Alejandra and McTeague: connected through image of blood

When discussing McTeague, we spoke about the tension between civilization and animality in reference to McTeague as representative of new west vs. old west. I saw a connection between McTeague and All the Pretty Horses because the old West/new West dichotomy in each is drawn together by images of blood. 

In All the Pretty Horses, blood is established as a symbol of the west. It is inherent in the landscape itself -- made clear by McCarthy's descriptions of the "blood red" sunsets and in characters' actions. During Alejandra's affair with John Grady, she embodies the Western spirit, acting more as the cowboy than John Grady or than the traditional 'damsel in distress' type that you might expect her to play. Alejandra “[draws] blood with her teeth where he held the heel of his hand against her mouth so that she not cry out” (McCarthy 142). She symbolizes the West that John Grady sought to find in leaving America. She draws blood; she shows her brutishness in the face of a force that works to silence her -- literally and metaphorically. She represents the rough-and-tough spirit of the Old West.

In McTeague, Marcus draws blood from McTeague, and this blood acts as the impetus for his inner beast which lurked very close to the surface to emerge. McTeague as a whole represents a more modern West, but still the act of violence incites the brutish West to emerge.

Joseph Campbell's Monomyth and The Dying West

A major goal of our semester was looking at the ways that Western Fiction breaks down our conception  of what the West is like, contrasting the myths and legends of grand heroism with a more realist view of the struggle and desolation that is found there. Something that I have noticed and wanted to discuss was  the ways that American Western Fiction does fit into the norm of trajectory for literature. Maybe I've just been too affected by reading Joseph Campbell's theories on the 'monomyth', but I thought it was really interesting the way our "cowboys" fit into the trajectory that he outlines for the archetypal hero in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In most (if not all) of the books that we've read, the hero must leave his home in order to find himself and grow into his Hero role -- or not, which is where the commentary on the West comes in. (More context for this trajectory can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writer's_Journey:_Mythic_Structure_for_Writers.) When stripped down to the bare skeletons of plot, the underlying similarities between the All the Pretty Horses, Ox-bow Incident, The Surrounded, McTeague (and others) become apparent, making it easy for us to draw connections between them and form a coherent opinion about the vision of the West that these authors are trying to demonstrate to us. I also think that the commonalities are the reason why we've been able to make so many multi-media connections in class, between our stories/characters and other novels, television shows, movies that share those base qualities. In looking at the ways that convention is challenged, it can be helpful to look at the ways that it is not in order to form a fuller picture of what message is trying to be portrayed. The fact that the protagonists in these novels share such structural similarities to protagonists in other media yet cannot succeed/thrive in the West helps to convey that the West itself, as a space, plays a heavy hand in the societies that form and survive there. Based on what we have seen, the West, though a major ground for intersectionalism, is not a place where this can grow into something productive.

Mixed Heritage in The Surrounded

In The Surrounded, Archilde's identity is (obviously) central to placing McNickle's work in context of the greater picture. As we explored in "The Hungry Generations" and "Red Road to Nowhere," McNickle condemns the future of the American Indians in the West because of the force of the authority and the general social praxis that the Americans have imposed there during Westward expansion. This remains true for Archilde, who, though only half Salish, cannot find success at the end of the novel and instead is arrested for crimes he did not commit. Something that I found particularly interesting in the novel is the tension that results from Archilde's mixed-race heritage exists even between Archilde and his parents -- whom, you would think, would be most accepting of Archilde's identity struggle than compared to any other characters in the novel (because they did produce him, after all). The parents' discomfort with Archilde's identity is spotlighted, for example, in the scenes surrounding money, when both parents are uncomfortable either accepting money or asking for it. Not only does this tension play into how Archilde perceives and accepts his own identity, but also about the larger statement that the novel makes about the future of the West. By including Archilde's parents in the forces putting pressure on Archilde to choose between his two cultures, McNickle deepens his stance that the West is not a place where the indigenous population will be able to thrive while Whiteness moves in.

