Second Reading of "He" and "Good Country People"

Hi! I'm going to go ahead and post on "He" and "Good Country People," tying them into what I am working on with family structures, but I will also post after the discussion questions are posted.

My essay is going to focus on what influences the family structures in Flannery O'Connor's stories. Something that I have been exploring while writing my essay is how the diseases and illnesses affect how the family treats each other in her stories. I first thought of this idea after reading an abstract for an article (I haven't been able to get to the full article) that said that O'Connor's own battle with lupus, "makes makes its way into her fiction not only literally -- through images of blood, disease, death, and twisted parent-child relationships -- but figuratively as well.” I was not able to read this article, and I have not found any other critical resources that make this same kind of connection. Also, I did not want to just say that O'Connor's stuggle with lupus is what caused her to write how and what she did. So, I started to do my own research on how disabilities can affect families. One thing that I am having a hard time with though, is finding recent information on the psychology about having a child with disabilities and then feeling bad applying it to a story that was written before this information may have been common knowledge.

Without putting my whole paper in here, I think some of what I have been finding could be applied to these two stories, especially "He." One thing that I found very interesting and that I think that I could apply to this story, "He," is the five steps that families go through in crises. The first step is impact, then there is denial, grief, focusing outward (seeking information), and then finally closure. I think we can see how these play out in "He." Even though this story does not take place immediately following He's diagnoses, I think these steps are still appropriate with this story, because we can still see how his family reacts to what is going on with him. After the Whipples hear the doctor's recommendation to put Him in the hospital, they hear the information, they say they won't let him out of their sight which is sort of like denial, there is grief, then they talk with each other, which is sort of like reaching out, and then they finally send him to the hospital, but I don't think that they feel closure. I am not sure what this means. I also think it is interesting to consider when noticing how they do not really feel that connected.

Discussion Questions for "The River"

Hi everybody! Sorry these discussion questions are a little late, when I finally got home yesterday, the internet was deciding not to work. If anybody else has any questions, please feel free to post them.

What influences the dynamics in Bevel's family? How does this compare to how some of the other families in O'Connor's stories?

What is happening in the paragraph on page 158 that begins, "The three boys..." How is this related to the idea of original sin? Or is it?

Why does Bevel decide to go to the river?

Why doesn't Bevel have a beatific vision?

Thank you!

The Artificial Nigger on the Second Read

One of the ways that I saw the moral and religious views in this story go along with the geography in this story is how their paths changed once they got into the city. In the country, they were able to follow a straight path and take the train. The train didn't jump the tracks, so they followed a certain path that they were stuck on. Once they got to the city though, they did not know where they were going, and got lost in a maze of streets and buildings. I think this could become analogous to how when they were in the country they had a very set way of how they lived their life. They were able to take the train and follow on this straight path, never veering. The city became the place where they have to in a way defend their way of life. In the city, they are confronted by new views and get lost in a maze.

There is also that confusing bit about the grandson's continual assertion that he has been to the city before. Since he keeps saying this in a somewhat cryptic way, I know that this is an important part of the story, but I am still not sure what to make of this and how this could relate to the geography of the story.

Gender in Maria Concepcion

So, today in my Shakespeare class, we were talking about how gender can be considered a performance (I believe we have had a similar discussion in this class as well).  I think this notion of gender as a performance could be applied to Maria Concepcion.  In many ways she is just performing her gender as she is cooking for her husband and taking care of the baby.  These are just things that women are expected to do.  It is interesting how Maria Concepcion is introduced.  This is why I first wanted to read the story (way back a couple months ago), because I was so interested in how we keep just getting little tidbits of information.  She is described as standing up straight and lugging fowls to clean and sell to the market.  This strikes me as kind of a masculine thing to do because she has to slit their necks, and it shows that she is the one who is supporting (or helping to support) her and her husband.  After that, she switches into the more "feminine" role of taking dinner to Juan and talking to the neighbors.  

Also, I think there may be some unexplored symbolism with honey.  Most analyses that I could make would be fairly obvious, but I especially think it is interesting that Maria Concepcion is buying some of Maria's honey when she first sees Juan with Maria Rosa.  

