I l l n e s s , pp. 119, 152. 51 The Myth o f Menta1 111 ness, pp. 13-14. 52 The Myth of Mental

I l l n e s s , pp. 152, 155.

29

emphasis on language, both I t s obfuscating and I t s Illu m in a tin g capa­ c ities. When Szasz In s is t e d tha t "a science can be no b e t t e r than I t s l i n g u i s t i c apparatus p e r m i t s , h e was echoing the concern voiced by Jolande Jacobi th at the terminology of depth psychology, "inh erite d" from other d i s c i p l i n e s , including "mythological t r a d i t i o n as well as physics, medicine," was in danger of f a l s i f y i n g the e s s e n t i a l l y ambi­ v ale nt nature of the p s y c h e .^

Karl Menninger often warned against a

misplaced r el ia n c e on osychology's terminology, pointing to the d i f f i ­ c u l t y , f o r example, o f defining such common, but always r e l a t i v e , words as "health" and " I l l n e s s . A b r a h a m Maslow wrote tha t he was driven to Invent such words as " r e s a c r a l 1z1ng" and "desacralizing" because the English language "has no decent vocabulary f 0r the v i r t u e s . " 56 These four leading professionals, among others, recognized, and worked to resolve, the i m p l i c i t l y d e s tru c ti ve process of p o la ri z a t io n that they saw as inherent in the language of t h e i r d i s c i p l i n e .

Szasz

reworked the hypothesis that c i v i l i z a t i o n is i n e x t r i c a b l y linked with "neurosis""

"— no t, however, in terms of the former being a cause of

53 The Myth o f Mental I 1 1 ness, p . 4 54 Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C. Jung, trans. Ralph Manhelm, BolHngen Series CVl 1" TNew Vork: Pantheon Boots, 1967), pp. 3 - 5 . 55 For example, in The Crime of Pun1shment (1966; rpt,, New York: Vik in g, 1969), pp. 3, 9-10, 1 7 -1 9 7 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 and in The V i t a l Balance (1963); r p t . New York: V ik in g, 1967, p. 148. 56 The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: p. 49, rTT.

Vikinq, 1971),

30

the l a t t e r , as Freud (1930) suggested— but r ath er because a l l rules of conduct point I m p l i c i t l y to deviations from them."&^

By focusing on

the " b iv a l e n t , a n t i t h e t i c a l " meanings of basic words, such as the Latin sacer - "holy" and "accursed," he i l l u s t r a t e d how words, 1n f a c t , symbolic cormunlcation of a l l types, and by log ic al extension, rules of conduct, Imply t h e i r oppo sites,58

A f t e r deploring the "narrow, one­

sided formulations" of a systematic, in v a r ia b le terminology as wholly inadequate to a study of the psyche, Jacobi offered analogy as a tool of "indispensable e f f ic a c y " in presenting novel or highly abstract sub­ je c ts ,^

The f r u s t r a t i o n and seeming fru it le s s n e s s of psychological

categories was a concern of Menninger's, by his own account, as e a rly as 1915, when he rejected Herman Ad ler's "stup id, s t e r i l e s pec ia lt y forever" in favor of " s c i e n t i f i c m e d i c i n e . T h e emotional casualties of World War I brought him back to psychology, but his d is t a s te for "ambiguous jargon" remained.

Even in his e a r ly Man Against Himself

he worked with a bare minimum o f psychoanalytic terms and emphasized the c le a r e r "ignorance," "crime," "v ic e ," "disease," "poverty," "u gl1 ne s s,"^

Menninger's l a t e r adoption of the phrase "u nit ary con­

cept" lin k s him to Maslow in a preference for what the l a t t e r c a l l s

57 The Myth of Mental

I l l n e s s , p. 155.

58 The Myth of Mental I l l n e s s , p. 175. 59 Jacobe, pp. 4 - 5 , 35-55. 60 The V i t a l Balance, p. 1. 61

The V i t a l Balance, p. 5; Man Against Himself, p. 4?4

31

"fusion-words." language th a t serves both de s c r ip tiv e and normative functions simultaneously.

Instead of words t h a t take t h e i r meanings

only from a paired opposite, such e l t h e r - o r sets as " r a t l o n a l " " i r r a t i o n a l M a s l o w recommends such words as these:

“mature, evolved,

developed, stunted, c r i p p l e d , ful l.y -fu nctio ning, g r a c e f u l , awkward, cl umsy. H i s

assessment of the destructiv e separation at work in the

very language of p o l a r i z a t i o n and his c h a r a cte r izatio n of individuals caught in the process of dichotomy are pe rtin ent to our study of the mad preacher:

"black-white th in k in g ," the "loss of gradations, of degree"

results in the person's "seeing everything as a duel or a war." aJ c on ti n ua ll y feels " f r u s t r a t e d idealism and d is ill u s io n m e n t , "

He

His

habitual posture involves a "continued search f o r something to believe in , combined with anger at being disap pointed."64

"Once we transcend

and resolve this dichotomy," Maslow continues, "we can reconnize th a t the dichotomizing or the s p l i t t i n g is i t s e l f a pathological process. And then i t becomes possible for one's c i v i l war to end."6j Contemporaneous with the psychologists' search for re s t o r a tiv e words has been a s i m ila r search, accompanied by s im ila r f ru s tr a tio n s and triumphs, carr ied on by theological

leaders

wide influence are Martin Buber and Paul T i l l i c h ,

62 Maslow, p. 27. 63 Maslow, p. 321. 64 Maslow, p, 321. 65 Maslow, p

92,

Two who have had a

32

Buber's Ich-Du (I-Thou) 1s his verbal formulation f o r "a mode of existence" that Includes both distancing p o l a r i t y and unifying merger. Such a word pa ir Buber c a l l s a "basic word o f r e l a t i o n . ”®6

About this

most v i t a l r e l a t i o n Buber writes two or three things th at bring to mind the dllerrma of the mad preacher.

F i r s t , i t is "the sublime melancholy

of our l o t " that th i s d i r e c t r e l a t i o n cannot be continuous; even love endures "only in the a l t e r n a t i o n of a c t u a l i t y and latency" and often in "an i n t r i c a t e l y entangled series of events that is tortuously dual„"6^ There is no b e tte r b r i e f description of the mad preacher’ s career. Secondly, Buber chooses the c h il d as the fundamental i l l u s t r a t i o n of the "innateness of the longing f o r r e l a t i o n . "

His insight here

p a r a l l e ls those of West, O'Connor and Faulkner in t h e i r pa r ent-child creations:

the " ' im a g in a ti o n ' " that apprehends a toy animal

"lov in gly

and unforgettably" is not a kind of " ’ panpsychism1; i t is the drive to turn everything into a You, the drive to pa n -r ela ti o n--a n d where i t does not fin d a l i v i n g , a c t iv e being that confronts i t but only an image or symbol of t h a t , i t supplies the l i v i n g a c t u a l i t y from i t s own f u l l n e s s . " 6®

I t is from within himself th at Miss Lonelyhearts supplies the

meaning o f his s i s t e r ' s dance, that Hazel Motes discovers a penance th a t w i l l s a t i s f y God, and th a t Gail Hightower finds g u i l t in his f a t h e r ' s patched Confederate coat.

66

Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans, Walter Kaufmann (New York: S c r i b n e r 's , 1970), pp. 53, 68. 67 Buber, pp. 68-69. 68 Buber, pp. 7 6 - 7 8 .

33

In his Dynamics o f F a ith T i l l i c h wrote 1n his simplest prose s t y l e . His purpose was to “r e i n t e r p r e t " and restore "health" to the word "faith."®®

He demonstrated how the dichotomy of "the subject-o bject

scheme" could be transcended "1n terms l i k e u l t i m a t e , unconditional, in fin ite, a b s o l u t e . I n

the common use of the word "holy" and the

popular concept of "the holy" T i l l i c h found a c r ip p li n g reduction of what had been an ambiguously experienced mystery in which the divine and the demonic, the c r e a t iv e and the de stru c ti ve p o t e n t i a l i t i e s were both a c t i v e .

When the demonic-destructive was refused p a r t i c i p a t i o n ,

the holy retained only the meaning of "the morally good and the l o g i c a l l y tru e.

It

„ . . ceased to be the holy in the genuine sense of the word."^

By making room f or the c on tra dictory in the experience of f a i t h and holiness, T i l l i c h constructs an inc lu sive dynamic that could be a de­ s c rip ti o n of the mad preacher's f a t e :

"The holy which is demonic, or

u l t i m a t e l y d e s t r u c t i v e , is id e n tic a l with the content of idolatrous faith . s till

Idolatrous f a i t h is s t i l l holy.

fa ith .

The holy which is demonic is

This is the point where the ambiguous character of r e l i g i o n

is most v i s i b l e and the dangers of f a i t h are most obvious:

the danger

of f a i t h is i d o l a t r y and the ambiguity of the holy is i t s demonic pos­ s ib ility .

Our u lt i m a t e concern can destroy us as i t can heal us.

69 Torchbook ed„, (New York: 70 T i l l i c h , p. 11. 71 Tillich,

p.

15.

Harper and Row, 1957), i x .

But

34

we never can be without 1 t . " 7 2

Throughout t h i s volume T i l l i c h stresses

the fundamental position of language:

"Without language there is no

act o f f a i t h , no r e l i g i o u s experie nc e."73 Is the symbolic, the mythic.

And the most powerful language

He is 1n agreement with Langer that

"demythologization" is not merely undesirable but impossible:

"One

can replace one myth by another, but one cannot remove the myth from man's s p i r i t u a l

life„"^ 4

This condensed survey has been meant to simply h ig h lig h t a few of the p a r t i c u l a r concerns about words shared by contemporaneous psycho­ l o g is ts and theologians, concerns shared as well by recent w rite rs of f i c t i o n , and central to t h is exploration of the mad preacher.

In t h e i r

prefaces, t r a n s l a t i o n s , i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , c r i t i q u e s , and r e d e f i n i t i o n s the same d i f f i c u l t i e s were i d e n t i f i e d :

tha t abstraction and jargon

too e a s i l y become synonymous, and t h a t the e i t h e r - o r categories estab­ lished through language were r e l e n t l e s s l y divid ing without c l a r i f y i n g and deadening instead of r e v i t a l i z i n g the study of man a t his most com­ ple x.

Each of these professionals offered s im ila r suggestions f or

descending the "terminological tower of Babel,"

A ll agree on the im­

portance of making e x p l i c i t the c a p a c it i e s , the workings and the purpose of the language chosen to communicate even the most seemingly objective

72 T i l l i c h , p. 16. 73 T i l l i c h , p. 24. 74 T i l l i c h , p. 50; Langer, " T ra n s la t o r 's Preface," Language and Myth, v i 11.

35

of Ideas.

For the highly abstract concepts of psychology and r e l i g i o n

t h i s need 1s a l l the more acute, and i t often requires the recognition and acknowledgment of the metaphoric reach and purposes of language. Many a r t i s t s did perceive the Import of the analogical in Freud's work: when Nathanael West wrote, "Freud is your B u l l f i n c h , " 75 he was drawing a t t e n t io n to the mythic t r u t h of Freud's science.

But only another

psychologist would f in d i t necessary to explain th a t "mental i l l n e s s is a metaphor,' " 'neurosis' model

76

as does Szasz, or to i n s i s t , as Maslow does, that

is a t o t a l l y obsolete word" l e f t over from the "medical Perhaps because metaphor, analogy and parable have been

the accepted mode f o r the transmission of r e lig i o u s knowledge always, Buber and T i l l i c h were p a r t i c u l a r l y careful to w r i t e e x p l i c i t l y about images and symbols rath er than to use them unannounced. I t is with a sense of good fortune that I can begin to make use of c e r t a i n words that u n t i l now were p o t e n t i a l l y too confusing in the mixed context of psychology and r e l i g i o n , words that are used in the novels themselves, or in the c r i t i c i s m of the novels, but words that refuse to l i m i t themselves to one meaning:

crazy, insane, demented, pathologic al,

sic k, i r r a t i o n a l , m y s tic a l, obsessed, redeemed.

The bl u rr ing of d i s ­

t in c t i o n s between such terms as "sin" and "disease" which the very i n f l u e n t i a l works of Freud and James fos tere d, may now be understood

75 "Some Notes on Miss L . , " p. 67. 76 Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental I l l n e s s , 2nd ed, (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), i x . 77

Maslow, The Farther Reaches, pp. 30-31.

36

more c l e a r l y as something other than a perverse t r i c k or a short-sighted blunder.

An underlying, and often unacknowledged, relia n c e on analogy

can produce, as 1t did In the above Instance, the sometimes confusing and sometimes i ll u m in a t in g double-vision th a t Includes both the r e l ig io u s and the s c i e n t i f i c , or medical, kinds of knowledge.

Once

such analogy is made e x p l i c i t , the words are freed from t h e i r bondage as partisan terms and returned to the general freedom of common usage. They may not be used casually or i n a t t e n t i v e l y , but they have los t t h e i r obsessive q u a l i t y , t h e i r overdetermined character,, The use of analogy is not the only l in k between man's study of the divine and his study of his mind.

A broader area o f in t e r e s t and pur­

pose jo in s not only the theological and the psychological, but also the a r t i s t i c views of man and the world.

There i s , remember, a t r i f o c a l

e f f o r t necessary to seeing the mad preacher whole.

The r e l i g i o u s , the

psychological and the l i t e r a r y find t h e i r centers in c o n f l i c t ; they describe and evaluate c e r t a i n kinds of conduct in c o n f l i c t , and they orovide In s ig h t s , presented usu ally by way of analogy, that are intended tu influence the conduct of l i f e .

This shared dynamic accounts f o r the

analogous appropriation of terminology such as "reader/communicant/ pa tie nt" and "story/confession/case history" and " w r i t e r / p r i e s t / d o c t o r " analogy is the time-honored method of choice whenever f e e l i n g s , ins ig hts , and convictions must be communicated. The mad preacher stands w it h in and draws his meaning from this overlapping t e r r i t o r y .

Through him runs a confluence of voices, asser­

tions that he feels impelled to answer. we can group into three major streams:

The concerns of these voices 1) the s c i e n t i f i c , physical,

n a t u r a l , 2) the r e l i g i o u s , moral, i d e a l , 3) the a r t i s M c ,

symbolic,

37

fic tio n a l.

This character Is not merely a c l i n i c a l case, nor 1s he

t r u l y a mystic; he 1s both, as the c r i t i c i s m t e s t i f i e s , and he is more: he creates his own d estin y, he dreams his l i f e , he manipulates the symbols through which he e x i s t s , as is evident in his language.

As he

endeavors to accommodate and evaluate the c o n f l i c t i n g demands of the natural and the i d e a l , he fe els inundated. ambiguity than he can t o l e r a t e .

He is faced with more

Both the language he hears and the

language he uses partakes of the deadening, i r r e c o n c i la b le c a te g o r ic a l,

II Words are not the only symbols a v a i la b le to the mad preacher, but they are the most p l e n t i f u l , and to this creature of abst raction they come n a t u r a l l y .

As he arranges them in an e f f o r t to define his world

and j u s t i f y himself, they take on the likeness of weapons or chess pieces, r e s t r i c t i n g him to a pattern of c o n f l i c t from which there is no escape. Every conversation becomes combative.

Miss L f eels attacked by

Shrike's

mockery of C h r i s t i a n i t y ,

and he, in turn, attacks Betty's un­

affected

love of nature and her b e l i e f in i t s r e s t o r a t i v e

influence.

Hazel Motes v i o l e n t l y denies Asa Hawks' declaration that "some preacher has l e f t

his mark" on him ( p . 32), and he decides to "seduce" Sabbath

L i l y so that her f ath er w i l l take

him seriously.

The

young

Gail High­

tower's "g leeful" conversation estranges the welcoming p a r t y of "old men and old women" who then begin "to t a l k down" his excitement with "serious matters of the church" ( p . 5?). size dichotomy and o p p o s i t i o n

Dialogue f u n c t i o n s to empha­

Because t hese ycunn ncn jrt- preoccupied

38

1n defining themselves, every d e cla ra ti o n they hear has the sound of a challenge.

They feel that t h e i r destiny is at stake, and every voice

th a t comes Into t h e i r heads is added to the weight of the evidence they are amassing, pro and con. In the mad preacher's sermons the same ubiquitous d u a l i t y occurs. There a mixture of c o n tr a ri e s presents the issues in s t a r t l i n g c l a r i t y , but cannot resolve them. Even in his sentimentally conventional advice columns Miss L cannot avoid a n t i t h e s i s :

' " L i f e ^ w o r t h w h i l e , " 1 he w r i t e s , because of ' " f a i t h

th a t burns l i k e a c l e a r white flame on a grim dark a l t a r ' " When he s h i f t s to his urgent, hysterical structure controls his message: on the crosstree.

{p .5).

tone, the same a n t i t h e t i c a l

' " C h r i s t is the black f r u i t that hangs

Man was los t by eating of the forbidden f r u i t .

black C h r i s t - f r u i t , the love f r u i t

The

„ , . 1" ( p . 8 1 ).

Hazel Motes, a s i m i l a r l y unorthodox preacher, de li v e r s his f i r s t sermon spontaneously, a c t u a l l y u n i n t e n t i o n a l l y , Asa Hawks:

in revulsion against

" ' I want to t e l l you people something.

you're not clean because you do n't be li e ve . me t e l l you t h a t .

L is t e n h e re ,'

he c a l l e d ,

Maybe you think

Well you are clean, l e t ' I ' m going to preach a new

church— the church of t ru th without Jesus C h ris t C r u c i f i e d " 1 ( p . 34). His l a s t sermon is more polished, but the reversed Protestant d i a l e c t i c remains in t a c t :

I preach there are a l l

kinds of t r u t h , . . , but

behind a l l of them, th e r e 's only one t ru th and that is that t h e r e ' s no tru th .'"

And he continues,

"You needn't to look a t the sky because i t ’ s not going to open up and show no place behind i t . You needn't to search for any hole in the ground to look through into somewhere els e. You c a n ' t go neithe r forwards nor backwards into your daddy's time nor your c h i ld r e n 's i f you have them. In yourself r i g h t

39

now Is a l l the place you've got. I f there was any F a l l , look th er e, 1f there was any Redemption, look t h e r e , and 1f you expect any Judgment, look t h e r e, because they a l l three w i l l have to be 1n your time and your body and where 1n your time and your body can they be?" (p. 90) Hightower's sermons are an "outrage" 1n t h e i r mixture of C i v i l War pyrotechnics and Presbyterian s a lv a tio n .

With c h a r a c t e r i s t i c i n d i r e c ­

t i o n , Faulkner presents, not the t e x t of the sermons, but reports of them.

The best in d ic a tio n of t h e i r actual content l i e s in the mono­

logue Hightower de li v e r s to his wife as t h e i r t r a i n approaches Jefferson: "L isten. Try to see i t . Here is that f in e shape of eternal youth and v i r g i n a l desire which makes heroes. That makes the doings of heroes border so close upon the unbelievable th a t i t 1s no wonder tha t t h e i r doings must emerge now and then l i k e gunflashes in the smoke, and that t h e i r very physical passing becomes rumor with a thousand faces before breath is out of them, le s t paradoxical t ru th outrage i t s e l f " ( p . 423). So i t must have been when he t r i e d to make his congregation hear i t , see i t .

The man's own words tend to confirm t h e i r evaluation of his

sermons as "sa crilege" and " in s a n it y " :

tangles of fa c t and fancy, past

and f u t u r e , r e l ig i o u s dogma and p r iv a te myth. Through the v io le n t extremes of his sermons the mad preacher shares with his audiences his own confusion. the l i m i t s of paradox.

Their response is a measure of

A f t e r Miss Lonelyhearts1 "black C h r i s t - f r u i t "

harangue, the Doyles turn away in "astonishment" and "embarrassment The wayfarers on Taulkinham's s tre e ts usually greet Hazel's performance with blank star es, although one answers, '" T h e re 's always f a n a t i c s ' " ( p . 3 4 ) , and another decides th a t the s t re e t preacher is "nuts" ( p . 92). Hightower's congregation l i s t e n s at f i r s t , "astonished," "dubious," and "puzzled" (pp .4 2 , 5 6 ) , then " h o r r i f i e d and outraged" ( p . 58).

The mad

preacher pushes the rh e to r ic of con tr adiction beyond its logical use­ fulness.

A fte r repeated f a i l u r e s to e l i c i t a sympathetic or understanding

40

response, he chooses the a l t e r n a t i v e of s ile n c e .

Hiss Lonelyhearts

adopts the im p e r t u r b a b i l i t y of a rock as he endures sm ilin gly and without a word Sh ri ke 's game o f "everyman his own M1ss Lonelyhearts."

By the

f i n a l chapter of Wise Blood, Hazel has r e treated to his boarding house and w i l l

r a r e l y exchange a word with his curious landlady, although he

does e x p la in , e n ig m a t i c a lly , th a t he "can't preach any more" ( p . 120) because he does not have time.

When Hightower enters the p u l p i t for

the l a s t time, he stands in silence long a f t e r his congregation has emptied the church, and a f t e r he is beaten by the Klan he maintains his s i le n c e .

These dead-ends are the natural r e s u lts of language used

combatively, of furious antitheses whose head-on force makes impossible cooperation, compromise or progressive r e s o lu tio n . The tensions o f c h a r a c te r i z a t i o n t h a t are captured in the language of the mad preacher are well described in William Empson's discussion of the seventh type of ambiguity.

He uses as examples words in which

two opposite meanings, "the two opposite values of the ambiguity," express a self- con ta in e d c o n f l i c t .

His analysis of such words as the

L a tin a l t u s , the English l e t and temper and maze r e c a l l s Szasz's example of the La tin sacer and T i l l i c h ' s more lengthy e x p l ic a t io n of holy.

This

sort of c o n tr a d ic t io n , Empson stresses, need not be o v e r tly ambiguous; r a t h e r , there is a context or r e l a t i o n of opposition established tnat allows f o r a wide v a r i e t y of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n while providing that i n t e n s i t y th a t comes from compressing heterogeneous m ateria l in t o a single u n i t . The u n i t , as Empson studies i t , may be a single word, or i t may be a metaphor, or even an e n t i r e poem.

The mad preacher presents a case in

which an individual character functions as that in t e g r a t i v e u n i t ,

For

Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gall Hightower the r e l a t i o n a l oppo­ s i t e of r e l I g l o u s Is insane.

The combination of the theological and the

psychological In the person o f the mad preacher establishes a set of contradictions th a t cannot be l o g i c a l l y resolved.

The r es u lti n g

c h a r a c te r iz at io n belongs to t h a t pattern of con tradiction tha t Empson defines as "a t once an indecision and a s t ru c t u re , l i k e the symbol of the Cross."^®

Although the tensions within the mad preacher seem to

spring from fundamentally opposed sources, that i s , the natural and the supernatural, or the physical and the s p i r i t u a l , there is a connection, an i d e n t i t y of the two values of the ambiguity th a t can br named with a word such as i r r a t i o n a l i t y .

Both the psychological and the theological

views o f man and his world depend upon an imaginative apprehension of r e a l i t y t h a t expresses i t s e l f through metaphor and analogy before i t formulates law and system. The i n t u i t i v e apprehension of a transcendent r e a l i t y has sometimes been given the name f a i t h and sometimes delu sion, also, both v i s i o n and h a l l u c i n a t i o n .

Such contrasting pairs abound, as we have seen, in

the c r i t i c a l analyses of the mad preachers here under study. context f o r the i r r a t i o n a l

Another

that seems even more appropriate to an i n ­

v e s ti g a ti o n of th is character type 1s the a r t i s t i c .

The issue of

b elievable and unbelievable f i c t i o n s is a major theme of Miss Lonely­ hearts , Wise Blood and Light in August„ s t o r ie s :

The mad preacher is swamped in

the sickening accounts of Miss L ’ s l e t t e r w r i t e r s , the s e l f -

serving r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n s of his f r i e n d s , the sales pitches of newspaper

42

advertisements and Oney Jay Holy, the t a le s o f childhood trauma of Mary Shrike, Sabbath L i l y , Enoch Emery and Gall Hightower.

And behind a l l

looms the Christ sto r y, providing a metaphoric ground f o r these I n d i ­ vidual In t e r p r e t a tio n s of personal experience. Tt 1s as an a r t i s t , a manipulator o f symbols, th at the mad preacher can be seen attempting to transcend the dichotomies of the f le s h and the s p irit.

In modeling

f u l l y conquered that

himself a f t e r someone who seemed to

have success­

c o n f l i c t , the mad preacher hopes to achieve some

measure of disinterestedness, some r e l i e f from the pain of lived ex­ perience.

By making himself an analogue, as i t were, of that Great One,

he hopes to share in

th at success story.

l i m i t s himself to a r h e t o r ic a l existence.

As an analogue, however, he That is to say, the mad preacher

makes himself, not into a s a i n t , nor Into a psychotic, but into a f i c t i o n a l f i g u r e , an actor speaking on cue.

CHAPTER 3 :

A PRIEST OF OUR TIME

He li v e d by himself in a room t h a t was as f u l l of shadows as an old steel engraving. I t held a bed, a t a b l e , and two c h a ir s . The walls were bare except f o r an ivory Christ t h a t hung opposite the foot of the bed. He had removed the fig u r e from the cross to which i t had been fastened and had nailed i t to the wall with large spikes. Miss Lonelyhearts

The shortest of the three novels, M1ss Lonelyhearts, is not com­ p lic ated by a subplot, as is Wise Blood, nor an interwoven group of s t o r i e s , as is Light in August.

The Enoch Emery chapters of W1se B1ood

occupy almost h a l f of th at novel, and the Gail Hightower portions of Light in August account f o r no more than a t h i r d of the longest of the three novels.

But M1ss Lonelyhearts alone is the center of West's

novel; the n a r r a t i v e is e n t i r e l y in t h i r d person, but the voice 1s p e c u l ia r ly Miss Lonelyhearts'.

Because th is lim it e d focus makes Mi ss

Lonelyhearts the simplest, i t is the best o f the novels with which to begin looking closely at the pattern of action conmon to a l l

three of

the preache r-f lgures. For Miss Lonelyhearts, the present is marked by s t e r i l i t y and f u t i l i t y of epidemic proportions.

His work and his friends are steeped

in cynicism; even the parks and skyscrapers r e f l e c t the barrenness of 43

44

Idealism gone sour, of dreams betrayed.

Miss Lonelyhearts 1s struck by

a conviction that the world he inhabits is a dead one, and West care­ f u l l y plants both support f o r his protagonist's conviction and suspicion t ha t the deadness is in the eye o f the beholder.

To cure th is numbing

malaise, M1ss Lonelyhearts struggles to invoke some elusive power from the past.

His dreams, his childhood memories, his reading of Dostoevsky

suggest to him tha t there is some hope f o r rediscovering v i t a l i t y and sharing i t .

His f a i l u r e to r e v i t a l i z e himself and reanimate the dead

world and cure his l e t t e r w r it e r s is made e x p l i c i t on the l a s t page of the novel as he is shot by Peter Doyle while attempting to heal him mlraculously.

1 Miss Lonelyhearts* introdu ction to f a i l u r e takes place in the c i t y room of the New York Post-Dispatch where he d a i l y reads the despairing l i f e s tories o f " S i c k - o f - 1 t - a l 1," "Desperate," "Broken-hearted," "Broad Shoulders" and is unable to find the words f o r a r e p ly .

But worse than

the helplessness of his correspondents and his own ha lt in g response is the newspaper game that he finds himself a part o f .

Although Miss

Lonelyhearts sees the l e t t e r s as "profoundly humble pleas f o r moral and s p i r i t u a l advice.

. . . i n a r t i c u l a t e expressions of genuine s uf­

fe ring " ( p . 5 3 ) , he also knows that the lonelyhearts column was created in a purely comnercial s p i r i t , an e f f o r t to increase the paying reader­ ship.

When he has d i f f i c u l t y f in i s h in g his column and Shrike offers

him advice, i t is with a p r a c tic a l eye to this audience:

45

"Why d o n 't you give them something new and hopeful? T e ll them about a r t . Here, I ’ l l d ic t a te : ' A rt Is a Way Out. ’ Do not Tet l i f e overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the debris o f f a i l u r e , look fo r newer and fresher paths. A rt is ju s t such a path '" ( p . 9 ). Scorning the dishonesty of Sh rike's c lic h e s , Miss Lonelyhearts once recommended suicide in his column.

His feature e d i t o r ' s response was

c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y mordant: "Remember, please, that your job is to increase the c i r c u l a ­ tion o f our paper. Suicide, i t is only reasonable to t h in k , must defeat this purpose" ( p p .32-3 3). The sense of defeat experienced by Miss Lonelyhearts on the job stems p a r t l y from his ambivalence toward his assignment.

Like the rest

of the newstaff, he f i r s t considered the column a joke, and he s t i l l sees the value o f keeping his distance from the f r u s t r a t i o n of the l e t t e r s , but he is unable e i t h e r to dismiss them with a laugh or to respond with the appropriate helpfulness. quate.

He wavers and feels inade­

But i f within himself Miss L finds a growing malaise, in his

business associates he discovers the j o i n t malady of conwnerc ia 1 i sm and cynicism grown chronic. group.

Shrike is the princip al

spokesman o f this

He mocks Miss L's dilemma:

"Miss Lonelyhearts, my f r i e n d , I advise you to give your readers stones. When they ask f o r bread don't give them crackers as does the Church, and d o n ' t , l i k e the State, t e l l them to eat cake. Explain that man cannot l i v e by bread alone and give them stones. Teach them to pray each morning: 'Give us th i s day our d a i l y s tone"1 (p,11)» Goldsmith, another s t a f f w r i t e r , echoes Shrike's w itt ic is m on suicide while encouraging Miss L to take advantage o f the suggestive overtones in a l e t t e r from "An Admirer": "How now, Dostoievski?" he said. "That's no way to af t . In­ stead of pulling the Russian by recomendinn suicide, you ouoht to oet the lady with c h il d and i " c n v r,e ♦hr uotnntial c i r c u l a t i o n of the paper*' ( p . 43).

46

When M1ss L j o i n s his friend s a f t e r hours at Delahanty's he hears the same b i t t e r banter, and he recognizes t h e i r model 1n t h e i r hyena laughter: Like Shrike, the man they Im i t a te d , they were machines for making jokes. A button machine makes buttons, no matter what the power used, f o o t , steam or e l e c t r i c i t y . They, no matter what the motivating f o r c e , death, love or God, made jokes ( p . 2 7 ) . West places his protagonist in a grotesque environment peopled with grotesque characters in order to demonstrate and j u s t i f y Miss L's al i e n a t i o n . ^

The characters are grotesque, for instance, when they

manifest non-human q u a l i t i e s :

Sh ri ke 's name as a reminder of the bird

of prey, his face compared to the blade of a hatchet, the men at the bar, producing jokes mechanically, operating not independently, but l i k e automatons or p u p p e t s . M o s t s i g n i t i c a n t l y for Miss L, there is no hope of reassurance from such f r ie n d s , no p o s s i b i l i t y of t h e i r r e ­ li e v i n g his anxiety.