The cage, possession, and identity in McTeague

In McTeague, the canary functions as a symbol of McTeague. While he is in San Francisco,  the canary is stuck in a gilded cage. The cage replaces McTeague's lust for the gold tooth, both of which are representations of the capitalism that was arising at this time in the West. During his time in the city, McTeague is consumed by this capitalist spirit -- he is the canary stuck in the cage. The degree to which McTeague's life is ruled by capitalism is apparent from the moment that Trina wins the lottery on. He has dreams of spending her $5000 "in some lavish fashion" and on opulent items that, in existing in his posession, can communicate to the rest of the world that he has wealth (132). McTeague's obsession with his spending demonstrates how he is trapped in the cage, a slave to the rituals of capitalist society. Even when he leaves the city for the desert, he must bring the cage and the bird with him, despite that they are completely out of place there. Bringing the cage into the desert shows how deeply manifest capitalism has become within McTeague, even in light of how brutish he is. Through McTeague's relationship with money, the novel makes a commentary about the state of the West and the way that urbanization has changed it and created new structures of status, unlike the more rugged images we saw in previous books in the course.

ox bow again

I was looking again at the Ox-Bow incident, as it may actually be my favorite novel from this course.  It makes me with I remembered more philosophy from my perspectives class, because I have the feeling there are comparisons I could make that I am otherwise missing.  In any case, I was looking at two of the larger sections of discourse on justice from the two major players against (well, as much against as they can be while still being members) the lynch mob.  The first is Davies, who on page 53, makes a number of claims on Justice.  He believes that mankind has an innate sense of justice.  Later, on page 117 , Tetley’s son makes a similar claim.  They agree only on this one thing, however.  Davies believes that the reason we can know what justice is, is because it appears in one form or another in every society we create.  Tetley seems to believe in a similar sense of conscience in mankind, but that we will always subvert it.  We have the knowledge of what is right and we almost never choose it.  He believes this makes us the lowest animal.   

Food in Tropic of Orange

Food has come up multiple times in our course's curriculum as a signifier of race. In Tropic of Orange, sushi arises as central to social commentary in the chapter, Hiro's Sushi. What I noticed is the way the novel draws attention to the sushi not as a positive indicator of race, but as something more negative -- as something that culture is reduced to rather than celebrated by. In Emi and Gabriel's discussions in the restaurant, they discuss hating "multicultural diversity," not for what it is, but for the construct that it has be come. "It's a white guy wearing a Nirvana T-Shirt and dreads. That's cultural diversity," Emi says (128). This is placed in contrast with the (white) woman sitting next to them, who with a "patronizing" smile, tries to cheer them  up by talking about the deliciousness of the tea, to which  Emi reacts: "See what I mean, Hiro? You're invisible. I'm invisible. We're all invisible. It's just tea, ginger, raw fish, and a credit card." Stereotypes and food have come to replace the actual people they are derived from. Rather than serve as an access point to other cultures, food just replaces it; it is taken to represent the entire culture, and all of its people. This point is made even more clear as the woman says, "I love living in L.A. because I can find anything in the world to eat, right here," in expressing her love for multiculturalism (128). The novel's opinion of what multiculturalism has become is apparent in the woman's words, which the reader is supposed to take ironically. She calls LA "A true celebration of an international world. It just makes me sick to hear people speak so cynically about something so positive and to make assumptions about people based on their color" (128). In reality, this woman exudes the exact type of ignorance she is trying to condemn. The scenes in the sushi restaurant play into the greater motive of the novel of calling the reader's attention to the way that  the West has grown to be just an amalgamation of people locked into a space that doesn't have much room for them. In the scene, Gabriel orders a California roll, which is viewed as "ammo" for Emi, of course, because it is indicative of Americanization and the imposition of Americanism on other cultures (128).

Honor

The scene from All the Pretty Horses I wanted to take another look at (which I believe I did my presentation on? Maybe? Who even remembers January?) was John Grady’s conversation with Alejandra’s godmother.  She makes the statement, “A man may lose his honor and regain it again.  But a woman cannot.  She cannot.”  This is a common attitude that we have encountered in the these western narratives, starting with Rose Mapen in the Ox-Bow Incident.  She regains some measure of honor, but it is only through marriage.  Men define the honor of a woman.  In this way, Alejandra’s godmother is still correct.  John Grady has the ability to absolutely ruin Alejandra in a way she cannot ruin him.  Though western narratives in this class have shown many unflattering portraits of the female gender in the west, this is one of the few moments in text where it is truly acknowledged.

