As you finish the book, pay special attention to Chapter XV (p. 148+). What do you make of this chapter? How does the novel continue to comment on the culture of visuality and spectacle, on "gold fever" and commodity fetishism, and on the role of sexual desire and enjoyment in the ascent of capitalism?
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The end of God's Little Acre was so bizzare to me. Here are a few things that I found very interesting:
ReplyDelete1. The way that Will tore Griselda's clothes and with that, had a sense of impowerment. After tearing all of his clothes, he had the strength and the determination to go "turn on" the cotton mill. The way that everyone sort of treated Will as a god from that point on. There is one scene(i dont have my book with me right now) where Will is literally described as a idol that both all the girls and people of the town looked up to. He went after things such as turning the mill back on and for that got shot. Because he believed in a cause, he died for it. I sort of see Will as a revolutionist in the novel. He was wanting to see change. Just like he wanted to see Griselda's "rising beauties". He set his mind to it and acted apoun things,
2. With that, I found it weird how Griselda said that only Tyty and Will acted as real men. That they were the only ones that spoke to her in a certain way and she really was turned on by them. I wonder what she really means by this and hopefully we can talk about it in class.
3. Another thing that really got my attention was Tyty's final speech about how "all he ever wanted was peace in his family" and with blood split on his land, (which was on God's Little Acre). He talked about how he had God's Little Acre not to give money to God but for the purpose of the fact he even had one. Also, Tyty has a great speech about how the preacher says one thing and tries to get humans to live a certain way but deep down inside you know that isnt how it should be". Tyty believes he has something about life figured out that Will as well did. That paragraph is really interesting about human nature and how we should live like how we were designed to be. Hopefully we can talk about that in class too.
What I realized as I was finishing up "God's Little Acre" was how pivotal a role sexuality and the act of sex itself in the downfall and disintegration of the Walden family. Of course, the morality (or lack there of) of the sexual interactions within the family is obvious, but less so, I think, is the fact that it is sex that leads almost directly to each of the deaths in the novel.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Will Thompson's revolt and subsequent murder, sexual passion is noticeably present. While the men are inside the mill and the women stand outside in nervous clumps, we hear women crying with happiness. They will get to eat real food again, as opposed to the flour mix they have been using for sustenance. There husbands can go back to work, no longer emasculated by low wages and lock-outs. But for Will, it seems the motivation for "turning on" the power tot he mill is sexual. The mill to him constantly evokes the erect-breasted women. Even in his sexual conquest of Griselda the night before, the fabric and lint flies about as he rips her clothes off of her. As his sexual passion heightens and borders on frenzy, he becomes surrounded by the product of the mill, showered by pieces of the dress young women sit making behind the ivy walls. I happen to think Caldwell did this deliberately, juxtaposing the intense imagery of the fabric with the sexuality that oozes from the scene to show the relationship between the two.
- Daniel Ford
Wow, this family is messed up. Straight absurdity 'til the end. Especially with Buck snapping and killing his own brother, who was trying to steal his wife like so many others. His descent into that violent act reminded me a lot of Darl in _As I Lay Dying_ as he loses it after being on that ill-begotten journey for too long. He burns down the barn (and he hoped his mother too), his family discusses what is to be done with him and then Darl is sent to the loony bin. The same with Buck as he shoots Jim Leslie and Ty Ty tells him that the sherrif would have to find out. Implicitly we know that Buck will be going to jail (if they can hunt him down) and his family isn't going to stand in the law's way. Which is odd since they flout most other things we would consider if not morally wrong just out right illegal.
ReplyDeleteAlso at the end, Ty Ty almost seems to curse Buck with the burden of God's little acre as he wills it to follow his son around. Ty Ty wants the "land" that Jim Leslie's blood was spilt on so that Buck "would be upon it no matter what." God's little acre is no longer about religion or some semblance of it; blood has tainted it. Blood spilt over the hypercommodification of Griselda - only negative consequences have come out of, the second death following a man lusting after her. Seems like Caldwell is saying something about how this fetish for things can end very badly - with our own demise.
Looking at Will's part in Chapter XV, the most noticeable thing to me was his repeated claims about his comparison to God. When he's preparing to "take Griselda" and then later take the mill, he says several times "I'm as strong as God now."
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that this section is preparing us for the broader wisdom that Griselda and Pa share together in the final chapter of the book. In that chapter Pa says, "You go to church and a preacher tells you things that deep down in your heart you know ain't so. But most people are so dead inside that they believe it and try to make everybody else live that way." This view of life seems to shed light on the way Will acted that night before he died.