The c i t y

room i t s e l f ►'effects th is i n h o s p i t a l i t y ,

"cold and damp," where Miss L,

gazing about in dejection "could find no

support for e i t h e r his

his feelin gs " ( p . 65).

eyes or

79 Wolfgang Kayser's admirable survey and ana ly sis , The Grotesque in Art and L i t e r a t u r e , trans. U lr ic h Weisstein (1957; r p t . flew" YorkT McGraw-Hill, 1966), fre que ntly focuses on the a l i e n a t io n and estrange­ ment that accompanies the grotesque, and concludes that tne grotesque "is p r im a r i ly the expression of our f a i l u r e to or ie n t ourselves in the physical universe" ( p . 185). 80 A rulin g p r i n c i p l e o f the grotesque, as Kayser repeatedly demonstrates, is "the merger of mutually incompatible elements" ( p . 116): the "unnatural fusion" of the human with the animal or with the mechanical { p . 183). This " f r i g h t f u l mixture of mechanical, vegetable, anima"1, and human elements is represented as the image of our world, which is breaking apart" ( p . 33).

ft 1 The "obsessive environments," as Randall Re1d°[ c a l l s the novel's

s e tt i n g s , I n t e n s i f y the sense o f s t e r i l i t y that pervades Miss Lonely­ hearts' struggle 1n the newspaper game.

In the l i t t l e

park between the

newspaper building and Delahanty's the ground 1s covered with a "decay t h a t .. . w a s not the kind in which l i f e generates.

Last year, he remem­

bered, May had f a i l e d to quicken these soiled f i e l d s .

I t had taken a l l

the b r u t a l i t y of July to t o r t u r e a few green spikes through the ex­ hausted d i r t "

( p . 10 ).

Miss L's preoccupation with s t e r i l i t y and deadness

begins r o u t i n e l y to extend i t s e l f to violence.

" B r u t a l i t y " and "to r tu re "

do succeed in producing some "spikes" of grass, even though the ground is "exhausted." in s im il a r terms:

A little

l a t e r in the novel Miss L thinks of himself

"Like a dead man, only f r i c t i o n could make him warm

or violence make him mobile" ( p . 34).

Again and again Miss L returns to

the premise that the s t e r i l i t y of his existence can be broken only by violence, that powerlessness can be overcome through extreme displays of power. This same premise underlies the e f f o r t s of Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower to set r ig h t the un sati sfac to ry present.

Hazel’ s murder of

Solace Layfieid and his own s e l f - b l i n d i n g are but the most extreme i n ­ stances in a career studded with verbal and physica'. aggr essi on.

For

the lonely c h i l d , G a i l , the repeatedly exaggerated body count of his gr a nd fa ther1s encounters with the Yankees serves as a r i t u a l

charm that

he w i l l carry into his adulthood, where i t w i l l engender and j u s t i f y his

81

The Fiction of Nathanael West: NoP e d e e ^ r , No Promised Land (Chicago: UnTv of Chicago T'^’ss, 1967")”, "Cf.

48

w ife 's death, his own forced disestablishm ent, and a beating from the Klan.

Face to face w ith a b ru ta liz e d r e a l i t y — M1ss L's l e t t e r s ,

H azel's Taulkinham, Hightower's w a r-s tric k e n fam ily — the mad preacher seeks f o r a response, or a weapon, potent enough to return some r e l i a b l e order to the human scene. From the park, Miss Lonelyhearts looks at the sky, gray and empty, holding no signs of power, "no angels, flaming crosses, olive -b e a rin g doves, wheels with in wheels.

Only a newspaper struggled in the a i r l i k e

a k i t e with a broken spine" ( p . l l ) .

The newspaper has replaced the old

r e l i g i o u s symbols, but i t lacks t h e i r e f f i c a c y ; compared to them i t is a broken toy .

Even in broad d a y li g h t the park seems to be dominated by

darkness and shadow, l i k e Miss L's room.

As he entered the park through

an archway, Miss L "swallowed mouthfuls o f . . . h e a v y shade" and "walked into the shadow of a lamp-post t h a t lay on the path l i k e a spear. pierced him l i k e a spear" ( p . 10).

It

The ominous and s i n i s t e r q u a l i t y of

Miss Lonelyhearts' world is l a r g e l y the r e s u l t of West's introduction of grotesque elements into an otherwise r e a l i s t i c s e tt in g .

There is a

gradual blurring of the d is t i n c t i o n s between the realm of inanimate things and that of plan ts , animals and human beings, u n t i l "the laws of s t a t i c s , symmetry, and proportion are no longer v a l i d . O n

a l a t e r v i s i t to

the park, f or instance, Miss L w e a rily occupies a bench opposite an obeli sk. The stone shaft cast a long, r i g i d shadow on the walk in fro n t of him. He sat staring at i t without knowing why u n t il he noticed that i t was lengthening in rapid j e r k s , not as shadows

82

Kayser,

p.

21.

49

usu ally lengthen. He grew frigh ten ed and looked up a t the monument. I t seemed red and swollen In the dying sun, as though 1t were about to spout a load of g ra n ite seed ( p . 33) Some of Wolfgang Kayser's conclusions about the nature of the grotesque are p a r t i c u l a r l y p e r t in e n t to West's handling of t h i s p r in c ip le of estrangement.

Early 1n his study Kayser stresses that in both a r t and

l i t e r a t u r e the grotesque world is one 1n which "the natural order of Q1 things has been subverted." The cumulative e f f e c t of West's choice of grotesque d e t a i l s is to define Miss Lonelyhearts' world as one lacking a meaningful and supportive order.

The unnatural fusion of disparate

realms (such as the sudden animation of the ob elisk) that underlies t h i s dis ord er, Kayser s t a t e s , "may e i t h e r be effected in the tangible objects themselves or 1t may r e s u l t from a cha ra cte r's - - or the n a r r a t o r ' s — reaction to a given s i t u a t i o n . "

West simultaneously employs both the

physical environment and Miss L's u n s e tt li n g perception of his surround­ ings to produce in the novel's reader the apprehension and confusion th a t Kayser considers central

to the reception

of the grotesque,86

When West describes Miss L's reaction to the o b e lis k 's r ap id ly length­ ening shadow, for example, he is careful to avoid any authorial explana­ t io n f o r th is p e c u l i a r i t y .

With the introduction of the " f a c t u a l l y

impossible," Kayser continues, "the border of the grotesque is crossed,"86

83 Kayser, p. 21. 84 Kayser, p. 116. 85 Kayser, p. 114. 86

Kayser,

p.

116,

50

I f West had w ritte n the account e n t i r e l y In e ith e r the In d ic a tiv e or the subjunctive, he would have s h ifte d the balance of doubt and provided a c le a r measure o f the r e l i a b i l i t y o f M1ss L's perceptions.

Such a reso­

l u t io n , however, would destroy the very ambiguity 1t is West's purpose to m aintain.

He allows no appreciable distance to develop between his

protagonist and the read er, staying always w ithin close range of Miss L's consciousness.

It

is important that the columnist's soundness of

mind be doubted — he even doubts i t himself — but i t is equally Im­ portant th a t there be ample c re d ib le evidence fo r his perception of his world's d is lo c a tio n . There is one other a t t r i b u t e of the grotesque as a genre that is p a r t i c u l a r l y rele va n t to Miss L's c h a r a c te r iz at i o n and dilemma, and that is Kayser's assertion that u n lik e the estrangement of tragedy, which leads on to deeper meaning, the grotesque remains "within the sphere of incomprehensibility"; "no cause, no power can be named as responsible" f o r the estrangement of the world.

And Kayser continues,

" I f we were able to name these powers and r e l a t e them to the cosmic order, the grotesque would lose i t s essential q u a l i t y . " 87

Kayser suggests that

the grotesque is a way of o b j e c t i f y i n g "the ghostly ' I t ' "

of the imper­

sonal pronoun, by means of which "we seek to express that w hi ch language cannot name."8®

Unless he wishes to weaken his e f f e c t , "the creator of

grotesques . . . must not and cannot suggest a meaning."

87 Kayser, p. 185. 88

Kayser, pp. 185, 209. 89 Kayser,

p.

186.

OQ

Miss

51

Lonelyhearts' endeavor to I n t e r p r e t the d is lo ca ti o n th a t he sees and to fin d a remedy f o r i t , t h e r e f o r e , Is constantly f o i l e d .

He 1s unwilling

to grant an absurd world in which s uffe ri ng has no meaning. In his preoccupied speculation about the source of the disorder that surrounds him, Miss L does not overlook human agency, but he is convinced of man's l i m i t s and suspects the inanimate world of hiding some malignant power.

During his l a s t v i s i t to the park he again studies

the sky and finds i t "canvas-colored and 111- s t r e t c h e d „" He examined i t l i k e a stupid de te c ti v e who is searching f o r a clew to his own exhaustion. When he found nothing, he turned his trained eye on the skyscrapers that menaced the l i t t l e park from a l l sides. In t h e i r tons of forced rock and tortured s t e e l , he discovered what he thought was a clew ( p . 4 6 ) . What he believes he has recognized in the skyscrapers is yet another kind of d i s l o c a t i o n , t y p i c a l l y American:

a disproportionate zeal to shape the

inanimate world into something c olossal, accompanied by the f ear that the inanimate world i t s e l f w i l l

take c o n tr o l.

The skyscrapers, he the orizes,

are the r e s u lt of "an orgy of stone breaking" in which Americans "d is ­ sipated" t h e i r energy, working " h y s t e r i c a l l y , desperately, almost as i f they knew that the stones would some day break them" ( p . 4 6 ). Miss Lonelyhearts may have succeeded in uncovering a clue to his own exhaustion in th i s passage, f o r he has c e r t a i n l y had s im ila r con­ f l i c t s with the material world.

His f l i g h t to Betty's apartment 1n

Chapter 4 is occasioned by his own f a i l u r e to organize the world into dependable patterns:

"the shoes under the bed, the t i e s in the holder,

the pencils on the t a b l e .

When he looked out of a window, he composed

the skyline by balancing one building against another" ( p . ? 0 ) .

He can­

not, however, prevent a bird from f l y i n g across th is s t a t i c arrangement, and even his dominion over his own belongings seems challenged on this

52

day when . . . . a l l the Inanimate things over which he had t r i e d to obtain control took the f i e l d against him. When he touched something, 1t s p i l l e d or r o l l e d to the f l o o r . The c o l l a r buttons d i s ­ appeared under the bed, the point of the pencil broke, the handle of the razor f e l l o f f , the window shade refused to stay down. He fought back, but with too much violence, and was d e c is iv e l y defeated by the spring of the alarm clock { p . 20). M1ss Lonelyhearts' dllenma here has the comic ring of the mockheroic; his exaggerated insistence upon order liness makes him the laugh­ able victim o f a morning's t r i v i a l mishaps.

West 1s c h a r a c t e r l s t l c a l l y

double-playing his m a t e r i a l , as O'Connor, having learned the manner well from th i s novel, would l a t e r do with Hazel Motes and his search f o r "a place to be":

s h i f t i n g in m id -s t r id e from a sober, stra ig h t- forward

tone to ir o n ic s l a p s t i c k , and back again to serious concern.

With these

rapid changes of a t t i t u d e . West insures the read er's dise q uil ibrium without e n t i r e l y undermining his b e l i e f that beneath the ordinary d i s ­ order of c i t y l i f e , M1ss L has glimpsed a d is lo c a tio n of profound consequence.

Fleeing his room f o r the s t r e e t , he found that "there

chaos was m u ltip le " : Broken groups of people hurried past, forming n e it h e r stars nor squares. The lamp-posts were badly spaced and the flagging was of d i f f e r e n t s izes. Nor could he do anything with the harsh clanging sound o f s t r e e t cars and the raw shouts of hucksters. No repeated group o f words would f i t t h e i r rhythm and no scale could give them meaning { p p .2 0 -2 1 ) . Note th a t not merely the disorder, but his i n a b i l i t y to arrange and "give . . . meaning" to random experience, his impotence, is what ag it a te s him. The c i t y room's cynicism, the park's decay, the s t r e e t ' s chaos, the speakeasy's "alcoholic gloom" combine to increase M1ss Lonelyhearts' melancholy and his conviction that the v i t a l i t y and s t a b i l i t y of the f a m i l i a r and natural are disappearing.

53

West Includes even the wholesome pastoral among these threatening, obsessive environments.

Betty assures Miss L t h a t 1f he were to l i v e

In the country, "he would fin d th a t a l l his troubles were c i t y tro ub le s ," and she takes him on a recuperative t r i p to a Connecticut farm where she was born.

Although thoroughly skeptical of B e t t y ' s plan, once 1n the

woods, Miss Lonelyhearts "had to admit, even to himself, tha t the pale new leaves, shaped and colored l i k e candle flames, were be autiful and tha t the a i r smelt clean and a l i v e "

( p . 6 0 ).

At l a s t Miss L seems to

have escaped the contagion th a t poisoned his l i f e 1n New York.

He and

Betty make the farmhouse l i v e a b l e , eat fresh food cooked over a wood f i r e , watch deer feed by the pond, swim, get plenty of sunshine and fresh springtime a i r .

And yet the countryside is not without the same

tokens of s t r i f e and decay, both human and inhuman, that mark the c i t y . There is the tacky commercialism of the "Aw-Kum-On" garage, where M1ss L goes f or gasoline.

The garage attendant blames the declin e in the deer

population on "the yids"; there are s t i l l because the "yids" don't go there.

deer a t the pond, he says,

And there is an echo of the midtown

park atmosphere in a description of the shadowy woods: I t was very sad under the t r e e s . Although spring was well advanced, in the deep shade there was nothing but death — rotton leaves, gray and white f u n g i, and over everything a funereal hush ( p . 62). The d i s i n t e g r a t i o n to which Miss Lonelyhearts is so s e n sitive t a i n t s even the pastoral peace.

The country landscape is demonstrably underlaid

with r o t , j u s t as the c i t y s treets are And t h a t is why Miss Lonelyhearts

the d a i l y scene of v i o l e n t dis ord er. is so r e l i e v e d , on his return to

the c i t y , to r e a l i z e that "Betty had f a i l e d to cure him and that he had been r i g h t . . . . "

( p . 6 4 ).

I f a change of scene had succeeded in dispersing

54

his "troubles" Miss L might have been forced to conclude th a t the stag­ n a tio n , the h o s t i l i t y , the d e s p a ir, the senselessness th a t he fe e ls surrounds him were merely p rojection s o f his querulous s e n s i b i l i t y . As he drives through the sTums of the Bronx, he fe el s reassured that these signs of d i s i n t e g r a t i o n a re , indeed, v i s i b l e in the c u lt u r a l fa b ric . The l e t t e r w r it e r s are a s i g n i f i c a n t segment of the f a b r ic that Miss L sees.

Their s to r ie s embody the same impoverishment that marks

the physical environment.

For M1ss Lonelyhearts they represent the

cheated masses, maimed by some unknown hand and denied even the d ig n it y of an explanation.

Some are d is figu re d or crip pled l i k e "Desperate,"

the s ixte e n -y e a r- o ld g i r l

born without a nose, who wonders i f she "did

something in the other world" to "deserve such a bad fa te "

( p . 7 ) ; or

Peter Doyle, who, with one leg shorter than the other, works p a i n f u l l y long days as a meter reader, and, at f o r t y - o n e , r e a l i z e s that his future w ill

be a f u t i l e r e p e t i t i o n of his past. West describes Doyle in d e t a i l , emphasizing his grotesque features: The c r i p p l e had a very strange face. His eyes f a i l e d to balance; his mouth was not under his nose; his forehead was square and bony; and his round chin was l i k e a forehead in m in ia tu re . He looked l i k e one cf those composite pictures used by screen magazines in guessing contests ( p . 7 5).

When Doyle walks, dragging his lame foot behind him, he makes "many waste motions, l i k e those of a p a r t i a l l y destroyed insect" (p„73). he

When

speaks, his words come out in "a jumble," and the gestures tha t are

meant to accompany his conversation of the subject.

e i t h e r "lagged b e h in d .. .o r ran ahead"

Peter Doyle is completely a creature of Miss Lonely-

hearts' d i s t o r t e d , malfunctioning universe.

55

The disconnectedness t h a t marks Doyle's speech and movements shows I t s e l f 1n a v a r i e t y of ways 1n several o f the other characters.

In "The

Dead Pan" our a t t e n t i o n Is drawn to the discrepancy between Shrike's r a p i d - f i r e speech, punctuated by extravagant gestures, and his face, which always reta ins a mask-11ke Immobility.

The "clean old man," whom

M1ss L and his f r i e n d Gates f in d s i t t i n g on a closed t o i l e t seat 1n a men's restroom, 1s Incongruously o u t f i t t e d with gloves, a satin t i e and cane, and a f f e c t s an elaborate gentlemanly manner.

Mary Shrike eagerly

dates Miss L, f lo u t i n g her husband, but even while she is kissing him, she refuses to "associate what she f e l t with the sexual act" ( p p . 3 3 - 3 4 ) . Because "she always talked 1n headlines" ( p . 3 5 ) , Miss L learns quickly th a t there is l i t t l e laratio n s.

substance behind the emotional urgency of her dec­

A f t e r a f i g h t with her husband, Mary asks Miss Lonelyhearts

to take her to a nightclub c a lle d El Gaucho: know, but i t ' s gay and I so want to be gay"'

' " I t ' s a l i t t l e fakey, I (p .39).

When they enter

and are shown to a t a b l e , a Cuban rhumba is playing and "Mary imnedlately went Spanish and her movements became langorous and f u l l ( p . 38).

of abandon"

Whereas Doyle's incongruity 1s only physical — his topsy-turvy

face , his incoherent speech, his unsynchronized hands - - the p e c u l i a r i ­ t i e s o f the Shrikes and the clean old man are rooted more deeply in t h e i r characters.

A l l three are involved in a b i t of p r o t e c t iv e pre­

tense tha t is I n i t i a l l y confusing and u l t i m a t e l y exasperating f o r Miss Lonelyhearts. M1ss L cannot re la x in the romantic atmosphere of El Gaucho's be­ cause he recognizes the shallow c a lc u l a t io n th a t l i e s behind the " g u i t a r s , brigh t shawls, exotic foods, outlandish costumes - - a l l things were part of the business of dreams" ( p . 3 8).

these

Once he would have

56

laughed a t "the advertisements o f f e r i n g to teach w r i t i n g , cartooning, engineering, to add inches to the biceps and develop the bust" ( p . 38 ), but now he r e a l iz e s t h a t the people who come to El Gaucho and those who answer the advertisements are the same people who w r it e to Miss Lonely­ hearts for help.

He does not find t h e i r dreams funny any longer, but

he is increasingly sickened by the cheapened r ate o f exchange to which those dreams have been reduced. dream, only the packaging:

What remains is only the husk of the

as Mary f ’ i r t s with Miss L, her dress is

'Mike glass-covered steel and there was something cleanly mechanical in her pantomime" ( p . 39). Mary w i l l engage in no more than a pantomime o f a romantic en­ counter; when Miss Lonelyhearts presses her to sleep with him, she begins to t a l k about her d i f f i c u l t childhood and how she watched her mother die of cancer.

(Her mother, she says, suffered also from the

c r u e l t y of her f a t h e r , who was an a r t i s t ,

"a man of genius.")

"Parents

are also part of the business of dreams," Miss L speculates: My f a th e r was a Russian prince, my f a th e r was a Piute Indian c h i e f , my f a th e r was an Austr alian sheep baron, my f a th e r los t a l l his money on Wall S t r e e t , my f a t h e r was a p o r t r a i t p a i n te r . People l i k e Mary were unable to do without such ta le s . They told them because they wanted to t a lk about something.. .poetic ( p . 40), "People l i k e Mary," that i s , v i r t u a l l y everyone Miss L knows and espec­ i a l l y his l e t t e r w r i t e r s , endeavor to find an added dimension in t h e i r l iv e s that w i l l y i e l d them some measure of self-esteem

Tno freque ntly ,

i t seems to Miss Lonelyhearts, t h i s search for the "poetic" results in nothing more than the f a b r ic a t io n of a posture that is unrelated to the r e a l i t i e s of the s it u a t io n :

Shrike's manic gre na r io u v irv . does nothing

to improve his r e la t io n s h ip with his w ife; B etty's love of nature e f fe c t s

57

no cure f o r M1ss Lonelyhearts; Mary Sh rike's romantlcization of the past keeps her at a distance from her husband.

Such make-believe allows for

periodic escape from, but no change in the unsatisfying present. Miss Lonelyhearts believes t h a t he has come upon a key to under­ standing and, perhaps, changing the badly d is jo in t e d times in which he and his f e l l o w New Yorkers stru ggle . corruption. gen eralize s.

This key is the dream and i t s

"Men have always fought t h e i r misery with dreams," he "Although dreams were once powerful, they have been made

p u e rile by the movies, radio and newspapers. one 1s the worst" ( p . 64 ).

Among many b etray als , this

This theory f i t s his 1e t t e r w r i t e r s , l i k e

Peter Doyle, who t e l l s his wife th a t "the papers is c - a p ," but writes to Miss L because "I figured maybe you no something about i t because you have read a l o t o f b o o k s . . . . " ; and i t f i t s his friend s at the bar who, having lost t h e i r own id e a ls , now mock the c re a tiv e endeavors of others w ith , " . . . a f t e r a l l one has to earn a l i v i n g . " ; and the theory accounts f o r Miss Lonelyhearts1 discomfort with El Gaucho and adver­ tisements th a t convert p r iv a te a spiratio ns into "the business of dreams," I t is this devaluation of dreams Miss Lonelyhearts believes, th a t has turned New York into a l i v i n g nightmare.

As he meditated on this

dilemma when he and Betty entered the Bronx on t h e i r return from the country, he noticed a man "who appeared to be on the verge of death stagger into a movie theater th a t was showing a pic ture c a ll e d B1onde Beauty.

He saw a ragged woman with an enormous g o i t e r pick a love

story magazine out of a garbage can and seem very excited by her find" ( p . 64).

The people's need f o r ideals is being met by cheap and empty

im it a tio n s , and Miss L feels that his column implicates him in this worst of a l l

betrayals.

Moreover, he is ashamed of abandoning his own

Ideals :

"The thing th a t made his share In 1t p a r t i c u l a r l y bad," he

r e f l e c t s , "was th a t he was capable of dreaming the C h ris t dream" ( p . 6 4 ). Religious Ide als have suffered the same d e p r e d a t i o n as p r iv a te dreams, and th is loss I n t e n s i f i e s the general c u l t u r a l

impoverishment.

The novel's opening paragraph focuses on one of Sh ri k e 's mock prayers, "Soul of Miss L, g l o r i f y me," and wherever M1ss Lonelyhearts turns, he finds evidence o f r e l i g i o n ' s reduced e s t a t e .

"America has her own

r e l i g i o n s , " Shrike snaps at the mention o f the thomlstic synthesis. And to I l l u s t r a t e his meaning he produces a newspaper clipping head­ l i n e d , "'ADDING MACHINE USED IN RITUAL OF WESTERN SECT.'"

The Liberal

Church of America, the a r t i c l e s t a t e s , o f f e r s prayers on an adding machine because "numbers.. .c o n s t i t u t e the only universal language" ( p p .1 3 -1 4).

West did not need the computer as a metaphor f o r the de­

humanization of the s p i r i t u a l

Impulse.

And when the r e l i g i o u s motive

is allowed, I t 1s q u a l i f i e d and r e s t r i c t e d so as to insure i t s impotence Miss L's frie nd s c r i t i c i z e his r e l i g i o u s in s t i n c t s as too " l i t e r a r y " and smugly agree that "even 1f he were to have a genuine r e li g io u s e x p e r i­ ence, i t would be personal and so meaningless, except to a psychologist" ( p p . 1 3 -1 4 ) .

Because Miss L himself doubts the e f f i c a c y o f a r e lig io u s

stance, he is caught in a double bind.

His ambivalence is c l e a r l y i n ­

dicated in his own formulation, "the Ch rist dream."

The phrase suggests

simultaneously, s p i r i t u a l a s p ir a tio n and pacifying i l l u s i o n .

I t is

j u s t as d i f f i c u l t for the reader as i t is f o r Miss Lonelyhearts to judge whether his dream is an unconscious desire or a chosen commitment. I f he affirms the r e a l i t y and the power o f the s p i r i t u a l

life ,

the r is k o f fin d in g himself in the ranks of the lun a ti c f r i n g e .

he runs In the

land of the skyscraper and the adding machine, only a s p i r a t i o n s of a material nature are taken serio us ly .

59

M1ss L's rad ic a l d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with the present r e a l i t y 1s ty pica l of the mad preacher.

Also t y pic al

which th at r e a l i t y Is e sta b lished.

1s the un c e rt ainty with

Hazel Motes and Gall Hightower

move In s i m i l a r l y grotesque, shadowy environments which are unquestion­ ably unwholesome:

New York C it y during the depression, the ghost town

o f Eastrod, Tennessee, and the careless corruption of Taulkinham, the post-C1v1l War South.

Each protagonist experiences the i n s u f f i c i e n c y

of his world as a t h r e a t dir ec te d against his w e ll -b e in g .

But even

while the evidence supporting t h a t view of a malevolent environment accumulates, I t becomes Increasingly obvious t h a t the disharmony and violence of external r e a l i t y 1s, to some e x te n t, p a r t i c u l a r l y un s ett ling because I t r e f l e c t s , rat h er than simply causes, these characters' own Inte rn al d is r u p tio n .

The mad preacher Is a character who reads his en­

vironment for signs, and Is e s p e c i a l ly s e n s it iv e to symbols th a t r e i n ­ force his melancholy.

This conscious probing

f o r meaning on his part

adds another dimension to the usual functions o f sett in g 1n these novels: the settings do aid 1n c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n . Miss L's shadowy room suggesting his melancholy, f o r example.

Setting also helps to e s ta b li s h c r e d i b i l i t y

f o r the chara cter, the c i t y room, the l e t t e r s , the bar accounting f o r Miss L's depression.

A d d i t i o n a l l y , s e tt in g 1s in te rp re te d by the char­

ac te r himself 1n an e f f o r t to define his world and his place in 1t.

II Miss Lonelyhearts finds his world uniformly non-supporttve.

The

recovery of v i t a l i t y th a t he seeks Is not to be found in his j o b , 1n nature, with his f r i e n d s , nor with his fiancee.

With greater and greater

frequency he turns to his imagination as a resource:

his dreams,

60

memories and fanta sies suggest the presence o f a c r e a t i v i t y t h a t 1s ab­ sent In the external world.

They also c l a r i f y his "Ch rist dream," I t s

source, I t s meaning, and I t s value. During the course of the novel M1ss Lonelyhearts has four dreams. All

have to do with the use of power.

Several other motifs also recur.

The f i r s t two dreams occur on the same n ig h t , 1n f a c t the f i r s t night o f the n a r r a t i v e , a f t e r we have seen M1ss L at work, 1n the park, and then a t Delahanty's with Shrike.

When he goes home he takes The

Brothers Karamazov to bed with him and rereads a chapter on Father Zosslma; then he contemplates his boyhood fascin atio n with the name o f C h ri s t while starin g a t the Ivory C hrist he has nailed to his wall u n t i l , to i n t e r r u p t this tro ub lin g r e v e r i e , he closes his eyes. With sleep, a dream came In which he found himself on the stage of a crowded t h e a t e r . He was a magician who did t r i c k s with doorknobs. At his command, they bled, flowered, spoke. A f t e r his act was f in is h e d , he t r i e d to lead his audience in prayer. But no matter how hard he struggled, his prayer was one Shrike had taught him and his voice was that of a conductor c a l l i n g stations ( p . 17). At this point 1n the n a r r a t i v e the reader has no d i f f i c u l t y 1n r ecornlzlng w ith in the dream the issues that are paramount in Miss Lonelyhearts1 waking l i f e .

Here he is faced by an audience expecting a

performance, and as a columnist he i s expected to enlighten and inspire his correspondents.

As a magician he is 1n command, but his power 1s of

a l i m i t e d , t h e a t r i c a l nature.

He can give the "dead.. . world of door­

knobs" the a t t r i b u t e s o f l i f e , but when he attempts to step out of his ro le of e n t e r t a i n e r and exert s p i r i t u a l leadership, Miss Lonelyhearts finds himself walking Into an im it a tio n of Shrike.

This same f a i l u r e

figures repeatedly in M1ss L's i n a b i l i t y to complete his advice column with the r e l ig io u s seriousness he feels is appropriate.

61

The second dream 1s heralded by the f i n a l words o f the f i r s t , ". . . In the Blood o f the Lamb."

In t h is next dream the d e l f i c Lamb

of the prayer becomes a piece of liv es to c k 1n the marketplace, or as West wrote of th is chapter 1n Contempo:

"the need f o r taking symbols

l i t e r a l l y 1s described through a dream in which a symbol 1s a c t u a lly fle shed."

Qft

B r i e f l y , M1ss Lonelyhearts dreams th a t he is again at c o l ­

lege, arguing the existence o f God into the e a r l y morning hours with two f r ie n d s .

Having run out of whiskey, a t dawn they go to a market on

the o u t s k ir s t

of town to buy some applejack.

Once there they decide to

buy one of the spring lambs and roast i t in the woods. that 1t must be s a c r if i c e d to God f i r s t .

Miss L s tip ula te s

A f t e r buying a butcher k n if e ,

they carry the lamb across a meadow and up a h i l l u n t i l they fin d a rock to serve as an a l t a r .

Miss Lonelyhearts is elected p r i e s t .

Crouching

over the lamb and holding the knife in the a i r , he works himself into a fren zy, chanting, " ' C h r i s t , C h r i s t , Jesus C h r i s t . Jesus C h r i s t ' " ( p . 19).

C h r i s t , C h r is t ,

He bungles the job, wounding the lamb and

breaking the knife on the rock.

The lamb crawls into the underbrush

and the three f r i e n d s , t h e i r hands covered with blood, f l e e the scene. Only M1ss Lonelyhearts r etu rn s, l a t e r , to put the lamb out of i t s misery by crushing I t s head with a stone. Much the

longest of the four dreams, t h i s one is an episode in

its

own r ig h t and provides some welcome background information which, i f not h i s t o r i c a l l y exact, t e s t i f i e s to Miss Lonelyhearts' own understanding of his character.

As in the f i r s t dream, he is in a commanding p o s i tio n .

90

"Some Notes on Miss L

,

3, No, 9 (15 May 1933), p. 2.

62

t h i s time "elected p r i e s t " ; and, again, he puts on a convincing perform­ ance up to the point of a c t u a l l y executing his r e lig i o u s o f f i c e .

A

playful parody of a spring r i t e 1s tra n slated Into a b r u t a l l y Incompe­ te n t slaughter.

The conclusion of the dream suggests the awesome weight

of r es p on slbll1ty that attends power: k ill

M1ss Lonelyhearts must return and

the helpless lamb 1n order to end I t s su ffe rin g . Miss Lonelyhearts dreams his t h i r d dream about halfway through the

novel.

Between the second and t h i r d dreams are his v i s i t to B e t ty 's

apartment, the episode with the clean old man, his date with Mary Shrike, and his rendezvous with Faye Doyle.

This chapter, "Miss Lonelyhearts in

the Dismal Swamp," contains his pawn shop dream, his explanation to Betty of why he c a n ' t forget the l e t t e r s , and Sh rike's special version o f the cla ssic methods o f escape. self-analysis. pile s of trash:

Miss L has reached the nadir of his

Accordingly, in his dream he struggles to give order to pawnshop discards and marine refuse.