Plants and Babies

In The Plum Plum Pickers one of the recurring themes seems to be the association of children with plants.  On page 63, Lupe is looking at one of her avocado plants, thinking, “Like herself.  Another child.  A child of the Earth.  An Earthling.  This treelet would ever reach maturity.  She knew that.  She’d lost too many others.  It would never bear fruit.”  And on page 64, “so much like small children, those little plants.”  Lupe has a very strong concept of how much her family’s livelihood relies on the crops, and I think that fuels her association.  There is also the aspect of a person living off the Earth.  It seems unnatural to her on some level that you can pick fruit for a living and still struggle to feed your family.  This is emphasized by the fact that she cannot sustain her own plants enough to grow food.

Avocados in particular are important to Lupe.  They are something she associates with her home in Mexico and the greater fertility she knew there.  She even describes a pregnant woman as being like an avocado.

There is even a later, less direct reference to this mindset.  In a later scene, on page 97, she has lost her children, and fears that they’ve been run over by a tractor.  Out of the context of the rest of the novel, it wouldn’t seem like much, but there’s something to be said for the fact that she is digging in the dirt for her children, like they returned to the ground they sprouted from.

Catharine's Death

In The Surrounded Catharine’s death scene presents an unusual power play between this dying old woman and Father Jerome.  Her renunciation of the Christian faith on her deathbed does not go over well with the priest.  His insistence upon performing Christian rituals is incredibly disrespectful, but it makes me wonder why he chose to do so against her wishes.  There is the aspect of wanting her to go to heaven, coming from a place of caring, but Father Jerome’s anger hints that it comes from a different place.  He is very angry.  He takes personal offense to Catherine’s return to Salish religious culture.  I think this feeling is exacerbated in him because when he arrives, she is already at a place where she cannot respond to him.  She renounced her faith without him there, and now there’s nothing he can do to change her, and this upsets him.  She was the great success story, so a failure in her was a slap in the face.  She represents the failure of missionaries, and the futility of their reach to this other culture.

Western Vocabulary in the Ox-Bow Incident

An interesting thing occurs at the opening of chapter 3 of the Ox-Bow Incident.  We’re given a one-sentence description of the landscape as the soon-to-be lynch mob leaves Tetley’s house.  “Davies didn’t catch up with us until we had passed Tetley’s big and secret house behind it’s picket fence and trees and were out in the road between the meadows.” (pg 105).  The narrator then takes a few sentences to go back over this subject, redefining what he just described.  He explains that basically the meadows are not meadows and the road is not what one would traditionally call a road.  His need to alter the statement implies that the world he inhabits is not the same as the one the reader might know.  The west in this novel is still being explored by Europeans, it is at a stage where it is being settled and defined.  It is so different from the growing civilization in the East though, that Art doesn’t seem to feel like familiar language is sufficient to describe it.

Desire in The Professor's House

"Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement"(19).

St. Peter thinks this as he thinks on his classes and what it takes to succeed, "A man can do anything if he wishes to enough," he thinks to himself (19). According to him, there has been only one person to pass through his life that he could measure this is: Tom Outland. I say pass through his life because Cather says he could measure it, "roughly, just once"(20) without any indication whether that was in his class or outside of it. With that in mind, we are left to assume that the Professor has been able to measure this sort of desire in Tom and no one else. But desire is present in other parts of the novel, Rosie and Louie have the desire to build a house that they dedicate (kind of) to Tom, the Professor's desires result in his literary works; these are but two instances, but neither suffice for the Professor to consider. I believe the Professor is trying to purify what desire means here, referencing it as a motivator for bettering the self, like Tom did with academics, rather than for financial gain. St. Peter could measure the desire in Tom to become a better person and that is what can spark achievement, not a desire to increase one's holdings. 

Getting Unplugged

Buzzworm was one of the more bizarre characters we read about this semester and I found the idea of him unplugging from his walkman at the end of The Tropic of Orange an interesting idea. (265)  Until his chapter, he is constantly connected to the airwaves.  Sometimes it was music, other times it was the news, but the point was, he was always plugged into something.  I found the idea of him unplugging a nice parallel to the scene in his previous chapter where people stopped and looked at the trees, disconnecting from their established patterns. (219) Both he and the people disembarking from the cars on the freeway are leaving their established patterns, but to different effects.  He is disenchanted with the world around him and the other people are enjoying their brief escape from normality.  The whole concept of magical realism is a break from reality and the scene where Buzzworm unplugs is a break from his version of reality, which makes sense that each person has to break from their version of reality, not just some generic "other".

