Final Thoughts TVBA

I really took the ending of the story to mean that Tarwater has transformed into an evil monster. It is almost as if he is going to prey on the "sleeping" city dwellers. From what we know psychopathic killers often have been subjected to assualt or rape, have parental or familiar figures missing in their young childhood, and often believe strongly in perverted or skewed doctrines (I think at one point in class we talked about how the bad people in these short stories often take certain good beliefs to extremes, making them evil). I am left at the end of this story feeling like I do not know who Tarwater is, what he is capable of doing, or his motives in doing anything that he does. I do know, however that he has been through a lot, has violent tendencies, and is able to justify murder with very random logic.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

The fact that O'Connor does not describe the assault on Tarwater in graphic terms is surprising, as she is best known for her grotesque style of writing. As was previously mentioned, the nature of the assault (homosexual) would have undoubtedly been taboo during O'Connor's time. However, I do not think that a societal ideology would prevent O'Connor from writing as she saw fit. O'Connor, being very familiar with the bible would have known the following verse from Matthew 5:27-8 "You have heard that it was said, You must not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." In the same sense, O'Connor, by implying the assault of Tarwater, has already committed the act, there is no masking it. Moreover, it does not appear to be O'Connor's intent to mask this occurence. I'm not particularly sure if that verse is really pertinent as to whether or not O'Connor left the assault so vague due to societal ideologies, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. : )

Implied violence in TVBIA

Jennifer brings up a great question. Why is the sexual assault of Tarwater implied at the end of "The Violent Bear it Away"? O'Connor is so graphic in other instances, but why so subtle here?

I have two thoughts. The first has to do with the timing of the story. Sexual assault is a much more accepted topic in literature and film these days than it was back then. For better or worse, audiences are accustomed to graphic sexual violence. O'Connor may have had to tone it down for the times. Especially as it was homosexual in nature.

Another possible explanation is that it parallels the assault on Bishop. As graphic as this story can be, when Tarwater kills him, we are left on the bank of the lake with Rayber. The death is implied and confirmed later. Same with Tarwater. I suspected he would be murdered, but in the end we learn he is assaulted.

There is also the notion that implied violence is more frightening than witnessed violence in literature. Could anything be creepier than the image of Bishop disappearing into the darkness, being taken away by Tarwater while we're left on the bank? Same for the sexual assault. The image of a 14-year-old boy getting dressed after being driven down a remote dirt road is more disturbing than anything O'Connor could have given us in way of description of the assault itself.

I liken this to "A Good Man is Hard to Find," when the Misfit has his henchmen systematically take the family into the woods to execute them. We don't see their deaths, and this makes it all the more unsettling.

Turning Away From Violence/ Bishop the Martyr

I find it interesting that in the final sections of TVBIA, O'Connor studiously avoids showing Bishop's death. The reader is given the moments leading up to Tarwater's actually immersing the boy, and Rayber's perspective of hearing the death, but no direct description of the moment. This is interesting to me because, in so much of her work, O'Connor often rubs the reader's nose in horror, in moments of unspeakable violence and hate. Why the reticence here? Perhaps it is because the death resonates more powerfully as a symbolic moment, rather than a heinous crime, when the reader is given only fragments of detail and allowed to piece together the event for his/herself. Another instance of this turning away from the horrible is Tarwater's rape towards the end. Once again, the reader only receives hints and insinuations, the moments before and after but not the moment itself. Perhaps it would be too sensationalistic/exploitative of O'Connor to have reveled in the details of these violent acts, I tend to think so. There is enough direct violence in this story (the description of Bishop's first drowning), so that any more might have been in bad taste and would have diminished the intellectual/spiritual power of this story.

Another thing I find interesting is the positing of Bishop as a christian martyr, perhaps analogous to Christ. Like Christ, Bishop's father sends him willingly into the hands of his executioner(s) and does nothing to prevent his death. And, like Christ, the end of TVBIA seems to indicate that Bishop's only purpose in life was to die, that his life, though lived in tenderness towards those that showed him none, was the life of a lamb whose death feeds the living. Bishop dies so that Tarwater and Rayber can live. They are no longer bound to this boy (Rayber from his burning love and Tarwater from his impulse to Baptise) and are set free from one another. That Bishop's life was no more than a symbol is shown by the ease with which Rayber and Tarwater accept his death; neither think of him as a real human being, whose murder is a horrible act of brutality, rather they only see his death as it affects themselves. His death literally sets the world aflame, burning the eyes of his murderers and driving their lives towards destiny.

The Violent Bear it Away Chs VIII-XI

Whoa. Once again we get quite an interesting O'Connor scene. I also thought the stranger scene was very intriguing, and I also wanted to post on the theme of driving away that occurs in this story twice and also in some of her other stories. I mentioned this in one of my other posts, but I thought I would comment more on it, because it ties in with the other posts and with the scene with the stranger.