He found himself in the wondow of a pawnshop f u l l of fur coats, diamond r in g s , watches, shot-guns, fis h in g t a c k l e , mandolins. A ll these things were the paraphernalia of suf­ f e r i n g ___ He sat in the window think in g. Man has a tropism for order. Keys in one pocket, change in another. Mandolins are tuned GDAE. The physical world has a tropism f o r d i s ­ order, entropy. Man against N a t u r e . . , t h e b a t t l e of the cen­ turies. Keys yearn to mix with change. Mandolins s t r i v e to get out of tune. Every order has within i t the germ of destructio n. All order is doomed, yet the b a t t le is worth­ while, A trumpet, marked to sell f o r $2.49, gave the c a l l to b a t t l e and Miss Lonelyhearts plunged into the f r a y . First he formed a phallus of old watches and rubber boots, then a heart of umbrellas and t ro u t f l i e s , then a diamond of musi­ cal instruments and derby hats, a f t e r these a c i r c l e , t r i a n g l e , square, swastika. But nothing proved d e f i n i t i v e and he began to make a gigantic cross. When the cross became too large f o r the pawnshop, he moved i t to the shore of the ocean. There every wave added to his stock f a s t e r than he could lengthen i t s arms. His labors were enormous. He staggered from the la s t wave l i n e to his work, loaded down wit*1 marine >^ef u s e - - b o t t l p s , s h e l ls , chunks of cork, F’ ^h heads, nieces of

rlf't

( p p . hi - h ? ) .

63

I have quoted from t h is dream a t length because 1t encompasses so many of the themes and motifs central to the novel, and because 1t pre­ sents 1n dream metaphor the c o n t r o l l i n g dynamic of M1ss Lonelyhearts' waking l i f e .

There 1s the ever-present r e f r a i n of devaluation, accom­

panied by the suggestion of misplaced commercialIzation:

the goods 1n

the pawnshop window have been s a c r if i c e d by t h e i r owners and are "marked to s e l l . "

They represent personal legacies o f s u f f e r in g .

There 1s a

reminder o f the grotesque 1n the dreamer's b e l i e f tha t the inanimate world has a w i l l o f I t s own, "keys yearn" and "mandolins s t r i v e ; " and th at w i l l

is directed against man's e f f o r t s to keep the world in order

and harmony.

Equally grotesque 1s the notion t h a t man's preference for

order 1s merely a tropism, automatic, Invo luntary.

The " b a t t l e of the

centuries" 1s stripped o f any pretensions to d i g n i t y and becomes some­ thing l i k e two mechanisms locked in ine lu c ta b le embrace.

This major

theme o f order versus chaos is nowhere in the novel so e x p l i c i t as 1n th is dream. Miss Lonelyhearts becoming a s o ld ie r 1n b a t t l e against entropy. The Issue of power, of c o n t r o l, is once again paramount.

Miss

Lonelyhearts sets to work shaping the surrounding d e t r i t u s into arrange­ ments t h a t suggest some meaning; he groups old watches and rubber boots together in the shape of a phallus; experimenting with shape a f t e r shape, h e ar t, diamond, even swastika, he finds that "nothing proved d e f i n i t i v e " u n t i l he begins to use the cross shape.

As the dream action makes c l e a r ,

the "g igantic cross" can accommodate any amount of any kind of m a t e r i a l . The only l i m i t s to i t s growth are Miss L's imagingation and endurance. He can move 1t from the pawnshop to the ocean shore, but there he ex­ pends the remainder of his strength on the ever-increaslng debris

64

brought In by the ceaseless waves.

Nature wins again, but the dreamer

demonstrates considerable resourcefulness and s k i l l . By way of dreams, West focuses on M1ss Lonelyhearts* subjective state and makes I t a v a i l a b l e to the reader.

In the pawnshop dream

West creates a dream metaphor th a t Illum inate s M1ss Lonelyhearts1 present dllemna and predicts the eventual outcome.

The dreamer 1s surrounded

by d e r e l i c t s ; he and they a re , in f a c t , a l l on display together.

The

dreamer 1s a th in k e r ; he speculates 1n terms o f d u a l i t i e s , of opposites. He Is also a doer; he acts e n e r g e t i c a l l y , he manipulates symbolic forms. But he 1s d i s s a t i s f i e d ; he wants a d e f i n i t i v e form, an absolute solution. He then chooses the cross shape and proceeds to enlarge i t with the ever-replenished supply o f garbage, staggering under his load.

The

dream Is a Lomment on Miss Lonelyhearts* endeavor to find a saving order f o r his 1e t t e r - w r i t e r s and his conviction that the e f f o r t is fu tile . dents: them.

I t reveals his hidden a t t i t u d e about himself and his correspon­ they are l i f e ’ s refuse, he is an i n t e l l i g e n c e that manipulates And i t sends a warning:

i f the dreamer persists in his present

a c t i v i t i e s , he w i l l be buried by the garbage. C le a r ly , Miss Lonelyhearts1 dreams are a major element in the c h a r a c t e r iz a t io n .

West places them at s t r a t e g ic points in the n a r r a t iv e

where t h e i r subjective content w i l l situation.

illu m in a te and deepen the external

Sometimes a r e f r a i n is interwoven between the waking and

sleeping worlds by the r e p e t i t i o n of a word or phrase, such as "door­ knobs," which are brought to l i f e

in the magic act of the f i r s t dream

shortly a f t e r Miss L has been reminiscing on the deadness of the world, " . . . a world of doorknobs" ( p . 17); or the chant, "Christ, C h r is t , Jesus C h r i s t , " also introduced j u s t before Miss L f a l l s asleep the f i r s t time.

65

and repeated In the second dream a t the ceremony to s a c r if ic e the lamb. In every dream M1ss Lonelyhearts Is In a r o l e th at r e f l e c t s upon and q u a l i f i e s his conscious I d e n t i t y , e s p e c ia lly his r e la t io n s h ip with his correspondents:

a magician putting on a performance, an elected p r i e s t

botching a ceremony,

a s o ld ie r 1n contest with the waves.

waking fantasies Miss L plays r o l e s , too: an anarchist

In his

with a bomb in

his pocket, Havelock E l l i s Interviewing the clean old man, a stupid d e t e c tiv e , B etty 's f ia n c e , a smiling s a in t .

The thread of t h e a t r i c a l i t y

th a t 1s introduced in the f i r s t dream reappears fre q u e n t ly , carrying with i t the implication

of d u p l i c i t y .

In his dreams M1ss Lonelyhearts gets 1n touch with a wide range of power, and helplessness, th a t he is only p a r t l y aware of in his cons­ cious hours.

Although he f e e ls inadequate on the job, in the company

of Shrike, and as Be tty 's f ia n c e , his dreams t e s t i f y to a c r e a t i v i t y and vigor that l i e waiting to be tapped.

Not only are his dreams

themselves evidence of an inner streng th, they are about control and i t s lim its.

Miss Lonelyhearts seems to be te st in g out ideas on r e lig i o u s

a u t h o r i t y , ethical r e s p o n s i b i l i t y , and an ideal harmonious order in his dreams much as i t does in his conscious imagination.

This same t a c t i c

is used by Motes and Hightower, and i t reveals the same underlying pre­ occupation with power and helplessness:

Hazel's dreams of closing

c o f f in s and of being "not dead but only buried" and on view in his Essex, Hightower’ s waking dream of the Confederate cavalry raid that takes on the s p i r i t u a l a u t h o rit y of a harrowing o f h e l l .

All three men are

looking for a means of extending t h e i r control over the unsatisfying present, and a l l that extension.

three see r e l i g i o n as the most s uita ble sphere f o r

66

Memories, as well as dreams and f a n t a s ie s , con s ti tute an Important resource In Miss Lonelyhearts1 e f f o r t to discover a remedy f o r the pre­ sent malaise.

At moments of stress or confusion he draws upon the past

f o r guidance.

During the course of the novel M1ss L r e c a l l s three

v iv id experiences from his childhood.

The f i r s t occurs shortly before

the f i r s t dream and a f t e r he has been rereading The Brothers Karamazov; i t is a memory of himself as a boy 1n his f a t h e r ' s church. comes to him as he l i s t e n s to his f r ie n d s '

The second

sour im ita ti o ns of Shrike in

Delahanty's, a memory of playing the piano while his younger s i s t e r danced.

And the t h i r d happens during the i n t err og ati o n o f the clean old

man; Miss L " f e l t as he had f e l t years before, when he had a c c id e n ta lly stepped on a small frog" ( p . 30). Miss Lonelyhearts' memory of himself as a boy in his f a t h e r ' s church is c r u c i a l l y important f o r an understanding of his predisposition to equate r e l i g i o n and power: As a boy in his f a t h e r ' s church, he had discovered that something s t i r r e d in him when he shouted the name of C h r is t , something secret and enormously powerful. He had played with th is th in g , but had never allowed i t to come a l i v e (p. 17). This "something secret and enormously powerful" he now thinks of as h ys te ria, something to be feared. hood fa sc in atio n:

Yet he has not given up his c h i l d ­

"For him, C hrist was the most natural of excitements.

Fixing his eyes on the image that hung on the w a l l , he began to chant: " ' C h r i s t , C h r i s t , Jesus C h r is t .

C h r i s t , C h r i s t , Jesus C h r i s t . ' "

I t is

immediately following th i s passage t h a t Miss Lonelyhearts f a l l s asleep and dreams of being a magician who coniTtands doorknobs to bleed, flower, and speak.

67

Now we have an explanation f o r M1ss L's e a r l y non sequltur as he f in is h e s the l e t t e r from "Harold S.":

"Christ was the answer, but 1f

he did not want to get sick he had to stay away from the C h ri st busi­ ness" ( p . 8 ) .

Miss Lonelyhearts1 childhood r e l i g i o u s experience c o n ti n ­

ues to be v i s i b l e 1n his adult imagination and to assert i t s p r im i t i v e emotional strength whenever r a t io n a l routine 1s inadequate, as i t has become f o r him at the newspaper. Miss Lonelyhearts' memory o f his s i s t e r ' s dance am p lifi e s his pre­ occupation with the need f o r order and harmony.

In the dim l i g h t at

Delahanty's M1ss L notices that the mahogany bar shines l i k e gold and that the glasses and bo ttles ring l i k e b e ll s when the bartender touches them together.

This pleasant i n t e r l u d e seems to touch o f f the rem inis­

cence of the e a r l i e r s a t i s f y i n g occasion: One win ter evening, he had been waiting with his l i t t l e s i s t e r f o r t h e i r f a t h e r to come home from church. She was eight years old then, and he was twelve. Made sad by the pause between playing and e a tin g , he had gone to the piano and had begun a piece by Mozart. I t was the f i r s t time he had ever v o l u n t a r i l y gone to the piano. His s i s t e r l e f t her pic ture book to dance to the music. She had never danced before. She danced gravely and c a r e f u l l y , a simple dance yet for mal. . . . ( p p .2 7 -2 8 ) . The serenity of th is scene leads Miss Lonelyhearts into a fantasy of children dancing:

"Square replacing oblong and being replaced by c i r c l e .

Every c h i l d , everywhere; in the whole world there was not one c h ild who was not gravely , sweetly dancing" ( p . 28).

As they did in his pawnshop

dream, Platonic shapes dominate Miss L's contemplation of innocence and perfection in motion.

Lost in his a b s t ra c t io n , he steps back from the

bar, bumps into a man holding a beer, and is knocked to the f l o o r by a punch in the mouth. sw ee tly dancing.

A bar, a f t e r a l l ,

is no place for children

68

In t r u t h , there seems to be no place, no sanctuary 1n M1ss Lonely­ hearts ' world where a love f o r beauty and Innocence are nurtured.

His

dreams are repeatedly smashed, l i k e his jaw, by a r e a l i t y which seems to him e s s e n t ia lly m alevolent, l i k e a monster 1n a c h i l d 's nightmare. I t 1s with something o f a c h i l d ' s resentment at being mistreated t h at M1ss Lonelyhearts, a f t e r leaving Delahanty's, joins with Ned Gates 1n the in te rr o g a ti o n and abuse of And

George B. Simpson, "the clean old man."

1t is 1n the midst of the old man's humiliation that Miss L r e l i v e s

the t h i r d memory from his boyhood: M1ss Lonelyhearts f e l t as he had f e l t years before, when he had a c c id e n t a lly stepped on a small frog. I t s s p i lle d guts had f i l l e d him with p i t y , but when I t s s u ffe rin g had become real to his senses, his p i t y had turned to rage and he had beaten i t f r a n t i c a l l y u n t i l I t was dead ( p . 30). Again we see the m otif of the helpless 1ii the hands of the powerful. The reaction of the boy to the wounded animal's s uffe ri ng becomes the reaction o f the man faced with the pathetic George B. Simpson and a l l the miserable l e t t e r - w r i t e r s he represents.

He moves from p i t y to rage

to mindless violence; West leaves ambiguous whether Miss L's rage is for the v ic t i m 's pain or because of his own, th a t i s , whether he moves to end the f r o g ' s suf fering or his own. By way o f memory, fantasy and dream Miss Lonelyhearts is casting about 1n his imagination f o r a l t e r n a t i v e s to the unwholesome, u n f u l f H l ing existence in which he finds himself. missing ingredients:

His imagination suggests these

a personal sense of worth and potency, meaningful

harmony and o r d e r lin e s s , and r e lig i o u s seriousness. One f u r t h e r source of encouragement is a v a i l a b l e to Miss Lonely­ hearts in the form of r e li g io u s models: Dostoevsky's Father Zossima.

his Baptist f a th e r and

These men displayed a u t h o r i t y and power,

69

and they were able to communicate I t to others.

They serve as patterns

1n Miss L's experiment to recover a lo s t v i t a l i t y . From his f a th e r Miss Lonelyhearts I n h e r i t s his "Old Testament look," the f le s h l e s s , ascetic face o f "the though he chooses not to fo llo w

New

England

puritan" ( p . 9 ) . A l ­

his f a t h e r into the Baptist m in is tr y ,

M1ss L c a r r ie s on w it h in him the idea of vocation, the moral earnest­ ness and the evangelical

s p i r i t which he learned as a c h i l d .

The

powerful emotionalism that he experienced in his f a t h e r ' s church ser­ vices, shouting the name of C h r i s t , reasserts i t s e l f in his dreams. C l e a rl y his per sis tent pursuit of a saving order where such sufferers as his l e t t e r - w r i t e r s can find solace has i t s o r i g i n a l

impetus in his

e a r ly family experience. From Dostoevsky Miss Lonelyhearts gleans another r e lig io u s model, the aged monk, Zossima, Aloysha Karamazov's mentor, who preaches love and forebearance: "Love a man even in his sin, f o r tha t is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on e a r t h . . . . I f you love everything, you w i l l perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive i t , you w i l l begin to compre­ hend i t better every day. And you w i l l at l a s t come to love the whole world with an all-embracing love" { p . 16). West's inclusion of Zossima is an acknowledgment of the novel's debt to Dostoevsky, whose somber and ambiguous m o r ality finds i t s American de­ scendant in Miss Lonelyhearts.

Possibly in the columnist's mind, and

c e r t a i n l y in West's, is the aftermath of Zossima's death:

a miracle is

expected, and when, instead, the body decays r a p i d l y and o d o r ife r o u s ly , the suspicion that the e l d e r ' s teachings were f a ls e gains support.

70 III

Upon reen tering New York via the Bronx slums a f t e r the I n te rl u de In the country with Be tty , M1ss Lonelyhearts 1s r e lie v e d to f in d things as he l e f t them:

"crowds of people moved through the s t r e e t with a

dream-11ke violence;" he 1s not "cured," he 1s s t i l l the desire to help" the miserable ( p . 54 ).

"overwhelmed by

The chapter is very appro­

p r i a t e l y t i t l e d , "M1ss Lonelyhearts Returns."

He returns to the problem

that has preoccupied him since the opening chapter.

While the f i r s t

two-th1rds of the novel shows the young columnist recognizing the c u l ­ tu ral malignancy and measuring himself against 1 t , the f i n a l one-th ird 1s the record of his determined campaign against s p i r i t u a l deadness. I t 1s on his dr iv e through the Bronx slum tha t he begins to formulate the r a t i o n a l e of his strategy: with dreams." his premise:

"Men have always fought t h e i r misery

S i g n i f i c a n t l y , M1ss L neglects to define the terms of he never distinguishes between unconscious, sleeping

dreams and in te n tio n a l a s p i r a t io n s .

Indeed, he seems never to recognize

a d i f f e r e n c e . He conuiits himself to helping the suff ering and vows to work a t being sincere ly humble. objectives of his program.

He f a l l s to accomplish any of the

The next morning he begins a column on

C h r i s t 's suffering on the cross, but tears 1t up, deciding th at "with him, even the word C hrist was a vanity" ( p . 6 5 ) .

He works so hard at

his humility t h a t i t becomes a source o f p r id e , a "triumphant thing" ( p . 78).

M1ss Lonelyhearts* return 1s e s s e n t i a l l y a r e t r e a t to his world

of fantasy and a r e p e t i t i o n of e a r l i e r compulsive s t r a t e g i e s . There are foreta s tes o f d i s a s t e r throughout the novel.

We have

already considered the warning I m p l i c i t in the dreamer’ s exhaustion a t

71

the end of the pawnshop dream.

Undoubtedly one of the reasons tha t

M1ss Lonelyhearts Is so r e g u l a r l y disappointed Is tha t his expectations are so high; he overextends himself to the point of collapse.

His other

dreams also carry messages of tasks u n s a t i s f a c t o r i l y handled.

His dream

of being a magician who, a f t e r successfully commanding doorknobs to speak, r e c i t e s a Shrike blasphemy when he intends to lead the audience 1n prayer finds i t s r e a l - l i f e counterpart in Miss L's v i s i t to the Doyles, as he t r i e s to give them a healing message of love but Instead de li v e r s a Shr1ke-I1ke d i a t r i b e 1n "a stage scream" ( p . 8 1 ) .

The r e f r a i n

of t h e a t r i c a l i t y tha t threads i t s way through the episodes hints a t an undermining pretension and eagerness f o r make-believe Inconsistent with a genuine r e l ig i o u s conmltment.

The roles th at Hiss L e a s i l y takes up

and discards, and his habit of r e l a t i n g to people only in specified r o le s , 1n cllched exchanges (as he does with Shrike and 1n his column), are not behaviors that can be thrown o f f e a s i l y . M1ss Lonelyhearts1 dramatics are an e f f e c t i v e way of keeping people at a distance and maintaining control over the f lu x of experience, an Important p r i o r i t y f o r him.

He goes to B e tty 's apartment in Chapter

Four In a panic, but when they are face to face he t r i e s to cover his need f o r her reassurance by playacting and defensively discounting her response to him as " ' b i t t e r n e s s , '

*sour

grapes,'

'a-broken-heart,'

'th e devil-may-care*": But to his confusion, he found nothing at which to laugh back. Her smile had opened n a t u r a l l y , not l i k e an umbrella, and while he watched her laugh folded and became a smile again, a smllo th a t was neithe r "wry," " I r o n i c a l " nor "mysterious" (p. 2 2 ). Betty is not cliche^ prone, nor does she t a l k In headlines and move 1n mechanical pantomime l i k e Mary Shrike.

And yet Miss Lonelyhearts r e je c t s

72 her as a model, arguing to himself th a t "her sureness was based on the power to l i m i t experience a r b i t r a r i l y .

Moreover, his confusion was s i g ­

n i f i c a n t , while her order was not" ( p . 2 1 ) .

The real reason th a t M1ss L

w i l l not allow himself B e tty 's help 1s t h a t his excessive need to be 1n c o n t r o l , to be r i g h t , to be vindicated prevents him from admitting the legitimacy of her order.

He w i l l not be solaced.

And to the end of

the novel M1ss Lonelyhearts t r e a t s Betty as a symbol,

in Chapter Four

she was "Betty the Buddha," in Chapter Fourteen she is "the partydress," a synbol that he can manipulate without consequent r e s p o n s i b i l i t y :

"He

begged the party dress to marry him, saying a l l the things i t expected to hear

" ( p . 92).

I t is Miss Lonelyhearts' obsession with power, which he t ra n slates into the r e l i g i o u s mode, th a t underlies his catastrophe, the same power th a t he cherished as a c h i ld in worship services.

Every time Miss L

experiences helplessness, his own o r , v i c a r i o u s l y , an o th er's , he tightens his grip on his own personal conviction that he is in c o n tr o l. At the time the novel opens, his exposure to the l e t t e r s , not to mention the preening Shrike, has him in a state of constant a g i t a t i o n .

Every

th r e at to his sense of competency, his gossiping f r i e n d s , B e tty 's laughter, the humiliation of the clean old man, sets o f f the seesaw e f f e c t between his f eelin gs o f helplessness and his assertions of con­ tro l.

Miss L plays the hero by p i t t i n g himself, l i k e David before

G o lia t h , against the commercial e n t e r p r is e , his employer, that is ex­ p l o i t i n g the genuine suffering of i t s subscribers.

I t never occurs to

him that he 1s under no o b ligation to solve the problems presented to him by his l e t t e r w r i t e r s . answer o r a solu tio n:

Some of the l e t t e r s do not even request an

the grieving " S i c k - o f - i t - a l l " has fou n d some

73

o u t le t in w ritin g and asks f o r nothing; "Broad Shoulders" wants to know th a t she Is remembered. hom ilies.

There are other a lte r n a t iv e s than S h rik e 's empty

But M1ss Lonelyhearts 1s u n s a tis fie d with any response short

of a saving In te rv e n tio n . paradigm Is " e lt h e r - o r " :

He is a d u a ll s t i c th in k e r and his habitual e it h e r the l e t t e r - w r l t e r s are betrayed by the

newspaper or they are saved, e it h e r Betty 1s r ig h t or he i s , e ith e r he 1s the p e rp e tra to r of the joke or I t s v ic tim . To maintain his connection with the strongest source of power he has ever experienced, M1ss Lonelyhearts resorts to magic-thinking.

It

1s magic thinking th a t the word C h r is t invokes a t r a n c e - l f k e heightening of awareness, as i t did when he was a c h i l d , when he stares at the ivory C h ri s t on his w a l l , during his second dream, and in his f i n a l experience."

" r e l ig io u s

The same magic thinking assigns to the cross shape a

" d e f i n i t i v e , " absolute power.

Eventually, Miss Lonelyhearts' make-

believe talismans include his bed, which he "rides" l i k e a magic carpet into realms o f p e rfec t calm, and "the rock," which he has transformed from "the stone . . .

in his gut" of Chapter 2 into his new i d e n t i t y

with which he is able to withstand the harangues of Shrike and the drunkenness o f frie n d s .

With the discovery of the rock Miss Lonely­

hearts has conquered his unruly f eeli n gs of helplessness; he can even handle with poise the news th at Betty is pregnant. marry and that she have the baby: feel.

He in s is t s that they

"He did not feel g u i l t y .

He did not

The rock was a s o l i d i f i c a t i o n of his f e e l i n g , his conscience,

his sense of r e a l i t y , his self-knowledge" ( p . 9 2 ). In the f i n a l episode Miss Lonelyhearts believes t h a t he has e x p e r i­ enced a union with God and that he is at la s t empowered to make the kind saving in te rv e n ti o n he has envisioned, to perform a m ir acle .

His

74

acceptance of God's w i l l , however, Is p e c u l i a r l y pragmatic:

"He Imme­

d i a t e l y began to plan a new l i f e and his f u t u r e conduct as M1ss Lonely­ hearts.

He submitted d r a f t s o f his column to God and God approved them.

God approved his every thought" ( p . 9 4 ) . has reached U s z e n it h . scenes:

The columnist's magic thinking

In his l a s t act we can see Images of previous

M1ss Lonelyhearts as a magician; M1ss Lonelyhearts attacking

the clean old man, Imagining him to be a l l the l e t t e r w r i t e r s ; Miss Lonelyhearts hearing Doyle's story l i k e a p r i e s t at Delahanty's, watch­ ing the c r i p p l e ' s uncoordinated hands drag some l e t t e r paper suddenly out of a coat pocket, too preoccupied a c t u a l l y to l i s t e n . He rushed down the s t a i r s to meet Doyle with his arms spread f o r the m ir acle . Doyle was carrying something wrapped 1n a newspaper. When he saw M1ss Lonelyhearts, he put his hand inside the package and stopped. He shouted a warning, but Miss Lonelyhearts continued his charge. He did not understand the c r i p p l e ' s shout and heard i t as a cry f o r help from Desperate, Harold S . , Catholic-mother, Broken-hearted, Broad-shoulders, S i c k - o f - i t - a l 1, D is il l u s i o n e d - w i t h tubercular-husband. He was running to succor them with love. The c r i p p l e turned to escape, but he was too slow and Miss Lonelyhearts caught him. While they were stru g g lin g , Betty came in through the s t r e e t door. She ca lled to them to stop and started up the s t a i r s . The c r i p p l e saw her cuttin g o f f his escape and t r i e d to get rid of the package. He pulled his hand out. The gun inside the package exploded and Miss Lonelyhearts f e l l , drag­ ging the c r i p p l e with him. They both r o ll e d part of the way down the s t a i r s ( p p . 9 4 -9 5 ). This " p r i e s t of our time" establishes the developmental pattern that is the foundation f or the mad preacher c h a r a c te r iz a t i o n :

firs t, a

profound discontent and d is lo c a tio n that spurs th is melancholy individual to unsuccessful remedies; secondly, a resort to imaginative resources — dreams, memories and models — that seem to o f f e r a s a tis f a c to r y resolu­ tion but contain the germ of destru ction; f i n a l l y ,

the c a p i t u la t io n to

the d e fe a t i n h e r e n t in the mental me+aphor created and n u rt u r e d in his

75

Imagination.

M1ss Lonelyhearts* world Is dead to the suffering going

on In 1 t , suffering to which he 1s acutely a l i v e and t r i e s to combat by way of d r i n k , sex and violence; he dreams of c o n tr o llin g and r e v i t a l i z ­ ing that dead world, but t h i s r e - c r e a t i o n 1s a magic, not a sacred, one; the l a s t of his many metaphors o f s e lf - d e f t n 1 t 1 o n , the rock, confirms t h a t he has joined the dead world rath er than conquered 1t.

Different

from O'Connor's and Faulkner's mad preachers though M1ss L is 1n many d e t a i l s , he 1s more l i k e them than not, and i t 1s In th is shared pro­ gression tha t the fundamental likeness makes I t s e l f f e l t . Revealed through this patterned development is the a l 1-Important fusion o f opposites tha t defines t h i s character type.

As M1ss L's

physical and emotional condition d e t e r i o r a t e s , f o r example, his s p i r i t u a l s e n s i t i v i t y f lo u r is h e s , so that a chart of these two movements would show a steeply f a l l i n g l i n e from the f r u s t r a t i o n of the l e t t e r s to the dead­ ness of "the rock," and, correspondingly, a s t e a d il y r i s i n g li n e from the vicious parody of the "Anima C h r i s t i" to the l y r i c a l experience of grace.

Since these two states are defined in terms of each other { e . g . ,

M1ss L fears that "the Christ business" w i l l make him " s ic k ," and then when he is confined to his bed he believes that his i l l n e s s is a c t u a l l y a " t r i c k by his body" to a l l e v i a t e a "more profound" s p i r i t u a l disrup­ t i o n ) , a d i s t i n c t i o n between the r e li g io u s and the psychological becomes, f i n a l l y , impossible.

The con tra ries upon which West has b u i l t his

protagonist are not merely balanced against one another, but are fused inextricably.

West may have discovered the value of this mixture 1n

The V a r ie tie s of Religlous Experience, where James himself concluded

76

th a t no d e f i n i t i v e d is t in c t io n between the v i o l e n t l y pathological and the genuinely re lig io u s could be d ra w n ,^ Mergers of opposites and Irr e c o n c lle a b le s f i l l

the novel:

the

male-female 1n the young columnist's name; the animated Inanimate, such as the o b e lis k , the alarm clock, and the mandolin; the inhuman, "compo­ s i te " face of Doyle, rep resentative of humanity; the p it y -r a g e evoked by the l e t t e r s , by the clean old man, by the wounded frog; the simul­ taneously sympathetic and ironic tone o f the e n t i r e c h a r a c te r iz atio n which stays Inside the columnist's consciousness, although in th ir d person; the grotesquely wedded tragi-comic s i t u a t i o n , a "joke" that Miss L believes has gotten out of hand and made a "victim" of i t s " p e r p e t ra t o r ." resists.

I t is a l l

these mixtures, these mergings that Miss L

The man who abhors the random, the a c c id e n ta l, the i r r e g u l a r ,

and pursues the ordered, above a l l , the d e f i n i t i v e , is a man, in Wolf­ gang Kayser's words, unable to o r i e n t himself in the physical universe. Kayser's emphasis on the meaninglessness necessary to the purely gro­ tesque suggests one reason f o r Miss L's i n f l e x i b l e opposition to the Incongruity, disconnectedness, and ambiguity of his physical and social world.

The p o s s i b i l i t y that man's dreams, his a s p ir a ti o n s , are a p o i n t ­

less tropism for order, as meaningless as the physical world's tropism for

entropy, is unacceptable to him.

He would prefer that the s u f f e r ­

ing of his l e t t e r w r i t e r s be given a t r a g i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n than that i t remain "within the sphere o f incomp rehensibility," the sphere of the

91 (New York: Longmans, Green, 1925), pp. 6-7, 25; and Gay Wilson A ll e n , William James (New York: Vik in g, 1967), p. 432.

77

grotesque and the

a b

s u

r d

.

M1ss Lonelyhearts 1s swamped 1n ambiguity,

and the appeal of the r e l i g i o u s solution Is In I t s comprehensive, sym­ bolic design, the " d e f i n i t i v e " cross shape In the pawn shop dream, which resolves a l l ambiguity, reveals the purpose of the seemingly ac cid e n ta l, and provides suffe ri ng with a meaning.

This character design 1s s p e c i a l l y suited to accommodate "splendid discords and a r t f u l confusions" rath er than harmonic synthesis or reso­ lution.

F i r s t 1n M1ss Lonelyhearts, we see th a t p r i n c i p le of ambiguity

that also controls the presentations of Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower: the genuine s p i r i t u a l drive masked and expressed as psychological path­ ology; s e t t i n g , the external world, given as an extension or m ir ro r of th is f i g u r e ' s I n t e r i o r upheaval; the grotesque furth eri ng t h i s merger of the inner with the ou ter, heightening the sense of anxiety and con­ fusion, while preventing the i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of a cause for the disorder. In each case an i n t r i c a t e structure of i n t e r r e l a t e d contradictions works to produce stalemate r ath er than r e c o n c i l i a t i o n , stasis instead of r e ­ solution. of a l l

One ind ic atio n of the deadlock is th a t the typical postures

three men are those of immobility:

Miss L at his desk or in his

bed. Hazel, usually attempting to move simultaneously in opposite d i ­ re ction s, also eventua lly withdraws to his bed, and Hightower spends tw e n ty -fiv e years in r e t r e a t behind his study desk.

Contributing to

t h is stasis are the r e g u la r ly recurring s e l f - d e s t r u c t i v e scenarios whose origin s are traced to e a r l y family patterns and t h e i r emotionally charged

92 ^ayser,

d.

186.

78

r e l ig i o u s content.

Miss L's relation ships with the Shrikes and the

Doyles are an elaborate comment on his ambivalent and Intense cormttment to the only ro le that has ever been Hiean ingful t o him.

Despite a l l his

strenuous e f f o r t s , n a t u r a l i s t i c , e t h i c a l , moral, the mad preacher does not advance himself out of his dllenina, but insures his continuance 1n 1 t.

The explosion th a t ends Miss L's story and, presumably, his l i f e

is the I n e v i t a b l y v io le n t consequence of the unrelieved pressures of his c o n s t i t u t i v e antitheses, a consequence of which he is both the victim and the pe r p e tra to r .

CHAPTER 4 .

