In Response to Dana, Mother Troubles and Father Figures

Interesting connection there--your post got me thinking about the ways that absence of a father figure is used in both stories. I don't know how it was for everyone else, but when I was a kid, my dad was always the scary disciplinarian and my mom was the one we all went (haha...go) to for intervention. I can't speak from experience, but I would speculate that, after the death of one parent, the remaining parent struggles to take on the full burden of the resentment that inevitably comes out of disciplinary actions. Interestingly, these two characters, Hulga and Asbury, have fraught relationships with two very indulgent remaining parents--incidentally, two indulgent mothers. Mrs. Hopewell and Asbury's mother both make cheery attempts to ignore and smooth over the abrasive behaviour of their children--the difference, in my mind, is that Asbury's mother makes an innocent effort to encourage her son's artistic pursuits, whereas Mrs. Hopewell knows (and desires to know) nothing about Hulga the Philosopher. Asbury's mother hopelessly suggests that he should add the Civil War to his unwritten novel because it "always makes a long book,"but at least she let him go try his luck in the dairy with her workers, and at least she came to visit him in the city. Asbury's mother accepts the fact that she does not understand her son--her's is a position of (many too indulgent) humility. She at least attempts to respect Asbury, even in his self-absorption. Mrs. Hopewell, on the other hand, is completely alienated from her daughter, and "[thinks] of her still as a child because it tore her heart to think instead of the poor stout girl in her thirties." For Mrs. Hopewell, Hulga's life work is so foreign that reading a passage of Heidigger is akin to "an evil incantation."

Which brings me back to missing fathers: Hulga lost her leg in a hunting accident, during which "the leg had been literally blasted off." Now, call me crazy, but I can't see Mrs. Hopewell out on a hunting expedition with her 10 year old daughter. She just doesn't seem like the type. This is probably an incredible stretch, but I'm going to conjecture that Hulga's absent and totally unmentioned father actually shot her leg off. Now there is some Freud for you. Castration, mutilation, Oedipus complexes run amok. I'm going to support my guess by the careful position in which O'Connor has placed these details in the paragraph: the leg itself is an artificial secret--a "hidden deformity" which fascinates Mrs. Freeman. O'Connor emphasizes her delight in the secret, the insidious. (And I think my favorite O'Connor line of all time: "Of diseases, she preferred the lingering or incurable.") Yet, there is something in the actual narrative of the event that fascinates Mrs. Freeman--it is not simply that she enjoys staring at Hulga in person: rather, O'Connor writes that she "could listen to [the story] any time as if it had happened an hour ago." But, to me, a sudden, violent shot-gun wound doesn't seem to me to be as secret, mysterious or insidious as the usual subjects of Mrs. Freeman's fancy. Tragic, disturbing, morbid, yes. But also loud, obvious, sudden, public. There has to be some especially gruesome detail--some creepy little secret--that keeps her coming back for more: and I suspect the secret is that Hulga's father was involved.
In terms of gender and use-value, Hulga's use-value is as negligible as Asbury's: in a farming community, she sits around all day reading by herself, and doesn't seem to contribute much. However, unlike Asbury, she doesn't seem to be disappointing any expectations as far as her use-value is concerned: if anything, her mother seems to think her phD makes her sexually ambigious/ neutral if not masculine. Her emphasis is on the fact that she can't tell anyone that her "daughter is a philosopher," and on the fact that Hulga is not interested in nice young men.

Asbury, on the other hand, faces a very different set of circumstances: he is a son missing a father, and a father with a high use-value at that. Asbury's mother seems to be under the impression that education has feminized her son, making him less competent, less sensible and more susceptible to the influence of his emotions. She wants him to "do real work, not writing." And here we have Asbury calling in a Catholic Father, to help him enact the drama of his dying god setpiece, only to meet with authoritarian doctrines that leave him frustrated. Really, the conversation with the priest made me think of the classic, kick-in-the-pants father trying to knock a bit of arrogance and self-indulgence out of their kid--I'm not entirely unsympathetic and it might be safe to guess that acerbic, Catholic O'Connor wasn't either.