In the first car scene, Tarwater gets in the car with a stranger, and starts to drive away. Then in the later scene, Tarwater gets in a car with a stranger, and starts to drive away. I think it is interesting how these two scenes are similar, but yet totally different. The thing I wanted to focus on with these two scenes (and in other stories) is how the characters think they are driving far away, and in a sense driving away from their troubles, but then they just end up in the same place, or in a way worse place (from the frying pan into the fire). I think the characters think that they are in a sense leaving it all behind and starting over, but in reality they are not.

I think this could also tie in with what other people have been commenting on in class and on this blog about the transition between rural and city areas. In a lot of ways they are transitioning between rural and city values and traditions, but in a lot of ways, things do not really improve when they go from place to place, so we never really get a sense of what is considered better. They are just different from one another.

Also, I was interested to find out what other people thought about the very, very last scene in the last paragraph. I hate to sound dense, but what was going on in this paragraph?

Could the Schoolteacher Have Saved Tarwater?

It seems to me that the real tragedy in this story is the schoolteacher's inability to connect in any way with anyone. He tries hard to convert Tarwater to his way of thinking by spending every minute of every day with him but his methods do not have any affect at all. If he had taken a less direct and offensive route to establishing a relationship with Tarwater he may have been able to make some kind of impact on his life. If he had recognized the danger of taking an obviously disturbed young man into his house he might have approached the situation differently. If he hadn't felt such strong desire to have an immediate impact on Tarwater's his life he might have considered it logical to demand good behavior from him in return for his room and board. Perhaps if the schoolteacher had been more stern and detached from Tarwater instead of trying to immediately replace old Tarwater as another deranged father figure he could have forced Tarwater into reacting with his peers or anything else in the world that is relevant he could have saved Tarwater, Bishop, and himself.

Strangers in If the Violent Bear it Away

While reading about the strangers that drive Tarwater back to his home, I could not help but wonder why O'Conner decided to have the one man whom drives him during the night and is using him to stay awake an then the other man whom assaults him. I was thinking maybe she was using the first man to clarify what occurred with Bishop and Tarwater and how Tarwater feels about drowning Bishop. Tarwater not only cannot stop obsessing about his murder but also he feels ill. So it was nice to see that Tarwater has some remorse because he just seemed so cold and heartless throughout the story to me. Like how he tries to burn Old Tarwater's body rather than burying him properly and also how he treats Bishop throughout the rest of the story.

I also thought it was interesting how the first man just abandons Tarwater and kicks him out of the truck because he does not drive people during the day. It just seemed odd that the driver suddenly had a change of heart about driving him especially since he kept grilling Tarwater about his life. Maybe he decided to abandon him because Tarwater was seemingly disturbing talking about drowning Bishop and baptizing him and even when the driver tried to change the subject he brught up the fact that he was born in a wreck. So maybe the driver just did not want to know anymore about Tarwater's life which is understandble in my opinion.

The stranger that picks him up after shocked me I did not think that Tarwater was going to be assaulted in the woods but I guess their was the hint of him making fun of him for not smoking and what not. It just seemed odd that O'Conner placed this at the end of the story it seems out of place and does not really make sense to me because it happens and then it seems to be over and he does not bring it up again after he burns the brush that it occurred in. I wonder why she decided to have this piece of violence placed within the story. Which is also odd because O'Conner and Porter both describe the violence within their stories very elaborately and in a brutal manner where in this story it is barely alluded to and really the only clues that it is a sexual assault is the fact that his clothes are laying right next to him.

So I was just wondering what everyone thought about O'Conner's theme of strangers and why these two men are supposedly helping Tarwater but end up kind of taking advantage of him in very different ways, one sexual and the other by tyring to keep himself awake? And why does the violence in the assault differ from how O'Conner usually expresses violence within her stories?

"The Stranger" scene towards the end of TVBIA

I wanted to discuss the scene that takes place on pages 469-472, in which young Tarwater is hitching and is picked up by a man that takes advantage of him.

This scene was so very horrifying to me for a number of reasons.  Also, I am unsure what O'Connor is doing with adding this scene in, which seems to stick out like a sore thumb.  What transpires is horrifying enough:  young Tarwater is attacked or assaulted (sexually or not, we do not know) by the driver after getting him drunk.  However, what was actually more jarring and unsettling for me was Tarwater after this:  He seems to have no reaction.  He is not alarmed.  He does not appear to be sick or in pain from either a hangover or what might have transpired.  He is merely numb and disassociated, as if he were so mesmerized by his one mission that the fact of his assault leaves no imprint upon him.

The man also steals Tarwater's hat and bottle opener/corkscrew.  I see the hat as representing Tarwater's identity.  The narrator tells us very early on that neither Tarwater nor the old uncle removed their hats often at all, and Rayber was very frustrated at this.  So the hat could be the part of Tarwater that wanted to stay true to the old uncle.  In stealing this, the attacker is stealing Tarwater's identity or agency, but how does this affect him?  When he wakes up Tarwater still continues to the old homestead seemingly unaffected and unchanged.