GRANDSON OF A CIRCUIT RIDER

A lie n a tio n was once a diagnosis, but in much of the f i c ­ tion o f our time i t has become an i d e a l . The modern hero 1s the ou tsid e r. His experience 1s r o o t le s s . He can go anywhere. He belongs nowhere. Being a l i e n to nothing, he ends up a liena te d from any kind of community based on common tastes and i n t e r e s t s . The borders of his country are the sides o f his sk u l1. O'Connor, "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South"

Mise B1ood was w r it t e n twenty years a f t e r Miss Lonelyhearts and Light In August.

Because i t i s ,

in p a r t , a response to West's "por­

t r a i t of a p r i e s t o f our time," O'Connor's f i r s t novel f i t s n a t u r a lly here between i t s

p re d e c e s s o rs .^

verted copy of Miss Lonelyhearts:

in many ways, Hazel Motes is an i n ­ an u n le tt e r e d , rural

Southerner,

f le e in g Christ in the c i t y of Taulkinham {a f i n e sobriquet for New

93 In his Introduction to Everything That Rises Must Converge, x i i , Robert F it z g e r a ld says th at Miss Ton ely he arts and As I Lay Dying "are the only two works of f i c t i o n tF a t I can remember Ker urging on me, and i t is p r e t t y c le a r from her work that they wore close to her heart as a w r i t e r / '

79

80

Y o rk ).^

But e s s e n tia lly the two characters are a l i k e :

young men who

are "C h ris t-h a u n te d ,"95 who have a highly-developed sense o f I n j u s t ic e , fo r whom, being men given to extremes, violence 1s an acceptable, even d e s ira b le a l t e r n a t i v e , and whose public quests have f a t a l p r iv a te con­ sequences. Like Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes faces a dilemma which he a t ­ tempts to resolve by c a l l i n g on resources from his past.

He has returned

a f t e r four years 1n the army to fin d that his hometown has disappeared, tha t 1s, I t s population has dwindled to zero.

He has become a displaced

person, one o f 0'Connor*s f a v o r i t e character-metaphors, and embarks on a search f o r "a place to be."

He goes to the c i t y to begin a new l i f e ,

and there he encounters the same commercial s p i r i t th a t pervaded M1ss Lonelyhearts1 New York.

Although his In t e n t io n is to make a break with

the past, e s p e c ia lly his r e l i g i o u s upbringing, in order to make a place f or himself he begins to r e l y on the models of his childhood, p a r t i c u l a r l y that of his grandfather, whose powerful preaching from atop his Ford automobile a t tr a c t e d the e n t i r e town and l e f t an i n d e l i b l e memory in Hazel's mind.

He meets with a succession of f a i l u r e s , among them his

i n a b i l i t y to disown his r e lig i o u s heritage and his f a i l u r e to found a

94 Frederick Asals, in the f i n a l paragraph of "The Road to W1se Blood," Renascence„ 21 (1969), 193, discussed b r i e f l y what O'Connor learned from West and says that Motes "became, in a sense, Miss Lonelyhearts in reverse." 95 O'Connor's term, used to describe the Southern theological sen­ s i b i l i t y in "The Grotesque in Southern l i t e r a t u r e , " Mystery and Manners, ed. S a lly and Robert Fitzgera ld (New York: F a rra r, Strauss, T 9 5 7 ) , p. 44.

81

church.

His u ltim a te f a i l u r e to place himself 1n the conmunlty 1s

dramatized 1n the f in a l episode:

Sick and In f l i g h t from his m a t r i ­

monially minded landlady, he stumbles Into a d itc h where, semi-conscious, he Is ev entua lly discovered by two policemen and given a mortal blow with a b 1 l l y club.

I In the opening chapter o f

Wise Blood, Hazel Motes is depicted as

young man who has sustained a series of losses.

a

He has seen every

member of his fa m i ly , grandfather, brothers, f a t h e r , mother, buried. He has watched his hometown, Eastrod, dwindle and disappear. liev e s that he has lo s t his soul.

And he be­

His discovery of th is l a s t loss

brought him more r e l i e f than d i s t r e s s .

I t happened while he was 1n the

army, s e l f - r i g h t e o u s l y r e je c t in g an i n v i t a t i o n to v i s i t a brothel:

his

f e l 1ow-sold1ers peevishly ret o rt e d that he had no soul to worry about, and Hazel came to believe them because he recognized his opportunity to r i d himself of a f e a r f u l possession.

He had learned from his grand­

f a t h e r ' s sermons th at Jesus was a "soul-hungry" god who would "chase him over the waters of sin" to claim his soul. reasoned, he would cease to be a desirable prey.

Without a soul, Hazel A f t e r lengthy consider­

a t i o n , he f e l t s a t i s f i e d tha t "the misery he had was a longing f o r home; i t had nothing to do with Jesus" ( p . 1 8 ) .

When he l e f t the army " a l l

he

wanted was to get back to Eastrod, Tennessee." This longing f o r home is the thematic center of the novel's f i r s t chapter.

Even as Hazel rides the t r a i n away from the now deserted

Eastrod, his mind 1s f u l l y occupied with memories of his bir thplace:

82

"Eastrod f i l l e d his head and then went out beyond and f i l l e d the space th a t stretched from the t r a i n across the empty darkening f ie ld s " ( p . l l ) . Tf he had wanted to fo rg e t his loss speedily, Hazel would have found I t impossible among his fe llo w passengers.

Each o f the secondary characters

encountered by Motes serves as a reminder o f home.

F i r s t there 1s Mrs,

Wally Bee Hitchcock, a ty p ic a l O'Connor matron, who repeatedly t r i e s to s t r ik e up a conversation with the p e cu liarly-d ressed young man s i t t i n g opposite her w ith such innocent remarks as "I guess you're going home" ( p . 9 ) , and "Well

. . . t h e r e ' s no place l i k e home" ( p . 10).

Hazel I g ­

nores her and goes 1n search of the p o r t e r , whom he recognizes as a native Eastrod Negro named Parrum.

To Hazel's d i s b e l i e f the porter

disclaims any connection with the beloved hometown: the porter said 1n an I r r i t a t e d voice. Even the three women with whom Hazel

" ' I ' m from Chicago,'

'My name is not Parrum"' ( p . 14).

shares a table in the dining car

serve to emphasize by contrast his Southern rural roots, t h e i r Eastern accents "poisonous" because fo r e ig n . Hazel has a real g i f t f o r antagonizing and being antagonized by others.

His In t e ra c t io n s with those in his company work t y p i c a l l y to

set him at odds with them, to create a polarized atmosphere in which thesis and a n t i t h e s i s , point and counterpoint reverbera te , expanding and deepening the issue at hand, in t h is case the varied meanings of "place" and "home."

When Mrs. Hitchcock sees a price tag s t i l l

on the sleeve of Hazel’ s

suit,

"tha t that placed him" ( p . 9 ) .

stapled

bearing the figures $11,98, she fe els Pushed by Hazel's obstinate silence to

the extreme measure of asking p o int-bla nk, "Are you going home?" she is rewarded with a sour "'No, I a i n ' t " '

(p .ll).

Undaunted, she pursues

the exchange of pl e as a n tr ies , family connections, her v i s i t to her

83

married daughter In F l o r i d a , her s i s t e r - i n - l a w ' s b r o t h er - in - la w from Taulklnham, u n t il

Interrupted by Hazel's r e c a l c i t r a n t , "'You might as

well go one place as another. . . . That's a l l

I know"’ ( p . l l ) .

Mrs.

Hitchcock d e f t l y resumes with another branch of her fa m il y , and Hazel counters with his trump card, designed to stop any conversation: reckon you think you been redeemed"' (p. 12).

'"I

Now 1t 1s the sociable

matron's turn to s i t in silence as the intense young man places her from his perspective.

She is mute long enough f o r Motes to repeat his

challenge, but she quickly recovers with "yes, l i f e was an in sp ira tion " and the suggestion th at they go to the dining c a r. The country boy's i n a b i l i t y or unwillingness to cooperate 1n po­ lite c iv ilitie s

is f u r t h e r i l l u s t r a t e d as he s i t s glumly at a table

with three women who have finished t h e i r meal and are smoking c i g a r ­ ettes.

Af te r the c i g a r e t t e smoke from the woman opposite him has blown

in nis face several times Hazel meets her eyes and announces, " ' I f you've been redeemed . . .

I wouldn't want to b e . ' "

This unexpected a tta ck is

answered with a laugh by one of the women, which only i n t e n s i f i e s Hazel's urgent need to declare his position: "Do you think I believe in Jesus?" he said, leaning t o ­ ward her and speaking almost as i f he were breathless, "Well I wouldn’ t even i f He e x is te d . Even i f hp was on th is t r a i n " ( p . 13). The urbane lady t r a v e l e r meets Haze's confession of un be lie f in the same s tyle t h a t his f e llo w soldiers had answered his proclamation of b e l i e f : "'Who said you had to?' she asked in a poisonous Eastern voice" ( p . 13). This rejoinder e f f e c t i v e l y k i l l s the exchange, and as soon as Hazel can leave the table he resumes his pursuit of the porter whose assertion that he is from Chicago Haze does not believe.

84

Rounding a corner In the c o r r i d o r . Hazel again c o l lid e s with Mrs. Hitchcock, t h i s time p h y s ic a ll y , and 1s tre ated to a look at her less sociable side:

"'Clumsy!'" she muttered, "'What 1s the matter with

you?1" ( p . 14) {voicing a question the reader 1s s i l e n t l y askin g ).

In

his haste to escape from her, he runs headlong into the p o rt e r, knock­ ing him down.

Without a word of apology, before the man can even

regain his f e e t , Hazel is demanding to be l e t in t o his berth and persis­ ting 1n c a l l i n g him Parrum.

While the porter assists him with the ladder

1n stone-faced s il e n c e, Hazel continues to i n s i s t tha t he remembers him and his f a t h e r , Cash Parrum.

He believes tha t he has found someone who

w i l l have a personal in t e r e s t in his discovery tha t Eastrod 1s no more: ’"You c a n ' t go back there n e i t h e r , nor anybody e l s e , not 1f they wanted t o ' " ( p . 14 ).

He f i n a l l y goes too f a r when he t e l l s his supposed towns­

man that Cash caught cholera from a pig and died; the porter c u r t l y r e p lie s th at his f a th e r was a r a i l r o a d man, and Hazel laughs, as 1f he has heard a joke or a transparent l i e .

At th i s the porter je rk s the

ladder out from under "the boy," leaving him hanging onto his blanket. With the kind of r e p e t i t i o n t h a t makes f o r both comedy and careful character development, the f i r s t h a l f of the chapter takes on the f la v o r of a Punch and Judy routine while simultaneously estab lishing Hazel Motes as a man on serious business.

Hazel's preoccupation with his

lost home and with the I m p o s s ib ilit y uT being "redeemed" displaces him from the present j u s t as completely as the desertion of his hometown has l e f t him p h y sic ally displaced.

Because he is mentally withdrawn,

1n a haze, as his nickname suggests, he does not i n t e r a c t with his fe ll o w passengers sensibly. dueling partners.

Rather he uses the people he encounters as

There is no more communication between Hazel and Mrs.

Hitchcock than between Miss Lonelyhearts and Mary Shrike.

Just as Miss

L 1s in a rage of f r u s t r a t i o n over the undeserved misfortunes of his l e t t e r w r i t e r s and his I n a b i l i t y to answer them 1n the opening chapter of the novel, Hazel 1s completely caught up 1n the pain of d ep rivatio n . The h o s t i l i t y he invokes with sulking sile nce s, offensive words and heedless physical assault 1s a preparation f o r his increasingly de­ s t r u c t iv e attacks on those he encounters In Taulkinham, and f i n a l l y upon himself.

Later he w i l l

run down and k i l l

Solace La y fie ld with no

more compunction th at he has e a r l i e r knocked down the porter in the t r a i n c o r r id o r .

When he is l e f t struggling f o r a purchase in his upper

berth by the fed-up p o r t e r , we have a f o r e ta s t e of the scene in which he s it s with his f e e t dangling over the side of an embankment a f t e r a patrolman has pushed his Essex to i t s de structio n. The f i r s t h a lf o f the chapter presents Hazel's public s e l f , an individual whose behavior is puzzling in the same way that Miss Lonely­ hearts* i n i t i a l

response to the l e t t e r s ,

"Christ was the answer, but i f

he did not want to get sick, he had to stay away from the C hrist busi­ ness," is puzzling.

In the second h a l f of the chapter Hazel's priv ate

world 1s introduced and made to serve as the beginning of an explanation of the puzzle, a l l the while carry ing forward the meanings of "home." Miles O r v e l V s reading of Wise Blood examines the way "enclosing spaces" fig u r e in "the complex of associations b u i l t around the meaning of 'home.'"^6

As Hazel s e t t le s i n t o the enclosing space of his upper

96 Invisib1e Parade: The F ic t io n of FIannery O'Connor (Philadelphia Temple Univ. "Press, 1972), p. 8 0 f f .

86

ber th, he discovers t h a t his plans to watch the countryside go by a t night w i l l not be r e a l iz e d because there 1s no window.

In his h a l f ­

sleep he becomes aware of the s i m i l a r i t y of the berth, with I t s curving c e l l i n g , looking "as I f 1t were closing" ( p . 1 4 ), to a c o f f i n , and he remembers and then dreams of the c o f f in s 1n which his r e l a t i v e s were burled.

The dream-flashback sequence moves from berth to c o f f i n , to

the Eastrod of his boyhood, to his army tour of duty, to the dry goods store where he sheds his uniform, to the "skeleton of a house" t h a t is l e f t of his home, to his mother's abandoned c h i f fo r o b e , and f i n a l l y back to his mother’ s c o f f i n , out of which, Hazel dreams, she f l i e s at him in the shape of a bat.

In claustrophobic t e r r o r Hazel awakes, only

to have his nightmare continue as he sees the curved top of the berth, l i k e his mother's c o f f i n l i d , "closin g, coming ;lo ser closer down and cuttin g o f f the l i g h t and the room" ( p . 1 9 ) .

O rv e l1 makes the point

e a r ly 1n his book, placing O'Connor in the American romance t r a d i t i o n and comparing her imagination to Poe's, that "repeatedly her protago­ nists w i l l

hold in t h e i r minds an image o f per fection as i t existed in

the past, one th a t is usually associated with a containing structure — the house that is the f i r s t

'cocoon. '"9?

-jn Hazel's imagination the

97 O r v e l l , p. 37. In The V io l e n t Bear I t Away, young Tarwater leaves Powderhead a f t e r se tt in g the house on f i r e , and returns to the burnt-out ruin in the la s t chapter. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the grandmother gets the family o f f the main road and into the hands of the M i s f i t in her search f o r an old pla ntation home remembered from her youth. Julia n and his mother both treasure in t h e i r memories the once splendid and l a t e r decayed fa m ily mansion in "Everything That Rises Must Converge." In "Judgement Day" Tanner dreams of nothing but g e t ­ ting home, even i f he has to go in a c o f f i n .

87

p ro te c tiv e "cocoon" becomes the suffocating c o f f i n .

And so the meanings

of "home" begin to extend to the s i n i s t e r , the th re ate n in g .

On the

nig ht he returns to the vacant Eastrod and sleeps on the f lo o r 1n the kitc h e n , a board f a l l s out of the roof on H azel's head.

Just as the

verbal dueling 1n the f i r s t h a lf of the chapter stresses opposition, the clash of thesis and a n tith e s is (the surly young man versus the com­ placent older woman, the uncouth Southerner versus the sophisticated Easterners, the white property-holder versus the Negro s e rv a n t), the p r iv a te re v e la tio n o f the second h a lf of the chapter is based upon i n ­ t e r i o r p o la r iz a t io n , H azel's simultaneous desire fo r and fe a r of con­ ta in in g s tru c tu re . The implications of this ambivalence are worked through in the succeeding chapters of the novel.

In Taulkinham Hazel w i l l a l t e r n a t i n g l y

seek out and f l e e from vehicles, rooms and r e la t io n s h ip s th a t represent containment.

The ultim a te symbol of human containment, the body, and

p a r t i c u l a r l y the s k u l l ,

increasingly becomes the focus, the b a t t l e ­

ground of Hazel's predicament.

O'Connor introduces th is medieval motif

in her i n i t i a l description o f Motes: skin was pla in and in s is t e n t " ( p . 9 ) . 98

"The o u t li n e of a skull under his The description is repeated a l ­

most word f or word in the l a s t paragraph of the novel when Hazel has become a corpse.

As O'Connor said about the modern hero as outsider,

"the borders of his country are the sides of his skull

And so this

98 The same note is struck in West's description of Miss Lonely­ hearts' head as the mark of a p r i e s t l y he rita g e, p„ 9 99 "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South," Mystery and Manners, ed. Pobert and S a lly M t z o e r a l d (New York: Parra r, Straus, V9 6 9 ) , 'o. 200.

88

1s the tru e arena o f H a ze l's c o n f l i c t , his self-d1v1s1on, although 1t re g u la r ly s p i l l s out 1n symbolic skirmishes with those around him. Un til he chooses to come to grips with t h is self-antagonism. Hazel con­ t i n u a l l y experiences defeat a t the hands o f his pseudo-adversaries. In tera ctio n s with the porter exemplify this pattern:

His

when Hazel wakes

from the nightmare of his mother's closing c o f f i n and lunges through the space between the berth's c e l l i n g and the c u r t a in rod, he sees the porter and c a l l s to him for help and is not answered.

In desperation

he moans, "Jesus . . , Jesus," providing the misused porter with the l a s t word in t h e i r long-running argument, "'Jesus been a long time gone'" ( p . 1 9 ), a taunting confirmation of Hazel's complete desertion.

II By journeying to Taulkinham, Hazel Motes is endeavoring to meet the changed present head-on and on i t s own terms.

He had expected to spend

his l i f e "in Eastrod with his two eyes open, and his hands always hand­ l in g the f a m i l i a r th in g , his fe e t on the known t r a c k , and his tongue not too loose" ( p . 1 6 ) .

Now that th is option is closed to him he decided to

go to the c i t y , "to do some things I never have done before" ( p . l l ) , as he explains to Mrs. Hitchcock, with a

trace of a le e r on his mouth.

Hazel, l i k e other O'Connor young men,^®^ is ready to be i n i t i a t e d into the mysteries of the c i t y , and he seems to know what kind of i n i t i a t i o n to expect. few days.

He begins by locating a p r o s t i t u t e with whom he stays f o r a But her "obscene comments" about his performance and her

100 Ne l son i n "The A r t i f i c i a l i n T he V " o l e n t Bear j j t Away.

Nicroer" and F r a n c i s M a r i o n T a r w a t e r

89

m u tila tio n o f his hat (she c a lls 1 t "th a t Jesus-seelng hat") send him looking f o r another place to stay.

The opening chapter has already es­

tablished th a t H azel’ s expectations are fre q u e n tly to be overturned. His plans to exchange his old l i f e ,

H k e his old hat, for one "com­

p l e t e l y opposite to the old one" are f r u i t l e s s .

He cannot f r e e l y

enter Into a new l i f e while carrying so much baggage from the past. O'Connor’ s Taulklnham 1s the equal of West's New York 1n i t s com­ mercial s p i r i t and grotesque atmosphere.

When Hazel steps o f f the

t r a i n his a t te n tio n is completely absorbed in the signs and lig h t s that " f r a n t i c a l l y " compete for the domination of the s t a t io n : WESTERN UNION, AJAX, TAXI, HOTEL, CANDY" ( p . 20 ).

"PEANUTS,

He walks up and down

the length of the s t a t i o n , holding his duffel bag "by the neck," t u r n ­ ing his head from side to side to look at the signs, but with a "stern and determined" look that would suggest to no one "that he had no place to go."

True to his melancholy nature, Hazel shuns the benches of the

crowded waiting room; "he wanted a private place to go t o . "

In t h is

environment, Hazel's determination to find a place f o r himself becomes predictably ludicrous. "MEN'S TOILET.

The p r iv a te place that he discovers in the

WHITE.," a "narrow room" whose discolored walls are

decorated with g r a f f i t i and lined on one side with a row of wooden stalls.

Hazel chooses a s t a l l with a door on which is w rit te n l a r g e l y ,

in crayon, the word "WELCOME, followed by three exclamations points and something th a t looked l i k e a snake" ( p . 2 0 ) .

O'Connor pointedly

describes this modern version of a p r im it iv e inner sanctum as a "narrow box" where Hazel s i t s f o r some time, "studying the i n s c r i p t i o n s . " ^

101 T h’ s parody o f an i n i t i a t i o n r' "te r e c a l l s West ' s s i m i l a r secu­ l a r i z e d r i t u a l s and t empl es: t he speakeasy w i t h i t s "armored door"

90

I t Is here th a t Hazel finds the address of the p r o s t it u t e , Leora Watts, and the a p p re c ia tive t r ib u t e "In a drunken-looklng hand":

"The f r ie n d ­

l i e s t bed in town!" ( p . 2 1 ). Throughout Hazel's sojourn 1n Taulklnham, the theme of his displace­ ment, his homelessness, 1s i n t e n s i f i e d as i t appears in combination with the c i t y ' s p r e v a ilin g cofmerclalism and grotesquery.

As he pursues his

course from one unsatis fa ctory place to another — from the r a il r o a d s t a t i o n ' s rest-room to the p r o s t i t u t e ' s room, on the c i t y s t r e e t s , in his own car, at Mrs. Flood's boarding house - - i t becomes more and more obvious t h a t Hazel ju s t does not f i t

in anywhere.

For one th in g , Hazel

l i k e M1ss Lonelyhearts, 1s completely i n d i f f e r e n t to money, the one coTTfnon, binding i n t e r e s t of everyone else in the c i t y . every human In t e r a c t io n in the novel attempt to enact such an exchange. because he pays f o r her services.

V irtually

involves a cash exchange, or an Hazel is tole ra ted by Leora Watts

When Hazel walks downtown to ac­

quaint himself with the c i t y , he finds t h a t , i t being Thursday, the stores are open "so that people could have an extra opportunity to see what was *or sale" ( p . 2 4).

He stops where a potato peeler salesman has

set up a cardtable on the sidewalk and is sedulously drawing a crowd, daring them to l e t such an opportunity pass them by.

In this crowd

with Hazel are Enoch Emery, who wants to buy but has only "a d o l l a r sixteen cent" ( p . 27), and Asa Hawks and his daughter, Sabbath L i l y . The potato peeler salesman becomes f urious when Hawks, " j i g g l i n g a t i n

where entrance is gained by pressing a concealed button; the "com­ f o r t station " where Miss L and Ned Gates find the "clean old man" seated on a closed t o i l e t seat; the "private" phone booth where Miss L focuses his eyes on "two disembodied gen ita ls " as he d ia ls Faye Doyle's number.

91

cup . . * and tapping a white cane 1n fro n t o f him" ( p . 2 5 ), begins to move among the crowd muttering "'Help a blind preacher. repent, give up a n ic k e l. preach?*" ( p . 2 6 ).

. . .

I f you won't

Wouldn't you ra th e r have me beg than

" ’ These damn Jesus f a n a t i c s , ' " the salesman y e l l s ,

' " I got th is crowd to g e th e r!*" ( p . 2 6 ).

Sabbath L1ly also wants to buy

a p e e le r, but l i k e Enoch, she has less than the required "buck f i f t y . " When, in order to make contact w ith the blind preacher by means of a g i f t to his daughter, Hazel h u rrie d ly thrusts two d o lla rs a t the sales­ man, takes a p e e le r, and leaves without his change, he a t t r a c t s the devoted a tte n tio n of Enoch Emery, who follows him, panting, "'My, I reckon you got a heap of money'" ( p . 2 7 ). Hazel's money comes from his Army pension, payment f o r a wound sustained while he was 1n the government's service. t io n to spare f o r f in a n c ia l matters, however.

He has no a t t e n ­

Like Enoch, Hazel's

landlady is fascinated by th is unusual d i s i n t e r e s t .

She has seen her

boarder drop money from his pocket and not pick i t up.

Mrs. Flood is

a woman who "when she found a stream of wealth . . . followed i t to i t s source and before long i t was not dis tinguishable from her own" ( p . 116). She steams open the government envelope to learn the amount of Hazel's monthly check, and promptly raises his re n t.

It

is when she discovers

t h a t , a f t e r providing for his few needs each month, Hazel throws away whatever money is l e f t , that "she r e a li z e d . „ . th at he was a mad man and tha t he ought to be under the control of a sensible person" ( p . 120). The complete absence o f v e n a l i t y in Hazel's character places him in favorable contrast with the lik e s of the potato peeler huckster, the cynical beggar, Asa Hawks, the oraspinq Mrs. Flood, and a host of the c i t y ' s businessmen and women, b u t under!vina Hazel's p e c u n i a r y

92

d i s i n t e r e s t is a profound apathy f o r his own well being.

The same kind

of s e lf - r e d u c t io n is observable in Gail Hightower's con tr ib u tio n of "a small Income i n h eri te d from his f a th e r " to a Memphis home f o r wayward g i r l s ; even when Hightower 1s no longer employed by the Church, "he continued to send . . . h a l f of a revenue which in I t s e n t i r e t y would l i t t l e more than have kept htm.M^ In O'Connor's Taulkinham, the human rela tio n s h ip s tha t normally make f o r a community o f "common tastes and i n t e r e s t s . " have been r e ­ duced, to borrow Cleanth Brooks' phrase, to the "cash n e x u s ." ^ 3

Human

s e x u a lit y , which o r d i n a r i l y broadens and strengthens the indiv idual and produces the fa m il y as the basic u n i t of the community, in Wise Blood narrows I t s e l f to Leora Watt's bed.

H o s p i t a l i t y , the generosity that

allows in d iv id u als and f a m i lie s to become a corm in ity, must be bargained f or at Mrs. Flood's boarding house.

And r e l i g i o n , the community's a f ­

firm at ion of i t s r e la t io n s h ip to powers and p r in c ip le s of universal scope, can be paid to go away 1n the person of Asa Hawks, or, as tra n slated by 0n1e Jay Holy, "a real preacher . . . and a radio star" ( p . 8 6 ) , can be reclaimed f o r a d o l l a r .

Like West's New Yorkers, who

are t r y in g to sustain themselves on the b r i g h t l y packaged dreams of El Gaucho's and newspaper advertisements, on Blonde Beauty and love story story magazines, the Taulkinham residents are r e s t l e s s ly looking f o r a bargain and entertainment.

Unlike his grandfather, around whose car

102 William Faulkner, Light In August, Modern Lib rary ed. (New York: Random House, 1950), pp. 49, 50. 103

. . . r . I p Si paper de livered f o Lectures In the Mumsnities Series* "Pau1 k n t r ' s Cr1't i c ism of the Modern Wor7d," at Louisiana State Univer­ s i t y , Baton Rouge, March 1 T, 1974.

93

people had gathered "because he seemed to dare them to" ( p . 1 6 ), Hazel must go to the movie houses to fin d even an apathetic audience f o r his preaching. The grotesque 1s p a r t i c u l a r l y appropriate to Hazel Motes' story f o r the same reason t h a t i t is appropriate to M1ss Lonelyhearts': n e ith er young man Is at home In his world.

As Kayser makes c l e a r In

d i f f e r e n t i a t i n g the grotesque from the t r a g i c , the former "1s p r i m a r i l y the expression of our f a i l u r e to o r i e n t ourselves in the physical un i­ verse. "^04

This estrangement from physical r e a l i t y is repres entative

of the general tenor of the grotesque as a mode conveying the f e e lin g of a l i e n a t i o n .

O'Connor suggests at the beginning of Chapter 3 tha t

not only Hazel, but the e n t i r e comnunity o f Taulkinham is out of touch with the physical universe:

above the heads of the Thursday shoppers

the night sky is f i l l e d with . . . thousands of stars t h a t a l l seemed to be moving very slowly as i f they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole order of the universe and would take a l l time to complete. No one was paying any a t t e n t io n to the sky ( p . 24). Hazel’ s a l i e n a t i o n , l i k e Miss L o nely h e art s ', is only p a r t l y the r e s u l t of his own mental abs tra c tio n ; the comnunity he inhabits is c l e a r l y an estranged one Into which he may f i t himself at his own p e r i l . Most of the motifs and themes l i s t e d by Kayser in his concluding chapter as subject matter t ypic al of the grotesque occur in Wise Blood: a l l m ons tros ities, including Apocalyptic beasts and demons, c e rt a in animals, the plant world, the underwater world, instruments of

104 t h e G r o t e s n u e in A r t and L i t e r a t u r e , p . 1 8 5 .

94

technology, the human body reduced t o a puppet or mask. Including the "grinning skull and moving skeleton" and the Dance of Death, and f i n ­ a l l y , the Insane p e r s o n . I t

may prove d i f f i c u l t to draw the l i n e

on what 1s to be excluded from the category of the monstrous 1n the novel, but c e r t a i n l y the shriveled mummy that so captivates Enoch Emery th a t he steals 1t from the park museum and d e l iv e r s i t to Hazel to be his "new jesus" ( p p . 79,100) epitomizes the concept.

There is a combin­

a tio n of the monstrous, the a n i m a l i s t i c and the mask in Enoch's f i n a l a c tio n , dressing himself 1n a g o r i l l a s u i t , which he has taken by force from an a c t o r , and becoming, in the n a r r a t io n , " i t " instead o f "he"; we l a s t see " i t " s i t t i n g on a rock staring across a v a l l e y toward the city.

The ape has long been one o f those animals considered p a r t i ­

c u l a r l y suita ble to the grotesque, embodying, Thomas Wright remarks, "natural

parodies

upon m a n k i n d . I t

is funny, yet c h i l l i n g l y

f i t t i n g , th at Enoch Emery, the park guard who "hated" animals to tha t he v i s i t e d the zoo cages d a i l y with an "obscene comment" f o r each i n ­ mate (the monkeys in p a r t i c u l a r ) , should feel

"rewarded" by "his god,"

the god of a l I mindless, rough beasts, when he takes on the trappings of a g o r i l l a ( p p . 54 ,1 0 7- 1 0 8 ).

In the subplot of the lonely country

boy repeatedly abused and abandoned by his f a t h e r and "made" to come to the un friend ly c i t y , the grotesque serves as reinforcement for the p r i ­ mary theme of displacement. 105 Kayser, pp. 181-184. 106 A History of Ca ric ature and Grotesque in L l t e r a t u r e and Art (1865; facs im ile r p t .” New York-; Frederick Linger, 1968), p. 95. Wright makes a suggestive comparison o f the words monkey and mannikin that is in keeping with Kayser's emu Via', is on the idea of reduced humanity.

Kayser singles out a few animals as e s p e c ia lly appropriate f or producing a sense o f the strange and s i n i s t e r 1n man--"snakes, owls, toads, s p id e rs ,” as well as any kind o f v e r m i n W e

remember the

snake o f hysteria and the wounded frog 1n M1ss Lonelyhearts.

In W1se

Blood there 1s the "something th a t looked l i k e a snake" ( p . 20) on the t o i l e t door and che owl in the zoo th a t looks l i k e an "eye . . . in the middle of something . . . l i k e a piece of mop s i t t i n g on an old rag" whose Cyclopean gaze forces from Hazel the assertion " ' I AM clean'" ( p . 55).

"The grotesque animal inc arna te , however," Kayser continues,

"is the bat ( FIedermaus) , the very name of which points to an unnatural fusion o f organic realms concretized in t h i s ghostly c r e a t u r e . 1

1Oft

The

fearsome bat, appearing in Chapter 1 as the clim a ctic dream image 1n Hazel's rev e r ie on his dead mother, is associated in his imagination with the p o s s i b i l i t y th a t her r es tle ss ghost, no "more s a t i s f i e d dead than a l i v e " ( p . 1 9 ) , might v i s i t the old Eastrod house.

