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?
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I also couldn't get this scene out of my head. Although, the fact that he does not react after he wakes up doesn't surprise me. Often times, people who are [sexually] assaulted dissociate directly afterwards or maybe longer after the incident. It's a kind of way of protection from the trauma.
And if we are going on the hat being his identity, that would also make a ton of sense. Assault of any kind is a violation on the person, and especially sexual assault, your privacy is also intruded upon. But what about the opener? I can't figure that one out yet.
Why the assault scene? If we go on sexual assault, it's probably the most horrifying and violent revelation scene we've seen with O'Connor right now. Maybe it is my own preconceptions and biases, but I'm having a hard time connecting this with him becoming a prophet. The whole scene was uncomfortable and distracting, and somehow I KNEW it was going to happen! How? I have no clue. I was thinking the whole time: "Could he be...? No...!"
We are all forced to move on with Tarwater because O'Connor just does not linger with this event (and she lingers and retells every other event in this story!) so we ourselves are left disoriented and questioning if it even happened. To me the ending was less effective because I couldn't get over his experience. I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this? But everything else (his religious signs and callings) didn't matter to me anymore.
Yes, I totally agree about this scene's placement. I mean, at the very end, we actually get what seems to be a legitimate revelation: we have a message in all caps, but rather than get the import of this, I am unsettled and stuck on that scene. I think it kills the intensity of whatever comes after it.
She HAD to have done that on purpose. I just can't figure out why. She isn't following her usual patterns in her other stories we've read.
Brad, I am so mad that you mentioned hats. I was totally going to talk about hats.
Hat moments I was going to mention: Tarwater losing his hat when the old man is talking to the lawyer, his hat weightless until it finds itself grounded in the city, which is thereafter associated with sin; Bishop setting his hat afloat when he and Tarwater are at the lake - a moment of vulnerability and misplaced trust?; and then, of course, the new stranger stealing his hat. I would go further than saying identity and call it his independence as well - he uses it to rebel against Rayber's authority, and Bishop submits himself to the dominance Rayber sees manifesting itself in Tarwater as they head out to the boats.
Not about hats: Early on, Tarwater "didn't search out the stranger's face but he knew by now that it was sharp and friendly and wise, shadowed under a stiff broad brimmed panama hat that obscured the color of his eyes." (352) The new stranger also wears a panama hat. And in making him company, Tarwater {scrambled in without looking at the driver and closed the door and they drove on." (469) Like the journey that Tarwater and the stranger embark on together? Maybe that last points a stretch.
The stranger hisses on 357, is sibilant on 463 ("the sibilant oaths of his friend"), and aren't we all familiar with that stereotype of the lisping queen? O'Connor plays into this stereotype without reservation, describing the man with hollowed cheekbones (gay), wearing lavender (gay), his cigarette hanging limply (not a real man!), lavender eyes (gay), pretty eyelashes (feminine), pretty hair (feminine), nice hat (European). And, in the fashion of that day and this, the scary gay man is a sexual predator to boot.
(I absolutely think the assault is sexual - he gets Tarwater high and drugs him with something in the liquor, impairing his ability to resist, disrobes him, ties him up, and emerges from the woods pink in the cheeks.)
There is an excellent line somewhere in the early chapters where the stranger chastises Tarwater, asking if he's going to take a smoke or a drink or a ride from any stranger who asks him. I cannot find it! But I am positive it exists, I think somewhere in the 350s, and it amounts to the stranger warning Tarwater against . . . the stranger! How does that problematize their roles?
I was also uneasy about the fact that he does not seem phased by the assault he just gets up and gets dressed without mentioning any feelings he just tries to find the fact it occurred. I think this is an ongoing theme because Rayber doesn't really seemed bothered by the death of Bishop like he tells himself not to cry and just collapses, whereas most people would be overwhelmed with emotion if their child was murdered.
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