I have also noticed that O'Connor continually refers to this attacker as "the stranger."  It is a blatant contrast to the other driver that gives Tarwater a ride in this story.  He has a name:  Meeks.  This time we are not given a name, but the title "the stranger" is the same title O'Connor gives to the little voice inside Tarwater's head (of course we know that the name for the voice eventually evolves from "the stranger" to "the friend).  Could O'Connor be making some sort of connection between the attacker and the voice?  On page 469, Tarwater realizes there is something very familiar about this guy.  What could that be?

I was wondering if anyone else also felt so very unsettled in reading this scene.  Maybe that was O'Connor's point?  Maybe this is the big moment of violence in this story (not considering Bishop's drowning, of course)?  And if so, why does Tarwater leave it so unaffected?  Or does he after all?

Baptism

The event in "The Violent Bear it Away" that I found most compelling is the act of Rayber baptising Francis.

In the 430s, Rayber and Francis go boating on the lake. They have a frank discussion with Rayber "preaching" to Francis about the direction his life is going. On 438, Francis gets sick, and Rayber says to him, in the lingo of the Christians, "You need to be saved right here now from the old man and everything he stands for. And I'm the one who can save you."

Ironic, huh?

What follows is Francis abandoning the boat and submerging himself in the lake and swimming back to shore. Rayber then drops his old clothes--a remnant of his time with Tarwater--into the lake so that Francis will have to wear the new clothes he's bought him.

This event is huge, if you ask me. For one thing, the tension of the previous chapters came from the question of whether or not Francis was going to baptize Bishop, then all the sudden O'Connor throws us this twist.

The greatest irony, though, is Rayber. He dismisses the act of baptism itself, then, ritualistically at least, performs it himself. Though he professes that the ritual, which imposes other's values onto another, is flawed and meaningless, Rayber himself carries out a similar ritual, stripping Francis of his old clothes so that he has to wear the new suit he bought him--as if a new suit would change his behavior and their relationship.

There's also the issue of water, which is huge in this story, such as Rayber's earlier attempt to drown Bishop. On page 434 O'Connor ominously writes, "... water is made for more than one thing." It can cleanse or it can kill. And sometimes, with these characters, it's hard to tell if they can see a difference between the two.

The Violent Bear It Away

After class today I started thinking about what it means to be baptized. In the catholic faith when a person is baptized they are formally becoming a member of the Church. However, does baptism have any significant meaning to anyone other than the person being baptized? It seems to me that the act of baptism and the responsibilities that come along with it only has meaning to the person who is being baptized. To them, they are now a member of the Church, they are cleansed of their sins and they can start new; they are reborn. On the other hand, this action has no affect on anyone else. It does not alter the way someone else interacts with this baptized person, nor does influence others in any significant way. This leads me to my question: If Bishop were baptized, would he really know what that meant? It would mean something to Rayber, simply because he is extremely anti-religious, but would Bishop be affected? Bishop was already (in a way) baptized when Rayber tried to drown him. He died and was reborn, which is a baptism. However, Rayber does not see this act as a baptism, even though it is. This drowning and rebirth has no affect on Rayber and if he did not care so much about religion, a real baptism would have the same affect on him as well. By baptizing Bishop, Tarwater would be happy because he would feel his mission is fulfilled regardless of whether or not Bishop continued a Christian lifestyle. Tarwater simply wants to perform the act of baptism. I am sorry for the rambling and somewhat nonsensical ideas. I am not quite sure where to go with this but I felt as though there was something there, now as I continue to ramble I feel as though I am not making any sense. Does any one else see where I’m going with this?

The Violent Bear It Away

I find the young boy, Bishop, very interesting. He is yet another one of the unidentified characters that O‘Connor writes about; he is a silent character and is only described by the words of others. He never makes his feeling known. We learn about Bishop through the words and actions of others. Even though Bishop does not have a voice his role in this story is very important. He, is almost, the center of the story because without him it seems as if this story would not exist. Tarwater’s purpose revolves around his ability to baptize the young boy. As we have learned from other stories by Porter and O’Connor, the lesson and message within their stories lie within the study of the silent character.

Tarwater has compared Bishop to several different animals. He compares him to a hog at dinner one night and then he compares him to a dog. O’Connor than makes yet another kind of animal reference without actually naming a type of animal. “The child began to scramble up the steps on his hands and knees, kicking his feet up on each one” (O’Connor 427). I can imagine any child climbing a set of stairs like this (I’m sure I climbed stairs on my hands and knees when I was younger) but in this case, since Bishop has been compared to animals in the past, I get the impression that O’Connor is referring to animalistic qualities of Bishop. When I picture him climbing the stairs I imagine some sort of dog scampering up the steps. I find it very interesting that these authors use their silent characters as their message carriers. Perhaps this shows us that it is the quiet people, the ones who observe life, who hold the answers. Since they merely observe the world that surrounds them they are able to scrutinize and examine what is really going on. In Bishop’s case, he is surrounded by anger and frustration yet he still maintains a kind and loving outlook on life.