The emphasis on

characters' a n im a l is t i c nature, a staple of c a ric a tu r e and the absurd, is a constant in O'Connor's f i c t i o n .

Thus we have Enoch-as-gori 1 l a ,

and e a r l i e r his face described as "fox-shaped" ( p . 2 4 ) , the lye scars on Asa Hawks' face giving him "the expression of a grinning mandrill" ( p . 2 5), "a cat-faced baby sprawled" on the shoulder of a woman l i s t e n ­ ing to Hazel preach "as i f he were in a booth at the f a i r "

( p . 8 2 ) , and,

of course, the names Hawks and Shoats f o r the two insincere street preachers.

107 Kayser, p. 182. 108 Kayser, p.

183.

Because the world O'Connor has created f o r Hazel Motes to move 1n is an o u t - o f - j o i n t world, the d is t o r tio n th a t Kayser, and many

o t h e r s ,

see as fundamental to the grotesque becomes p art o f the problem against which he struggles 1n his attempts to define him self.

The car Hazel

buys because, as he t e l l s the salesman, " I a i n ' t got any place to be" ( p . 4 3 ) , belongs In Kayser's category of tools and Instruments o f tech­ nology t h a t take on a l i f e of t h e i r own, and seem to exert t h e i r w i l l against man's.

The e a r l y descriptions of the car simply confirm that

the inexperienced Hazel has bought a ba rely-functioning wreck, but l a t e r in the story the c a r ' s p e c u l i a r i t i e s are independent of the mechanical realm:

"There were two instruments on the dashboard with

needles that pointed d i z z i l y in f i r s t one d ir e c tio n and then another, but they worked on a p r iv a te system, independent of the whole ca r” ( p . 70) "The Essex had a tendency to develop a t i c by n i g h t f a l l . forward about six inches and then back about four" { p . 8 5 ) .

I t would go The car also

becomes part of the c o f f i n motif of the novel when Haze1 sleeps in i t one night and dreams that he is "not dead but only buried" ( p . 8 8 ) . ^ ® Sim ilar to the ca r's sudden and unexplained reversals of d ir e c t io n are Hazel's own:

b e f i t t i n g a man who "might as well go one place as another,

he t y p i c a l l y moves in one d i r e c t i o n and then abruptly in i t s opposite.

109 An e x ce lle n t survey of scholarship on the grotesque is Francis Barasch's Introduction to Wright's A History of Caricature and Grotesque, 1968. 110 In "The Nature and Aim of Fiction" O'Connor specifies that "The hero's rat -colo red automobile is his p u lp it and his c o f f in as well as somethi^a he thinks of as a means of escape . . . . the car is a kind of d e a f h - t n _ i i f p symbol." Mystery and Manners , p. 7?.

97

Hazel's many movements In reverse are reminiscent of the waste motions of the f r u s t r a t e d c r i p p l e , Peter Doyle,

When the t r a i n pulled away

from him at a junctio n stop, "he had run a f t e r 1t but his hat had blown away and he had to run 1n the opposite d i r e c ti o n to save the hatM ( p . 2 0 ). Like his ca r. Hazel often seems to be c on trolle d by some a l ie n force, as when he momentarily takes on the appearance of a puppet in Chapter 1: "Haze got up and hung there a few seconds.

He looked as i f he were

held by a rope caught in the middle of his back and attached to the train ceiling" ( p . l l ) .

The issue of outside manipulation is obvious,

too, in the performances of Solace L a y f i e l d , who is controlled l i k e an automaton by a signal from Hoover Shoats, repeating "in exactly the same tone of voice" ( p . 91) his l i n e s , f a s t e r and f a s t e r .

Even more

frig h ten in g than the loss of control to inanimate machinery or to a malignant puppeteer, however, is the loss of s e lf - c o n t r o l exemplified 1n I n s a n ity .

As Kayser says, "The encounter with madness is one of the

basic experiences of the grotesque which l i f e forces upon u s . " ^

The

madman replaces, reverses, or transposes, with incongruous l o g ic , con­ ventional standards and values to conform to his own expectations and a b i l i t i e s , so tha t even while he removes himself from the realm of responsible a c tio n , he 1s reassured, by I l l u s i o n , th a t he is in cotrmand. Hazel's extraordinary attachment to his car--"'Nobody with a good car needs to be j u s t i f i e d ' "

( p . 64 ), he once t e l l s Sabbath L i l y — and his

emblematic resemblance to 1t are symptoms of th a t obsession with a los t past th a t increasingly controls Hazel's actions and culminates in

111

K a y s e r , p. 184.

98

his murdering Solace L a y f l e l d , the tallsmanlc car serving as murder weapon.

Hazel's struggle in an antago nistic society, l i k e Miss Lonelyhearts', 1s u l t i m a t e l y a struggle to gain the ascendancy over the death-oriented controls in his own mind.

As he takes his f i r s t rid e in his car out

into a countryside lined with "666 posts" and "'Jesus Saves'" signs, "he had the f e e l in g t h a t everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him" ( p . 4 4 ). By means of dreams, memories and flashbacks the reader gains p a r t i a l access to the "giant blank thing" hidden in Hazel's i n t e r i o r .

What we

see of the s p e c t r e - l i k e figures th a t move there--Jesus the merciless hunter, the h o s tile grandfather, d i s s a t i s f i e d mother and skulking f a t h e r - - e x p la i n s much of Hazel's behavior.

I t explains, for example,

why he is drawn to the repulsive Asa Hawks, th at malignant parental f i g u r e , and through him, back into his o r i g in a l vocation of preaching, the ro le t h a t , since a c h i l d , he has equated with power. The dreams and memories that upper berth o f f e r a succession of

occupy Hazel as he l i e s in the t r a i n ' s views of closing c o f f i n s .

The f i r s t

is his g r a n d fa t h e r 's , which, "propped open with a stick of k in d lin g ," was watched from a distance by the boy Hazel, who thought: going to l e t them shut i t on him;

"he a i n ' t

when the time comes, his elbow is

going to shoot into the crack" ( p . 1 5 ) .

But "when i t was time to

bury

him, they shut the top of his box down and he d i d n ' t make a move" ( p . 1 5 ) . When his seven-year-old brother is closed away in a small c o f f i n , Haze "ran and opened i t up again.

. . . because he had thought, what i f he

had been in i t and they had shut i t on him" ( d . 15).

HR/e1 dreams that

99

his f a t h e r t r i e s to keep the top up on his c o f f i n by propping himself up on his hands and knees; " ' I f I keep my can in the a i r , ' he heard the old man say, 'nobody can shut nothing on me,' but when they got his box to the hole, they l e t i t drop with a thud and his f a th e r f la t t e n e d out l i k e anybody else" ( p . 1 5 ) .

The c h i l d ' s expectation that his grand­

f a t h e r ' s a u t h o r it y w i l l f o i l death dwindles 1n the face of repeated ex­ perience, but the hope 1s s t i l l a l i v e in Hazel's speculation that his mother's ghost w i l l approve his protection of her c h if fo ro b e , the only piece of f u r n i t u r e he finds remaining in the family house.

He secures

i t to the kitchen f l o o r boards with cord and leaves a warning in each of i t s drawers.

"THIS SHIFFER-ROBE BELONGS TO HAZEL MOTES.

STEAL IT OR YOU WILL BE HUNTED DOWN AND KILLED" ( p . 1 9 ) .

00 NOT

He imagines

her ghost coming to the house with "that look on her face, unrested and looking; the same look he had seen through the crack of her c o f f in " ( p . 1 9).

As the l i d is closing on her c o f f i n , Hazel watches i t s shadow

cross her f ace , and 1t is t h is shadow th a t becomes the haunting bat, as Hazel

imagines that his mother "might have been going to f l y out of

there" ( p . 1 9 ) . The next view Into Hazel's i n t e r i o r l i f e occurs in Chapter 3, and i t follows immediately a scene in Leora Watt's bedroom in which the nervous Hazel's heart grips him " l i k e a l i t t l e ape clutching the bars of i t s cage" and Mrs. Watts' grin is "as curved and sharp as the blade of a sickle" ( p . 3 7).

At the age of ten, Hazel was taken to a carnival

by his f a t h e r and sent to "a t e n t where two monkeys danced" while his f a th e r went to a more expensive tent advertised as "SINsatlon al" and "Exclusive."

Following his f a th e r and imagining tha t the tent contained

"some men in a privy" or maybe "a man and a woman in a privy" ( p . 37),

100

he bargains w ith the barker, f i n a l l y gaining admittance by Insinuating th a t "they were doing something to a nigger" ( p . 3 8 ).

Standing on a

bench to see over the heads o f the men, the boy sees th a t "something white was ly in g , squirming a l i t t l e ,

in a box lin e d

For a second he thought 1t was a skinned animal and a woman.

w ith black c lo th . then he

saw1t was

She was f a t and she had a face l i k e an ordinary woman except

there was a mole on the corner of her I1 p , t h a t moved when she grinned" { p . 38 ).

Just before he scrambles out of the t e n t Hazel

f a t h e r ' s voice:

hears his

" ’ Had one of themther b u i l t into ever casket . . .

be

a heap ready to go sooner1" ( p . 3 8 ). This episode makes e x p l i c i t the lin k s between a number of fact o rs c rucia l to Ha ze l's story. penance a l l

Confinement, the f l e s h , sex, death, and

here converge in a highly charged family s e t t i n g .

Not

only does his u n s e tt li n g glimpse of a naked woman occur in a cheap carnival atmosphere, accompanied by his f a t h e r ' s c o f f i n humor, but the trauma extends into the r e lig i o u s sphere.

As soon as the boy suspected

th a t a woman might be inside the t e n t , he thought, "She wouldn't want me in there" ( p p .3 7 -3 8 ) .

And when he returns home afterwards his mother

seems to know what happened j u s t by looking at him.

He hides behind a

tree but can "feel her watching him through the tree" ( p . 38).

His

imagination transposes his mother to the casket in place of the

fat

woman, "a t h in woman in the casket who was too long

,

for i t . . .

She

had a cross-shaped face and hair pulled close to her head" ( p . 38). His mother comes toward him with a s t i c k , asking "'What you seen?'" r e ­ peatedly, and as she h i t s him across the legs she intones, "'Jesus died to redeem you'" ( p . 3 9). of the tent f o r

Under her grim gaze the boy "forgot the g u i l t

the nameless unplaced a u i l t that was in h i m" ( p . 39).

101

The next day the boy Hazel walks over a mile with rocks In hts shoes (a stra tegy the adu lt Hazel returns t o ) , th in k in g , "tha t ought to s a t i s f y Him" ( p . 3 9 ) .

by death.

A l l l i f e and pleasure are rendered contemptible

Jesus' meaning Is narrowed to death's agency, and only

s u f f e r in g , the c h ild think s, can quiet Him and s e t t l e that unplaced gu ilt. Hazel's l a s t dream takes place in his c a r.

He has spent many

evenings preaching the Church Without Christ outside of movie houses, hoping Hawks w i l l

"welcome him and act l i k e a preacher should when he

sees what he believes is a l o s t soul" ( p . 8 0 ) .

But he has only managed

to a t t r a c t "a Lapsed Catholic" who wants to v i s i t a whorehouse and Onie Jay Holy, who sees Hazel's idea of a new jesus as lacking only "a l i t t l e promotion" ( p . 8 7 ) .

Hazel

is using the car as his house, and when he

f a l l s asleep on his p a l l e t he dreams th a t "he was not dead but only burled ." He was not waiting on the Judgment because there was no Judgment, he was waiting on nothing. Various eyes looked through the back oval window at his s i t u a t i o n , some with considerable reverence, l i k e the boy from the zoo, and some only to see what they could see. There were three women with paper sacks who looked a t him c r i t i c a l l y as i f he were someth1ng--a piece of f i s h — they might buy. . . .Then a woman . . . stopped and looked 1n, grinn ing . A f t e r a second, she . . , indicated tha t she would climb in and keep him company f o r a w h ile , but she co u ld n 't get through the glass and f i n a l l y she went o f f . A ll t h i s time Haze was bent on ge ttin g out but since there was no use to t r y , he d i d n ' t make a move one way or the ot h er. He kept expecting Hawks to appear a t the oval window with a wrench, but the blind man d i d n ' t come ( p . 8 8 - 8 9 ) . At t h i s point in the story, before Hazel discovers that Hawks only pretends to be b l i n d , he 1s, consciously or not, expecting to be rescued from his own emptiness by the preacher.

The dream echoes previous

images of impotent confinement as well as the side-show m otif:

Hazel is

on d is p la y , l i k e the mummy 1n the glass case, l i k e the many corpses in

102

t h e i r c o f f i n s , and l i k e the woman 1n a box at the c a r n i v a l; Indeed, the grinning woman he r s e lf appears.

Hazel 1s meeting with no success in

his attempt to l i v e a changed l i f e

1n the c i t y .

His experience con­

tinues to present I t s e l f to him as fragments of some great blank thing that he cannot quite recognize, but which separates him from the goal of placing himself.

Ill What we see o f Hazel's past and the state o f his imagination focuses our a t te n tio n on the overriding power th a t death holds over him. And not only through the cumulative weight of the deaths of his family members, although that would be enough, but also the strong a n t i - l i f e drives v i s i b l e 1n the repugnance of s e x u a lit y , his in d if fe re n c e to money and his stubborn refusal to be cared f o r , to be fed (when Hazel does e a t,

i t is mechanically, or "with a wry face" ( p . l ? l ) , and he has

trouble keeping his food down).

One of Kayser*s major conclusions about

the grotesque is that i t " i n s t i l l s fear of l i f e rather than fe ar of death."

11 2

In Miss Lonelyhearts i t is the brutal chaos ju s t beneath

the surface of everyday order tha t makes l i f e menace.

i t s e l f an ungovernable

In Wise Blood l i f e and the l i v i n g are so ugly and so corrupt,

so c a r e f u l l y lacking in any m it ig a t i n g humanity, that death might very conceivably be b e t t e r .

n? Kayser, p

185.

What old Mason Tarwater t e l l s his great-nephew

103

and protege could as e a s ily be Hazel Motes' b e l i e f :

"The world was

made f o r the d e a d . " ^ And yet there was a power, an a u t h o r i t y , a vigor 1n Hazel's grand­ f a t h e r and mother, the two r e l i g i o u s models o f his childhood.

Hazel

had decided e a r ly that "he was going to be a preacher l i k e his grand­ f ath er" and when he was drafted he almost chose to evade the c a l l by shooting his f o o t , since a foot was not necessary to a preacher: preacher's power 1s in his neck and tongue and arm" { p . 16).

"A

When he

did go to the army, i t was because "he trusted himself to get back 1n a few months, uncorrupted.

He had a strong confidence in his power to

r e s i s t e v i l ; i t was something he had in h e r i t e d , l i k e his face, from his grandfather" ( p . 1 7 ) .

From his mother, who "wore black a l l the time

and . . . dresses . . . longer than other women's" ( p . 38 ), Ha2 el i n ­ h e r its a Bible and a p a i r of silver-rimmed spectacles.

When his army

companions i n v i t e him to go to a b r o t h e l, Hazel puts on his mother's glasses f o r added a u t h o r i t y .

Even a f t e r Hazel believes that he has no

soul, the Bible and glasses remain "in the bottom of his d u ffe l bag. He d i d n ' t read any book now but he kept the Bible because i t came from home.

He kept the glasses in case his vis ion should ever become dim"

( p . 18). Inseparable from t h e i r strength, however, 1s a h o s t i l i t y of despair th a t fa th e r and daughter bequeath to the one surviving family represent­ ative.

That "waspish old man who had ridden over three counties with

Jesus hidden in his head l i k e a stinger" (p.15) would single his grandson

113 York:

Flannery O'Connor, The Vio le n t Bear I t Away (1955; r p t . New Signet Books, 1962), p. 312.

104

out during his sermons:

"He had a p a r t i c u l a r disrespect f o r him because

his own face was repeated almost e x a c tly 1n the c h i l d ' s and seemed to mock him" ( p . 1 6 ) . ^ ^

C allin g him a "mean sinful unthinking boy . . .

with d i r t y hands" ( p . 1 6 ) , the grandfather used the grandson as an ex­ ample of the extremes to which Jesus would go to secure souls, turning his sermons In to something more l i k e a curse f o r Hazel.

The boy begins

to see "Jesus move from t re e to tr e e 1n the back of his mind, a wild ragged f ig u r e motioning him to turn around and come o f f into the dark" ( p . 16).

And f i n a l l y into the dark he goes, blinding himself with lye

and t e l l i n g the curious Mrs. Flood tha t " i f th e r e's no bottom in your eyes, they hold more" ( p . l ? l ) , wrapping his chest in barbed wire and walking d a i l y with gravel in his shoes. Hazel's end, l i k e Miss Lonelyhearts' , siderable diverse c r i t i c a l

sc ru ti n y.

has been the subject of con­

Both novels l i v e and resonate

along tensions b u i l t upon extremely polarized d u a l i t i e s , contradictory c ha ra cterization s and equivocating s t y l e s . tha t t h e i r protagonists' actions w i l l

It

is tc be expected, then,

be paradoxical.

Hazel's s e l f -

m util ation and death cannot be explained simply, e i t h e r in terms o f a theological framework or in psychoanalytical categor ies. f a c t , would be to f a l l

To do so, in

prey to the same kind of e i t h e r - o r abstractions

that mark Hazel's f a i l u r e s .

For he does f a i l ,

for s im il a r reasons as Miss Lonelyhearts.

in the same areas and

He is an abysmally incomplete

human being whose f a i l u r e to find some v i t a l , healing place f or himself stems from pe rsis te n t magic thin k in g, masquerading, and vengeful w ith ­ drawal from humanity. 114

Thi s i s a comon f a m i l y i n t e r a c t i o n i n O' Connor' s f i c t i o n .

105

Hazel's a bs tra ctio n 1s a constant throughout the novel, only grow­ ing more pronounced as the story moves on, and as his connection with the people around him grows more tenuous.

Hazel's preoccupations cause

him to see what he expects to see, and so he in s i s t s t h a t the porter 1s an old neighbor, ta lk s to an owl's eye, and believes t h a t Sabbath L i l y , "since she was so homely, would also be innocent" ( p . 6 3 ) .

Hazel's magic

thinking might best be exemplified by the talismanic objects--h1s hat, the B ib le , his mother's glasses, his Essex— upon which he r e l i e s .

With

these a r t i f a c t s Hazel controls and protects his I d e n t i t y , the existence of his vanished home, a bequeathed omniscience, an armored sanctuary. But a more serious dependence, and one th at includes the area of mas­ querading, is Hazel's i d e n t i f i c a t i o n with his grandfather. to his childhood commitment

He returns

be " l i k e his gra nd father," not in the

substance of his sermons, but in the trappings, posture and antagonistic style.

And he takes on th i s ro le in a f u t i l e attempt to win the a t t e n ­

tion of another f a u l t y model, Asa Hawks.

Hazel's substance as a human

being is increasingly given over to the shadowy regions of his mind where he seems to l i e trapped in a metaphor.

When Haze1 sees his mirror

image in the mechanical performance of the Prophet, Solace L a y f i e l d , "hollow-chested . . . his neck th r u s t forward" ( p . 9 1 ) , his submerged s e l f- h a t r e d surfaces:

" I f you don't hunt i t down and k i l l

hunt you down and k i l l you" ( p . 9 I ) .

it,

it'll

I t is a f t e r Hazel has lo s t the

protection of his car that he blinds himself with ly e , following the example of the r e t i r e d e v a n g e lis t , Hawks, and withdraws himself from his previous a c t i v i t i e s and from those he has known, r a r e l y speaking or eati n g.

In response to M^s. Flood's queries about his self-abuse he

rnp1-'ps ’" I ' m p a y i n g . . . .

I t don't make any d if f e r e n c e for w ha t.'"

( p . 122).

The extent to which Ha zel's complete abstraction has removed

him from l i f e 1s underscored when, a f t e r he has died 1n the squad car on the way back to the boarding house, n e it her the po lic e o f f i c e r s nor Mrs. Flood can t e l l

th at he Is now. In f a c t , a corpse.

Just before Hazel set out f o r his l a s t painful walk, Mrs. Flood off ered to marry him and thus provide him a perpetual home:

"'Nobody

ought to be without a place o f t h e i r own to b e , ' " she counseled him; M,I got a place f o r you in my h e a r t, Mr. Motes'" ( p . 124).

Although

searching f o r "a place to be" since the opening pages of the novel, Hazel f le e s her o f f e r ; the f i r s t .

indeed, he has been beyond such a remedy from

The mad preacher's preoccupation allows f o r no resolution

in his l i f e .

In her Preface to the second e d it io n o f Wise Blood,

O'Connor s t a r t le d many readers by w r i t in g that "Hazel Motes' lies . . .

integrity

in his not being able to . . . get r i d of the ragged f ig u r e

. . . in the back of his mind."

Her choice of the word ' i n t e g r i t y ' , ap­

p lie d to t h i s arrogant, blaspheming murderer, is j u s t the sort of c a l ­ culated discrepancy consistent with her a n t i t h e t i c a l c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n . She continues, Does anyone's i n t e g r i t y ever l i e in what he is not able to do? I think tha t usually i t does, f o r f r e e w i l l does not mean one w i l l , but many w i l l s c o n f l i c t i n g in one man. Free­ dom cannot be conceived simply. I t is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen. O'Connor is using her language, as is her custom, in both a s t r i c t and a suggestive sense.

Her protagonist possesses the absolute u n ity of a

man who i s unable to change.

His triumph, she t e l l s us, l i e s in th is

i n a b i l i t y , or i t may be a p a r a ly s is , of w i l l .

Judging by some of her

unpalatable spokesmen for humanistic optimism, Onie Jay Holy and, from The Vio le nt Bear I t Awa^, Rayber, there was never any l ik e lih o o d that

107 Motes would be allowed to discover any moderate or healing a l t e r n a t i v e . An escape from t h a t ragged f ig u r e would be a spurious happy ending. Hazel Motes suffers the same f a t e as do M1ss Lonelyhearts and Gall Hightower:

being a b s o l u t i s t s , they cannot accommodate the degree of

Incongruity, dis p ro po rtion, and ambiguity t h e i r worlds present, and t h e i r Imaginative resources, c a lle d in to resolve the in tern a l warfare, can supply them only with models and

images o f death. When the

the b a t t l e c l e a r s , there w i l l be no v i c t o r ; with in Hazel Motes are so extreme in ground deserted of a l l

but the dead.

dust of

the many w i l l s at c o n f l i c t

nature that they leave the

b attle­

CHAPTER 5 .

SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF CALVIN

Man knows so l i t t l e about his fe ll o w s . In his eyes a l l men and women act upon what he believes would motivate him 1f he were mad enough to do what th a t other man or woman is doing. Light in August

I,i Gall Hightower's story the career of the mad preacher is ex­ tended beyond the c lim ac tic defeats of Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes. Hightower 1s f i r s t mentioned in Chapter 2 of Light In August as "the f i f t y - y e a r - o l d outcast who has been denied by his church" ( p . 42 }.

We

learn that t w e n ty - f iv e years ago he was the m in is ter o f one of J e f f e r ­ son's princip al churches and that now "the exminister l iv e s alone, in what the town c a l l s his disgrace" ( p . 4 2 ) , but the circumstances of that defeat are not revealed u n t i l Chapter 3, and the sources and depths of Hightower's e a r l i e r f a i l u r e are not discovered by e i t h e r himself or the reader u n t i l the penultimate chapter of the novel.

In 1932, before the

disastrous week-end th a t is the focus f o r the several novel, Hightower is l i v i n g in r e t r e a t .

stories of the

He has seemingly achieved that

peace so p a i n f u l l y lacking in the l iv e s of Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes.

He explains his acceptance of his fa te to Byron Bunch:

"all

that any man can hope f or is to be permitted to l i v e q u i e t ly among his 1 08

109

fellows" ( p . 6 4 ) .

This I1 fe - s ta n c e must seem very sensible to a man who,

1n 1907, as a young m in i s t e r , experienced the same sense o f loss, con­ f l i c t and defeat t h a t brought M1ss L and Hazel t o t h e i r deaths.

As

Faulkner demonstrates 1n continuing Hightower's career beyond that e a r l y catastrophe, the exminister may be a survivor, but the terms of his survival are 11fe-denying; he continues to operate under the same p r in c ip le s th a t brought about his o r ig i n a l downfall. Many c r i t i c s have commented on Faulkner's pervasive "fe elin g for the past as the a r b i t e r of present d e s t i n i e s . " 115

Faulkner himself,

when questioned about the t i t l e of Light In August, explained that he had associated the l a t e surrmer sunlight with a continuing legacy of ancient c u lt u r e s , "a luminosity older than our C h ri s tia n c i v i l i z a t i o n . . . . th a t luminous lambent q u a l i t y of an older l i g h t than o u r s . " 115 Like Miss L and Motes, Hightower r e l i e s on a power from the past to r e ­ deem the present, and l i k e t h e i r s , his f a i l u r e rests in his reliance on a model from the past to the exclusion and denial of his r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s to the people in his present.

Hightower’ s euhemerus is his grandfather,

whose daring raid on the Yankee stores in Jefferson the grandson r e ­ enacts on his own "raid" on the s e n s i b i l i t i e s of the Jefferson church members and townspeople f i f t y - f i v e years l a t e r .

He pursues the pattern

l a i d down by his grandfather to i t s f i n a l e , being abducted by Klansmen and l e f t for dead.

At th is juncture the crusading young preacher passes

115 Richard H. Rovere, Introduction to the Modern Library ed. of Light 1n August (New York: Random House, 1950), v i . 1 16

Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph K. Blo tn er , eds., Faulkner in the Univerls ty ( C h a r l o t t e s v i l l e : Univ. of Va. Press, 1 9 5 9 } , p. 119.

no from the scene, j u s t as f i n a l l y as did M1ss L and Hazel Motes.

After

him comes the recluse, the old counselor who thinks t h a t he has paid and 1s a t peace, who t h in k s , ' " I am not 1n l i f e anymore"' ( p . 263), who, 1n f a c t , 1s s t i l l

held 1n t h r a l l every evening by a v i s i t a t i o n of his

grandfather's cavalry u n i t , thundering soundlessly through the s t re e t ju s t beyond his study window.

In the c h a r a c te r iz a t io n of Hightower, as

1n the c h a ra cte rization s of Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden, Faulkner e x p l i c i t l y delineates his hypothesis th a t "no man is himself, he is the sum of his p a s t . " ^ ^ To lend force to the p r i n c i p l e that the individual w i l l , and t he re ­ fore individual de stin y , is predetermined, Faulkner introduces a p a r t i ­ c u l a r l y dour Calvinism as the guiding r e l i g i o u s outlook f o r most of the novel's characters. Nathaniel Burden, a l l

McEachern, Hightower's f a t h e r , Calvin and

in s till

in t h e i r offs pring a p a r t i c u l a r l y v i r u l e n t

r e lig i o u s heritage th a t includes, among other things, an expectation and acceptance of violence, clannish fa na tic is m , and chopped logic un­ rivaled in l i t e r a t u r e since Sc o tt 's highland presbyters.

Calvin Burden,

himself the son of a New England m in is te r from whom he ran away a t the age of twelve, t e l l s his children that everyone else can "'go to t h e i r own benighted h e l l .

. . . But I ' l l

beat the loving God into the four

of you as long as I can raise my arm'" ( p p . 212-213).

I t is not only

in the church i t s e l f , whose music c a rr ies the plea "f o r not love, not life

. . . demanding in sonorous tones death as though death were the

boon, l i k e a l l Protestant music" ( p . 322), that v io le n t destruction is sanctioned; more potently the impulse to "c r u c i f i x i o n of themselves 117 Gwynn and B l o t n e r ,

p,

84.

Ill and one another11 ( p . 322} Is learned In the fa m ily and comnunlcated from parent to c h i l d .

In O'Connor's f a m i l i e s , the p a r t i c u l a r disrespect

tha t the older generation holds f o r the younger fre q u e n t ly stems from the recognition of a s t r i k i n g physical resemblance th at seems to mock or challenge the superior wisdom o f the senior.

Faulkner shares with

O'Connor the perception th a t the most f a r-re a c hin g h o s t i l i t y 1s tha t reserved f o r members of one's own f a m i l y .

In p a r t i c u l a r , children

treated as objects of ownership (McEachern examines the f i v e - y e a r - o l d Christmas as I f he were "a horse or a second-hand plow" [ p . 1 2 4 ] ) , or as receptacles of a fa mily obsession (Nathaniel Burden t e l l s the fo u ryear-old Joanna t h a t the Negro 1s " ' t h e curse of every white c h il d tha t ever was born and th a t ever w i l l be born.

None can escape i t .

. . .

Least of a l l y o u . ' " [ p . 1 2 2 ] ) , or as v i s i b l e representatives of an abs tra ct s t a t e , what the f i f t y - y e a r - o l d Hightower r e a l i z e s tha t he has been since he was eigh t years o l d , c h il d r e n t r e a t e d , in other words, as anything but unique In d ivid u als grow into adults who confirm the pessi­ m is tic parental expectations.

Like West and O'Connor, but 1n greater

d e t a i l , Faulkner explores the influence of the elemental family u n i t on the imagination and decisions of the mad preacher, tracing his r e ­ duced humanity to the powerful, f a t a l models and metaphors chosen in chlldhood.

I When Faulkner began w rit in g the novel t h a t became Light In August the working t i t l e of the manuscript was Dark House, and an opening scene showed Hightower a t his study desk and presented his family

112

h is t o r y .

Tift °

As Faulkner developed the counterpoint t h a t was to govern

the "series of pieces" of his n a r r a t i v e , he changed the t i t l e from a metaphor of darkness to one o f l i g h t , and he moved the disclosure of Hightower's e a r l y H f e to the n e x t - t o - l a s t chapter where 1t would work as a sympathetic a n t i t h e s i s to the tragedy of Christmas'

story.

He

retained the introdu ctio n of Hightower 1n the darkened study, but r e ­ placed the childhood flashback with an episode from e a r l y manhood.

So

that before we know of the boy's f ear and hatred, even before we know the old outcast as counselor and co n fi d a n t, we le arn of the young m i n i s t e r ' s passionate I n t e n s i t y and f a i l u r e .

In the character of

Hightower the stages 1n the l i f e of the mad preacher are taken through two complete cycles, the f i r s t of which begins in 1907 when the young seminary graduate a r r i v e s in Jefferson. Faulkner 1s a t pains th a t the f i r s t extended view of Hightower come not from autho rial prerogative or through the r e s t r i c t e d outlook o f some single character or even from Hightower's own memory; the story 1s a consensus view shaped by the community at large and passed on by several townspeople to the curious Byron, who adds his own thoughts and evaluations to the n a r r a t i v e as he receives i t .

How appropriate

th is method is to the account of the young m i n i s t e r ' s b r i e f tenure be­ comes c le a r as the t a l e resolves i t s e l f into a c o n f l i c t between what the conminity expects of a m in is te r and what the young newcomer expects from the town.

118 Joseph Blotner, Paulkner: A Biography, Vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 19 74), pp. 701-702 ancT Notes.

113

From the moment of his a r r i v a l a t the Jefferson depot, Hightower's a t t i t u d e s t r i k e s the townspeople and the Presbyterian elders as as­ ton is h ing ly Inapprop ria te .

He did not, 1n the t r a d i t i o n a l Protestan t

sense, receive a " c a l l " from Jefferson so much as he chose the town and "pulled every s trin g he could" ( p . 52) to be sent there.