The Displaced Person on the Second Read

Hello again! Oh, how I have missed blogging! I am not sure what we will be discussing in class today, so I'll just go on my own little path. As I am reading these stories for a second time, one thing that I am most interested in is the beginning of the stories. I think that a lot of the time, when I am reading a story for the first time, I am mainly reading for plot, so a lot of the symbolism or intricacies of the first page are lost on me as I am trying to figure out the setting, characters, and the basic plot. On the second read though, I already know the plot and the basic characters, so I am able to look at the structure of the story and some of the symbolism.

I think one of the biggest symbols in this story is the peacock. I am very interested in the symbolism of the peacock in Flannery O'Connor's stories, but I can't remember discussing the peacock in class last time (although that may have been the class I missed). The first copy of "A Good Man is Hard To Find" that I owned was yellow with a picture of a peacock and a woman following behind the peacock (a picture from the beginning of this story?). I did a little google search (I need to stop) and found what Cassie blogged previously, that in Christian art, peacocks represent immortality and its feathers represent omnipotence. Then, I found a website that said, "in the early part of the 20th century in the West, it was considered very bad luck to keep them in the home." Hmmmm.... These two interpretations are in contrast to one another, yet I think that they both work in this story. Is it fair to blame bad luck on a peacock, though?

I also thought it would be interesting to relate this to the idea of xenophobia. The peacock is kind of "the other" on a farm, isn't it? It's not a chicken, you can't eat it, that makes it kind of an odd animal to have. I think the peacock could be related to some of the bigger issues of xenophobia in this story. (And there's a sentence I never thought I would say!)

Okay, so I just reread Cassie's post from last time and I really like her connection between the eyes of the peacock and how Guizac is treated. I think this is a great connection between the symbolism and the xenophobia in the story.

Research and Critical Approaches

After reading "The Enduring Chill," I was pretty disgusted/intrigued by the relationship between Asbury and his sister and also their relationship with their mother. Then, the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that there are some strange (maybe that's too strong of a word) family relationships in these texts. I am trying to remain flexible with my paper topic, but I think the topic that I am most interested in is how families are represented and familial relations in O'Connor and Porter's works, so I have started researching families in their works. This is a brief overview of what I have thought about/done so far.

The stories I would like to especially look at with regards to the topic of families are "Revelation," "Good Country People," "Everything that Rises Must Converge," "The Enduring Chill," "The Geranium/Judgment Day," and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. I think there are more interesting families in O'Connor's works, but there are also some stories with families in Katherine Anne Porter's stories that would be good to use to like "Old Mortality," "Holiday," and "He." I may need to narrow this list down a little.

I think the best critical approach to family representation/relations would be to use a new critical or objective stance. A structuralist reading may also be helpful for parts of the paper as well. I generally do not like to use psychoanalysis, but it may be applicable here. Also, possibly new historicism and deconstruction.

I think I could tie this idea of family into other areas as well (let me pull out my Venn diagram here), such as religion, geography, time period and/or gender (I just want to do it all). I see overlaps with these categories because I am starting to think about why O'Connor and Porter portray their characters (especially the "children") the way they do. I would like to look into how religion, geography, time period and gender influence the constructs of family in their stories.

I have not looked through the letters too much to know what they wrote on the subject of family.

As soon as I can get to the Norlin library Monday morning, I am also going to check out some books that I found that contain essays that sound like they may help me as I form ideas about family (don't worry, I won't wipe out the library, and if I do, I'll share). One book is Beyond and Alone!, focusing on the section about family and isolation. Another one is From Texas to the world and back : essays on the journeys of Katherine Anne Porter, I would be focusing on the essay titled, "Katherine Anne Porter and the family saga." Another book is called God's Grandeur and I would be focusing on an article titled "Flannery O'Connor and a Catholic theology of the family." I think these books might possibly help other people, so I'll share! :)

I may be revising this post by Monday as I find more...

Letter Day 3

The letter from O'Connor to A. in the Collected Works book on page 978 caught my eye, because O'Connor briefly discusses Freud and she also writes about "the dragon by the side of the road," which we have also talked about in class. She also writes about femininity and religion in this letter.

Letter for Day 2

The letter that I would like to read is on page 358 of Letters of Katherine Anne Porter from October 5th, 1948 to Rev John F. Fahey.

