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WE HOLD THE SPOON

What is the distinction between those who rise and those who fall? Is it nature's path that determines our own, or society's pre-drawn rules of those who succeed and those who fail? Do strength or ambition affect the outcome of our lives at all or are "the powers that be" so determined and definite that our personal qualities and goals are irrelevant? Frank Norris and Carson McCullers destroy the lives of their characters in their novels, The Octopus (Norris) and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (McCullers), and each author places the cause of these characters' demise in different hands, though dealing, essentially, with the same issue: the destruction of the individual.

In Frank Norris’ novel, the wealth of the Pacific & Southwest Railroad, aptly dubbed, “the octopus,” by a local writer, allows it to keep a firm and unrelenting hold on the lives of the San Joaquin Valley's wheat farmers. It reaches out its tentacles and encircles every farm with its slimy, filthy tactics: good crop yields are an excuse for higher shipment costs. Thus, an impoverished farming class has no choice, but to break under the will of the all-powerful octopus. The unfortunate farmers are stuck in the dirt and grime the octopus surrounds itself with and they eventually lose everything to its ever tightening appendages…but there's a bigger picture. The man that runs the railroad, Mr. Shelgrim, defends his position:

"You are dealing with forces…when you speak of Wheat and the Railroads, not with men. There is the Wheat, the supply. It must be carried to feed the People. There is the demand. The Wheat is one force, the Railroad, another, and there is the law that governs them--supply and demand. Men have only little to do in the whole business. Complications may arise, conditions that bear hard on the individual--crush him maybe-- but the Wheat will be carried to feed the people as inevitably as it will grow (p. 417)."

In Norris' novel, though the railroad is the tangible, most obviously culpable force behind the ruin of California's wheat farmers, it is these farmers' own crop that conducts their downfall. The distribution of wheat to the world, of nourishment to the people's hunger, is characterized through the novel as an unstoppable force. Man is characterized as just a means for Nature's end, or, more accurately, a means for Nature's cycle to continue. If a few good men are ruined in the process, so be it-- they are bringing life to many others.

While the forces behind The Octopus are in a way, necessary evils, the forces behind the oppressive power in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter are in no way necessary. They are the product of human triviality, producing nothing themselves, but instead destroying and corrupting, not only a few men, but every person in Society.

The oppressive powers in McCullers' novel are capitalism, racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice. All of these "isms" are the result of our all too human susceptibility to the laws of "them," the rule makers, the supreme regulators-- those who define what is right and what is wrong, who is right and who is wrong, who will rise and who will fall. These Societal Rules govern and corrupt not only those who oppress, but all those who allow themselves to be oppressed as well.

In McCullers' novel, Society's distinctions are all ways of raising one individual or group of individuals, but more often, of lowering another, or group of others. Society's reasons for these inequalities are not just, however, harsh as it may seem, according to McCullers' philosophy, their rules are final and absolute and for a great deal of people the cause of a great amount of pain. In fact, every character in her novel, the people of Society who fight against the powers that oppress them, is on some level, emotionally, spiritually, or physically, destroyed.

On the other hand, Nature, in Norris' terms, does not define what is right and what is wrong, who, specifically, is right and who is wrong, but it does, still, have much to do with the distinction between those who will rise and those who will fall. The motive of Norris' Nature, is survival and so, Nature's distinctions are, much more generally, between the strong and the weak, unlike the distinctions of McCullers' Society, between the rich and the poor, the black and the white, the man and the woman, the socially acceptable and the socially unacceptable. However, Norris' Nature proves to be equally as insidious as McCullers' Society.

Both novels present their readers with lovely characters, then presume to rip apart these character's lives whether it be by way of Nature's indifferent ways in The Octopus, or by way of Society's intolerant ways in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Take for example, Magnus Derrick of The Octopus and Benedict Mady Copeland of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter: each of these men have the basic qualities of a leader: unquestionable ethics, powerful wills, strong minds, straight backs, passionate hearts. They also are each faced with a problem in their own community that deserves and demands the attention of such leadership. At their peaks, these men serve as symbols of strength, justice, industry, and honor to their community. Mr. Derrick is a nemesis to the injustice of the railroad, at the beginning of the novel, described as "a fine commanding figure, imposing an immediate respect, impressing one with a sense of gravity, of dignity (p. 50)." Doctor Copeland is a nemesis to the injustice of the white race, who, at his highest moment, finally is able to "teach his people and exhort and explain to his people-- and to have them understand (p. 166)." Derrick is a tiller of the soil, Copeland is a tiller of the people. Though their literal goals are very different, both men seek justice above all else. If a person were to analyze only the base of each personality and the purpose of each in their novels, they would find Derrick and Copeland to be practically identical.

The common purpose of Derrick and Copeland is this: as each novel progresses, as does their misfortune, as does their struggle, as does their ruin. Despite their sturdy qualities, both Magnus and Benedict are bent and broken, slowly, by the corruption around them and the hardships that they encounter as they struggle against "the powers that be," but should not be. At the end of each novel, neither succeeds at his goal, and they demonstrate themselves to be, not symbols of strength and justice and industry and honor, but symbols of the power of Nature and Society's prejudice to destroy these things.

According to the theme in Norris' novel, Magnus falls because the demand for wheat, because Nature's will to survive, is stronger than himself. Yet, if Magnus' failure were to be analyzed from the standpoint of the theme in McCullers' novel, he would have failed because the railroad, the wheat's emissary, had more money and in his times (and unfortunately these times as well), more money was the equivalent of more power. Magnus, from this standpoint, fell to capitalism, as did characters of McCullers' Society. At their core, each novel's explanation for who is responsible for individual pain has its roots in a universal, pessimistic explanation.

Society says Dr. Copeland falls because he is born poor and an African American.

Nature would say that these two qualities in no way amount to failure. They are both right. Dr. Copeland does not fall because he is by trait a weak person. He also does not fall because poor people are by trait weak people or because African Americans are by trait weak people. Benedict Mady Copeland is rejected by Society, and thus, also by Nature because, due to the societal "faults" he was born with, he is faced with a struggle that a person born to the wealthy, white, male, privilege would not be. Dr. Copeland's struggle to overcome the hardships Society plagues him with beat down his strength until he is weak enough for Nature to render him useless and toss him aside as Nature tossed aside Derrick. Nature and Society work together to destroy Dr. Copeland in the same way that they work together to destroy Magnus Derrick because they are part of each other. Indeed, they are one in the same, despite Norris' attempt to place Nature, and McCullers' attempt to place the faults that have accumulated within our Society, in control of our individual destinies.

Nature has its rules. Society has its rules. Frank Norris believes that Nature's rules are the cause of individual failures. Carson McCullers blames the rules of Society for her character's downfalls. However, when deeply analyzed, there can be no true line drawn between the two viewpoints. They are both ugly and pessimistic opinions (in my opinion) that shadow both Nature and Society within a paralyzing, depressing darkness. Downfalls, in my mind, are created not because of a set fate, but because of a sense of hopelessness and despair such as the sense created by these two novels. Destiny is not laid out for any one as a dizzy, uncontrollable whirlpool of anguish, and if it seems that it's heading that way, we hold the spoon, and we may stop stirring our lives into a mess, at any time we like. A person is always given a choice. 09-08-02 JG