He steps o f f

the t r a i n 1n a sta te of excitement t h a t the townspeople i n t e r p r e t as "a ho rs etrader' s glee over an advantageous trade" ( p . 5 2 ).

The elders

of the church immediately begin "try in g to t a l k down his glee ful e x c i t e ­ ment with serious matters of the church and i t s r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s and his own" ( p . 52).

Hightower's

clash with the elders is s i m i l a r to

Hazel Motes' run-1n with Mrs. Hitchcock:

p a r t l y i t is simply youth vs.

age, self-conscious i n t e n s i t y vs. s e l f - s a t i s f i e d p a s s i v i t y , but also there is the d e l i b e r a t e dis ta nc in g, the refusal o f the young men to a c t i v e l y engage with people as I n d i v i d u a ls . Hightower's excitement as his

The elders c o r r e c t l y read

desire to l i v e in the town "and not the

church and the people who composed the church, tha t

he wanted to serve.

As i f he did not care about the people, the l i v i n g people.

. . ." ( p . 52).

Hightower 1s soon in a s i t u a t i o n s i m i l a r to M1ss Lo ne ly hearts ', unable to meet the demands of his job .

His sermons s u f f e r from the

same distancing t h a t marks his personal r e la t i o n s h ip s :

there 1s in

them "something . . . f a s t e r than the words in the Book; a sort of cyclone th a t did not even need to touch the actual earth" { p . 53). Equally u n s a tis f a c to ry , and f o r the same reasons, is his marriage, which a l l the evidence suggests is never consummated.

The s t e r i l i t y that per­

vades both the environment and the human r ela t io n s h ip s in Miss Lonely­ hearts Faulkner locates in the person of the preacher himself.

The

town believes "that i f Hightower had j u s t been a more dependable kind

114

of man," both as m in is te r and husband, the wife "would have been a l l r ig h t too" ( p . 5 3 ).

When she begins to stay away from the church ser­

vices, the congregation suspects t h a t her husband does not even notice her absence, perhaps does not even remember tha t he has a w if e . The growing disharmony between m in is te r and congregation displays i t s e l f 1n the kind of incongruity th a t we have seen is a hallmark of the character of the mad preacher.

In M1ss Lonelyhearts and W1se Blood

th is incongruity is i n t e n s i f i e d through being made grotesque; In Light In August the discrepancy between the way things are and the way they ought to be is handled as a more ordinary a f f a i r . oddly and the church members gossip.

The m inis ter behaves

P a r t i c u l a r l y do the ladles of the

town and of the congregation f i g u r e in t h i s phase of the discord.

The

church ladies soon q u i t going to the parsonage because Mrs. Hightower is never there to greet them.

During the w i f e ' s stay in a sanatorium

the neighbor women bring Hightower food and report to one another and t h e i r husbands on the "mess" and on the m i n i s t e r ' s slovenly eating habits.

A f t e r her return the church la dies resume t h e i r c a l l s at the

parsonage and are s a t i s f i e d that the m in i s t e r ' s wife is now what they "had wanted her to be a l l

the time.

. . . s i t t i n g qu ie t and humble, even

In her own house, while they t o ld her how to run 1t and what to wear and what to make her husband eat" ( p . 56). Not only is 1t "natural" t h a t the "good women" of the community act as the a r b i t e r s of morals and t r u t h , 1t 1s necessary to the s to r y's de­ sign.

One element of the antagonism t h a t e ventua lly r e s u lts in High­

tower's disgrace, already noted, is youth vs. age; another is male vs. female, an opposition that helps structure the e n t i r e novel.

While

they are implicated in the ensuing misfortune, i t 1s not the townswomen,

115

but Hightower's w i f e , who 1s his decisive adversary.

Byron recognizes

Hightower's I n s t ru m e n ta lit y 1n making an enemy of his w ife and muses, "t ha t 1s why women have to be strong and should not be held blameable f o r what they do with or f o r or because of men, since God knew t h a t being anybody's w ife was a t r i c k y enough business" ( p . 5 3).

In a dramatic

confrontation during the Sunday morning service the young m in i s t e r ' s wife makes what is probably her l a s t attempt to get through to her hus­ band. In the middle of the sermon she sprang from the bench and began to scream. . . . she stood 1n the a i s l e now, shriek­ ing and shaking her hands at the p u l p i t where her husband leaned with his hand s t i l l raised and his wild face frozen 1n the shape of the thundering and a l l e g o r i c a l period which he had not completed. They did not know whether she was shaking her hands a t him or a t God ( p . 55). In th is tableau, set 1n the midst of the congragatlon, the d u a l i t i e s and Incongruities centra l to the c o n f l i c t are concentrated.

The man and

woman face one another across the length o f the auditorium, both with l i f t e d hands and contorted faces, m irro r Images of madness, imploring to be understood, both swept up in and irrevoc ably separated by th a t a l l e g o r i c a l cyclone o f dogma and d e f e a t , unable "to touch the actual earth" ( p . 53).

The congregation may be "astonished and dubious," and

his wife may be driven to the point of emotional c o ll ap se, but Hightower 1s Impervious to the d e t e r i o r a t i n g present, much the way Miss l o n e l y ­ hearts, once he has become "the rock," is impervious to Sh ri ke 's taunts and B etty 's te a r s .

Even a t th i s e a r l y stage of the n a r r a t iv e 1t Is

c le a r that somehow, f o r Hightower, the very town I t s e l f is a sanctuary th a t no violence can d i s t u r b .

Jefferson holds the same place in his

imagination that Eastrod holds 1n Hazel Motes'.

Hightower's continuing

"excitement," his glee and his incomprehensible sermons reach back to a

116

C i v i l War Incident that occurred 1n Jefferson 1n which his grandfather, a cavalryman, was k i l l e d .

I t 1s even now obvious to the townspeople

t h a t Hightower 1s obsessed with th is d i s t a n t moment In the past; his problem, they say, was "being born about t h i r t y years a f t e r the only day he seemed to have ever liv ed 1n— th a t day when his grandfather was shot from the galloping horse" ( p . 5 3 ) .

Light In August has I t s "ob­

sessive environments," l i k e M1ss Lonelyhearts and Wise Blood, but Faulkner makes c l e a r , j u s t as he did with the m otif of s t e r i l i t y , tha t in Hightower's case, the obsession is 1n the mind o f the observer. There are minor d iffere n ce s between the young Hightower and the protagonists of the other two novels:

f o r M1ss L, the need to create

Imaginative, Impregnable defenses comes about with sudden s e v e rit y and out of his immediate world, while Hightower, l i k e Hazel Motes, brings his obsession with him to his new home. ever, are a l l

The basic s i m i l a r i t i e s , how­

i n t a c t 1n the pattern Hightower follow s .

Drawing upon

personal resources, he has found a powerful f ig u r e 1n his own family h is to ry who, f o r him, redeems the p a l t r y present.

He attempts to make

th is glorious heroism a v a i l a b l e to the people of Jefferson in his sermons and everyday conversation.

The cavalry o f f i c e r becomes, in

Hightower's exegesis, a metaphor f o r the d i v i n e .

He substitutes his

personal vision of salvation f or the accepted, c odified v i s i o n .

The

e f f e c t of t h i s heroic analogy on his l i s t e n e r s is "puzzlement," "con­ s t er n a t io n ," and, e v e n t u a l ly , "outrage."

The enmity of the congregation

does not seem to be caused merely by the unorthodoxy of the preacher's message, but at le a s t equally by i t s underlying confusion.

When he is

1n the p u lp it his dogma becomes " f u l l of galloping cavalry and defeat and g l o r y , " and when he is on the s t re e t t a lk in g about t h e Confederate

117

r a i d , "1t In turn would get a l l mixed up with absolution and choirs of martial seraphim" ( p . 5 4 ).

Hightower f a l l s to demonstrate t h a t his

vision 1s simply a new dimension, analogous and Integral to the pre­ v a i l i n g moral order.

This compelling Ins ig ht has fix ed his a t t e n t i o n

on a point 1n time 1n 1862, when the bravery of his grandfather "matched the moment," and the people l i v i n g with him 1n the present feel cheated. I t cannot be overemphasized that Faulkner allows for no d e f i n i t i v e I n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the Hlghtower-Jefferson c o n f l i c t , a c o n f l i c t which structures I t s e l f on the p o l a r i t i e s of youth and age, male and female, the l i v i n g and the dead, theological a u t h o r i t y and individual c r e a t i ­ vity.

In the e n t i r e chapter there is not one l i n e from Hightower's

sermons or "wild" conversation 1n his own words.

When Byron hears the

story 1t 1s already tw e n ty - f iv e years old and has become a local myth. I f the young preacher was w il d , i t seems apparent th a t the church mem­ bers were s e lf- ri g h t e o u s and malicio us.

I t seems j u s t as l i k e l y that

the lis t e n e r s were un willin g to hear an a ll e g o ry combining transcendent human va lor and Ignominious defeat located so close to home, as 1t does that Hightower could not render his vis ion coherently.

Even when the

tensions a r i s in g from the c o n f l i c t are brought to a climax in Mrs. Hightower's death and the m i n i s t e r ' s subsequent res ig natio n , they are not u l t i m a t e l y resolved.

The townspeople, b r i e f l y r elie ve d and also

sorry, "as people sometimes are sorry f o r those whom they have at l a s t forced to do as they wanted them to" ( p . 6 0 ) , are stunned to learn that Hightower has bought a small house and refuses to go away. With the ordin a ry , le g it im a t e avenues of a u t h o rit y stymied, the v i g i l a n t e element of the corrrmnity endeavors to complete the coercion begun by the e x - m i n i s t e r ' s own church.

The masked men f rig h t en

Hightower's Negro cook Into q u i t t i n g and saying t h a t "her employer asked her t o do something which she said was against God and nature" (p.61).

When he then hires a Negro man to cook, the klansmen whip the

man and throw a brick through Hightower's study window.

Tied to the

brick 1s a note "coninandlng him to get out of town by sunset" ( p . 6 2 ) . When these t a c t i c s get no response, they c a rr y Hightower o f f Into the woods where he 1s eventually found, " t i e d to a t r e e and beaten uncon­ scious" ( p . 6 2 ).

This f i n a l phase of the young m i n i s t e r ' s story i n t r o ­

duces another p o l a r i t y central vs. black.

to the no v el's s t ru c t u re , th a t of white

The opposition of the races, which 1s a c r u c ia l issue in

the l i v e s of Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden, gradually becomes, as the individua l

strands of the la r g e r story are interwoven, a metaphor

f or d i v i s i o n .

Just as the C i v i l War b a t t l e he is not even old enough

to remember represents the s e l f - d e s t r u c t i v e inner war Hightower never quite completes, the issue of r a c ia l antagonism is introduced whenever the conviction of necessary destru ction i s c a rr ie d out of the home c i r c l e and v i s i t e d upon others. Thus the f i r s t cycle of Hightower's story completes i t s e l f with something l i k e a sense of r e c o n c i l i a t i o n .

He w i l l not take legal steps

against the t e r r o r i s t s and he w i l l not leave, and the town at la s t r e ­ le n t s .

A f t e r Byron hears the story to i t s conclusion, he r e f l e c t s th a t

i t was "as though . . . the e n t i r e a f f a i r had a l l played out the parts which had been a l l o t t e d them and now they could l i v e q u i e t l y with one a n o t h e r " ( p .6 2 ) .

The note of t h e a t r i c a l i t y t h a t Faulkner introduces

here is another of the hallmarks of the mad preacher th a t we have ob­ served 1n some d e t a i l Blood.

1n our readings of Miss Lonelyhearts and Wise

Like West and O'Connor, Faulkner uses t h i s m otif to in d ic ate

119

a reduced humanity.

M1ss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes, and Gall Hightower

a l l witness and p a r t i c i p a t e 1n conmunlty r i t u a l s more noteworthy as exercises 1n manipulation than f o r t h e i r e f f i c a c y 1n i d e n t i f y i n g and enhancing what 1s best 1n the people of the socie ty .

Byron's I n ­

sight goes s t r a i g h t to the heart of the c o n f l i c t between indiv idual f r e e choice and predetermined, fated d e stin y.

As performers 1n a

drama, the inh abita nts of Je ff e rs o n , a l l of them, are less than f u l l y human.

They have s a c r i f i c e d , abandoned some measure o f t h e i r I n d i v i ­

dual r e s p o n s i b i l i t y and i n t e g r i t y and chosen to "play out the parts which had been a l l o t t e d them."

As the church elder s read the s c r i p t ,

Hightower "was j u s t born unlucky"; "There was nothing against him per­ s onally, they a l l

in sis te d" ( p p . 5 9 - 6 0 ) .

And Hightower's copy of the

s c r i p t corresponds in es s e n tia ls with t h e i r s , derived from the same c u l t u r a l heritage and carrying the ad d iti o n al urgency of the grandson's pursuit of his f a t e , so th a t he is able to accept the death nf his w i f e , the loss of his church, his reduced income and his status of disgrace with stoic d i s i n t e r e s t .

He refuses even to r e g i s t e r anger at the ac­

complices 1n his d e f e a t , t e l l i n g Byron, "They are good people.

They

must believe what they must b e lie v e , e s p e c i a l l y as 1t was I who was at one time both master and servant of t h e i r b e li e v in g .

And so i t 1s not

f or me to outrage t h e i r believing nor f or Byron Bunch to say th a t they are wrong" ( p . 6 4 ).

II The second cycle of Hightower's story follows the same pattern as the f i r s t .

Now a f i f t y - y e a r - o l d recluse and confidant of Byron Bunch,

120

he again faces a dllenma which the resources and powers from his past are Inadequate to r eso lve.

The old counselor cannot persuade Byron to

disassociate himself from Lena Grove, to leave Je ff e rs o n, "leave t h i s place f o r e v e r , t h i s t e r r i b l e pl ac e , t h i s t e r r i b l e , t e r r i b l e place" ( p . 275); he cannot give Mrs. Hines her grandson " ju s t f o r one day. . . . Like 1t hadn't happened yet" ( p . 340); nor can he prevent Grlmn from murdering Christmas In his own house. t h i s second d efea t and the f i r s t .

Yet there are d if f er e n c e s between

Hightower's vision of l i f e and his

l o y a l t y to his experience of value enable him, t h i s time, to tra v el

be­

yond his d e f e a t , to transcend the myth he has liv ed by and glimpse a new, more complete v is io n of human relatedness. The tumult th a t breaks in upon Hightower's c a r e f u l l y preserved I s o l a t i o n occurs during a period o f s l i g h t l y more than a week 1n August, 1932.

Lena Grove a r r i v e s in Jefferson looking f o r the f a t h e r of

her soon-to-be-born child on Saturday, the day the town has discovered the f i r e and murder a t the Burden house.

I t 1s Byron, Hightower's one

human contact, who brings the news of the week-end disa sters and com­ p l ic a t io n s to the small, dark, smelly house on Sunday evening. began v i s i t i n g the recluse almost seven years e a r l i e r , hearing the story of the m i n i s t e r ' s disgrace.

sho rt ly a f t e r

The s t i l l - y o u n g m i l l

hand 1s a man i n t e n t on staying out of harm's way: all

Byron

he works s t e a d i ly

week at the planing m i l l , even on Saturdays, and on Sundays he

leads the choir at an a l l - d a y country church service.

Two or three

nights a week he s i t s 1n Hightower's book-lined study, as at the f e e t of a wise master, conversing, i t can be supposed, on good and e v i l , and the ways of man.

Byron, an observant and thoughtful

student of the

human scene, possesses Faulkner's a l l - i m p o r t a n t c r i t e r i o n of c h a r a c t e r - -

121

what Olga Vic kery, borrowing from Henry James, c a l l s "the heart of the f ig u r e 1n the carpet" of Faulkner's f i c t i o n —

the Inq uiring mind:

"The most Important thing Is I n s i g h t , t h a t 1s, to be— c u r i o s i t y — to wonder, to m u ll, and to muse why i t

is th a t man does what he does."

i ?n

In search of I n s i g h t , Byron asks Hightower, soon a f t e r t h e i r evening dialogues begin, why he stays on in Jefferson w ith in hearing o f the church tha t disowned him. a question:

The old counselor answers S o c r a t i c a l l y , with

why does Byron work on Saturday afternoons Instead of

jo in in g the other men 1n recreation?

Because Byron does not know, then,

why he keeps so busy, his answer allows Hightower refuge in his sense of fa te .

" ' I don't know,1 Byron said.

' I reckon t h a t ' s j u s t my l i f e . " '

'"And I reckon t h i s is j u s t my l i f e ,

t o o , ' the other said” ( p . 6 5 ).

Later Byron discovers a t r u e r answer. When Byron comes to Hightower's house on t h a t Sunday n i g h t , a con­ spicuous change In his weekly r o u t in e , he needs assistance, counsel, guidance.

But in order to explain his problem to Hightower, he must

t e l l him a great deal that w i l l

tro uble him, Byron f e e l s , something he

" a i n ' t going to want to hear and . . . hadn't ought to have to hear a t all"

( p . 68).

These two constants, the question-and-answer mode and

Byron's apologetic posture, shape the dialogue th at continues between the two men through the re s t of the novel.

From beginning to end, even

when he has set himself a course he knows that his confidant cannot

119 The Novels of Will 1am Faulkner: A C r i t i c a l I n t e r p r e t a t i o n , rev . ed. (TTaton Rouge: LSU Press, 1964), pp. 294-31 ^ 120

Gwynn and B l a t n e r , p . 1 9 1 .

122

approve, Byron Is r e s p e c t f u l , d e f e r e n t i a l and c o n c i l i a t o r y .

I t 1s be­

cause o f the esteem he f e e l s f o r Hightower, g r e a te r esteem than the older man f e e ls f o r himself, t h a t Byron c a l l s on him f o r assistance. And i t 1s in his determination to meet the r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s th a t come his way, to do the good that l i e s before him, that Byron drags High­ tower, f u l l of "shrinking and foreboding," "denial and f l i g h t , " into l i f e .

back

In one of the paradoxical rever sals t h a t c o n s ti t u t e the

novel's pr incip a l ae sthetic movement, the good d i s c i p l e teaches the needy master a lesson 1n moral commitment. In Chapter 3 the story o f Hightower's past is presented in a frame set in present time.

The chapter opens with Hightower looking out of

his darkened study window on Sunday evening, across the l i t t l e yard and beyond his d a r k ly humorous, self-c a rp e nte re d sign announcing: Rev. Gall Hightower, D.D. Art Lessons Handpainted Xmas & Anniversary Cards Photographs Developed ( p . 50). And i t closes with the unexpected a r r i v a l of Byron, whom Hightower does not a t once recognize, so preoccupied is he with his departing evening v i s io n , "the echo of the phantom hooves s t i l l crashing soundlessly 1n the d u s k f l l l e d study" ( p . 6 5 ) .

Chapter 4 d e t a i l s the events of the week­

end t h a t Byron, in his need to decide what to do about Lena, is led to repeat to the immobile but inc reasingly agi ta te d Hightower.

Lena's

a r r i v a l and the object of her journey, the bootlegging a c t i v i t i e s of Brown and Christmas, the i d e n t i f y i n g scar near Brown's mouth, the be­ l i e f th at Christinas Is Negro, the discovery of the f i r e and Joanna Burden's decapitated body, the e f f o r t s of Brown to c o l l e c t the reward money:

these disclosures the older man at f i r s t receives t r a n q u i l l y ,

123

"as though he were l i s t e n i n g to the doings of a people of a d i f f e r e n t race" ( p . 7 0 ).

Gradually, as the i n t e rlo c k in g connections reveal them­

selves and as Byron's personal i n t e r e s t 1n Lena becomes apparent, Hightower's expression takes on the q u a l i t y o f “shrinking and denial" { p . 7 3 ) , of "denial and f l i g h t " s lic k with sweat" ( p . 78).

( p . 7 7 ) , u n t i l his face is "suddenly

He s i t s r i g i d l y behind his desk, "his

a t t i t u d e . . . th a t of an eastern ido l" ( p . 78) while Byron t e l l s him o f th e discovery of the body, Brown's accusations and the ensuing chase.

He keeps his voice " l i g h t and calm" ( p . 78) but a t the end of Byron's recital

"the sweat is running down his face l i k e tears" ( p . 8 7 ).

Hightower can foresee the t e r r i b l e consequences that w i l l ensue i f the town captures the man they believe 1s a Negro a no the murderer of a white woman.

"'Poor man.

Poor mankind1" ( p . 8 7 ) , he says.

He

has also had the f i r s t hint that he may be c a ll e d upon by some of these people, whose doings are as remote to him as those o f "a d i f f e r e n t race," to become involved in t h e i r struggles.

Lena is interested to know i f

t h i s preacher f rie n d of Byron's is " s t i l l folks" ( p . 7 7 ) .

enough of a preacher to marry

I t 1s when Byron repeats her inq uiry th a t Hightower's

posture becomes r i g i d , and the "expression of denial and f l i g h t " on his face becomes d e f i n i t e .

He cannot foresee th a t th i s w i l l be the

le ast of the demands put before him in the coming week, tha t Byron w i l l bring him more than a story of b e t r a y a l, violence and vengeance, and w i l l request of him more than a t h e o r e t ic a l discussion of good and e v i l . As long as he can, Hightower w i l l c li n g to the r i g i d posture of protest and denial that his past disappointments have taught him. There 1s a series of questions, or challenges, that Byron brings to Hightower, l i k e the query about the rejected m i n i s t e r ' s remaining in

124

Jefferson, to which Hightower r e p l i e s 1n a negating fashion.

As he

lis t e n s to Byron's explanation o f his provisions f o r Lena's ly1ng-1n and his desire to " l i s t e n to a l l

the advice he can get" ( p . 2 63), High­

tower th inks , " ' I am not 1n l i f e anymore . . . there Is no use 1n even trying to meddle, i n t e r f e r e .

He could hear me no more than that man

and th a t woman (ay, and t h a t c h i l d ) would hear or heed me 1f I t r i e d to come back in to l i f e ' "

( p . 2 63).

When Byron asks him point blank,

'"What do you advise?'"

Hightower 1mned1ately responds, "'Go away.

Leave J e ff e rs o n '" ( p . 269). That 1s on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning the denial continues.

While Hightower is buying his groceries he learns from the storekeeper tha t the dogs have picked up Christmas' t r a i l , and he becomes panicky, thinking " ' I won't!

I won't!

I have p a i d " 1 ( p . 2 70 ) .

I have bought iTTmunity.

I have paid.

I t is as y et unclear what p r e c is e ly is the

subject of his p r o t e s t , but he seems to be in dialogue with his con­ science.

As he walks home in the August heat his thinking " is l i k e

words spoken aloud now: f o r 1 t.

r e ite r a tiv e , patient, ju s t i f i c a t i v e :

I d i d n ' t quibble about the p r i c e .

*1 paid

No man can say t h a t .

j u s t wanted peace; I paid them t h e i r price without quibbling'

I

. . . .

Then sweat, heat, mirage, a l l rushed fused into a f i n a l i t y which abro­ gates a l l logic and j u s t i f i c a t i o n and o b l i t e r a t e s i t l i k e f i r e would: I wi 11 not!

I w i 11 not!" (p p .2 71-272).

That evening Byron enters

Hightower's house "completely changed" ( p . 272).

He has made a d e c i ­

sion "which someone dear to him w i l l not understand and approve, yet which he himself knows to be r ig h t " ( p . 274).

Hightower, although he

has told himself that there is no use 1n his trying to make himself heard, argues strenuously against Byron's committment to Lena.

Some

125

of the most-often quoted Faulkner "misogyny" comes from these pages. Perhaps Hightower presses the case against marriage so hard because I t 1s Important f o r him to believe tha t his w ife was the agent of his downfall 1n Jeff ers o n, and surely he 1s apprehensive of losing Byron's attention.

Furthermore, Hightower's assessment of Byron's temperament

is c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y f i x e d , admitting no p o s s i b i l i t y of change.

How­

e ver, when Byron returns on Sunday, he 1s no longer asking questions; he wants Hightower's help with the Hines, and he t e l l s the t e a r f u l , r e l u c t a n t , querulous old man, '"But you are a man o f God. dodge t h a t ' "

( p . 3 19).

You c a n ' t

In his habitual s t y l e , Hightower prote sts:

"I am r.ot a man of God. And not through my own d e s ir e . Remember t h a t . Not o f my own choice th at I am no longer a man of God. I t was by the w i l l , the more than behest, of them l i k e you and l i k e her and l i k e him 1n the j a i l yonder and l i k e them who put him there to do t h e i r w i l l upon, as they did upon me, with i n s u l t and violence . . ( p . 319). Byron 1s pushing Hightower out of his customary refuge as distinguished sage.

And when he brings the Hines to Hightower’ s study t h a t n i g h t , he

has a plan f o r intervening in and f o r e s t a l l i n g the approaching t ra g ic denouement.

" ' I t ' s a poor thing to ask'" ( p . 3 4 1 ), Byron says, but the

town would believe him i f Hightower were to say t h a t Christmas was with him the night of the murder.

Byron has found a way of r e w r itin g the

s c r ip t th a t Hightower and the town have followed.

Hightower himself

i r o n i c a l l y acknowledges his d i s c i p l e ' s new t a l e n t : What a dramatist you would have made'" ( p . 3 4 1 ) .

"'Ah, Byron, Byron.

But he is not ready

to give up his long-held position of r e c a l c i t r a n t protest and d en ial: '" It's

not because I c a n t, dont dare to . . . i t ' s because I wont!

wont!

do you hear?. . . .

( p . 342).

Get out of my house!

I

Get out of my house!'"

126

Hightower's struggle with the p a i n f u l l y I n t r u s iv e present c lose ly corresponds to those of M1ss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes.

Like them,

Hightower Is brought face to face with a present r e a l i t y 1n which moral values are 1n ebb and v i o l e n t a l t e r n a t i v e s are gaining the ascendancy. Like t h e i r s , his response to the threatening present is argumentative­ ness and r i g i d i t y .

He also suffers from the same dichotomized percep­

t io n of experience th a t produces Miss Lonelyhearts' preoccupation with the metaphors of sickness and he alth, and Hazel Motes' obsession with being clean and unclean. novels are age-old:

The p o l a r i t i e s that run through a l l

three

youth vs. age, male vs. female, the individual vs.

the conriunlty, l i f e vs. death, good vs. e v i l ; the tragedy of the mad preacher 1s t h a t he cannot transcend these e 1th er- or categorie s.

The

dichotomized perception of the world that l i e s behind Miss L's pawnshop dream, "Man against Nature . . . the b a t t l e o f the c e n t u r ie s ," and Hazel's assert ion to the owl 1n the zoo, "I AM CLEAN," d i s t o r t s High­ tower's view "of the f a m i l i a r buildings about the square" as he walks home a f t e r his upsetting encounter with the storekeeper on Wednesday, causing him to see "a q u a l i t y of l i v i n g and p a l p i t a n t chiaroscuro" ( p. 2 7 1 ) .

Caught between vying c o n t r a r i e s , l i k e Miss Lonelyhearts

and Motes, Hightower 1s overwhelmed by his sense of powerlessness, and so, l i k e them, depends upon the past for an explanation and v i n d ic a t i o n , as he does, in t e a r s , when Byron reminds him tha t he is s t i l l a man of God, and as he does each evening when he s i t s down to await the a r r i v a l of his gr a nd father's c a v a lr y , b e lie v in g , "'There remains yet something of honor and p r i d e , of l i f e ' "

( p . 52).

The past th a t gives meaning to Hightower's l i f e ,

the parental

f ig u r e s , the r e l i g i o u s i n t e n s i t y , the death and deadness, also bears

127

a resemblance to those o f Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes, but there 1s more o f 1 t .

He has the past of 1907, 1n which he sees himself as

v ictim ized by the Jefferson community, which accounts f o r his present status of outcast; and he has the past of 1862, the date of his grand­ f a t h e r ' s f a t a l attack cn the Yankee stores located 1n Jefferson, which Hightower's Imagination has apotheosized.

In a d d i t i o n , there 1s the

past of Hightower's childhood, p a r t i c u l a r l y the autumn of 1890 when the e i g h t - y e a r - o l d boy finds his f a t h e r ' s patched Confederate uniform in an a t t i c trunk.

I t is a f t e r the beleaguered Hightower, wakened

before dawn by Byron, has successfully de liv ered Lena's baby and per­ mitted himself to enjoy the warmth and glow of that triumph, th in k in g , " ' L i f e comes to the old man y e t " 1 ( p . 355), and i t is a f t e r he does t e l l the l i e f o r Christmas in a f u t i l e attempt to prevent his murder, a f t e r these a f f i r m a t i v e departures from his habitual r e c a lc it r a n c e tha t High­ tower, s i t t i n g a t his study window a t t w i l i g h t , l e t s his mind go back to th a t childhood past in which his f i r s t crucial decisions were made. There are two sources f o r what I have been c a l l i n g Hightower's l i f e script:

his own e a r l y experiences, as he remembers and in t e r p r e t s

them, and the stories told him by the Negro cook, Cinthy.

When he was

born, in 1062, his f a t h e r was f i f t y and his mother past f o r t y , an I n v a lid for twenty years.

His parents and Cinthy, who had been his

g r a n d fa th e r ’ s slave, Hightower thinks of as phantoms.

He himself, he

r e f l e c t s , thus became the c h ild of merely v i s i b l e representatives of an abstra c t s t a t e .

More real to the boy is his grandfather, who died

before G a i l , his namesake, was born.

This "ghost," f or a l l

his v io l e n t

e x p l o i t s , held no t e r r o r f or the c h i l d , while "the f a th e r which he knew and feared was a phantom which would never die" ( p . 418),

128

Hightower's f a th e r was a son much l i k e the generations of sons 1n Joanna Burden's f a m ily , consciously l i v i n g a l i f e 1n r e b e l l i o n against his own " lu s t y and s ac ri le g io u s 1' f a t h e r , yet carrying on fundamental fa mily p a tte rn s.

He was "a man of Spartan sob rie ty beyond his years,

as the o ffs p r in g of a not overly p a r t i c u l a r servant of Chance and the b o t t le often is" ( p . 414).

Gall I was a Bourbon-drinking, non-attending

Episcopalian; the t e e t o t a l i n g son began preaching in a country Presbyterian church when he was twenty-one.

The f a th e r owned slaves;

the son was an a b o l i t i o n i s t "almost before the sentiment had become a word" ( p p . 413-414).

But l i k e the f a t h e r , the son went to war, and while

there he taught himself the profession of medicine, j u s t as the f a th e r had taught himself law.

The son's idealism, Gail I I muses, prevented

him from seeing any paradox in his taking "an a c t i v e part in a partisan war and on the very side whose p r in c ip le s opposed his own" ( p . 414), and t h i s 1s "proof enough th a t he was two separate and complete people, one of whom dwelled by serene rules in a world where r e a l i t y did not e x is t " ( p . 415).

Hightower thinks of his f a t h e r ' s "uncompromising

conviction" as propping him upright "between puritan and c a v a l ie r " ( p . 4 15).

The f a t h e r ' s Idealism also caused his wife hardships:

she

could have no Negro help nor could she accept aid from neighbors, since "1t could not be repaid In kind" ( p . 4 0 9 ), and Hightower grows up believing th a t his mother's Invalid ism was the r e s u l t of the inadequate food that "she had had to subsist on during the l a s t year of the C i v i l War" ( p . 4 09).

Perhaps what Hightower most resented about his f a t h e r

was tha t he was a successful survivor of the war.

While his grand­

f a th e r perished and his mother withered, his f a t h e r prospered In "rude h e alth."

The man's well-being made him a "stranger, a fo r e ig n e r .

. . .