Enduring Chill: Continuation of the Blame your Mother Conversation

I think we might have discussed this a little the first time that we discussed "Enduring Chill" but I have noticed a connection between Asbury and Hulga. Both individuals enjoy creating tension between themselves and their mothers. Asbury and Hulga annoy their parents through their actions and their speech, which seem to be solely executed for this purpose. This connection really sticks out to me because both children are lacking a father figure. I am not quite sure what is being done here, but I cannot recall any other children who are as focused on blaming their mother and lacking a father figure.

A Nattering Nabob of Negativity

Rereading "The Enduring Chill," I found myself interested in Asbury's intense death-wish. It seems that he absolutely wants to die, but not because of any profound sadness, grief, or pain. Sarah's previous post touched on this, saying that what Asbury wants is a "grand narrative," which, since he has done nothing grand in life, must be acted out through death. I think this is true, but might go a little further. The operative word here is 'grand'; something grand is vibrant and unavoidable, it must be payed attention to and taken seriously. I think this is Asbury's motive. He wants desperately to be taken seriously: he will not accept Dr. Block's attentions because the man is a fool, he cannot accept his friend Goetz' assertion that pain is an illusion (because then his pain is meaningless), and he cannot win the friendship of his mother's workers. Basically, no one takes Asbury seriously besides his own mother, who is heaped with scorn in return. So, Asbury convinces himself and everyone else he can that he is doomed, and begins to make rounds with people he wishes to impress, which of course leads to the central ironies of the story.

On his "death bed," Asbury calls first for what he thinks will be an intellectual equal, the Jesuit Father Finn. Their encounter makes it clear that Asbury has no serious interest in religion or even religious thought, he just wanted someone he could display his intelligence to, and becomes incensed when he realizes the priest has no interest in flattering him. Next, Asbury has his mother's workers come to visit him, evidently under the impression that they share some meaningful connection and will be able to appreciate the seriousness of his death. Instead, Randall and Morgan seem embarrassed and eager to leave the situation. They even refuse to acknowledge his decrepit state, the ultimate insult to a grand narrative of death.

Having been unable to find anyone impressed merely by disease and approaching death, Asbury resolves to die. "I'm going to die," Asbury repeats incessantly, almost like a mantra, willing itself into reality. But his self-aggrandizing suicidal tendency will not be accommodated; the same doctor he derides as a fool discovers the cause of Asbury's illness, and it's not so bad. In fact, it was caused by his drinking unpasteurized milk from his mother's cows, an act which he was quite proud of himself for committing at the time. This dramatic irony is worse for Asbury than death. Dying is important. Dying is something. But as it turns out, all he gets is a cosmic pie in the face from his creator (o'connor), like a mother scolding a lazy child.

Nothing in the Enduring Chill

We've been talking about Nothing in class the past few days, and Nothing appears again as an interesting theme in The Enduring Chill. Asbury is after Something, in a big way. He's after drama, heroism, and Truth--and he's always disappointed. Asbury is looking for grand inspiration and spirit in all the wrong places. He goes to New York, and runs out of money: "Now there was nothing" (548). He is an artist who has published Nothing. The obvious nihilism of his friends in college disgusts him because he wants to create and live out a grand narrative. He is not interested in the emptiness of a doctrine in which "there are neither any Bodhisattvas to do the leading nor any creatures to be led." On the contrary, Asbury believes so firmly in his own ego and the existence of the self defined by that ego, that he goes as far as calling his personal narrative "his tragedy," and hopes his mother will someday see "her part in it". Poor Asbury, who doesn't even get the satisfaction of a dramatic, fatal disease.
Asbury wants to play the role of the "dying god," but a page later tells the priest that "God is an idea created by man." Asbury refuses to submit his ego to either the anonymity of nihilism or the anonymity required by obedience to a God. It is not a question of whether or not there is a story and a storyteller-- for Asbury, the question is what role he plays in the story. His crisis of faith is not a conflict between belief and nihilism, but rather a struggle with the disappointment of discovering that even within a religious narrative framework, his ego will remain unsatisfied and diminished.