The Violent Bear it Away, Chs III-VII

Something I noticed when I started to read chapter three was the name "Habakkuk." I did not know who this was and how this was significant , so I decided to Google it, and this is a brief synopsis of what I found in a nutshell: Habakkuk (his name means "wrestle" or "embrace") was a prophet in 620 B.C. and wrestled with the issue of if God is good than why is there evil in the world. According to bible.org (love that web address!), the story of Habakkuk is supposed to teach us that, "1)God sometimes seems to be inactive, but He is involved, 2)God is holy, 3)God hears and answers prayers, 4)God sometimes gives unexpected to our prayers, 5)God is just and God is good, 6)The righteous live by faith and faithfulness."

Unfortunately, since I did not know who Habakkuk was, I had to look this up online. Maybe someone has more to add to this explanation?

Anyway, this brought up what we were talking about in class about what is a prophet? I do not have a good answer for this yet, but I thought I might start working through one. When I hear the word "prophet" I usually think of someone that tries to spread the word of God and interpret what God means. With this story, I started thinking about which characters are considered prophets (I think they all three could be considered prophets, or consider themselves to be prophets). All three are trying to interpret the word of God, and trying to spread the word of God and baptize each other.

Another thing that I think is interesting that goes along with religion is how the characters in this story all seem to be making religion their own. This got me thinking down a really philosophical path of how much is religion made up of what we choose to believe and how is faith formed by what we believe? In this story, the characters seem to be making a religion all their own and they seem to think that they are the ones that are right.

Here is the website I used to look up Habakkuk:
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=975

Exploitation and Love in The Violent Bear it Away

One of the things I've been noticing throughout this story is the constant exploitation of children by the adults around them. Both of the central adult figures (Mason and Rayber) treat children not as individuals, but as things to be molded into reproductions of themselves. Mason's exploitative attitude towards children is obvious from the beginning and is remunerated throughout the story: he seems to need an impressionable template on which to imprint his ideas. His first attempt at this self-reproduction (kidnapping Rayber) is a failure, so, years later, he kidnaps Tarwater, a boy who has no real parents to claim him or give him love. Because of the conditions of his conception, Tarwater is a perfect disciple for Mason, whose satisfaction in life derives solely from his belief that his "work" will be continued by the boy after death.

Rayber is no better in his attitude towards Tarwater, and children in general. Like Mason, Rayber sees the boy not as an innocent in need of love and support, but more like a lump of wet clay, ready to be remade in whatever image satisfies his own insecurities but somewhat resistant: in need of a firm hand. When Tarwater arrives at Rayber's door, Rayber does not give him comfort or love (perhaps the essential elements of a healthy childhood), but instead immediately begins insinuating his own worldview into the boys mind and telling him he will be "free." Like Mason, Rayber's idea of individuality has nothing to do with independence, but is instead only a mask disguising an urge to recreate himself, a narcissistic impulse that is also self-loathing: Rayber sees, in Tarwater, a chance to create himself as he should have been, without their mutual uncle's "corrupting" influence. This feeling is not unique to Tarwater; Rayber admits wanting a child from the "welfare woman" for the purposes of raising it to his specifications, not because of any innate need for love or family. At the Pentecostal meeting, the young-girl preacher, whom Rayber recognizes as being exploited by her parents, causes him to experience a vision of himself whisking all the supposedly-exploited children of the world away to a place where outside minds cannot influence them, except his, of course.

The boy Bishop, however, throws a wrench into this rotation of exploitation-escape-exploitation. Because he is "slow," Bishop is beyond exploitation: he cannot be molded or rewrought, he is a true individual in the isolation of his condition. It is because of this that Rayber experiences the "hated love" for his son that "gripped him and held him in a vice." Because Bishop is beyond exploitation, he becomes an irresistible receptacle for genuine love: a caring and comfort without need of recompense or recognition. This is the love that Tarwater needs (and which Rayber needed, as shown by the brief stories of his childhood), but does not receive by either of the adults in his life. If he had received any earnest, unconditional love in his life, if he had known a place in the world where he was wanted and not just needed, perhaps he would not have to struggle to find his place within the world. I believe Bishop is a symbol of love, a being that asks for nothing and gives only kindness, with no thought of consequence.

On a side note, I find it interesting that Bishop was in fact baptised and reborn in his father's attempt to drown him. I don't really know what to make of that in relation to Mason's/Tarwater's need to baptise him, but maybe someone else can shed some light?

Eyes in TVBIA

What interested me the most about this reading was that O'Connor utilized "eyes" even more than in our reading for Monday. She represents the characters' moods through the imagery of their eyes, whether it be through the use of color, light/darkness, or the shape she describes. The schoolteacher sees himself in the face of Tarwater, noticing that the only difference between then is their eyes. He observes, "The face before him was his own, but the eyes were not his own. They were the student's eyes, signed with guilt" (pg. 392). In expressing Tarwater's rage, O'Connor paints her readers a picture through his eyes. "The boy turned very white. His eyes were blackened by the shadow of some unspeakable outrage" (pg. 397). His character represents Old Tarwater in this reading, through the interaction with the schoolteacher, and the evil which comes out through his eyes. When Tarwater notices where Old Tarwater shot the schoolteacher, "he looked up and his gaze fastened on the gash in his uncle's ear. Somewhere in the depths of his eyes a glint appeared. 'Shot yer, didn't he?' he said" (pg. 394). As I was reading today's section, I felt that I got a further glimpse into the characters through O'Connor's portrayal of their eyes, letting us in to their thoughts.