129

an enemy," 1n the house where the mother and c h ild li v e d " l i k e two small, weak beasts 1n a den" ( p . 416).

Crouched beside his mother's

bed, the s i c k l y boy could f e e l his f a t h e r ' s presence f i l l

the room

with "unconscious contempt" and f r u s t r a t i o n . The normal and r e l a t i v e l y t r a n s ie n t f e e lin g of helplessness natural to the experiences of childhood are I n t e n s i f i e d f o r Hightower by his very close r e l a t i o n s h ip to his dying mother.

The "physical betrayal"

of her poor health he connects with his f a t h e r ' s "uncompromising con­ v i c t i o n s , " and he a l l i e s himself with her 1n sympathetic i l l n e s s . Hightower's memory of his mother p a r a l l e l s in several

s i g n i f i c a n t ways

the haunting q u a l i t y t h a t Hazel Motes a t t r i b u t e s to his mother.

Both

women are s p e c t r e - l i k e in t h e i r gauntness, t h e i r thin faces, and Mrs. Hightower has "blue, s t i l l ,

almost skeleton hands" ( p . 416).

memorable for both men are t h e i r mothers' eyes.

Most

Hazel, i t w i l l

be

remembered, believes that his mother can see through the tree he hides behind.

Hightower remembers "the two eyes which seemed d a i l y to grow

bigger and bigger" and the same look of d i s s a t i s f a c t io n that Mrs. Motes wore to her grave; her eyes grew "as though about to embrace all

seeing, a l l

l i f e , with one l a s t t e r r i b l e glare of f r u s t r a t i o n and

suff ering and foreknowledge. hear i t :

And when that f i n a l l y happened, he would

i t would be a sound, l i k e a cry" ( p . 4 1 6 ).

The boy can feel

his mother's eyes "through a l l walls" and f i n a l l y he believes that they are the very house, "dark and all-embracing" ( p . 4 16), within which he and she dwell.

The melancholy and helpless a d u l t ,

l i v i n g out his

days 1n morbid idleness in the dark, untidy, sta le -s m elling l i t t l e house, is duplicating the way of l i f e f a m i l i a r to him from his c h i l d ­ hood .

130

His memories of his parents, and what they represented to him, reveal the source of Hightower's unusually acute f a c i l i t y f o r abstrac­ tion.

No mean t a l e n t , the a b i l i t y to abs tra ct 1s the necessary equipment

of the r a t io n a l man, and Hightower's s k i l l

1n t h i s area, revealed 1n his

conversations with Byron and in his s o l i t a r y ruminations, is pronounced. But his e a r l i e s t use of this g i f t is dominated by the defeat and f r u s ­ t r a t i o n so pervasive, so threatening in the household of his b i r t h . His f a t h e r ' s "uncompromising convictions" and preserved uniform, "unbelievably huge, as though made f o r a giant" ( p . 410); his mother's dark, engulfing eyes, his memory o f her (in accurate , he r e a l i z e s l a t e r ) as always bed-ridden, "as without legs, fe et" ( p . 416); these a bstra c­ tions of his personal h is to ry form the core o f the paradox that Hightower struggles in and with for the re s t of his l i f e .

The a f f i n i t y

f o r abst raction t h a t seems to be his greatest t a le n t and his f a t a l weakness serves two con tradictory purposes:

i t establishes a conmon

bond with , and allows him to p a r t i c i p a t e i n , the l i v e s of the a l l important parents; simultaneously, through a bs tra ction the c h ild can distance, separate, remove himself from the p a i n f u l l y personal, his f a t h e r ' s cold contempt and his mother's imminent death.

He can s e c re t ly

steal himself away from the dangerous parental domain, as he does when he Investigates the old trunk 1n the a t t i c or l i s t e n s , " r a p t ," to Cinthy's ta le s in the kitchen.

Yet, in the very act of insulating

himself from i n j u r y , he is digging deeper into that mystery that wounds and torments him.

When he examines the blue patch on his f a t h e r ' s old

Confederate j a c k e t , i t Is with " h o r r i f i e d triumph" and "sick joy" ( p . 411) j u s t as he l i s t e n s to Cinthy's account of the "hundreds" of Yankees k i l l e d by his grandfather in " h a lf dread and half d e lig h t "

131

( p . 4 18).

So I t is th a t Hightower exchanges a l i v i n g ,

but feared and

hated, f a t h e r f o r a dead grandfather, harmless because "ju st" a ghost. S i g n i f i c a n t l y , Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower a l l consciously r e j e c t t h e i r f ath ers as desirable models (even while carrying on some prominent f a t h e r l y con v ic tio n, s t y l e , or occupation), choosing instead some f ig u r e who is even more powerful than the f a t h e r . Hightower's ruminations point to his desire to elim in ate or circumvent his f a t h e r by not merely i m i t a t i n g , but by being his own grandfather: " 'It's

no wonder th a t I had no f a t h e r and that I had already died one

night twenty years before I saw l i g h t " 1 ( p . 4 1 8 ).

Hightower's imagina­

t iv e conception of his grandfather as cavalryman has tha t same "poetic" q u a l i t y that Miss L recognizes as the goal of the "t a le s " of people l i k e Mary Shrike, for whom "parents are also a part of the business o f dreams."

Like them, Hightower learns as a c h il d to f i g h t his misery

with dreams. made to f i t ,

The dream, the story i t s e l f , told and r e t o l d , exaggerated, is a p re d ic t a b l e , comforting standard against which the

random intrusions of his f a t h e r and the f a i l i n g health of his mother can be made subordinate, even decorous.

And i f the story re q u ir e s , as

payment f o r this redemption, that the defeat and death of the hero be repeated by his a v a ta r , the dreamer believes th a t he thereby shares in the glory of the s to r y.

Since the heroic euhemerus can be im it a te d ,

but never surpassed, the paradigm allows f o r r e p e t i t i o n , but no de­ velopment.

Thus has Hightower come to believe tha t his l i f e

is f a t e d ,

predestined; whatever occurs has been, as he says, "reserved for me." Now th a t Faulkner has made the disgraced preacher's story compli­ cated enough to meet his standard f o r t r u t h , at l a s t he is ready to show us Hightower, from his own point of view, as a seminary student

132

and fiance^ m in is te r and husband.

Now we have been prepared f o r the

f u l l and magnificent rendering of the cava lr y raid which, u n t i l now* has remained a second- or third-hand mystery and un satisfacto ry explan­ ation of Hightower's tragedy.

His own r e c o l l e c t i o n confirms the town's

general impression, recorded in Chapter 3 but unsubstantiated u n t il now, as 1t r e g is te r s the successive c o n f l i c t s and r e t r e a t s in which Hightower engages on the road to his "des tiny ." stages of his l i f e ,

As he r e c a l l s the

the boy who preferred s tories of the dead to the

miseries of the l i v i n g ; the student who believed that the sheltering seminary would guarantee "his f u t u r e , his l i f e ,

i n t a c t and on a l l

sides complete and i n v i o l a b l e , l i k e a c las sic and serene vase" ( p . 419); the lover who sub s ti tute d, f o r three years, the " b e a u t i f u l .

. . . face

which he had already created in his mind" f o r the "small oval narrowing too sharply to chin and passionate with discontent" ( p . 420); the fiance^ who q u i e t l y thought that i t was well that love was put into books, because '"Perhaps i t could not l i v e anywhere e l s e ' "

(p . 4 2 1 ); the hus­

band who is so engrossed in t e l l i n g his fantasy of the superior dead th a t he does not "hear [his w ife ] a t a l l "

( p . 425); the m in is te r who is

so engrossed in looking at the town of his dreams th a t he does not see the needy church members; the character of the man comes more c l e a r l y into focus.

The p o r t r a i t is a consistent and meticulous ren­

dering of melancholy in each of i t s developmental periods.

Looking

back over the phases of his l i f e , Hightower "sees himself a shadowy f ig u r e among shadows, paradoxical, with a kind of f a l s e optimism and egoism" ( p . 426).

Most importantly , i t is not simply Faulkner's design

of Hightower's l i f e and character that is unveiled in this reminis­ cence, i t is Hightower's design f o r his l i f e that has been, a l l

too

133

a c cu r ate ly , f u l f i l l e d , even while I t s author disclaimed r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . I t Is Hightower whose desire to go to Jefferson kept him "working f or that since he was four years old" ( p . 4 2 2 ).

I t has been ea sie r to be­

l i e v e t h a t he was le d , predestined to meet disgrace in Jefferson at the hands of the same people who had k i l l e d his grandfather, but he now recognizes the hand of destiny as his own, arranging to have him­ s e l f "called" to Je ff ers o n, p l o t t i n g his own d e f e a t , "with i n s u l t and viole nce,"

the consummation of his personal c i v i l war.

Hightower has

reached a new way s tatio n on his "destined" path.

The crises he has j u s t passed through brought with them opportunity as well as danger.

The old recluse did find i t w ithin himself to act

a f f i r m a t i v e l y , to enjoy both the p r o f i t and the loss o f those who "learn the despair of love" ( p . 342):

he serves as Lena's midwife, he t e l l s a

ludicrous l i e f o r Christmas; he loses Byron's company.

Now as he sur­

veys the l i f e o f the Gail Hightower whom he believed to be so powerless, he is leading himself to the penetration of his soul's secret charade and to a new v isio n of his place in the human fam ily . Faulkner opens Chapter 20 on a descending note with a return to the t h e a t r i c a l m o t if :

"Now the copper l i g h t of afternoon fades; now

the s t r e e t beyond the low maples and the low signboard is prepared and empty, framed by the study window l i k e a stage" ( p . 408).

Hightower's

l i f e - l o n g preoccupation with human abstractions and analogs now pro­ vides him with an insig ht tha t uncovers the f i c t i t i o u s side of his Idealism.

As he remembers the faces of his congregation, his audience,

he sees r e f l e c t e d in them, as in m ir ro rs , himself, "a f ig u r e antic as a showman, a l i t t l e wild:

a charlatan preaching worse than heresy,

in u t t e r disregard of that whose very stage he preempted" ( p . 428).

134 In t h e o u t r a g e d f a c e s and t h e o m n i s c i e n t judgm ent, c h a s tis e m e n t, and,

"Face I t s e l f "

1n t h e same way he a l w a y s p r o t e s t e d

B y r o n , and even t o h i m s e l f , o r h i s c o n s c i e n c e , endless d ia lo g u e w it h

H ig h to w e r reads

t h e Face.

he now c o n t i n u e s t h i s

He a r g u e s t h a t he s h o u l d n o t be h e ld

r e s p o n s i b l e f o r what was "be yond my p o we r" and the Fact his

i n t e n t i o n s were i m p u r e ,

'C o u l d

that

s e lfis h .

have been t r u e ? ' "

" 'Is

( p . 428)

1n c r i s e s

from t r u t h "

w ith

(p. 4 1 9 ) ,

th a t tru e ? '

re s p o n d s t h a t he t h i n k s .

R u e f u lly concli lin n

i n g e n u i t y was a p p a r e n t l y g i v e n man i n o r d e r s e lf

to

th a t

"how

he ma> s u p p l y h im ­

shapes and sounds w i t h w h i c h t o gua^d h i m - , e l f he now c o n s i d e r s

m i n i s t e r was a w i l e y a c t o r

the p o s s i b i l i t y

that

th e young

in d i s g u i s e :

He sees h i m s e l f o f f e r as a sop f o r t i t u d e and f o r b t i r a n e e and d i g n i t y , making i t a p pe a r t h a t he r e s i g n e d hi p u lp it f o r a m a r t y r ' s r e a s o n s , when a t t h e v e r y i n s t a n t t h e r e was w i t h i n him a l e a p i n g and t r i u m p h a n t su r g e o f d e n i a l b e h i n d a f a c e w h i c h had b e t r a y e d h im , b e l i e v i n g i t s e l f s a f e b e hi n d t h e l i f t e d hymnbook, when t h e p h o t o g r a p h e r p r e s s e i h i s b u l b . He seems t o w a t c h h i m s e l f , a l e r t , p a t i e n t , s k i l l f u l , p l a y i n g h i s c a r d s w e l l , ma king i t a p pea r t h a t he v i s be ing d r i v e n , u n c o m p l a i n i n g , i n t o t h a t w h i c h he d i d no* von th e n a d m i t had been h i s d e s i r e s i n c e b e f o r e he e n t e r e d h sem inary. And s t i l l c a s t i n g h i s sops as tho u g h hi were f l i n g i n g r o t t e n f r u i t b e f o r e a d r o v e o f hogs: th< m e a g r e income f r o m h i s f a t h e r w h i c h he c o n t i n u e d to d i v i < - w i t h t h e Memphis i n s t i t u t i o n ; a l l o w i n g h i m s e l f t o be pn rs et i ' e d , i u be d r a gg e d fr o m h i s bed a t n i g h t and c a r r i e d i n t o the woods and b e at e n w i t h s t i c k s , he a l l the w h i l e b e a r i n g in the t o w n ' s s i g n t and h e a r i n g , w i t h o u t shame, w i t h t h a t p a t i e n t and v o l u p t u o u s ego o f t h e m a r t y r , th e a i r , th e bei t v i o i , th e How 1o n g , 0 L o rd u n t i l , i n s i d e t i i s house a g a i n and th e 1ockecT7 he 1 i f t e d t h e mask w i t h v o l u p t u o u s and t r i m p h u n t g le e : A_h. T h a t ' s dccne now. T h a t ' s pa s t now Tf : 1 ' s boug h t and p a i d f o r now {jTff 4 2 8 - 4 2 9 ) Even f r o m t h i s u n f l a t t e r i n g A fte r a ll since, been

"M a ll

is

s a i d and d o n e ,

was young t h e m , '

i s even t h i s he t h i n k s "

a l o n e , on j u s t i f y i n g

o f h i s arnum'-' t :

i n s i g h t H i g h t o w e r doe-

h im s e lf,

"'A nd a f t e r a l l ,

se lf-m artyrdo m

( p . 429)

Inter;*,

he a g a i n u u 1 s

I have r a i d

! hav'

not

draw b a c k .

u n i'jrg iv a b le , i

he has

t r (t h r e a d ' -.-pe

tny g h o s t ,

135 even t h o u g h I d i d

pay f o r

th a t? "'

In the eagerness o f c a r r y i n g

( p . 429).

tower a t l a s t

s t u m b l e s upon t h e f a l l a c y

m a n 's p r i v i l e g e one e l s e ,

1 t w i t h my l i f e .

to d e stro y h im s e lf,

so l o n g as he l i v e s

M o tionless, unbreathinq,

sand f o r H i g h t o w e r ' s

( p . 429),

a l l y c e a s i n g t o make p r o g r e s s a n d , fo r

tow er, a f t e r a l l

its e lf.

o f h is l o g i c :

Faulkner

th in k in g

any­

inste ad ,

sp in n ing

Now t h e wheel

w i t h t h e s l o w i m p l a c a b i l i t y o f a m e d ie v a l breaking

h im s e lf.

in s tru m e n ta lity ,

th e me ta p ho r o f

h e r e , a wheel g r a d u ­

The c i r c u l a r i t y o f h i s

w i f e ' s d e s p a i r and d e s t r u c t i o n .

c a tio n s o f h is

i s any

He s t o p s s u d d e n l y .

is using

these y e a r s , fa c e t o fa c e w it h

on w h i c h H i g h t o w e r i s

‘" I t

t h e r e comes upon him a c o n s t e r n a t i o n w h i c h i s

a wheel r u n n i n g

is d ig g in g

p o i n t home, H i g h ­

t o and o f h i m s e l f '

horror"

it

h is

so l o n g as he does n o t i n j u r e

a b o u t t o be a c t u a l in

And who can f o r b i d me d o in g

i n th e r u t

lo g ic

that

b rin g s H ig h ­

h is c o m p li c it y in of th in k in g ’ "tu rn s

to rtu re

instrum ent"

h is on

( p .430),

He p u r s u e s th e l o g i c a l

im p li­

h i s c o m p l i a n t p o s s e s s i o n by h i s g r a n d ­

fa th e r: ' T h e n , i f t h i s i s s o , i f I am t h e i n s t r u m e n t o f h e r d e s p a i r and d e a t h , t h e n I am i n t u r n i n s t r u m e n t o f someone o u t s i d e m y s e lf. And I know t h a t f o r f i f t y y e a r s I have n o t even been c la y : I have been a s i n g l e i n s t a n t o f d a r k n e s s i n w h i c h a h o r s e g a l l o p e d and a gun c r a s h e d . And i f I am my dead g r a n d ­ f a t h e r on t h e i n s t a n t o f h i s d e a t h , th e n my w i f e , h i s g r a n d ­ s o n ' s w i f e . . . t h e d e b a u c h e r and m u r d e r e r o f my g r a n d s o n ' s w i f e , s i n c e I c o u l d n e i t h e r l e t my g ra nd s o n l i v e o r d i e . . . '

( p . 430). H i g h t o w e r has p r o g r e s s e d t o character.

Not o n l y does he f i n d

in a b d ic a tin g has a l l o w e d

h is

h im s e lf c u lp a b le ,

s e lf-d e te rm in a tio n

h im s e lf to

and shame w h i l e ,

t h e h e a r t o f t h e m y s t e r y o f h i s own

in fa v o r o f h is

but he r e a l i z e s gra nd fa the r,

th a t

he

be used by th e dead as an a g e n t o f d e s t r u c t i o n

by i m p l i c a t i o n ,

" d e b a u c h e r and m u r d e r e r . "

transform ing

The b i t t e r

the v a l i a n t

irony i m p l i c i t

her o i n t o a

i n the

story o f

the

136

dashing s oldier k i l l e d 1n an act of pe tty t h ie v e ry by one of his own people, the iro..y t h a t Hightower has enjoyed as so f i t t i n g f o r the f i n a l e of a war s t o r y, now renews I t s e l f 1n the mind o f the grandson, who, in refusing to l i v e his own l i f e ,

in building his l i f e on th a t

story, has abused himself and those closest to him, including his grandfather's beloved memory. Hightower's insight suggests th a t not only do the dead in e v it a b ly influence the l i v i n g , but that the dead can also be a fie c te d by the l i v i n g , that there is a continuum of i n t e r r e l a t i o n s h i p that death does not i n t e r r u p t .

In the aftermath of his torturous discovery, the wheel

of his thinkin g, r elieved of i t s weight, whirls fa s t and smooth, t ra n s ­ forming i t s e l f , th is time, into a f a i n t l y glowing halo, and Hightower experiences that merging of i d e n t i t i e s , of the l i v i n g with the dead, that is Gabriel Conroy's New Year's vision in James Joyce's "The Dead." The

halo is a c i r c l e of faces, faces tha t are c l e a r l y dis ting uishable

and

also quite s i m i l a r , faces that are at peace, "as tiough they have

escaped Into an apotheosis" { p . 430):

his w i f e ' s , those of townspeople,

members of his old congregation, Byron's, Lena's, Christmas', Grimm's, and his own is among them.

The face o f Christmas is a c t u a l l y a compo­

s i t e of the scapegoat and Grimm, the executioner, and i t is confused because, as the wheel turns, the two faces " s t r i v e . . .

to f r e e them­

selves from one another, then fade and blend aqain" ( p . 431}.

As

Hightower recognizes the mutuality of t h e i r i d e n t i t i e s and the f u t i l i t y of t h e i r eternal enmity he collapses and thinks tha t

he is dying.

This new vision of human interrelatedness comes as though 1t were some kind of reward for Hightower's courage, f o r , at l e a s t , his per­ sistence,

for a ll

his melancholy, Hightower, and th e o t h e r mad

137

preachers, do seem to be men who are concerned with t r u t h .

Under scru­

t i n y , though, every mad preacher is revealed as a character convinced, or in the process of convincing himself, th a t he already possesses the t r u th (remember M1ss Lonelyhearts reading the l e t t e r s and thinking " ' C h r i s t was the answer1" and Hazel Motes' assertiveness on the t r a i n ) . Hightower's new vision is a measure of the growth the old counselor has allowed himself, but 1t is not the herald o f a new l i f e .

In the

halo I t s e l f yet remains his conviction th at f a t e ' s wheel supplies the motion of l i f e .

And the new vision does not supplant the old , but is

merely i t s precursor, because as Hightower leans exhausted on the window s i l l , life "

he hears them, " t h i s l a s t l e f t o f honor and pride and

( p . 4 3 1 ) , and even when the ghost r id e r s are gone, " i t seems to

him th a t he s t i l l

hears them:

the wild bugles and the clashing sabres

and the dying thunder of hooves" ( p . 432).

Ill Hightower's disgrace and defeat r e c a p i t u l a t e , are inherent in , his model.

Like Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes, his e f f o r t to r e ­

v i t a l i z e a transcendent and redemptive power from the past becomes, instead, a confirmation of d e f e a t.

Each novel c a r e f u l l y leaves

ambiguous the question of whether the f a i l u r e is to be p i t i e d or ad­ mired, tha t i s , whether the men f a i l e d on one level but triumphed on another, but there is no question that they f a i l e d in what they set out to do, and were responsible f o r considerable a dd itio na l well.

And t h e i r f a i l u r e s are a l l

mo d e l s —

l

'

s

s uf fering as

prepared f o r by t h e i r choice of

Dostoevsky and Father Zossima, Motes' grandfather and

138

Asa Hawks, Hightower's "s ac rile g io us" grandfather .

For what fascinates

the young preachers, besides t h e i r models' power, 1s t h e i r f u t i l i t y , t h e i r deaths.

Their ov e rri d ing melancholy stems from t h i s f a s c i n a t i o n ,

which has granted to death u lt im a t e power and usurped t h e i r commitment to l i f e and the l i v i n g . The forces of death are awarded considerable scope in Light In August, but not everyone is ready to surrender to them

An e s p e cia ll y

c le a r perspective of the terms o f Hightower's f a i l u r e , and i n d i r e c t l y of Miss L's and Motes', emerges from the contrasting persistence of Lena Grove.

Her story winds through the dismal Jefferson anthology

with a disarming s i m p l i c i t y and strength which is sometimes comic, sometimes touching, but always a breath of fresh a i r .

And yet Lena's

hi story 1s not c i r c u m s t a n t i a ll y d i f f e r e n t from Hightower's, Joanna's or Christmas'.

Her childhood, too, is marked by the death of her

parents and physical d e p riv a t i o n . virtuous or ins ensible . ceptions:

Nor is she e i t h e r exc eptio n ally

As a c h ild she had her wishful games and de­

she hoped th a t wearing shoes on her occasional v i s i t s into

town would i d e n t i f y her as a town d w e l le r .

When she is deserted by

Lucas Burch and her elder brother c a l l s her whore, her "p atien t and steadfast f i d e l i t y " read

( p . 6) in Burch's promise to send f o r her could be

as na iv e te , stubbornness or s t u p i d i t y .

as her f i d e l i t y is her v i t a l i t y :

she acts on her b e l i e f that "a

family ought to be together when a chap comes. one.

I reckon the Lord w i l l

But at least as important

Sp ec iall y the f i r s t

see to that" ( p . 1 8).

Like the other major

characters, Lena has a theory of a transcendent design, and she works as hard as they do helping the Lord accomplish what she believes to be his purpose.

And l i k e them, her expectations are r e a li z e d :

everyone

139

who meets her, bringing with them whatever presumptions, and regardless of t h e i r estimate of her m o r a l it y or her I n t e l l i g e n c e , are moved by her need and her good f a i t h to do t h e i r best f o r her.

Lena’ s story Is

usually seen as the extreme counterpoint to the H f e and death o f Joe C h r i s t m a s , ^ and i t does work th a t way, but in the s tru ctu re and mean­ ing of the novel as a whole, her journey and labor are most s i g n i f i c a n t in t h e i r s i m i l a r i t i e s to the struggles of the t r a g ic f ig u r e s .

The

themes, technique and structure of the e n t i r e novel are inherent in the f i r s t chapter, in which Faulkner begins to t e l l

the story of Lena

Grove. A major, unify in g theme of Lig ht In August explores the in t e r d e ­ pendent connections between man as a creature of sensations and man as a creature of f a i t h , because i t

is what is believed about what is seen

and heard tha t is the pivotal p o i n t , the a x l e , of th is novel of r e l i ­ gious perversion and l i v i n g s a c r i f i c e .

Hightower c a l l s i t the "Ingenuity"

by which man selects the "shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from t r u t h . "

That "older l i g h t than ours" is also a more savage and

uncompromising l i g h t .

While he is showing us Lena on her journey,

Faulkner uses Chapter 1 to demonstrate how the flu x of perception d i ­ rects the i n d i v i d u a l ' s formation of b e l i e f as well as the convergence and divergence of communal b e l i e f .

To th i s end he employs m ultip le

121

A few examples of t h i s I n t e r p r e t a t i o n include Alfre d Kazin, "The S t i l l n e s s of Light 1n August," Twelve Original Essays on Great American Novels, ed. Charles Shapiro ( D e t r o i t : Wayne S. U.' Pre ss , pp. 258-259; Olga Vicke ry, The Novels of Willjam Faulkner, Rev„ ed. (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, T9&4 J", PPTTavTd f i i n t e r , "In t r o d u c t io n , " Twentieth Century I n t e r p r e tations of L ight in August (Englewood C l i f f s , N . J . : P r e n tic e -H all , 1969} .'p p . 7-R, T3-T4.

140

points o f view, both through external dialogue between characters and In tern a l dialogue w ith in the mind of a s ing le c haracter. chapter also serves as the I n i t i a l

The f i r s t

piece o f the framework o f the novel,

which Is fin is h e d in Chapter 21 with the f u r n i t u r e d e a l e r 's account o f Lena, her purpose of un iting the fragmented fa m il y u n i t accomplished, continuing her journey on into Tennessee. The i n t e r a c t i o n of b e l i e f and experience th a t Faulkner examines repeatedly and 1n great d e t a i l , from the most mundane to the most e x t r a ­ o rdinary , 1s rooted in sensory perception.

Again and again 1n the f i r s t

chapter he I l l u s t r a t e s how seeing and hearing do more than supply man with p r a c tic a l

information.

When combined with th a t "ingenuity" t h a t

Hightower possesses and recognizes, sight and hearing can be dissociated from t h e i r m a t t e r - o f - f a c t function and factual sources and extended in the support o f a b e l i e f , a judgment or an i l l u s i o n .

This ingenuity

is at work when Lena hears Armstid's wagon approaching, i t s sound coming to her "as though i t were a ghost t r a v e l l i n g a h a lf mile ahead of i t s own shape" ( p . 7 ) , and she imagines h e r s e l f , as though she had mounted on i t s sound, "riding f o r a h a lf mi 1e before I_ even got into the wagon . . , and . . . when the wagon i s empty of me i t wi11 go on f o r a h a l f mile with me s t i l l

in i t "

(p.7 ).

Dissociated perceptions

are also emphasized in the repeated instances in which Lena and the country f o l k see each other without seeming to look" Armstld has never once looked f u l l a t her.

"Apparently

Yet he has already seen

t ha t she wears no wedding ring" ( p . 1 0 ); or f a i l to l i s t e n , tc hear: when Armstid and Varner in turn attempt to prepare Lena f o r disa ppo int­ ment, they r e a l i z e th a t she is not l i s t e n i n g , "'She would not have be­ lieved the t e l l i n g and hearing i t any more than she w i l l believe the

141

thinking t h a t ' s been going on around her . . .

I t ' s four weeks now, she

s a id "' ( p . 2 1 ) . The sense of suspended motion, and with 1 t , time, t h a t such a d i s ­ sociated, or heightened, perception can produce Is essential to Faulkner's a t a v i s t i c focus.

Lena and her journey over the "backrol 11ng"

roads 1n the "Id e n tic a l and anonymous" wagons, the mules themselves "limpeared avata rs ," must be apprehended " l i k e something moving forever and without progress across an urn" ( p . 6 ) .

Destiny, foreordained and

repeated, must seem to l i e in the road i t s e l f which is simply a s tri ng prepared f o r a bead, or "already measured thread being rewound onto a spool" ( p . 7 ) .

The con tra dictory movement-in-stasis i n s i s t s that "though

the mules plod in a steady and unflagging hypnosis, the vehicle does not seem to progress.

I t seems to hang suspended in the middle d i s ­

tance fore ve r and forever" ( p . 7 ) .

Importantly, though there is no

"semblance" of progress, though the advance is " i n f i n t e s i m a l ," Lena and Armstid do "draw slowly together as the wagon crawls t e r r i f i c a l l y toward her" ( p . 10).

As Lena s i t s in the l a s t creaking wagon, " f i e l d s

and woods seem to hand in some inescapable middle distance, at once s t a t i c and f l u i d , quick, l i k e mirages. ( p . 24).

Yet the wagon passes them"

As Faulkner insisted in his Nobel Prize speech, progress does

occur. The f i r s t chapter establishes a world in which physical r e a l i t y and the unfavored people laboring in i t are imbued with an aura of the i n e v i t a b l e , the "inescapable"; and yet the people, by t h e i r e f f o r t s , can progress.

The progress they make is dependent on t h e i r b e l i e f s ,

which they f i r s t construct from t h e i r perceptions of this world, and, in t urn, use as a tool to shape t h e i r experience according to the

142

desired design. design;

There are d i f f e r i n g opinions as to the source o f the

1t may be P r o v i d e n t i a l, or Impersonally f a t e d , c u l t u r a l , or

even a malignant power, such as the "Player" who takes Percy Grimm through his moves l i k e a "pawn."

B e l i e f I t s e l f is a constant, but the

kinds of b e l i e f are le gio n, and t h e i r m u l t i p l i c i t y produces a c on ti n­ u a l l y diverging and c o n f l i c t i n g i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f the meaning of the world and humanity's place 1n 1t. There are two areas of c o n f l i c t that are p a r t i c u l a r l y important throughout the novel f o r the shaping power they exert on b e l i e f , and th a t r ec eiv e, in t u r n , much of t h e i r turbulent momentum from fixed be­ liefs .

These are the perpetual antagonism between men and women, and

the chorus of I n t e r i o r voices present in any single cha ra cte r's mind. In the f i r s t chapter there is one instance that combines both.

Armstld

has taken Lena up onto his wagon and learned of her mission and the w i l l i n g help she has received along the way: "Womenfolks too?" From the corner of his eye he watches her p r o f i l e thinking 1^ dont know what Martha1s going to say t hin k in g, ' I reckon I do know" what Martha's going to say, I reckon womenfolks are l i k e l y to be good without being very kind. Men, now, might. But i t ' s only a bad woman he rs e lf that is l i k e l y to be very kind to another woman that needs the kindness1 thinking Yes I_ do* _L know exa ctly what Martha 1s going to say ( p . l l ) . This 1s the f i r s t of many masculine b e l i e f s about the female pers on ality th a t w i l l f i l l

the f i r s t chapter and the e n t i r e novel, b e l i e f s th a t

categorize, and in so doing, emphasize a determination to be separate from and superior to women.

In addition to demonstrating the male/

female dichotomy, the paragraph is notable for the i n t e r i o r dialogue by way of which a judgment or b e l i e f is produced.

With single quotes

and I t a l i c s Faulkner indicates that m u lti p le points of view e x i s t i n ­ side Individuals as well as between individual characters.

143

The debate 1s the posture o f habitual r e s o r t t h a t structu res both the public and p r iv a t e e f f o r t s to thrash out the t r u t h of an ambiguous situation.

Most o f the time, though, no very unusual discoveries r e ­

s u l t from the dialogues; the t r u t h t h a t 1s found 1s the t r u t h t h a t the debater Is prepared to see.

Lena is the occasion f o r the external and

Inte rnal debate o f Chapter 1, but she is not i t s true subject.