The Enduring Chill - Take Two

Wow, what an appropriate day to be reading something called "The Enduring Chill" !

I am curious about the whole notion of Buddhism in this story.  (I don't think we were able to talk about this the first go around, and I apologize if we did)

This is the first instance I can remember of O'Connor talking about a religion other than Christianity.  Sure, she was Catholic, and we know she had a lot to say about Christian religions other than Catholicism, but what about religions other than Christianity?  Can we tell anything about O'Connor's views through the words of her characters and her narrative voice, and is it wrong to even try?

Also, how does this Asian religion tie in to the big city?  Is O'Connor making a statement on just how foreign and alienating the big city is by its incorporation of foreign Eastern religions?

Asbury's Condescending Attitudes

I'm writing my paper on the way that O'Connor's characters view race relations. It is obvious that Asbury believes his intellect to be superior to everyone he knows. He insults the intelligence of his mother, his sister, and his late father's and he does'nt even seem to have any respect for Goetz or his other intellectual friends from New York. His project to "work in the dairy with [black people] and find out what their interests were" (551) to write a play about them was clearly an attempt to prove to the whole world that he was more accepting of other cultures than his mother. He is clearly too self-absorbed to realize that he is manipulating Randall and Morgan in order to appear that he has a familiar relationship with black people. Later, when Asbury thinks that he is on his death bed he invites them both to smoke cigarettes and it becomes apparent that he has made hardly any effort at all to understand them or know them. He attributes some sort of value to the act of relating to them, but I think that his feelings of superiority keep him from becoming close to anyone. Asbury's failure to befriend Randall and Morgan shows that his condescending attitude makes him the biggest fool of the story. The fact that he believes himself to be superior to everyone makes him unable to appreciate his mother, his sister, his father, or anybody else that he knows.

O'Conner letter to Maryat Lee

I found a great excerpt from one of O'Connor's letters that deals with writing about other people/cultures. In her letter to Maryat Lee (pg 1094-95), O'Connor talks about her friend who is attempting to write a novel about blacks in New York. This little portion reminded me of "The Enduring Chill". Porter refers to her friend searching for blacks to interview, and notes that maybe they can "scout up a few" if he comes back to New York.

The Enduring Chill

The main character of any story is usually the one who is most easily sympathized with because we, as readers, follow their train of thought and their actions. We understand them more than any other character because we are given situations from their perspective. In “The Enduring Chill”, Asbury is not a sympathetic character. He is nasty, rude and downright unappreciative, especially towards his own mother. He treats her with such disrespect; it would be more believable to consider her a complete stranger than to accept she is his mother simply as a result of the way she is treated. The very first words he says to his mother are, “I don’t feel like talking” (O’Connor 547). Who knows how long it has been since that last time he talked to or even saw his mother and the first thing he says is this rude comment. No ‘thank you’ or ‘I missed you mom’, instead he shows his true colors right up front.

The character I sympathize with in this story is the mother. Mrs. Fox is very understanding and kind in spite of how she is treated by her own son. We see her through Asbury’s eyes and this further proves how she is the most sympathetic character. He shows us just how strong and beautiful she really is. In the end Asbury gets what he deserves; he does not die. Instead, he is left to live with himself and ‘the enduring chill’ of the consequences of his selfish actions.

Karma in The Enduring Chill

The first thing I thought after reading O'Connor's "The Enduring Chill" was that karma got Asbury. Convinced that he's dying, Asbury returns home so that he can die in the family home. He's been living in New York City as a writer but he's dropped everything so that he can die at home. He quit his job and has no savings to speak of. He's dependent on his family to take care of him on his deathbed. Once home he breaks the rules by drinking the fresh milk and smoking in the barn. He encourages the black farm employees to do the same. Now that he's dying he doesn't have to think about the consequences to his actions.