TVBIAA

Spiritual warfare, between the uncle and the school teacher, the uncle and society, or the boy and himself is a prevalent character struggle thought the story so far. O'Connor uses this to show inner struggle. weather it is the Prophets drinking, or Tarwater's betrayal of his great uncle's wishes. There is a very different sense of what is right and wrong and it varies from character to character. The whole situation with burying the grandfather and Tarwater's seemingly possessed "stranger" with the other voice is very counter intuitive, and when he goes with the teacher seems so far from reality but then again it also seems logical. At the same time Tarwater's adult attitude is almost creepy, but with his upbringing you understand it as well. I still have no idea where this story is going and what I am going to take out of it, but O'Connor does use beautiful imagery, and very evocative scenes.

Guilt vs Sanity of Rayber

I agree with Austin and Brad in the second part of The Violent Bear it Away we have to questions Rayber sanity. Rayber seems completely drenched in guilt that he could not save Tarwater from the Old man earlier and this idea and the fact that it is his sister's son seems to haunt him. He even describes Tarwater as looking like him, probably not just because of the family likeness but because Tarwater had to live the life that Rayber barely escaped.

I think this plays into his guilt about not getting his nephew earlier, the idea that he escaped this life of religious influence and becoming a prophet whereas Tarwater not only did not escape it but is still influenced by the Old Man's words and the guilt of not burying the Old Man but rather burning him instead.

It seems that Rayber takes his guilt to a whole new level when he allows his own son to be harmed by Tarwater. We have to conclude that his only interest is the interest in trying to fix Tarwater which becomes the obsession that leads to his downfall because he cannot see what is coming.

I feel really bad for Rayber and Tarwater it seems like they have been haunted by this notion of becoming a prophet and everyone in their family has suffered from it, whether it be kidnappings, death, or losing ones mind. They all have been placed with this curse of becoming a prophet which is ironic due to the fact that it is supposedly a blessing.

Family Ties in TVBIA

Brad makes an apt point: "The rational schoolteacher constantly has to fight against falling into madness, which would make him no different than the old uncle." The schoolteacher feels that there is an affliction in the family, and that "[t]he old man had been ruled by it. He, at the cost of a full life, staved it off." (402) Here I would differ with the schoolteacher. The old man has handed down the baptism of Bishop to Tarwater. "'Either [Tarwater] or me [the old man] is going to baptize that child. If not me in my day, him in his.'" (351) So the schoolteacher removes himself from his uncle by not baptizing his child, and so fends off the madness that he fears he has inherited.

To get an idea of what a Tarwater family baptism entails, we can look at the schoolteacher's experience at the hands of his uncle, in the stream where "his head had been thrust by his uncle into the water and brought up again into a new life." (409) There's a parallel between this scene and the schoolteacher's attempted drowning of Bishop, where Rayber forces Bishop "below the surface on his back and held him there, not looking down at what he was doing but up, at an imperturbable witnessing sky" (418). It's strange that Rayber tries to drown his child in a way that he can see his face, and the position speaks to Bevel's baptism, when he too is dipped on his back. And Rayber looks up, as if for guidance or at least approval from God, and add into the mix the word witness, which one usually bears in a religious right -- all of this makes me think that the calling didn't skip a generation after all: Rayber has done the Tarwaters' work for them. Bishop has been baptised.

The cyclical relationship that we discussed in class, of inter-generational kidnappings, and especially the family tree, put me in a mind to look at Tarwater the elder, Rayber, and Tarwater the younger as all victims to that kind of Greek "sins of the fathers" fate - for what Pelops did, isn't just everyone on down to Orestes punished for it. Every - uncle? nephew? - with Tarwater blood has the same work cut out for him: propheteering. What makes Francis Marion so special is that he is the end of the line - he has no sister to have children to be uncle to. Whatever work God has in mind for the Tarwaters ends with the youngest one. The line ends with him.

And as long as I'm talking about family, I wanted to bring up the veritable absence of fathers in O'Connor's work. We know that O'Connor's father died young, of the same disease that she suffers from. We know that she dedicated The Violent Bear It Away to her father, Edward Francis O'Connor, who shares his middle name with the main character who refuses to be called by it. Also in this novel, we have one of the few major father characters in any work of hers we've read - Rayber. (And Rayber is a terrible father; he tries to kill his son and in attempting to act as a father figure Tarwater, the boy is horrified and outraged (397).) Beyond Old Dudley/Tanner and Bevel's shell of a dad, I can't think of any. Mr. Head was Nelson's maternal grandfather, Mr. Turpin had no children, the Lucynells were haunted by their husband/father's car, and I can't remember if Hulga's father is ever mentioned. I'm probably missing out on a few, but I think it's interesting to tell a story of bloodlines so indirectly, - from uncle to nephew/uncle to nephew - especially when fathers are so absent.