It's almost as if in his hours of madness, he becomes deified, acting in the way that god should act in Pa's view (and as we'll find out, in Griselda's too). During his rant at his and Rosamond's house, he challenges the god "that the preacher tells you things" about when he his talking to Griselda; he says, "I'm going to look at you like God intended for you to be seen." The way Griselda acts also pays homage to the god-like persona he has created in this instant: "Her eyes were closed, and her lips were partly open, and her breath came rapidly. When he told her to sit down, she would sit down. Until then she would remain standing for the rest of her life." Her total submission to this new Will is representative of her belief in the way of life she and Pa discuss in the story's end.
The language in Will's pre-Griselda scene seem to make him out to represent the god Pa and Griselda wish ran their world. The missionary movement was at full-steam in the Piedmont region of the south during the Great Depression. The conservatism concerning all things sexual common to most southern Christians can be seen most clearly in the character of Rosamond, but by the way Pa and Griselda talk, it is prevalent and increasing in their area. One of the most racy suggestions Caldwell makes in the book is articulated in the conversation shared by Griselda and Pa and typified by Will, that God wants life (and sexuality) to be lived freely and without reservation.
At the beginning of the semester, we talked a great deal about the changing family structure during the Great Depression. In this novel, the destruction of TyTy's family is evident in the end. With the death of both Will and Jim Leslie, and the assumed suicide of Buck, the rest of the family is left to survive in a place that has been destroyed by greed and desire. What had once been a promising venture for Ty Ty has become a wasteland by the end of the novel. Because the family was struggling financially, their desires constantly conflicted with their actions. Throughout the novel, Will searches for ways to relieve his stress from being unemployed, and frequently ends up in bed with other women. Because he cannot participate in the workforce, he must find another outlet to satisfy his desires.
ReplyDeleteThis leads me to the point that many of you have made--one of the reasons the characters in this novel are oversexualized is the lack of agency they have in their own lives. Often times in other novels that deal with poor, working class families, the characters frequently engage in sexual activity as a way to release stress or exercise a form of power. While TyTy often visualizes things of a sexual nature, Will must act on his sexual desires because visualization is not enough to satisfy him. Ty Ty is able to do so because he has focused much of his attention on striking gold, but Will has no other way to work out his frustrations. In a struggling economy, people resort to sometimes drastic actions to release frustrations. This is why, by the end of the novel, the entire family falls apart. When you place a group of people together who have internalized their frustrations for long periods of time, something dramatic will happen, like the violent death of Jim Leslie.
I couldn't help but notice a flaw in Ty Ty's "thesis statement" near the end of the book. Ty Ty argues that the only way to live is according to whims of the animal nature of man, and that the moral principles instilled into man by outside forces (i.e. the church) are unnatural and stifling. And yet, it's the animal nature that arouses Jim Leslie to try and take Griselda. It's the animal nature that causes Buck to shoot and kill Jim Leslie, causing the one thing Ty Ty seems to fear above all else: blood spilled on his land. And yet Ty Ty's diatribe comes after Jim Leslie has been killed. Ty Ty does not seem to see the connection between uninhibited carnality and violence (this is also evident when the family is returning to town after Jim Leslie has torn Griselda's dress trying to grab her; Ty Ty does not make the connection of his objectification of Griselda with Jim Leslie's violent response). The difference between man and animal is reason, and when reason gives way to animal instinct, dire consequences result. I don't believe Ty Ty ever comes to this realization.
ReplyDelete-Josh K.
Near the end of "God's Little Acre," it becomes apparent that Ty Ty is beginning to regret some of his choices in life. It was said very well above that his philosophy on life and how using your animal instincts when it comes to life and sexuality kind of led to the demise of his family. The very last line of the book also shows the extreme of his "gold fever" throughout the text. He has a dead son-in-law, a dead son lying at his feet in front of the house, and a soon-to-be dead son out in the woods somewhere being followed by God's Little Acre, and meanwhile all Ty Ty can think of is when Shaw will be back to help him dig again. When I read this the first time it crossed my mind that perhaps he was going to keep digging as an analogy for digging his own grave. His kids were really the only life he had, and they are dying off very quickly, so it seems important that we are left with the digging scene at the very end.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Josh's statement that the end of the book suggests that living according to animalistic instincts is a flawed idea. I think that Caldwell presents two different types of manhood; one being more animalistic and compatable with a physically harder way of life such as farming, and another that can more easily live in the city and work within an industrial world. Will represents this first type of manhood, because while he's able to 'turn on' every main female character in the novel, he's unable to successfully turn on the power in the factory. Jim Leslie represents the other type, in that he's successful in the industrial world, but when he attempts to give into his animalistic style he too fails. I think that the end suggests that industrial man is soon to replace more animalistic men for dominance in society due to the fact that Ty Ty's whole way of life is about to collapse literally, and that Buck after finally giving into his urges goes into the woods to kill himself.