However, when Dr. Block comes back with the results from Asbury's blood sample he reveals that Asbury is actually not going to die. Suddenly, Asbury has the future that he hadn't been planning for. He's sick because he's been drinking the unpasteurized milk from the family farm, proving he never really cared about the consequences anyway. Because he didn't follow the rules he's going to be sick with a fever for life and he has to figure out what to do with no job and no money.

Don't live so selfishly or else you might regret it.

Undulant Fever

In reading this story, I had no idea what undulant fever might be. I have looked it up online, and since most of the issues and themes I also saw in the story have already been posted beautifully, I will give a little background as to what I have discovered.

Mrs. Fox was correct: undulant fever, or Brucellosis, can indeed be caused by consuming unpasturized or bad milk. It is very ironic that she blamed the milk he had "up there" in the big city for getting him sick when every account of the disease I can find online states that the bacteria come from farm animals and their products, thus hinting that he must have gotten sick from the family farm.

All accounts online state that it is indeed treatable with antibiotics, but on pg. 571, Dr. Block states that "it'll keep coming back." Modern research states that this is clearly not so, but I wonder if this was the belief about the disease at the time or if O'Connor is supporting Asbury's claim that Block was an incompetent doctor who didn't know what he was doing.

Interestingly, in addition to all the physical pain, another symptom of undulant fever is servere mental depression. I am wondering if O'Connor meant this to have any bearings on Asbury's gloom and doom. Are we merely to view him as the cliched tortured artist, or is the disease more to blame for his mental state? Any thoughts?

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.

Ignorance is (not) Bliss

Despite the fact that Asbury is not actually narrating "The Enduring Chill," O'Connor gives us more insight into his thoughts and feelings than any other character. I honestly can say that I did not sympathize with any of the characters. Though I thoroughly enjoyed every part of it, I was angry with almost everyone at least once in the story. My anger branched from the ongoing theme of age/maturity, and levels of intelligence. I believe O'Connor made a point to have Asbury appear to be intelligent, in both a worldly sense and a scholarly sense. A perfect, yet subtle, example of his worldly intelligence was when we travel back one year to the time when he worked at his mother's dairy. The text states, "He had been writing a play about Negroes (why anybody would want to write a play about Negroes was beyond her) and he had said he wanted to work in the dairy with them and find out what their interests were" (p. 551). The text supports Asbury's opinion of his mother, in that she is unintelligent, and ignorant in regards to life.

Asbury wastes no time from the start of the story, in expressing his view on his mother's age and maturity level. "His mother, at the age of sixty, was going to be introduced to reality and he supposed that if the experience didn't kill her, it would assist her in the process of growing up" (p 547). We understand that Asbury is obviously younger than his mother, yet he feels that she is childish, and falls behind him in the process of maturing. There is not one part of Asbury that holds him back from openly expressing his condescending feelings. Ironically, despite his mother's acceptance of her own lack of intelligence, Asbury is the one who is left in the wrong. For the majority of the story, Mrs. Fox sticks to her gut, believing that her son is not dying, despite Asbury's best efforts to convince her otherwise.

Ultimately, Asbury dug his own grave, succumbing to his illness, and begging for his death. He blames his mother for molding him to fit only into her lifestyle, and depriving him of existence outside of that behavior. Regardless of Asbury's best efforts to hold his mother responsible for his state of being, he claims, "I don't think you have anything to do with it" (p. 562). In reality, Asbury categorizes himself and the rest of the characters in the story according to intelligence, placing himself above the rest, however, he is the most ignorant of all. It is his ignorance that leaves him terrified and alone, with the rest of his life dangling inevitably before him.