Identities of the father figure in The Surrounded

              In The Surrounded, McNickle comments heavily on cultural ties, but also familial values and the role of the father figure. Archilde and his father Max differ in their patriarchal capacities. Archilde clearly appears to be an empathetic character that actually does care about the well-being and future of his nephews, Mike and Narcisse. On the other hand, Max treats his sons and wife with no respect from the start of the novel. 

            Archilde respects that both Mike and Narcisse want to stay fully tied to their Indian roots and he supports them as they camp out in a makeshift teepee, living off the land. He admits that “Mike and Narcisse taught him something”: they have taugh him that “it did no good to make a fuss about things; just go ahead and do what you liked, and ask only to be left alone” (The Surrounded, 248). Rather than dismissing Mike’s resistance as meaningless, something Max would do, Archilde levels with his nephew as he too “had even less desire to see them sent back to the Fathers than they had to go there” (The Surrounded, 246). Archilde is shown to be less stubborn and more willing to acknowledge the struggle that Mike and Narcisse endure than his father who has come to shun Indian culture and fully embrace White culture. I think that in creating these two drastically different types of masculinities (Max and Archilde), McNickle shows what must be sacrificed to fully emerge into the White culture; there does not seem to be a middle ground with any acceptance for Indian culture. 

The Canary & Class in McTeague

At the end of McTeague, the titular character is far from San Francisco and has even left his mining job in Placer County far behind him. McTeague is in Death Valley, where he still referred to as the dentist as he carries the little gilded cage with his canary inside. The canary is his attempt to try and keep the semblance of a higher class that he thinks he once had, which had been caused by the false sense of wealth when he had obtained Trina's lottery money. The canary is the ornament of class and is representative of consumerism. But in the harsh Death Valley everything is falling apart and being crushed by nature, much the way the little cage is crushed when McTeague and Marcus struggle and fall on the cage. Additionally, as McTeague is wandering through the desert, oftentimes only the cage is mentioned and not the actual canary, until the very end when the canary is chirping its last cheeps.

Bones of the Cliff City.

In The Professor's House, the meat of the novel revolves around the story of Tom Outland and his excavation of the Cliff City. In looking at it, I believer this section fits in really well with the West we have been talking about this semester. Most of the West we have seen haas been a west where the stereotypical cowboy culture is dead or dying off. In Outland's adventure, we physical see that in the remains of the native americans. These bones represent the people of that stereotypical land, and even furthermore the people who came before the stereotypes. Upon finding the bones Tom recognizes their importance to the land and wants to leave them, as if they exist as a sign of the times. However, the bones end up being used for a material gain. Turning something organic and of the land into a material gain is a large overarching theme of western expansion. Turning bones into a gain shows that nothing is sacred or off limits, and that people now will even look to profit from death.

Power of Desire in McTeague

In McTeague, lust and greed are the two distinct themes that guide McTeague throughout the novel. I find it interesting that Norris uses these two themes as they seem to be close cousins, having similar effects on people. In the early part of the novel McTeague is driven by lust. When he has Trina in his dentistry chair, the man displays not only a want to have her, but a need. This lust is our first indication that McTeague is a person incapable of suppressing his own desires. Lust is demonstrated again, later on, when McTeague finally kisses Trina. Here, he let's out an almost primordial yell of "I've got her," showing the insatiable power lust engulfs him with.  With his sexual desires presumably taken care of,  McTeague seemingly channels his lust into greed as the novel moves forward. It becomes fairly obvious that McTeague's greed irrevocably changes the man, as he becomes more and more fortune-hungry. Norris compels his argument by making McTeague as mindless as he does. I don't think this novel works as well if McTeague is presented with any capacity for wit or intellect. Instead McTeague is borderline an animal of his landscape. He is controlled by his instincts and shows no way of breaking free of their grip.