ReplyDelete-Reid
I honestly really didn't really enjoy God's Litte Acre. I mean I just reallbecause couldn't get over the entire incest ideas or the idea of infedelity.
ReplyDeleteAfter our discussion on Wednesday I understood the entire idea of The "Turning On" the mill, and Will being the christ like figure in the entire sense.
The idea of Caldwell being a "preacher's Child" and being able to write about all of this entirely blows my mind. I can't get over the entire concept of the book.
I did enjoy that in some way the women felt liberated by working at the mill, although they were easily controlled, they felt liberated in some sense, I feel as though the women could have been liberated because they felt power over there husbands that had been let go from the mill because they couldn't be "controlled" this was a way the women felt power, their husbands would beat them, but they controlled the income of the family.
I agree with Landry. I appreciate God's Little Acre for what it was and Caldwell's willingness to "go there", but the fact that I very, very, very strongly disagree with the concept of free love and infidelity really altered my reaction to the book.
ReplyDeleteI did understand the idea a little bit better after I finished the book, however. Ty Ty's speech made me realize that Caldwell simply created a character who wanted peace among the family, and therefore allowed total permissiveness. Still didn't like it though.
Anyhow, I digress. The thing I thought most interesting about the ending was Jim Leslie. I was genuinely surprised that Caldwell chose for Jim Leslie to return for Griselda; I had figured he was such a minor character that he would not reappear. It also kind of shocked me because, in the previous chapter where Jim first encountered Griselda, he was portrayed as such a weak character. He was this downtrodden man who ran from his family rather than face them and was trapped in an unloving marriage with a woman riddled with STD's, grabbing at a woman in a desperate attempt to be saved. However, in the end of the novel, Jim Leslie returns in a different mood, one of total determination. The contrast made me wonder if the sight of Griselda made him undergo a transformation similar to Will's.
I thought it was interesting that Caldwell did not include Griselda's reaction to Jim Leslie coming to take her. He mentions the girls reactions but never specifically Griselda's. Griselda has just been 'ravaged' by Will and has confessed her revelation to TyTy about how she could never accept another man unless he was in tune to his animalistic side and here comes Jim Leslie, crazed for the need of her. I would think that this would make Jim Leslie connect with TyTy and WIll in Griselda's eyes and that Caldwell would have some comment on the matter. But in the same sense there is a animalistic fight for dominance between Jim Leslie and Buck for the right to Griselda and Griselda, true to the natural world, swoons for the dominant male, Buck. On a side note, I found Bucks name to be ironic in this because whenever I thought of Jim and Bucks tisk I thought about deers butting horns and Bucks name is the name of a male deer.
ReplyDeleteI found Ty Ty’s philosophy very thought provoking. Ty Ty gives Griselda a talk about living as “like God made us to live” (183). He tells her to live by feeling rather than by her head. Emotions are valued over rational thinking. Even after Buck kills Jim Leslie, Ty Ty continues to assert his belief in living by feeling. He is preaching an idea of complete freedom without restraint and animal instinct rather than reason. As Josh explained above, Ty Ty’s philosophy contains a clear flaw. When one is ruled entirely by emotion, negative consequences, such as violence, ensue.
ReplyDeleteI think Ty Ty’s philosophy on how to live and his obsessive desire to dig for gold are related. Both are forms of escapism. Rather than face reality, Ty Ty chooses to live in a world of fantasy and desire. He continues to dig for gold after 15 years of failure. He wants to believe that one day he will strike it rich and all his problems will be solved. In the same way, rather than dealing with the unpleasant realties of life, Ty Ty prefers to indulge in his feelings (even if it is just by looking). He has this utopian belief that the world would be right if everyone pursues his or her own desires. Clearly this is not the case, and I think Ty Ty begins to realize this at the end. He says, “It feels like the bottom has dropped completely out from under me. I feel like I’m sinking and can’t help myself” (208). Yet, rather than facing reality at the end, he chooses instead to continue digging. Ultimately, he chooses consuming desire over reality.