Country Art

So far the posts I have read I've pretty much agreed. Although I think that the ending is a symbolic death for him - tragic and dramatic (the way he wanted). In many ways I felt for Asbury because of feelings of being trapped (I think that's why I can sympathize with many of these types of characters, the artists and intellectuals, because I have a constant fear of being trapped) but I also recognize that his main inspiration IS the country, and especially his mother. Maybe when he does die, the letters seem full of passion and might be the only thing WORTH reading. He must have some sort of connection with his mother, otherwise he wouldn't put so much energy into her, especially defying her. He is long past the teenager stage and finding his own way, so this extra defiance must mean something more.

Also, the descriptions of the country were, as seen through his eyes, were very much like an artist's view. It seems the more he fights his connection with the country, the more it consumes him to the point where he must move back and depend on it! The people and the country are self-reflexive to him - he is actually the one who is being "simple" because he refuses to look outside his own little box... pretty much the epitome of an ignorant person.

On a side note, I have to say that I laugh OUT LOUD when Randall and Morgan come into his room to smoke. I couldn't get over it. For whatever reason that scene made me laugh so hard and I realized that the story was kind of a joke at Asbury. I figured Asbury wasn't dying, but the dialogue between them was comical. And it served him right. I felt like he was exploiting them for his own benefit and forgot that they were also people too. Not just a story or a point to be made.

Cities and Agelessness in O'Connor

Asbury considers the urban life far superior to his own rural upbringing. This is evident in the demarcation he makes between Dr. Block and city doctors. He says to his mother, "'Don't you think if I'd wanted to go to a doctor I'd have gone up there where they have some good ones? Don't you know they have better doctors in New York?'" (549) The city functions as an escape for him, and his return to rural life is a failure. "Ever since he had first gone away to college, he had come back every time with nothing but the necessities for a two-week stay and with a wooden resigned expression that said he was prepared to endure the visit for exactly fourteen days." (548) The country is a setting that Asbury powers through, making his surrender to the place - he says to his mother, "This visit. . .will be permanent" (555) - all the more painful to him.

Before actually sojourning there, Old Dudley from "The Geranium" places New York City on a similar pedestal. "[T]here was that thing inside him that had wanted to see New York. . .Big towns were important places. . .It was an important place and it had room for him!" (702) The pace and grandeur of the place thrills Old Dudley - at least until he arrives.

Nelson from "The Artificial Nigger" has a similar attitude towards "the city" (this time, Atlanta), before his second trip. He is anxious to "'see what all it is to see'" (219), if only to best his grandfather in all of their bizarre competitions: "It would be Mr. Head's third trip. Nelson had said, 'I will've already been there twict and I ain't but ten" (211) ; even the fact that Nelson beat Mr. Head to making breakfast inspires in Nelson a proud posture, "his entire figure suggest[ing] satisfaction at having arisen before Mr. Head." (212)

Nelson and Old Dudley both grow resentful of the city by the end of their stories. After Mr. Head denies his grandson to the toppled woman, Nelson becomes a passionless thing, "his face bloodless . . . His eyes were triumphantly cold. there was no light in them, no feeling, no interest." (229) The entire experience puts a bad taste in Nelson's mouth, and he revises his own history, remarking after his second trip, "'I'm glad I've went once, but I'll never go back again!" (231)

Old Dudley's growing contempt for New York is both a product of loneliness - "Old Dudley would have liked to have explained New York to Rabie. If he could have showed it to Rabie, it wouldn't have been so big - he wouldn't have felt pressed down every time he went out in it" (704) - and his daughter's bucking of custom. When he finds out she has a black neighbor, he thunders, "'You ain't been raised to live tight with niggers that think they're just as good as you, and you think I'd go messin' around with one er that kind!'" (707) New York throws Old Dudley into a culture shock, the close living of all sorts without familiar faces dashing his dreams of the big, important city he had seen in the picture show.

