April 22, 2010
Carlos de Oliveira
Professor Salsich – English 102
Conflicts and Loyalties
This essay is my rendition of three short stories on the conflicts and loyalties of the main protagonists in these stories. The first is titled “A White Heron” written by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) followed by “Battle Royal” a short story published in 1947 and written by Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) and the third title “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). These three stories reveal to us the discordance and dissension the main characters have within themselves and with the community at large.
Sarah Orne Jewett’s story tells us of Sylvia a lonely nine-year old girl and her inner conflict on whether to reveal the location of a beautiful white heron to a hunter for money. One evening, just before sunset Sylvia drives home a cow from the pastures. As Sylvia and “Mistress Molly” the cow approach the farm she is startled by a tall young man with a gun. The young hunter explains to Sylvia and Mrs. Tilley (her grandmother) that he spotted a white heron in the area and will pay ten dollars “to anybody who could show it to me “(1145) as he would like to kill and stuff it. The next morning Sylvia accompanied the friendly young hunter who was “most kind and sympathetic” (1145) as he told her all about birds and their lives as they searched all over the woods for the heron. Although they looked all day, the heron was not found and next morning on her own Sylvia who had a very good idea as to where the elusive bird was went out on her own without telling anyone. Sylvia climbs a very tall pine tree trunk and from this extremely high vantage point she not only spots the white heron’s nest but also for the first time in her life sees the ocean. This sighting of the ocean exhilarates the little girl whom her grandmother describes as “there ain’t a foot o’ground she don’t know her way over.” (1144) There is a deep connection between Sylvia (name means woods in Latin) and her country surroundings, therefore in spite of the obvious need for the reward, when questioned whether she knows of the white heron Sylvia responds only with silence. Both hunter and grandmother appeal to her but her inner conflict is over all she can think of is the vast ocean and the beautiful white heron flying free.
In Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” a young African-American is in conflict with incompatible feelings and loyalties. We learn that the main protagonist an excellent speaker who is graduating from high school and is also invited to give his graduation address at an all whites club. The young man believes in appeasing whites “I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington.”(932) Ironically, his speech focuses on humility but when he arrives at the club he discovers that all sorts of humiliating activities are planned for him and nine other African-American boys. Subsequently a battle royal or blind folded group boxing match is planned for the ten boys. A lithe and naked white woman dancer is placed in front of the boys and the protagonist doesn’t know how to react “My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh” yet he was strongly attracted “and looked in spite of myself.”(933) The boys are placed in an impossible situation: as men they are attracted to the naked white woman, on the other hand she is white and therefore taboo, an ironic dilemma. After being tormented in front of the white woman by the white crowd they are blind folded and told to fight every man for himself. This is symbolic of the methods used to suppress the African-American community “it was complete anarchy. Everybody fought everybody else.”(935) When the fight is down to the protagonist and one other fighter the narrator offers to throw the fight “Fake like I knocked you out, you can have the prize,”(936) the other fighter declined focused only on the money and not on their mutual degradation. A further humiliation followed when the boys are forced to pick up coins from an electrified rug ironically the coins turn out to be brass tokens. In the end the narrator gets to deliver his graduation address in front of this white crowd and is rewarded with a scholarship to a black college but not before being subjected to conflict and contradiction at every turn.
This story “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway is a thought provoking look at a young marine “Krebs” returning home from World War I and his conflicted thoughts and contradictions on trying to readapt to civilian life back in his hometown. Krebs returned home long after the war was over, at first he didn’t want to talk about the war, later he did but nobody wanted to hear about the war anymore. The only way people would listen to his war stories was when he lied and sensationalized his stories, but pretty soon he got tired of telling lies too. The only times he relaxed and talked about the war truthfully was when he talked to fellow veterans. So he stopped talking about the war altogether, in the meantime Krebs enjoyed sitting around town watching girls walk by, he liked the way they dressed too, on the other hand he thought “they were too complicated,”(580) and he put no effort into getting to know any of them. Somehow he did want a girl but didn’t want to put any effort or time getting close to one. He reasoned he didn’t want to get bogged down with“the intrigue and the politics”(580) and he didn’t want to “do any courting”(580) either. One morning while Krebs was still in bed his mother came into his bedroom and said she had had a discussion with his father and decided he was welcome to use the family car at any time. When Krebs came down for breakfast his mother suggested “God has some work for everyone to do” (582)and that he should get a job. After going at him for a while about getting a job and taking responsibility his mother asked him to pray with her and Krebs refused. Krebs decided that he didn’t need any conflict “he wanted his life to go smoothly”(583) so he planned on leaving for Kansas City and getting a job there, his parents would understand.
In the story “The White Heron” Sylvia’s pivotal moment came to her when “the tree stood still and held away the winds”(1147) as she reached the top of the pine tree. The attributing of human characteristics to a tree are symbolic of her perfect union with nature, together with seeing the ocean for the first time and spotting the beautiful heron there was no doubt what her decision would be. In Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” the protagonist experiences deep humiliation and degradation at the hand of white racists but in spite of this conflict he is triumphant by achieving what he most needed for his future – an education. In “Soldiers Home” Krebs is a very sad individual who at best undergoes profound changes during the war in Europe and at worst might need psychological counseling and is generally misunderstood by everybody.
