Amateur analysis of scene from Erskine Caldwell's "God's Little Acre"
Angie
lot of respect for the thoughtful discussions here. For an obscure
online magazine that looks at sex and violence, I have written an
article that analyzes a scene from Erskine Caldwell's novel "God's
Little Acre."
I am posting it here to see if anyone has comments, corrections or
agreements/ disagreements. It includes an several page extract from
the text. Thanks in advance for looking this over.
Angie
(angiheart at hotmail dot com)
ERSKINE CALDWELL'S "GOD'S LITTLE ACRE"
An analysis of Rosamond's confrontation with her husband and sister
after their adultery.
"God's Little Acre" is an allegorical novel written in the 1930s by
Southern modernist Erskine Caldwell. Along with "Tobacco Road," it is
probably his best-known work. Caldwell was respected by readers
around the English-speaking world for the unflinching realism in his
storytelling.
THE STORY
This novel covers a brief period of several days in the life of the
Walden clan, a once-proud farming family in Georgia laid low by the
anti-agricultural economic forces of the Roaring Twenties, not to
mention the devastation of the Great Depression.
The family patriarch, Ty Ty Walden, is now a widower nearing sixty
years of age -- his wife died some years before the start of the
story. He lives with his hot-blooded teenaged daughter Darling Jill,
his adult sons Buck and Shaw, and Buck's arrestingly beautiful wife
Griselda. ("She just makes a man want to get down on his knees and
lick something," Ty Ty says, in an allusion that probably refers more
to canine behavior than cunnilingus.) Other occupants of the
household include Ty Ty's daughter Rosamond, who occasionally comes to
visit with her husband Will Thompson, and Black Sam and Uncle Felix,
two African American sharecroppers who work the Walden farm.
Unfortunately for the farm and its inhabitants, Ty Ty has become
inexplicably struck with gold fever, and he believes that if he digs
enough, he will discover precious metals buried beneath his farmland.
Meanwhile, most of his crops go unsown because all available labor is
redirected toward digging. While his immediately family still has
food on the table, his sharecroppers live on the edge of starvation,
and we can see that the Waldens are headed in the same direction.
His neighbors think he's a fool, but he believes he will prove them to
be the fools when he finds the stash of gold. "[W]hen the gold-fever
strikes a man," he tells his uncomprehending son-in-law, "he can't
think about nothing else to save his soul. I reckon that's what's
wrong with me, if anything is. I've got the fever so bad I can't be
bothered about planting cotton. I'm bent on getting those little
yellow nuggets out of the ground." He remains convinced despite the
fact that he has been at it for fifteen years without success.
The author parallels this outlandish scheme with an equally improbable
desire on the part of Will, who is a textile worker in a town just
across the South Carolina border, to reopen a shuttered mill. For the
prior year and a half, the mill's owners have locked out the workers
in an attempt to break their efforts to collectively bargain for
better wages. The workers' slow but courageous economic starvation in
the face of anti-union activities echoes the literal starvation of
Black Sam and Uncle Felix.
"I'll be damned if I sit still and see them starve us with a
dollar-ten and charging rent on what we live in," Will says
self-righteously. "There are enough of us to get in there and turn the
power on. We can run the damn mill. We can run it better than
anybody else." He eventually achieves a pyrrhic victory, breaking
into the factory with his fellow workers and restoring electricity to
the looms. His celebration is cut short by the retribution of the
factory owners, leading to a tragic end.
While Will's defeat is sudden and brutal, we see that Ty Ty's decline
will persist little by little for the next several seasons, as he will
surely continue to dig for gold without an ounce of common sense. His
failure will come with time, but it is just as certain as Will's. The
book concludes with another tragedy, as Ty Ty's estranged son Jim
Leslie enters the scene and, driven by lust for Griselda, is shot like
a mad animal.
Meanwhile, Caldwell gives just as much attention to the struggles of
the women in this impoverished group. Will's wife Rosamond suffers
through his many infidelities -- he responds to a pretty girl in an
animalistic way that Rosamond manages to shrug off, as inevitable as
the summer heat. Still, a pivotal scene in which she catches him in
bed with her sister Darling Jill demonstrates just how hurt she is by
his wandering eyes.
Meanwhile, Buck's wife Griselda suffers in her own way, becoming the
constant source of lust from the Walden family. Not only does her
husband view her as a possession (albeit a pretty one), Will can't
keep his hands off her, going so far as to rip the clothes off her
body in a climactic scene. Even her father-in-law Ty Ty looks on her
like a panting dog when she strips down before going to bed.