I would like to read this one because it touches on some of the topics we were talking about on Monday, particularly why writers write. It is written in response to an article that was published by Harry Sylvester called, "Problems of the Catholic Writer." I can't find this online (somebody should really stop me from googling for this class), but Porter says that she hasn't read it either. I think this letter is interesting to consider when thinking about "the Catholic writer."

Initiating Phase Two

I am going to go ahead and post my letter for tomorrow, if you all don't mind.

Since we are wrapping up Pale Horse Pale Rider tomorrow with a discussion on the futility of war and also starting to read some letters, I found a couple letters that tie in with what we have been talking about in class and on the blog. I seriously can't choose which one I want to talk about more, so I might read both (I hate to get that started, but even eeny, meeny, miny mo isn't working), before we move on to other topics.

The first letter is in Letters of Katherine Anne Porter on page 177. It is written to Lodwick Hartley May 4, 1940. I want to read this one because it talks about Porter's motivation for writing Pale Horse Pale Rider, and she also writes about how she feels about being referred to as a woman writer.

The second letter is also in Letters of Katherine Anne Porter on page 389 (bottom). It is written to James Stern July 15, 1950. I want to read this letter because she writes about her feelings about war, which may be useful in class on Monday if we will be talking about war.

Also, when I was skimming through the book, I found a letter that Porter wrote just after she finished Pale Horse Pale Rider that is dated in December 1937, not 1939 like I thought (which is also a really interesting letter, but I need to seriously stop). Oops! Sorry about that!

Pale Horse Pale Rider

I think I am starting to understand the whole ex-patriot thing. This story helped me understand how hard times were back during WWI.

The part that I was most interested in with this story was the romance aspect of it all. I thought this whirl wind romance with a soldier was nicely weaved in with everything else going on in Miranda's life. I thought this was one of the more romantic things that I have read in awhile (maybe I just need a boyfriend or something). For a man to hold a bucket while a woman throws up in it is possibly one of the sweetest things that I have read ["Do excuse me" (Porter 300)]. Then to still pat her and tell her he loves her, "He lay down beside her with his arm under her shoulder, and pressed his smooth face against hers, his mouth moved towards her mouth and stopped. 'Can you hear what I am saying?...What do you think I have been trying to tell you all this time?" It almost made me cry it was so sweet (I'm sorry, I'm a softy). Unfortunately, I wondered if it was real. In this scene I questioned whether Adam was really even there. This whole scene seemed so dreamlike to me, and Miranda was so sick that she was hallucinatory, that I questioned if it really happened or not. I also found it a little odd (and kind of scary) that she was taken away while he was (or she thought he was) down the street picking up more ice and coffee. It does make sense that he would be in this scene since he ends up dying of influenza. But was he really in this scene? Why didn't he barge his way into the hospital instead of just leaving a note? Did he die because he caught influenza from her? Why isn't she more upset when she finds out that he dies? Is she just resigned about the whole thing? I also thought it was interesting that there is a scene like this where the manly soldier rescues the woman in a story about a woman who is supporting herself and working during war times.

On another note (ha, no pun intended), the lyrics to Pale Horse and his Rider are at this website, I think this is the song that is referenced in the story, but I am not sure (why would the title be different?): http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-pale-horse-his-rider-lyrics-hank-williams.html

Old Mortality

Going along with the two previous posts, I thought the representation of hair in this story was interesting and might figure into the discussion of feminism. I know that talking about how hair represents femininity has probably come up in other English classes, and might be a little played out, but it was mentioned so many times in this story that I thought it deserved a little attention in the blog. I thought the scene which has been mentioned, where Amy cuts her hair after Gabriel compliments it, is an important scene. To me, this showed how the women wanted to be feminists (cutting off their long "feminine" hair that represents all sorts of feminine stereotypes) and making it short, but then they didn't really act as feminists (I guess depending on the definition one uses for "feminist").

Another thing I wanted to comment on was some of the misunderstandings in the story, like when cousin Eva is talking to Miranda, "Cousin Eva, my father shot at him, don't you remember? He didn't hit him...." (Porter 212). I think misunderstandings like this happen a lot in real life families, where someone remembers events differently than other family members, but you don't see misunderstandings too often in stories unless it is very intentional. This misunderstanding is interesting to me, because throughout the story I wondered why they started the story with the picture of Amy and what was going to come of that story. I think this scene is very important because so much of the first part of the story is their family history, and then we get this scene which really breaks down a lot of their understood family history. I think this scene is also important, because if Miranda had known the full truth about her family, I wonder if she would have turned out the same way, and if her story would have taken the same path as it did.

