In reading this story, I had no idea what undulant fever might be. I have looked it up online, and since most of the issues and themes I also saw in the story have already been posted beautifully, I will give a little background as to what I have discovered.
Mrs. Fox was correct: undulant fever, or Brucellosis, can indeed be caused by consuming unpasturized or bad milk. It is very ironic that she blamed the milk he had "up there" in the big city for getting him sick when every account of the disease I can find online states that the bacteria come from farm animals and their products, thus hinting that he must have gotten sick from the family farm.
All accounts online state that it is indeed treatable with antibiotics, but on pg. 571, Dr. Block states that "it'll keep coming back." Modern research states that this is clearly not so, but I wonder if this was the belief about the disease at the time or if O'Connor is supporting Asbury's claim that Block was an incompetent doctor who didn't know what he was doing.
Interestingly, in addition to all the physical pain, another symptom of undulant fever is servere mental depression. I am wondering if O'Connor meant this to have any bearings on Asbury's gloom and doom. Are we merely to view him as the cliched tortured artist, or is the disease more to blame for his mental state? Any thoughts?
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I think maybe his depression is a little of both. I mean, at least when I get sick, I feel down and if I'm sick long enough and have to stay in bed, I get really depressed. But I also think he thinks lowly of the people around him, and there is no pleasing him, even when he gets what he wants (like the priest). Actually, he kind of reminded me of myself when I was just becoming a teenager. I truly believed no one understood anything, especially my mom, and that I was the only person who understood anything. It led me to being depressed all the time and angry. [I would also like to take a moment to apologize to my mother for my teenage angst and bratiness]
But I definitely think it is possible that his being sick was part of his mental state. I know we talked about O'Connor's illness so this could definitely be an insight to her feelings!
Yes! I could not help but think of O'Connor too. I know we talked in class about resisting the urge to take authorial background and intent into consideration, but out of all we've read this semester, this was the most difficult to stick to that!
I kept thinking that by this time, O'Connor knew she would die from lupus (diagnosed in 1951). This knowledge and feeling sick all the time really resonante in Asbury, and I apologize if we should be trying to refrain from looking at authorial background, but I couldn't help it.
It also makes me wonder... If O'Connor is embodying Asbury with these personal characteristics of being sick and that affecting the mental state, she surely does not place him on a pedestal or write this character expecting pity from the audience, I don't think.
I believe, or at least I interpret, O’Connor’s description of Asbury’s “gloom and doom” as a result of being a tortured artist. He seems overly depressed and nasty towards his family and I believe this is a result of him never accomplishing anything in writing. He feels he has failed as not just a writer, but as an artist.
I believe that O’Connor writes this story with the purpose of us not eliciting any kind of sympathy for Asbury. Yes, he has an illness that, according to him, inhibits him from writing and drains him of any kind of energy but, he is a cruel and unappreciative person. He never once thanks his mother for picking him up from the train station, nor does he thank her for letting him return to live with her. She waits on him hand and foot; she constantly thinks about his well being and is always concerned with the doctor being present to take care of him. She seems like a ‘normal’ loving mother. Asbury simply exists; he stays in his room, he’s nasty to people and he waits to die. How can anyone feel sympathetic towards a character like this?
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