Wilder, O'Connor, Potok: A trio of excellence
Thornton Wilder's Our Town, one of three great literary works covered in this essay, succeeds by using a simple plot to deliver a powerful message. On the surface, the play chronicles the everyday hardships of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. The main characters are hardly revolutionary: George Gibbs and Emily Webb go to school, fall in love, get married and experience the pain of death. But beneath this simple story lies deeper truths. The audience, which itself is a part of the play - the production is called "Our" Town after all - sees how each action, no matter how small, is actually profound.
Wilder makes clear early on that nothing should be taken for granted, even a simple letter. George's sister, Rebecca, recalls how a friend received a letter that was addressed: "the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God" (Wilder 45). Indeed, the whole play, which by itself is rather ordinary, is set in the context of the extraordinary workings of the entire universe. When Emily arrives in Purgatory, a man from among the dead tells her that life on Earth is insignificant compared to the cosmos: "And my boy, Joel, who knew the stars-he used to say it took millions of years for that speck o' light to git to the earth," the man says (102). Yet Emily correctly sees that life "goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another" (100), because people are so concerned with their daily worries. As people sleepwalk through life, they seem amazed when they find that they are no longer young and that "white-haired lady at your side has eaten over fifty thousand meals with you" (60). What Emily asks at the end of the play resonates with the viewer: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?-every minute?" (100). Wilder suggests most do not, and his play is trying to wake them up.
Like Wilder, Flannery O'Connor tries to shake some sense into humanity by presenting characters who fail to take responsibility for their actions. The grandmother from A Good Man is Hard to Find is a classic relative from hell. In many ways the grandmother is a detestable character - rather than taking the blame for how her family has turned out, she hides behind xenophobia and a false sense of nobility. As the matriarch of the family, the grandmother should command respect - but it's understandable why June Star and John Wesley treat her awfully: she shows little respect for others, while holding herself too highly. The narrator points out how "The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right" (O'Connor 38). While the grandmother likely refers to post-war rebuilding projects, she simply blames Europe for all the entire country's troubles, including her own. Her sense of nobility is also a sham, a remnant of the Old South's slaveholding ways: "Little niggers in the country don't have things like we do," (34) she instructs the children when they see a black child with no britches. The grandmother's insensitivity is so appalling that when she gets shot at the end of story one almost feels satisfied.
The Misfit fails to take responsibility for his crimes, but blames the justice system and the failings of religion. The Misfit, who was locked away before but escaped, says that "they could prove I had committed [a crime] because they had the papers on me," (49) a claim he denies. "I call myself the 'Misfit,'" he says, because "I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment" (50). Likewise, rather accept that he has chosen a life of butchery, the Misfit goes so far as to blame Christ. By rising from the dead, "He thrown everything off balance," (47) the Misfit says. Unsure whether this event happened, the Misfit prefers to take his chances "by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him." For him, there is "no pleasure but meanness" (50). The Misfit, who claims he has held such diverse careers as gospel singer and railroad man, represents the worst of humanity. When man has abandoned all responsibility, the result is utter chaos - a threat O'Connor tries to warn us about.
Chaim Potok's The Chosen also qualifies as great literature because it interweaves war imagery throughout this coming of age story. The novel takes place with World War II as a backdrop, and just as the Allies and Axis clash, the characters do as well. The first scene of the novel, a baseball game, is filled with battlefield imagery. The Hasidic Jews are referred to as "murderers" (Potok 7), and Reuven Malter's team is told, "No heroes in this war now . . . I want live soldiers, not dead heroes," by their coach (17). As the game continues, Reuven finds himself caught up in something greater than himself - a battle for the soul of Judaism. Angry at the opposing team, he realizes "at that point that for me the game stopped being merely a game and became a war" (24). This battle between conservative and moderate Jews is played up to a more violent effect several years later. Reuven observes at his college that "Toward the middle of February, the various factions began to firm up their ranks as the entire spectrum of Zionist youth movements moved into the school in a drive for membership" (228). These students are rising up to defend their beliefs, but unfortunately the only casualty - for a time - is Reuven's friendship with Danny Saunders.
Potok also uses war references to call the reader's attention to certain passages. For instance, when Reuven first meets Reb Saunders, he encounters a blind man tentatively tapping his metal-capped cane, "which served him for the eyes he had lost in a First World War trench during a German gas attack" (121). Like the man, Reuven is blind walking into this new world, anxious and unsure what to expect from the powerful rabbi. In a more powerful reference, Potok reveals how the Jewish holocaust temporarily unites all factions of the faith: "Both Reb Saunders and my father were quite ill on the day in May when word finally came that the war in Europe was over" (189). The war imagery thus reveals how conflict not only ravages nations, but how it can destroy man on a personal, emotional level as well.
1,119 words, 3 pages
|
Home