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?

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

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!)

The Enduring Chill

I also wanted to comment on the "tortured artist" in The Enduring Chill. I think it is amusing how O'Connor seems to poke fun at the tortured artist in this story ("The artist arrives at the gas chamber" 553), and also how she pokes fun of writing. For instance, "She knew that if he would get in there now, or get out and fix fences, or do any kin of work-real work, not writing-that he might avoid this nervous breakdown" (551). This sentence is very interesting to me. We have talked about the tortured artist and Hemingway in class, and I think this story goes along with that. This story was actually kind of humorous to me (is that a horrible thing to say) because Asbury was so overly dramatic. Anything that happened was just the end of the world to him.

I also think it is interesting how the adult children in a lot of the stories we have been reading (Revelation, Good Country People) are all very well educated (over educated according to Asbury's mother) and yet they act horrible. They act like they are right all the time, they treat their parents with little respect, they are whiny and they act like they are God's gift to the world. I think it is interesting how O'Connor brings these characters down a peg and has them be wrong some of the time.

Holiday

One of the things that interested me a lot in this story was this passage after the narrator sees Ottilie as a small girl, "Let her sit down quietly in her rickety chair by the stove and fold those arms, and let us find her like that, with her head fallen forward on her knees. She will rest then. I would wait, hoping she might not come again, ever again, through the door I gazed at with wincing eyes, as if I might see something unendurable enter through it" and also, "...for in some way that I could not quite explain to myself, I found great virtue and courage in their steadiness and refusal to feel sorry for anybody, least of all for themselves" (Porter 428). This passage got me thinking about how disabled and handicapped people are treated in the stories we have been reading. We have touched on this in class, but I thought I would post on the topic. In a lot of these stories there is a person who has some sort of a disability, whether it is a sever disformity or a missing leg. These things go along with the grotesque, but I am wondering why these authors choose to include people with physical (and sometimes mental) disabilities so often in their stories.

Another issue brought up by this passage is if people that are handicapped or disabled are better off dead than alive. Though the passage I quoted does not come out and say that that is what the narrator is thinking, I think it alludes to this line of thinking with the way she says, "She will rest then" and "ever again." Especially since her family treats her as a slave and do not care for her or respect her. I do not think that O'Connor and Porter are trying to say that people with disabilities are better of dead rather than alive, but I think it is interesting to consider why they do this in their stories and what effect it has on the reader.

I think these authors include people with disabilites so often in their stories so that we feel sympathy for these people. They give voices to these people that do not usually have voices and let us see their side of the story and how they are treated. I think they also let us come to understand thes people, and with understanding usually comes a sense of what is right. They are not able to step completely into the shoes of a person with disabilities, but by showing us how the people around them react, we start to reflect on how the people in our lives treat others, and also how we react to these people. I think overall they are trying to bring an awareness to something that they feel is important.

Any other ideas on why Porter and O'Connor include people with disabilities so often in their stories?

The Geranium and Judgment Day: I need you to need me

Something that I thought was very interesting was how the two men in these stories, Tanner and Old Dudley, both felt the need to be needed. One of the bigger examples of this is when Old Dudley in The Geranium remembered when he would go fishing, "He liked to come in at night with a long string of them and slap them down in the sink. 'Few fish I got,' he'd say. It took a man to get those fish, the old girls at the boarding house always said" (703). Now that he is living with his daughter in New York, all he is needed for is to get patterns from the woman downstairs and looking at the geranium. He needs a lot of help as well when he is trying to get around New York, and when he falls on the stairs. In Judgment Day, the story opens up with Tanner having been dressed by his daughter. I find it interesting that O'Connor wrote a story from the perspective of a couple men who still want to be needed, after we have read so many stories with "absent men" or men who are unsympathetic characters.

I think these two stories are also interesting to consider with what was talked about in class on Wednesday about the absent men in the stories we have been reading. Although the two men these stories were physically present in these stories and the stories were told from their perspectives, I feel that since they were not needed, they could fall under the category of "absent men."