V irtu ally

everyone she meets comments on the "shape" she is in and in f e rs th at she has been deserted, but t h e i r dialogues form themselves around more f a m i l i a r assumptions and judgments. wife w i l l

Armstid knows "exactly" what his

say and muses on the d i s l o y a l t y o f the members of "the woman

race"; Martha l i m i t s h e r s e lf to "'You men'. . .'You durn men"’ ( p . 15); Jody Varner mentally aligns himself with Lena's brother and the jealousy of "fatherblood" ( p . 23 ).

Lena's presence and her story pruvide an op­

po rtu nity f o r everyone to take sides, to v e r i f y to his or her personal s a t is f a c t io n an old hypothesis, and the reader quickly r e a l i z e s that no a u t h o r i t a t i v e version w i l l be provided, that comprehension can come only out o f the m u l t i p l i c i t y of b e l i e f s , and th at those b e l i e f s w i l l tend to p o l a riz e themselves. As Lena's story is f i r s t mediated through the r e c i p r o c a l, though warring, points of view of the Armstids, her departure is warmly and humorously colored by the intermediary agency o f the f u r n i t u r e dealer and his w if e , whose sparring is only pla y.

So long as the novel been

submerged in darkness, violence and death, th a t the reappearance of Lena, s t 111 t r a v e l i n g , in Chapter 21 c a r r ie s with i t the welcome shock of waking 1n daylight from a nightmare.

I t is a r e l i e f to return to

the hopeful g i r l of twenty chapters ago and to find that her purpose has been accomplished, her baby born and the fractured f a m i l y unit

144

rejo ine d .

Thts Is Faulkner's f i n a l Interweaving o f the past and the

present, a stru ctu ra l p r i n c i p l e t h a t he began with the opening lin es of Chapter 1 as Lena s i t s , watching the wagon approach and thinking about her t r a v e ls o f the l a s t month, and before t h a t , her childhood t r i p s to Doane's M i l l .

The chapter s h i f t s from present to past and

back again, occasiona lly hovering 1n th a t zone of suspended time and motion, th a t region of "ghosts,” "hypnosis” and "mirages” th a t seems to I n s i s t t h a t past and present are one. Every theme, technique and s tru ctu ra l basis f o r Light In August 1s established 1n i t s f i r s t chapter, indeed, l i k e the stories of Christmas, Joanna Burden, and Hightower, in i t s beginning to i t s end. Why then does Lena prevail and these others succumb to the forces of death?

C l e a r l y the past i t s e l f is not the v i l l a i n .

Lena has a past

t h a t Is much less than i d e a l , but she does not allow i t to condemn her. Byron discovers the key, happily in time f o r himself, during his d i a ­ logues with Hightower; when the younger man began v i s i t i n g the old counselor, both of them seem to feel th a t t h e i r l i v e s have happened, ra th er than been chosen.

"'But I know now why i t i s , '

Byron thinks":

' I t 1s because a f e llo w is more a f r a i d of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he's already got. H e ' l l c l in g to trouble he's used to before h e ' l l r is k a change. Yes. A man w i l l t a l k about how he'd l i k e to escape from l i v i n g f o l k s . But i t ' s the dead ones that do him the damage. I t ' s the dead ones tha t lay quiet in one place and dont t r y to hold him, th a t he cant escape from' ( p . 6 5 ). I t 1s Byron's a b i l i t y to le a r n , with Hightower's help, the strength of man's preference f o r the f a m i l i a r , no matter how un s a ti s fa c to ry , and his courage to " r is k a change" tha t empowers him to walk out of the s cri p t of his "austere and jealou s country raisin g" with Lena r i g h t out of Yoknapatawpha country,

( p . 4?) and to travel

Joanna Burden and Joe

Christmas and Gall Hightower also come to recognize t h e i r r e l i a n c e on f a m i l i a r childhood p a t t e r n s , but they c lin g to the t r a g i c roles th a t "the dead ones" have taught them. For the characters whose a lle g ia n c e 1s to the forces of death, and t h i s includes Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes, l i f e taneity; a ll

lacks a l l

spon­

the moves are blocked out in advance, and there Is a

desperate sense of f u t i l i t y t h a t arises from t h e i r i n f i n i t e r e p e t i t i o n of a past dec is io n.

This death o r i e n t a t i o n is often an e x p l i c i t mes­

sage from a parent, or grandparent, as I t is f o r Hazel Motes, Joanna Burden and Joe Christmas.

I t seems a curse they dare not ignore, be­

cause i t somehow makes them dear , " e l e c t . "

For Miss Lonelyhearts and

Gail Hightower the sovereignty of death is I n f e r r e d ; an otherwise absurd existence.

i t makes sense of

Their commitment to defeat is a con­

tin u in g confirmation of the bereavement they have suff ered.

The i n ­

f i n i t e r e p e t i t i o n th at underlies t h e i r l i f e designs is captured in Images of continual movement without progress:

f or Miss Lonelyhearts,

the competition with the waves; f o r Hazel Motes the succession of closing c o f f in s ; f o r Joanna the f a l l i n g black shadow in the shape o f a cross; f o r Hightower the cyclone and the wheel and his gr and father's now n i g h t l y r i d e , " l i k e a t i d e . explosion" ( p*431).

. . . l i k e the c r a t e r of the world in

Another in d ic a ti o n of t h e i r devotion to death is

t h e i r adversary stance.

In b a t t l e , as on the stage, the conventions

govern the a c tio n , and death is expected, sanctioned, even g l o r i f i e d . Even i f 1t 1s f i c t i t i o u s , as Hightower concedes Cinthy's rendering of his grand father's l a s t rid e may have been, the meaning i t lends to l i f e is "too f i n e to doubt. (p.424).

. . . Because even fa c t cannot stand with i t "

The paradox that Faulkner introduced in C h a p t e r 1 with Keats'

146

urn gathers I t s f u l l

s ign ifi c an ce 1n the Interwoven s to r ie s of these

l i v i n g s a c r i f i c e s , who are led to the a l t a r o f t h e i r f a th e rs 1n the t r a i n of an Idea.

In Hightower's f i n a l chapter, Into which a l l

these

dark ta le s funnel, the s u p e r i o r i t y o f the dead 1s made e x p l i c i t .

Their

v i t a l i t y 1s such th a t "even f a c t cannot stand with I t " ; Hightower shares Mason Tarwater's recognition o f the ubiquitous power of the dead, "'The world was made f o r the dead. he said,

Think of a l l

the dead there a r e , 1

. . .as i f he had conceived the answer for a l l

In the w o r ld ."122 young wife:

the insolence

Hightower o f f e r s the same kind of explanation to his

"And so is i t any wonder that this world is peopled p r i n c i ­

p a l l y by the dead?

Su rely, when God looks about at t h e i r successors.

He cannot be loath to share His own with us" ( p . 4 25).

Nor is 1t any

wonder th at the dead claim t h e i r own, leaving only t h e i r legends a l i v e behind them:

the death of Joe Christmas, which is witnessed by some of

the townsmen, "soaring into t h e i r memories forever and ever" ( p . 4 0 7 ) , is already becoming legend in the e x p l i c a t io n of Gavin Stevens. Hightower is the only one of the mad preachers to step outside the barren c o r rid o r of polarized l i v i n g ,

i f only b r i e f l y .

In the act of

mldwifing Lena's d e l i v e r y Hightower in tegrate s what has been f o r him, and most of the characters, a p e r s is te n t male-female opposition.

And

when he returns home, glowing "with purpose and p r i d e , " t h i s suggestion o f androgynous triumph is continued with humorous shading. '" If

I were a woman, now.

bed to r e s t ' "

T h a t ’ s what a woman would do:

Thinking, go back to

( p . 3 5 5), Hightower selects from his l i b r a r y shelf "food

1?2

The V io le nt Bear I t Awa^, p. 312.

147

f o r a man," Henry I V , but when he s i t s down to read 1t outside 1n his sagging deck c h a i r , he does f a l l asleep, "almost 1mmedlately,"

It

1s

as I f to underscore the wrongheadedness of Hightower's wasted l i f e th at Faulkner shows him reen tering the current o f l i f e using the very com­ bination of t a le n t s th a t the f a t h e r he rejected had used successfully. The abstraction t h a t r e s u lts in the badly dichotomized character begins, as we have already seen in d e t a i l with Miss Lonelyhearts and Hazel Motes, with a refusal of the uniquely personal r e la t io n s h ip and a preference fo r categorized, t y p i c a l , p r e d ic t a b l e , s t a t i c exchanges,

Hightower a t

an e a r l y age decided to refuse to recognize his resemblance to his f a t h e r , "who had been a m in is te r without a church and a sold ier without an enemy, and who, in defeat had combined the two and become a doctor. . . . As though [he had] seen in the smoke of cannon as in a vision t h a t the laying on of hands meant l i t e r a l l y that" ( p . 4 15).

At the age

of f i f t y Hightower has a ta ste of the kind of achievement his f a t h e r , f o r a l l his paradoxical convictions, wrested from de fe a t. "Because a man a i n ' t given tha t many choices," Byron reminds the old counselor.

"You were given your choice before I was born" ( p . 320).

And Hightower's s uf fering l i e s in his keen knowledge, his seeing so c l e a r l y t h a t he chose "not love, not l i f e " and the s e l f - c r u c i f i x i o n native to "his own h is t o r y , his own land, his own environed blood" ( p . 322).

I t was th a t choice to partake of his gr andfather's death

th a t gave him such purposefulness as a young m in i s t e r , the same pur­ posefulness t h a t Percy Grimm, another youth born too l a t e f o r a war and "not l a t e enough to have escaped f i r s t hand knowledge of the l o s t time when he should have been a man" ( p . 3 94), gains, "his l i f e opening be­ fore him, uncomplex and inescapable as a barren c o r r i d o r , completely

148

freed now of ever again having to think or decide," a l l In exchange simply f or "his own l i f e "

( p . 3 95),

Like Quentin Compson who, In the

name o f the " f a m ily 's honor and doom" prefers "some presbyterlan con­ cept o f . . . eternal punishment" to losing his s i s t e r :

"But who loved

death above a l l , who loved only death, loved and liv e d in a d e l ib e r a t e and almost perverted a n t i c i p a t i o n of death as a lover loves and d e l i ­ berately r e f r a i n s from the waiting w i l l i n g f r i e n d l y tender incr edible body of his beloved," ^ 3 Hightower is the qu intessential self-conscious Southerner.

There is in Hightower what Robert Penn Warren has I d e n t i ­

f ie d as a Southern read er's response to Faulkner's grimmer scenes:

"a

perverse and perhaps s e lf - i n d u l g e n t d e l i g h t , which you yourself recog­ nized, In the dark complications o f Southern L i f e , a r e f l e x i v e response to an p n id e n tlf i e d tension and a smouldering rage beneath the surface of Southern l i f e . " ^ 4 A backward-looking v i s io n a ry , he is our window on the dark compli­ cations of Southern l i f e and on that perverse and s e l f- i n d u l g e n t suffering c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the mad preacher.

When he f i n a l l y moves

beyond the merely self-conscious, Hightower is s t ric k e n , l i k e Miss L, who Is forced to examine the values by which he l i v e s ,

l i k e Hazel Motes,

who discovers tha t when his eyes "are empty, they hold more," by the slgnt of himself in a l l

his c u l p a b i l i t y .

His r e f l e x i v e response, l i k e

123 William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Moderl Library ed. (New York: Random House, l9?9, 1946)', p. 9. 124 "Intr oduction: Faulkner: Past and Future," Faulkner: A Co llection of C r i t i c a l A r t i c l e s , ed. Robert Penn Warren, Twentieth Century Views ( Fnglewoocl C11 ff~;, N. J . r , rentice-Ha 11 , 1966), pp. 1-2.

149

t h e i r s , has been to diss ociate himself from l i f e ' s tensions and rage and t h e i r attendant sense of helplessness; but he was, 1n f a c t , never the helpless victim as he protested to Bryon.

With Hightower we watch the

mad preacher's facade f a l l away, the a l i b i s , the daydreams, the b e l i e f t h a t his l i f e has happened to him r ath er than been created by himself. He has been the guiding power, the stage manager of his own d i s t r e s s , he r e l u c t a n t l y acknowledges.

The r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for his wasted l i f e ,

which he has variously placed at the door o f the church professionals, his w ife , the townspeople, he now accepts as his own. his grandfather became not emulation but abdication.

His worship of Because he under­

estimated the l i v i n g and gave precedence to the imagined excellence of the dead, he is now trapped in th a t shadowy existence of his f i r s t choice.

A f t e r a glimpse of the conmunion possible among the l i v i n g ,

Hightower 1s .CmWidtd by the return o f the thundering ghost squadron th a t his longstanding bargain with death continues.

CHAPTER 6 :

ARTFUL CONFUSIONS

Something weird and l u r i d in t h e i r apprehension of the s a c r i ­ f i c i a l system, a true sense of the mind's world, can continu­ a l l y be f e l t in the seventeenth-century mystics. I call i t ambiguous, not from any verbal ingenuity of i t s own, but because i t draws i t s strength from a p r i m i t i v e system of ideas in which the un iti n g o f opposites ( o f savior and crim­ i n a l , f o r instance) 1s of p ec u lia r importance. Of course, you may as well say 1t is ambiguous to use any idea which involves fundamental antinomies; the idea of r e l a t i o n i t s e l f , very H k e l y ; but I am here concerned only with ambiguities which are of l i t e r a r y i n t e r e s t and can be f e l t as complex when they are apprehended. William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity Contemporary (Western) man's mo^L crucial dilemna is perhaps his i n a b i l i t y to accept a theological view of nature while a t the same time being unprepared to commit himself to a s c ie n t i fic - p r a g m a t ic view of i t . Thus many people are caught between one system o f thought which is too p r i m i t i v e f o r them and another which is too complicated. Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental 111 ness

One cannot study the stories of the mad preachers--Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower— without being struck by the number of crucial

incidents in t h e i r plots th a t are l e f t in suspension, unresolved.

West concludes his novel, leaving Miss Lonelyhearts lying half-way dowi a stairway, without specifying tha t his protagonist, in f a c t , die s. 150

Most

151

c r i t i c s w r it e from the assumption t h a t he does d i e , some even speculat­ ing on the e f f e c t th i s t r a g ic scene w i l l have on Betty and her y e t - t o be-born c h i l d .

But Richard Chase and A lf re d Kazln wrote from the same

assumption about Hightower u n t i l Faulkner stated f l a t l y , d ie ."

'"He d i d n ' t

Many i n t e r p r e t e r s of these novels have been moved, no doubt,

by the same impulse toward order th at motivates Miss L to arrange the s k ylin e , to supply r e s o lu t io n s , but West, O'Connor and Faulkner care­ f u l l y avoid that impulse.

I t is never a u t h o r i a l l y s e t t l e d , for example,

t h a t the porter in the f i r s t chapter of Wise Blood is a Parrum or a case o f mistaken i d e n t i t y . Light In August:

There are many such d e l i b e r a t e omissions in

we don't a c t u a l l y see Christmas k i l l Joanna, and i t

1s never known exac tly how Gail Hightower I dies because the woman with the fowling piece is only an i n t e r p o l a t i o n made by Gail

II;

s im ilarly,

the exact circumstances of Mrs. Hightower's death can only be i n f e r r e d . I t is the e f f e c t o f death, f o r Hightower as f o r Motes, that counts. The d e t a i l s of any account can be made consistent with the f e l t meaning. The exercise of judgment th a t is required of these characters 1n the absence of f a c t and in the face of a m u l t i p l i c i t y o f i n t e r p r e t a ­ tions is a basic issue th at we have seen explored by th e o r is ts in psychology and theology as well as l i t e r a t u r e .

The f e e l in g s of loss

and confusion th a t l i e behind the analyses of Buber and T i l l i c h , of Mennlnger, Maslow and Szasz are rendered both through theme and tech­ nique 1n the s tories of the mad preacher.

That is t o say, while Miss

Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower i n d i v i d u a l l y l i v e through

125 The American Novel and I t s T r a d i t i o n , p. 216; "The S t i l l n e s s of Light in August," P. 157; FauTlcner i_n the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 75.

152

loss, confusion and the search f o r a meaningful order th at has been the c u l t u r a l experience of m ld -t w e n tle ty -c e n tu r y America, the a - t l s t r y tha t shapes t h e i r s tories 1s contrived to embody j u s t t h i s absence of c l a r i t y . By way of s h i f t i n g and uncertain po1nt-of-v1ew, mixed tone, c irc u ito u s time s h i f t s , the employment of the grotesque, West, O'Connor and Faulkner made c e r t a i n t y impossible.

In sho rt, the f i c t i o n Is designed

to do more than show the reader d is o rd e r, i t

is designed to take him

through the experience of d i s l o c a t i o n , to leave him without any com­ f o r t a b le assumptions. Such a d e l i b e r a t e l y skewed craftsmanship R. W. B. Lewis has c a l l e d , 1n evaluating Faulkner's e a r l i e r f i c t i o n , "an ultim a te d u p l i c i t y , the best account of the world t h a t honest genius has been able to c o n s t r u c t - the poetry of unresolved dualism, with every v i r t u e and every value rendered i n s t a n t l y suspect by the iro n ic coexistence of i t s f o r c ef u l c o n t r a r y . " ^ ® While "unresolved dualism" is a useful d e sc r ip tio n of the habitual adversary posture of the mad preacher, Wolfgang Kayser's extensive in v e s t ig a t io n of the merger of incompatible worlds goes even f a r t h e r toward explaining the motive f or such an adversary stance. The need to i d e n t i f y the d i v i n e , the good, the true and di s ting uish 1t from the demonic, as T i l l i c h demonstrated in his analysis of the word holy, may seem to require the complete exclusion of the demonic. When the opposite values of an ambiguity are merged in a single u n i t , whether the un it 1s a word, a metaphor, a symbol or a c h ar ac te r , the r e s u l t may be grotesque, th at i s , there may be a sense that "the natural

126 The Picaresque S a i n t : Representative Figures i_n Contemporary F ic t io n ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : L i p p l n c o t t , 1559), p. 194'.

153

order o f things has been subverted.'

I p7

The p o t e n t ia l misunderstanding

and anx ie ty th a t such con tradictor y combinations give l i f e to can be necessary to the beauty of an a r t i s t i c work, as Empson demonstrates, p a r t i c u l a r l y when the a r t is an expression of the "most complicated and deeply rooted" notions o f the human m l n d . ^ 8 The scale, or spectrum, th a t runs from the p r i m i t i v e and 'deeply rooted' to the sophisticated and 'complicated'

is one of the most

c l e a r l y defined c o e f f i c i e n t s of the in s a n e -r e lig io u s p a i r i n g .

We can

remember C as sire r's analysis of the progressively sophisticated stages of man's apprehension of the "Word and the mythic image," from the most p r i m i t i v e conviction of t h e i r existence as actual and ac ti v e beings, to the r e a l i z a t i o n of t h e i r " id e a l" i n s t r u m e n t a l i t y , and we can understand t h a t M1ss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower, with greater or lesser self-awareness, are c o n t i n u a l ly shaping t h e i r worlds in keeping with t h e i r most "holy" symbols.

The p r i m i t i v e man in each

of these preachers courts violence as a re so lu tio n o f his f e l t c o n f l i c t s , while the sophisticated man seeks to d is t in g u is h the t r u t h from the I l l u s i o n of his experience.

For example, when Miss Lonelyhearts, in

the persona o f Havelock Ell 1s, interr og ates the Clean Old Man f o r an explanation of his perversion— "Every one has a l i f e story" ( p . 3 1 )— t w is t i n g his arm u n t i l

he screams, he is acting out his ambivalent

desire both to destroy and to understand: all

"He was tw is ting the arm of

the sick and miserable, broken and betrayed, i n a r t i c u l a t e and

127 The Grotesque in Art and L i t e r a t u r e , p. 21. 128 Seven Types o f Ambiguity, pp. 195, 227, 233.

154

I m p o t e n t . . . . o f Desperate, Broken-hearted, S 1 c k - o f - 1 t - a l 1, D ls l l l u s i o n e d wlth-tubercular-husband" ( p . 3 1 ) .

In the character of the mad ( d i s ­

ordered, un restrained. Intense, angry, melancholic) preacher (public advocate, advisor) West, O'Connor and Faulkner map the 'weird and lu r i d * t e r r i t o r y of the mind where brutal drives and moral aspi ra ti o ns c oexis t. In the encounter between Miss L and the Clean Old Man a t h ird dimension, one beyond but including the opposition of the psychological and the r e l i g i o u s , and essential to a complete i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the mad preacher, emerges.

This dimension is the f i c t i v e , the s t o r y - t e l l i n g

capacity which is fed by both the ' p r i m i t i v e ' and the 's o p h is ti c a te d ' faculties.

Throughout Mi ss Lonelyhearts the confused young columnist

is bombarded with s t o r 1 e s - -t h e l e t t e r w r i t e r s ' laments, Shrike's paro­ die s, barroom anecdotes, fa mily " h i s t o r i e s , " newspaper, magazine, movie and a dvertis in g c l i c h e s , Dostoevski— a l l d e t a i l i n g the ageless c o n f l i c t s and man's unending inhumanity, and none o f f e r i n g a l a s tin g r e s o l u t i o n . Hazel Motes is surrounded by s i m ila r s t o r ie s , and Gall Hightower, whose e a r ly career is presented e n t i r e l y through c o l l e c t i v e n a r r a t i o n , finds himself sweating through the stories of Lena, Joe Christmas and the Hineses.

All around the mad preacher are people who have f i c t i o n a l i z e d

their lives.

And although a r e l i g i o u s m otif appears in most of these

f i c t i o n s , the true subject 1s not r e l i g i o n , any more than i t is disease. No orthodox, systematized manner o f approaching the holy is l e f t un­ attacked.

I t is the p r i v a te process of locating and claiming b e l i e f ,

conviction and judgment, not t h e i r ready-made, abs tra ct existence, th a t makes i t s e l f the thematic center of each novel.

155

II

I t Is possible to say, drawing from t h e i r own statements, that West, O'Connor and Faulkner are a l l m o r a li s t s .

For example, In a

l e t t e r to M. K. Abernethy, the e d it o r of Contempo, West c alled M1ss Lonelyhearts "a moral s a t i r e . "129

O'Connor repeatedly wrote of the

union of "the moral sense” and "the dramatic sense" that occurs f o r the w r i t e r of the greatest f i c t i o n , and of that "moment in every great story in which the presence of grace can be f e l t . "130

In his Nobel

Prize acceptance speech, as well as in ta lk s with u n iv e r s it y students, Faulkner urged young w r i t e r s to learn the moral v ir t u e s and "to save man from being desouled."

111

I t would be a mistake, however, to

evaluate t h e i r f i c t i o n as a tool of a moralizing urge.

Rather, the

moral s p i r i t resides within and is d is c ip lin e d by the f i c t i o n . West discussed t h i s ae sthetic p r i o r i t y in l e t t e r s w r i t t e n to Malcolm Cowley and Jack Conroy during the weeks The Day of the Locust was being published,

"When not w ritin g a novel," he explained to

Cowley, "— say at a meeting of a committee we have out here to help the migratory worker— I do believe i t [th e theory of human progress] and t r y to act on th a t b e l i e f .

But at the ty pew ri te r by myself I

129 Quoted by Jay M art in , Nathanael West: The Art of His L i f e (New York: F a rra r, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 152. 130 Mystery and Manner, pp. 31, 118. 131 Faulkner in the U n iv e r s i t y , p. 245.

156

c a n ' t . " ^ 32

Although he said tha t he had "no p a r t i c u l a r message f o r a

troubled world (except possibly 'b e w a re ') *" he had to "believe t h a t there 1s a place f o r the f e ll o w who y e l l s f i r e and indicates where some o f the smoke 1s coming from without dragging the ,.jse to the spot."

1 33

West was preparing himself f o r the p o s s i b i l i t y that The

Day o f the Locust would be a commercial f a i l u r e , as had been his pre­ vious three novels, and he was assessing the v a l i d i t y of his aesthetic v is io n .

His own upbringing and schooling, he r e a l i z e d , shaped that

vision and constituted "too powerful a burden f o r [him] to throw o f f — c e r t a i n l y not by an act of w i l l a l o n e . "134

Unable to "contrive" a

f i c t i o n to carr y a th e o r e t ic a l con vic ti o n, he took heart in the ex­ ample of Balzac, who "kept his eye f i r m l y fixed on the middle class and wrote with great t r u t h and no w i s h - f u l f i 1lm en t," and thereby was the u l t i m a t e l y grea te r r a d i c a l .

IOC

O'Connor, H k e West, placed her a r t i s t i c confidence 1n the eye of the w r i t e r and repeatedly voiced her skepticism about the secondary a pp licatio ns of that v is i o n , whether intended or i n f e r r e d , moral or s o c io lo g ic a l.

"The s t o r y t e l l e r , " she warned, "must render what he

sees and not what he thinks he ought to see."^3^

132 Quoted in M a rtin , p. 336. 133 Quoted in M art in , pp. 335-336. 134 Quoted in M a rtin , pp. 335-336. 135 Quoted in M artin, pp. 335-336; 392-393. 136 M y s t e r y and M a n n e r s , p .

131.

Writers and readers

157

a l i k e may pr e f e r Msp1r1tual purpose" or a "hazy compassion," and there 1s a pe r s is te n t e f f o r t to "drain o f f , " as O'Connor phrases 1 t , "a sta ta ble moral" or "a s t a t a b le social theory t h a t w i l l make l i f e more worth l i v i n g . "

Behind a l l

such e f f o r t s she sees the "wish to e l i m i ­

nate from f i c t i o n , a t a l l costs . . .

the mystery" proper to i t J 3^

No more to her, a coirmunicant of the Catholic Church, than to West, a skeptic of Jewish her ita g e , was i t possible to make f i c t i o n a handmaid, as she put i t ,

to the demands of "social order, l i b e r a l

thought, and

sometimes even Ch ristia n ity."^® ® From Faulkner a comparable estimate of the f i c t i o n w r i t e r ' s func­ tio n is heard.

Even while he urges young w r it e r s "to save the i n d i v i ­

dual from anonymity before i t

is too l a t e and humanity has vanished

from the animal c a l le d man," he 1s wary of becoming, in his profession of w r i t e r , a " ju d g e . " ^ 9

speaking of the v u l n e r a b i l i t y of the a r t i s t ' s

g i f t , he speculates, " I f he began to preach or p r o s e l y t iz e or pass judgment . . . the f i r e might go o u t . " ^ ^

Faulkner shares with West

and O'Connor the attachment to i n d iv id u a li z e d r e a l i t y and a hatred of "the mystical b e l i e f , almost a r e l i g i o n " t h a t individual man is I n s i g ­ n i f i c a n t beside those "same double-barreled abstractions" that have gone

137 Mystery and Manners, pp. 130-131. 138 Mystery and Manners, p. 46. 139 Faulkner In the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 267. 140 Faulkner in the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 267.

158

rin g in g through h i s t o r y . ^

He was w illin g to go so f a r as to say

"maybe the w r it e r has no concept o f m o ra lity a t a l l , on ly an In t e g r ity to hold always to what he believes to be the fa c ts and tru th s o f human behavior, not moral standards a t a l l . "

142

I f the w r i t e r can be thought

of as working f or man's betterment, he concludes, i t is only i n d i r e c t l y . In demonstrating the essential s i m i l a r i t y of M1ss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gall Hightower by c a l l i n g them 'mad preachers' I was guided by t h e i r creators* stated purposes and t h e i r shared a r t i s t i c outlook.

A ll

three w r i t e r s chose to combine the polyvalent notion of

madness with the d id a c tic advocacy proper to orthodox r e l i g i o n , to coordinate and expand upon the suggestive p a r a l l e l s of the seemingly a l ie n so th a t they over lap, coincide, become functions of one another. West specified th a t his sources for Miss L . , were s aints'

legends and case h i s t o r i e s .

her ’ anagoglc v is io n '

'a p r i e s t of our t im e , '

O’ Connor chose to transmit

in the grotesque person of a " p r o p h e t - f r e a k . " ^ ^

Faulkner wanted to render "a luminosity older than our C h ri s tia n c i v i l i ­ zation" in the person of a man of God who "destroyed himself" while wanting "to be b e t t e r than he was a f r a i d he w o u l d . " T h e of the mad preacher, which, in p a r t ,

is to find a way to give r e a l i t y

to his extraor dinary vis ion of the world he in h a b i t s ,

141 Faulkner in the U n l v e r s i t y , p. 242. 142 Faulkner in the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 267. 143 Mystery and Manners, p. 118. 144 F a u l k n e r in t h e U n i v e r s i t y ,

dilemma of

pp.

1 9 9 , 4 5 , 7 5.

invites a

159

comparison with the acknowledged goals and methods of the a r t i s t who created him.

O'Connor states t h i s r e l a t i o n s h i p e x p l i c i t l y :

the

w r i t e r ' s "prophet-freak 1s an Image o f h i m s e l f . " 145 The ' a r t f u l confusion' of the mad preacher, as we have seen, Is of his own making.

I t 1s amply pla in t h a t , whatever the powerful

forces working to confound him, this I n d i v i d u a l ' s agency in de finin g himself and choosing a destin y must outweigh circumstance and heritag e. The mad preacher's ca re e r , then, i s a dramatic statement of his a r t i s t ' s e f f o r t to render an 'honest' account of what he sees.

Their j o i n t

concern 1s to transmit successfully t h e i r p r i v a t e v isio n to others. Their experience of r e a l i t y , baldly stated, w i l l

be r i d i c u l e d , e x p lo ite d ,

ignored, but for a time they p e r s i s t , experimenting with r h e t o r ic a l forms In an e f f o r t to be understood.

As long as t h e i r emphasis l i e s

in the external world and the b a t t le s waged t h e r e , both the mad preacher and his author present a t h e a t r i c a l appearance.

When the extraordinary

experience 1s claimed as an i n t e rn a l r e a l i t y , a fresh a u t h o r i t y emerges. Eventually Miss Lonelyhearts, Hazel Motes and Gail Hightower stop preaching and s t a r t l i s t e n i n g .

They leave t h e i r chaotic a c t i v i t y and

t h e a t r i c a l contests with the people around them and attend to t h e i r own Intimate sights and sounds.

In each case t h i s return to a p r i v a t e l y

meaningful r e a l i t y corresponds to the a r t i s t ' s refusal 'th inks he ought to* l a t h e r than what he sees. preacher can l o g i c a l l y advocate nothing. to be a f a i l u r e .

to say what he

After a l l ,

the mad

As a p r o s e l y t i z e r he 1s bound

He 1s best employed in speaking to those amazingly

routine con tra diction s from which we a l l choose our d e s t in ie s . 145 My s t e r y and M a n n e r s , p , 118,

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VITA

Rebecca Roxburgh Butler was born in Corsicana, Texas, in 1943. Educated in public schools in Texas and Louisiana, she graduated from East Jefferson High School in 1961, and was awarded an academic scholar­ ship to Southeastern Louisiana College where she finished the work for the B. A. 1n 1964.

She received a National Defense Education Act grant

for graduate work in the English Department at Louisiana State Univer­ s i t y , where she earned the M. A. in 1 965.

A grant from the English

Speaking Union in New Orleans made possible her studies at Oxford, England in 1967. She has served as a graduate teaching assistant in English a t Louisiana State Univers ity , and as an ins tru cto r there and at Harpeth Hall School, Nashville, Tennessee, Savannah Country Day School, Savannah, Georgia.

She is c u rre n tl y an assistant professor of English

at Gordon Junior College, B a rnesville, Georgia.

166