It probably isn't a good idea for me to try to psychoanalyze Flannery O'Connor, but when she's always talking about a father in heaven, I figure it bears some thought.

Insanity and Love in TVBIA, Day II

Building off the last post, I would like to talk about insanity.  In the reading for Day II of this novel, O'Connor gives us an insight into Rayber/the schoolteacher.  Rayber formulates something of a binary opposition of insanity vs. rationality, and of course, the old uncle represents the insane side of this divide for Rayber.  

The rational schoolteacher constantly has to fight against falling into madness, which would make him no different than the old uncle.  What I am interested in his looking at how Rayber characterizes this madness.  The narrator often speaks of this madness in connection to Bishop, whom Rayber usually ignores, but at times "he would experience a love for the child so outrageous that he would be left shocked and depressed for days, and trembling for his sanity" (pg. 401).  It is a love that "terrified him," that is "completely irrational and abnormal" and would "overcome him....dragging him backwards to what he knew to be madness" (pg. 401).

It is so jarring to see love described in such a way.  Insanity and madness are not usually lumped together with love, which is usually seen as a very natural, universal emotion.  Just a few pages down, O'Connor has the little girl at the tent revival stating that "Jesus is love" (pg. 412), and I'm sure this cannot be a coincidence.

Rayber is talking about passion, but it seems as though to him, anything other than logic or rationality leads to madness, so he must suppress his passions and view love as something horrifying.  Is this why he attempts to drown Bishop, out of the incapacity to accept and understand his emotions and passions?  I am very interested to see what becomes of this as we get to the third part of the novel.  Any thoughts?

Insanity and Isolation

Isolation is a major factor in the insanity that afflicts the Tarwaters. The old man and his nephew live in complete isolation from the rest of the world, and old Tarwater seems to be unable to understand the way that his ‘prophesies’ and visions fit into a larger social structure. As a prophet he preaches his own beliefs to no one except his nephew. He believes that he has direct contact with God, but his own inability to connect with anyone from the real world makes his prophesies worthless. The boy becomes a soundboard for the absurd preaching of the old man, but this is not the source of his own madness. The schoolteacher was also exposed to the madness of the old man, but the fact that he had a family that came to save him from an isolated existence in the forest saved him from becoming disassociated from society. The visions and hallucinations of the old man may be a madness that he had possessed his whole life, but because he was unattached the rest of the world he was able to drift further into madness. His young nephew was able to maintain a somewhat healthy mentality through a relationship with his insane uncle, but when he was left on his own he was visited by a detached voice that became his new friend and a reassurance to him. Initially it seems to keep him grounded by providing some reference point outside of his own consciousness, but unless he becomes permanently anchored through a relationship with real people his alternate consciousness could drive him further into isolation and insanity.

The Violent Bear it Away

I was actually surprised at how much O'Connor gave away in this first section of The Violent Bear it Away. Usually we ponder different ideas and possibilities of what O'Connor might be telling her readers, or what/who something/someone symbolizes in the text. The boy's thoughts are revealed, "Only every now and then it sounded like a stranger's voice to him. He began to feel that he was only just now meeting himself, as if as long as his uncle had lived, he had been deprived of his own acquaintance...his new friend..." (pg. 352.) In this passage, O'Connor spills an enormous chunk of information that she usually is more subtle about in her text. In this story, in particular, I saw more of the mystery in the imagery O'Connor gives us, rather than the actual dialogue, or the stranger's voice. She spends more time than usual on the images of the sky, and how the sun hits the trees. While she gave away information through the boy's thoughts, and the dialogue, she left me wondering about the pictures she paints, and the significance, if any, to the tone of the story.

The stranger's voice- God or the Devil?

I also like the voice and it's parallel to religion. I read the voice as Tarwater's own conscience. He calls it the stranger's voice because when Mason was alive he would not allow Tarwater to listen to himself and his conscience. He used religion to control the boy. Mason must know on some level that he's not a prophet. He claims to live by religion but he is immoral. He kidnaps his family members and makes his living on moonshine. So why does he keep Tarwater secluded in the woods? I believe he likes the control it gives him. He is looking for control in his life, forcing it into religion. His control of Tarwater provides him with someone he can control and someone that can continue his lifestyle into his old age. In order to keep his control over Tarwater, he had to convince the boy that the only thing to trust was religion, personified by him.

So when Mason dies and Tarwater is free of his control he hears his conscience again. Since he's lived with Mason his whole life, it is a stranger's voice to him. However, since he only knows life through the scope of religion, he asks himself what this voice is. Is it God or the Devil? He's been taught that God's voice comes from Mason. So this new voice must be the devil.

Proximity

As evidenced by the many insightful posts that have appeared so far, "The Violent Bear it Away" is loaded with color and character and subtext. One of the elements of this story that stands out for me is proximity.

In the O'Connor stories we've read before, there is the distinction between city and country, and it is very clear, and the divide is wide. In "The Violent Bear it Away," that divide becomes a lot narrower. I don't know if this is due to the proliferation of suburbs or urban sprawl, or if this is even intended to be an issue, but it seems to me that this is the first time we've encountered the city and country in such close proximity.