Nelson and Dudley's attitudes after their stays in the city resemble Mrs. Fox's, Asbury's mother. Mrs. Fox takes great pride in her little rural empire. "[S]he had said more than once to Asbury, 'You have a home here that half those people up there would give their eyeteeth for!'", especially considering the squalor and close quarters that Asbury occupied during his years in the city (552)

There are blurring allegiances between the rural and the urban, but I think that these are only symptomatic motifs of a larger theme. Though Mrs. Fox is sixty years old, Asbury believes his death will "assist her in the process of growing up" (547). This confusion of age persists in "The Enduring Chill" when Mary George, Asbury's sister, notes that "'there is something the matter with him. He looks a hundred years old." (553)

Nelson is, like Asbury, thrilled by the city - and aged beyond his years. "[T]he boy's look was ancient, as if he knew everything already and would be pleased to forget it" (212). After he and his grandfather's grace experience at the eponymous statue, "Mr. Head looked like an ancient child and Nelson like a miniature old man." (230) Now Nelson and Mr. Head, both abhorrent of the city, are too of inscrutable ages.

Which brings us to Old Dudley. His age is, in contrast, very scrutable - he insists that had he been left at home, "[t]here was his pension that could feed him and oddjobs that kept him his room in the boarding house" (702), a situation speaking both to his lifetime of work and the accrual of experience, as well as his curmudgeonly stubbornness. But in relying on his daughter to take care of him, Old Dudley embarks on a role reversal - once the parent, he is now the parented. "Once she took him shopping with her but he was too slow," "She held him by the coat sleeve and pulled him through the people" (704-05). Dudley's daughter pampers him, even babies him. Dudley may in fact be Old, but in the care of his daughter he is just a child.

These ageless characters all abhor the city - except for Asbury, who pines for it, perhaps because he was poisoned by the unadulterated countryside itself. There too is a difference in his agelessness - Asbury's premature graying is a physical toll on his body, whereas Nelson and Mr. Head have grown the wiser for their conflation, Old Dudley has stopped progressing and instead regresses, and Asbury's assumed naiveté in Mrs. Fox gives her the innocence of youth. The agelessness of these characters is a play on wisdom, achieved or lost; Asbury's agelessness is the petulance of a child that has never been purged. He "crie[s] in an agonized voice, 'can't we go on?' (552), and with all the self-important angst of an adolescent repeats, over and again, "'What's wrong with me . . . is way beyond Block.'" (550)

O'Connor plays urban/rural allegiances off of ageless characters to put the wise at home in the country.

Tortured Artist in the Enduring Chill

In O'Conner's "The Enduring Chill," the main character Asbury has to return home due to an illness which he believes is going to be the death of him. Within "The Enduring Chill," the relationship between Asbury and his mother is developed, however Asbury is very vague to why he continuously goes against his mother's will. Asbury consistently tries to defy his mother every opportunity he gets. Asbury seems to get a rise out of contradicting his mother like when he gets Randall and Morgan to smoke and then he tries to get them to drink the milk for many days in a row. Asbury even hurts himself by drinking unpasterized milk to try to get the "Negros" to defy his mother with him. Asbury even writes a letter for his mother to read as soon as he passes away which he says will be a private way and getting to her rather than him killing himself which would be public. So I am just curious to why Asbury seems to have such disgust for his mother especially when all she does is try to take care of him and please him?

I also thought it was interesting that Asbury is so determined that he is going to die but he does not try to get better he just accepts the fact and refuses doctors and going to the hospital even though it might help. This goes along with the themes in O'Conner and Porter's stories as the disabled or sick person whom becomes completely absorbed in their own pity for themselves. Also the fact that Asbury is an artist is another way that the themes are similar the tortured artist whom just wants to die and does not really produce any creativity and is completely obsessed with their own self pity. I think this goes along with how his mother treat him because she gives him pity maybe to much too and he pretends to despise this but he feeds off of his mother's attitude toward him.