Red in Cormac McCarthy's West

Frequently paired with John Grady’s romantic imaginings of the West as it was in the past, as well as the scenes of Grady riding on horseback, color imagery in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses mimics the dying and fading found within the pages. Throughout the novel, the color red can be interpreted as the colorful, visual representation of the dying out of the Old West, the realization of unattainable ideals, and violence in different parts of the book. Sometimes (as during the sunsets and the panoramic scenes of horseback riding) this redness is vibrant and romantic. During other times it is violent and bloody (as it is during the cauterizing of the wounds towards the end of the novel), and still other times (mostly in the beginning of the book) there is a sense of burning nostalgia for a time gone by that is paired with the hue.

            The sunset at the beginning of McCarthy’s text contrasts with that found on the last page of the novel, as it brings the color red into the conclusion as well as weaves it significantly into the themes of the book. In the sunset at the end, redness colors all aspects of the scene including, “the dust he raised, the small dust that powered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led. In the evening a wind came up and reddened all the sky before him” (McCarthy 302). John Grady’s desire for the old, idyllic West and his ultimate failure to find that desire in reality is painted across the entire landscape, burning a scarlet “bloodred” as he rides onward. The cowboy ideals of justice and honor that he strived for, the connection with the land and the horses and the way of life that he yearned for have all eluded him and left him without land to claim as his own: just as he was in the beginning. John Grady’s imagined West proves to be too great and irreconcilable in comparison to the reality of the land that he has discovered in his journey from the States to Mexico. He rides away from the space, just as he rode away from his family’s land in the beginning of the novel, “with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing out of the west across the evening land”, painted with the color just as the sky and the ground are. Just as the last light bleeds itself across the West, John Grady’s ideals do the same, symbolically represented by the color imagery of crimson. 

Bobby's final section in Tropic of Orange

              Several interesting, yet confusing elements to the narrative surface at the conclusion of Bobby’s final chapter of Tropic of Orange. Throughout the novel, crossing borders has been a recurrent theme that runs strong through the multicultural parts to each character’s individual story. As Bobby attempts to get into the fight, he presents the American Express card that serves as a gateway to his entry. The ‘American’ Express card symbolizes Bobby’s entry into an unfamiliar place; something that goes hand in hand with themes of mixed identity that Yamashita instills in characters like Manzanar and Gabriel. The “American Express gets him the best. Ringside seats,” which is a clear testament to the American preference going on at the arena (266). Despite the hectic, circus-like scene that surrounds him, the card is able to get him directly to where he needs to be without any problems.

             As the novel comes to a close, I believe Yamashita uses the repetition of questions to submerge the reader into Bobby’s own mental confusion. The stream of consciousness style at hand very clearly shows the fragility of Bobby and his lack of answers for his own questions. Only after he lets the lines “slither around his wrists, past his palms, through his fingers” are the concise words “Go figure. Embrace” left to sit within the mind of the reader. It seems as if Bobby, who has been seemingly unable to really fulfill his own needs through the plot, has finally attained some sort of self-satisfaction (268). Yamashita finishes this section with “That’s it,” a classic display of Bobby’s short worded sections, to capture the notion that life itself can be not only unpredictable (the outcome of the fight), but also simple.

Connecting scenes in The Professor's House

            In The Professor’s House, I find it interesting how Cather weaves character interactions together into the novel to give the reader a better understanding of what is actually going on. Drawing a parallel between St. Peter’s comments about vanity on pages 37 and 52, it becomes clear for the first time that there is an obvious division in Cather's characterization of St. Peter and Kathleen on one side and Louie, Rosamond and Lillian on the other. As they discuss Louie and Rosamond’s decision to name the house ‘Outland’, Mrs. St. Peter is completely unable to understand her husband’s distaste with the lack of humbleness. As St. Peter says, “a man should do fine deeds and not speak of them…It's a nice idea, reserve about one's deepest feelings: keeps them fresh" (37). He talks condescendingly to Lillian; it is almost as if there is no hope for her to understand the point he is trying to make.

          Directly relating to this passage is St. Peter’s description of his daughter, Kathleen, and his respect for her ability to stay humble. St. Peter admires that ‘Kitty’ “doesn’t think herself a bit unusual”; something very uncommon to him. The girls St. Peter teach “who have a spark of aptitude for anything seem to think themselves remarkable” (52). Cather interestingly lays the framework of the family dynamic for the remainder of the book through these descriptions of vanity that St. Peter so clearly despises. In what other ways does Cather entwine pieces of the narrative together to give the reader an enlightened view of character relationships?