That said, though the geographical gap is closing, the cultural one is not. When the schoolteacher goes out to the country to reclaim his nephew, he is shot twice. One wonders why he doesn't return with the police. I think this is O'Connor's way of getting the point across that the country is still clinging to its mores, and the schoolteacher understands that--their turf, their rules. (Not to mention the kidnapping that went unacknowledged and the burning down of a farm house that seems as though it happened on another planet for how much attention it drew.)

It does, however, seem that the country is losing its grasp of this autonomy.

Viewed in this context, old Tarwater's repeated attempts to baptize the schoolteacher's son takes on a less literal purpose. Sure, due to Tarwater's beliefs, there is a religious connotation to this infatuation with baptizing the child, but for me it is the perpetuation of the country vs. the city struggle. Tarwater tried to pass on his traditions to the schoolteacher's generation, but he now considers this a lost cause. His goal then becomes to instill these traditions in the next generation.

We see Tarwater becoming more desperate as the story progresses. He knows his time is short, and the only person left to whom he can pass on his values is the younger Tarwater. This gives enormous significance to the legacy he passes on when he dies. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

narrative structure in The Violent Bear it Away and the Catholic mass

Wow, there is so much to unpack with this story, but I am really interested in the narrative structure here.  Rather than a linear narrative that we would be perhaps more accustomed to, this story is presented in what seems to be cycles of history repeating itself (in terms of the family tree and the different generations, character mirroring each other, etc.) and in another way, cycles of repeating the events of the story more than once, with little details added with each retelling.

I find it interesting that much of what would seem to be the plot is given in the first sentence:  the death of the great uncle.  There is no gradual set up.  After this, we get continual flashbacks (I'm not sure if this is the right term, but for lack of a better one) that interrupt the "real time" of the story.  These flashbacks are not linear either and give us details over and over of the old man going to live with the schoolteacher who's writing the article about it, the old man kidnapping both boys, the car wreck, the schoolteacher coming to get Tarwater and getting shot for it, and so on.  

I really liked this way of telling the story.  The retelling provided something of a ritualistic rhythm for me.  This retelling of narration is also echoed in the old man and Tarwater's relationship.  The old man would continually tell the story of the boy's origins and his own mission as a prophet over and over.  So much so that the boy would anticipate the story.  On page 372, we see the boy reminding the old man of parts of the story he has skipped, dreading parts of the story he does not like, and wishing to rush to parts of the story he does like.

Now I may be way in left field here, but this rhythm really reminded me of the Catholic mass.  One of the definitive features of mass is that it is the same structure and ritual every time.  In particular, the reciting of the Apostle's Creed really seemed to mirror what's going on in this novel.  It is something recited every mass that in addition to stating beliefs, also sums up the history of the religious movement up to that time, in a way, by chronologically listing the events of Jesus' life.  Every time the old man tells the story to the boy, it is like this reciting of his beliefs and the history of the family member's lives again and again.  The connection really was reinforced for me when the narrator mentions that the old man would start reciting this story to the boy about once a week (I apologize for not being able to locate the page number at the moment), the same time interval that most Catholics go to mass (not taking daily mass into account, of course).

So, in a way, the old man and the boy were celebrating mass cyclically in their home by reciting this story, and this structure is mirrored in how the narrator is telling us the story too.  Any thoughts on how effective/not effective this narrative structure may be?

Plato's Cave: Powderhead or the city?

While reading the first two "Violent" chapters, I was strongly put in mind of the myth of Plato's Cave (i.e. imagine that we have all been chained in a dark cave and are unable to accurately understand shadows moving on the walls of the cave. Then, one of our fellows escapes and, after a life of darkness, is blinded by the sun--or Plato's ideal Truth. Because the sun/Truth is so powerful and dazzling, he stumbles about disoriented and, to the ignorant, chained masses in the cave, he looks and sounds like a crazy person upon his return. Brief lit theory refresher in a nutshell;))

In the context of this story, I think the question is whether Powderhead or the city is the true cave. In its isolation, Powderhead seems like a dead ringer for the cave, where Tarwater has been chained to the hem of his uncle, and his uncle's plow. However, one of the most perplexing passages thus far suggests that the old man (old Tarwater) might be the blinded, disoriented seer of Truth: "a finger of fire" comes out of the sun and touches him (332). When I first read this, I thought perhaps it was a colorful interpretation of a stroke. Either way, it seems to be disorienting, and he is frustrated that the aching, searing element of truth falls on him as "destruction...in his own brain" (332). The repeated references to the old man's insanity only reinforce the argument. He stands outside the sister's door hollering his received truth, and it put in an asylum. But Plato writes that "the eyes can become confused in two different ways, as a result of two different sets of circumstances: it can happen in the transition from light to darkness, and also in the transition from darkness to light." (Norton, 67, from The Republic, Book X).

