Silence surfaces again in Noon Wine. Mr. Helton is a conspicuously silent character as far as speech is concerned, but he fills that silence with his single, repeated harmonica song. I found the intersection of different kinds of texts in this story interesting, in that sense, but I'm not sure what to do with all of them. I'll just list some of the different "texts" I noticed, and maybe someone will have some ideas?...
First of all, Mr. Helton's silence is a text, just as much as his rare speech, and his harmonica song.
Then again, the translation and interpretation of the song by Mr. Hatch is a kind of text in itself (albeit an unreliable one), that alters the way we read the first song text.
The brief information Helton offers about his life is a text, which is opposed and framed by the text offered by Hatch concerning the tale of Helton's past.
Even in Hatch's story, the text within a text--Helton's letter to his mother--acts as a thread between the overlapping texts of the story. I think the fact that Mr. Thompson feels the Mr. Hatch is twisting his words underlines this signficant theme: there is never a pure text in a vacuum--all texts are dependent on others. I think the significance of this theme plays out at the end of the story, when Mr. Thompson is struggling to grasp hold of a single truth.
His visual text told him one thing--that Hatch stabbed Helton. However, his visual text was contradicted by the reports of the police (which represent yet another interdependent text). He attempts to assert an authoritative text through speech, by going around repeating a verbal narration of the event to his neighbors. In the end, he chooses the most authoritative form of text available to establish his own limited truth--as far as he knows it, and to the best of his ability--by deliberately undertaking the act of writing as suicide note. Logos and Parole are jumping all over each other in this piece. Any thoughts on what to do with it?
3 comments:
That's Saussure, right? What are Logos and Parole again?
In broad definition, logos just means the written sign and parole is the spoken word. Usually, logos is thought of as static and dead, while parole is living and constantly subject to change. (Kind of an interesting thing to consider when you're talking about suicide notes).
Given how laconic Mr. Helton is throughout his stay at the dairy, I think you could consider him a textless character except for his harmonicas. Those gain more importance as the story closes, given Hatch's explanation for the inciting incident of his brother's death as the harmonica, the foreshadowing of Mr. Helton's instability to Mrs. Thompson because of the harmonicas, and its incessant presence that the Thompsons find quaint, then annoying, and finally a comfort.
Could we read Helton's presence in the harmonica as the impotence of words? (Maybe I'm stuck on my masculinity kick.) Thompson can't increase his standing through the spoken word, something that Mr. Helton forewent long ago to play that song.
Of course, the harmonica doesn't function as a substitute for words. Hatch says of the song that "the words ain't much, but it's a pretty tune." (246) They seem more to be an extension of Mr. Helton - when the posse goes out to capture him, Helton "had tow harmonicas in his jumper pocket, said the sheriff, but they fell out in the scuffle, and Mr. Helton tried to pick 'em up again, and that's when they finally got him." (259)
So is silencing Mr. Helton - in the loss of his harmonicas - the real death? Is silencing Thompson - the neighbors, his family not believing his story - the real death, and suicide only a formality?
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