Good Country People

While I was reading this, I kept wondering who the reader was supposed to sympathize with and what we were supposed to take away from this story. O'Connor seemed to be making a statement with this story, but I am just not sure what the statement was. At first, it seems like O'Connor is making a statement about how mothers think that the only way their daughters can be valuable in society is if they are married (like Carramae) or desired (like Glynese), instead of educated like Joy. The two women get duped by the Bible salesman. What is this saying? It could be taken as some sort of comment on religion. Then Joy gets duped by the salesman. What is this saying? That she is book smart but not exactly street smart?

I also thought the names in this story were interesting, and I think the names play into what the statement of the story is. The two women in this story were referred to as Mrs. the whole way through, even though we do not see their husbands in this story. Because they are referred to as Mrs. they become identified by their marriage and by their husbands instead of by their own identities and their first names. Their names were also interesting choices: Freeman and Hopewell. Both of these names indicate their personalities. I also thought this was an interesting sentence too, "One of her [Joy's] major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy" (267).

Time in That Tree

This is going off of Sarah and Austin's posts:

I also thought the narration in this story was interesting, and something else that I wanted to add on to that, that Austin touched on, was the issue of time and how this adds to the story. To me, the time in this story seems very non-linear, and at points in the story, it is hard to tell if the story he is narrating is happening in the present, or if it is happening in the past. I think Austin is on to something, and I think that this varied time adds to the idea that the artist is spinning his wheels. The story starts out with the artist sitting under a tree, then it jumps to the reasons why he decided to get his act and gear, and get out from under the tree and become a journalist, but then from there the time shifts back and forth from the past to the present. For instance when he is narrating the story of when he first got married to his wife this is told in the past tense, but then he goes further into the past and narrates how before his wife had arrived he had been living with a Native American woman. These time shifts show to me how the artist is living in the past and spinning his wheels, not sure of what to do or where to go next.

Hungry for Pride: "Maria Concepcion" and "The Martyr"

To me, one of the most intriguing themes with these two stories was the idea of pride.

In "Maria Concepcion," Maria C. is a very prideful woman. We know this because she got married in the church when most other people just got married in the back of the church, "But Maria Concepcion was always as proud as if she owned a hacienda" (4). She is also prideful because even though she is pregnant she is still going in to town to sell fowls. After she finds out that Maria Rosa has run away with Juan, she is very upset and the townspeople reason, "that she was being punished for her pride. They decided that this was the true cause for everything: she was altogether too proud. So they pitied her" (9). Juan also likes how he feels when he has two women, and he boasts about it. Pride also comes into play when Lupe decides not to "ruin" Maria Concepcion by telling on her because, "it was even sweeter to make fools of these gendarmes who went spying on honest people" (19).

On the other hand, there is Ruben in "The Martyr" and his complete lack (in my opinion) of pride. He is lustful after Isabel, and doesn't care who knows it. He also loses his pride in his work and is unable to finish it.

Another thing that I found interesting was how food plays into this idea of pride. In "Maria Concepcion," making food for your man becomes a big issue. She takes so much pride in making food for Juan that when she is pregnant she still goes to his worksite to bring food to him, and she looks down on Givens who does not have a woman to make food for him, "She stood and regarded Givens condescendingly, that diverting white man who had no woman of his own to cook for him, and moreover appeared not to feel any loss of dignity in preparing his own food" (7). Also (I may be stretching here but humor me) Juan stops eating her food (Givens says, "Leave his food. The others will eat it" (7).) and she loses some of her pride because he runs off with the honey girl and the townspeople start to pity her, but then when he returns part of their cover is how she makes him food and magically her pride returns (he doesn't even seem upset that Maria R has died, which is a whole other post). She also seems to take pride in making the goat's milk for the baby at the end.

Food also becomes intertwined with the issue of pride in "The Martyr." Ruben loses his pride so he starts to eat a lot, and it is his love of food that causes his heart attack. He also eats only the best food. I also find it interesting that in her letter Isabel says, "I am going away with someone who will never allow me to cook for him..." (34), and this seems to be a source of pride for her.

What do you all make of this? Am I stretching the food/pride connection, or is there something there?