I think this parallel is significant because the cave myth deals explicitly with epistemology, and young Tarwater's primary anxieties are epistemological as well. He "knows" what his uncle has told him, but he is suspicious of his source of knowledge. He wants to understand "how" he knows. Indeed, there are many references to the basic epistemological concerns knotted between Descartes, Locke, and their respective descendents ad nauseum. At one point, Tarwater asks the old man how he could have been sure the schoolteacher was glad to see him; the old man replies "I'm as sure...as I am that this here...is my hand and not yours" (374). (i.e. with only their senses as sources of information, how can Tarwater or the old man even know the hand exists in the first place? This is not the most signficant, thematic example, but I think it is still worth noting). The great anxiety surrounding Powderhead is Tarwater's position of having to take all his knowledge on faith from an unreliable source, against whom he can make no comparisions. Even the stranger who attends Tarwater as he digs the grave shadow's Descartes "malicious demon" who is determined to obstruct truth at every turn.

So as we follow young Tarwater's progress in the city, we might want to consider whether his confused state--any apparent ignorance or madness that mirrors the old man's--stems from a transition from darkness to light, or from light to darkness. Plato writes that when observing an apparently disoriented, confused and/or insane person, one should consider whether his "mind was returning from a mode of existence which involves greater lucidity and had been blinded by the unfamiliar darkness, or whether it was moving from relative ignorance to relative lucidity and had been overwhelmed and dazzled by the increased brightness" (Norton, 67).

The stranger: voice of God or the devil?

It was hard to follow a lot of the parts of this story so far, and I started to get really confused (yet more interested) when the strangers voice comes in to play. It comes in slowly and gradually and seems to sneak up on you. At first I thought he was referring to his own voice sounding like a strangers (which I think it is) but then it started to take a life of its own.

I started to think about old Tarwater (again, I love the way she names people!) and how he was telling his young apprentice that God would come to him and tell him what he is supposed to do. Is the "stranger's" voice the voice of God? It seems a little mischievous though, so maybe it could be the devil? I remember my mom telling me when I was little how her mother told her about a man that came up to the house selling Bibles but the WAY he was selling them made her believe he was the devil in disguise. It's kind of like the serpent leading him astray...

I hope the voice comes up again, and we can find more about it.

The Violent Bear it Away Chs I-II

There are so many things to comment on in this story, I am not even sure where to begin!

I was not sure who was who in this story even after reading the beginning three times. So, I tried to make a family tree, after I read the part about the accident and how Old Tarwater became the "guardian" of the boy. "Try" being the key word here. I keep having trouble filling it in because the family situation in each generation is so similar, that I keep getting myself confused. I usually think of myself as a pretty good close reader, and I know O'Connor is a great writer who puts everything in her stories for a reason and is not prone to just throwing things in her story, so I think this means that this confusion is purposeful. Now my question is why was I confused, and what is O'Connor accomplishing by confusing me?

The first question is easy to answer. I think my confusion comes from the fact that the schoolteacher is the boy's uncle and Old Tarwater is the schoolteacher's uncle, and Old Tarwater kidnapped both boys when they were little. I was also confused because the schoolteacher took care of the boy for awhile. I also find it very coincidental that the women that are mentioned in this story are both "whores." Both the schoolteacher's mother (Old Tarwater's sister) and the schoolteacher's sister (the boy's mother) are referred to whores and they both die in the same accident. I think. This is the point I am most confused on, because it says, "The two of them [his own mother and grandmother], along with his grandfather, had been killed in an automobile crash, leaving only the schoolteacher alive in that family, and Tarwater himself, for his mother (unmarried and shameless) had lived just long enough after the crash for him to be born. He had been born at the scene of the wreck" (355). The women are not named in this story, which also complicates things, and we do not get a big enough picture of them to actually construct an image of what they are like in our heads. I think I am also confused because when O'Connor says, "nephew," I am not totally sure if she is referring to the schoolteacher who is the nephew of Old Tarwater or the boy who is the nephew of both men. Also, they all could be called Tarwater, and O'Connor varies what she calls each man enough that it gets a little confusing. For instance, the old man is sometimes Old Tarwater, or the old man, or just Tarwater, or the great uncle. I don't expect O'Connor to use the same name each time, but I think the way that she varies the names says something about what is going on in this story. The sudden shifts in tenses also got to me as well.

Another thing that was confusing at the beginning was who is the stranger's voice? I think it might be the new "rebirthed" boy, but I am not sure. "Rebirth" seems to be a big theme in this story. Everyone is running around trying to baptize everyone else. But yet, the boy's biggest rebirth and experience comes from his great uncle dying and the boy's running away (It is amazing to me how many people in these stories try to run away from everything in their cars, only to be worse off or in the same place as they were before...but that is another post altogether).

The hardest question I am trying to muddle through is what this story accomplishes by confusing me (and making me draw graphs and charts). For me, this confusion leads me to believe that not a whole lot has changed in this family from generation to generation, and I started to draw connections between the schoolteacher and the boy. A lot of my confusion started to lift in the second chapter once we started learning more about their family and the backstory, but I think it says something the way we were left confused for about twenty or thirty pages before things started to (somewhat) fall into place.

(Sorry for all the confusion!)