But like the men, these women lack strong characters. They seem
willing to tolerate almost anything just to live in the moment, and
they seem destined for equally unhappy ends later in life.
THE SCENE
Darling Jill, the youngest daughter of the Walden household at perhaps
16 or 17 years of age, is visiting her older sister Rosamond's house
in South Carolina. She is there at the urging of her father Ty Ty,
who wants her to bring Rosamond's husband Will back to the farm to
help with the quixotic task of digging for gold. Accompanied by
portly Pluto Swint, Darling Jill's unattractive but stable would-be
suitor, they spend the night at Will and Rosamond's house, resolved to
drive the Thompsons back in the morning.
Will, the inveterate philanderer, can't keep his hands off the ripe
Georgia peach that is his teenaged sister-in-law. In the morning,
Rosamond has left their cabin to go to the store. Houseguest Pluto is
out on the porch. Darling Jill has come into Will's room naked, since
she has just woken up and arisen from bed. They kiss, Darling Jill
says "take me," he does, and it's an incredibly satisfying act for
both of them. "Do it to me again," she says after. They banter in
bed for a few minutes.
[Pages 57-63]
Darling Jill raised her arm and rubbed the teeth-marks where
he had bitten her. Will wished he could get up and lie on
his back, but she still refused to release him. He lay
quietly for a while, with his eyes closed, feeling good all
over.
Suddenly, like a stroke of lightning out of a cloudless sky,
something hit him an awful whack on the buttocks. Will let
out a yell and turned completely over in the air, falling on
his back with his eyes almost popping out. He knew a bolt
of lightning could not have frightened him any more
thoroughly.
Before he could say anything, his eyes fell upon Rosamond at
the side of the bed. She had the hairbrush raised
threateningly in one hand, and with the other she was trying
with all her might to turn Darling Jill over on her stomach.
She succeeded in getting her sister turned over, and she
whacked five or six times in quick succession, striking
before Darling Jill could squirm out of reach.
Will realized that there was no sense in his attempting to
get up, so he lay still, watching the hairbrush in
Rosamond's hands and praying that she would not turn him
over on his stomach and blister him again.
Darling Jill first laughed, but she was so badly blistered,
and the blisters hurt so much, she started to cry. Will put
his hand under himself and felt the big welt that had been
raised on his body. He rubbed it, trying to make the
stinging feeling leave. Darling Jill's buttocks were as red
as fire all over, and there were ridges of scarlet welts on
her tender flesh. He looked again and saw that there were
even welts on top of welts, rising like oblong blocks the
size and shape of Rosamond's hairbrush.
Pluto stood behind Rosamond looking pityingly at Darling
Jill's trembling bare body and at her quivering blistered
buttocks.
"Jesus," Will said, touching the blister behind.
"Is that all you got to say for yourself?" Rosamond asked
him. "I went down the street to the store and was gone
fifteen or twenty minutes. And this is what you were doing
while I was away! What do you suppose Pluto would say if he
could talk? Don't you know he hopes to marry her? It's
almost breaking his heart to see this. Suppose you had gone
downtown and had come back to find me in bed with Pluto --
what would you do about it? Can't you say anything but
'Jesus'?"
Darling Jill suddenly burst out laughing. She looked at
Rosamond a moment, and at Pluto. She laughed louder.
"Not with that belly, Rosamond," Darling Jill said. "How
could he with that belly of his?"
Rosamond choked back a smile, but Pluto's face became
crimson. He turned his head, backing against the wall and
trying press himself into it out of sight. Darling Jill put
her hand on the blisters and began crying again.
"Now, wait a minute, Rosamond," Will said.
Rosamond looked down at Will, resting the hand that held the
hairbrush at the foot of the bed.
"I have to beg you to sleep with me sometimes, but Darling
Jill comes to the house just for one night and you take her.
She's no better-looking than I am, Will."
He could think of nothing to say. He could not think of a
single word to utter in reply. She continued looking down
at him, however; he knew he had to say something before she
would move.
"Just once was all right, wasn't it, Rosamond?"
"Once! That's all you ever say. Every time I ask you why
you did it, you say you only did it once. You've had every
girl in town, once. It might just as well be a hundred
times. Don't you ever stop to think how it makes me feel --
you out somewhere with a girl you have no business being
with, and here I am sitting at home wondering where you are
and what you're doing?"
Will turned his head just enough to see Darling Jill out of
the corners of his eyes.
"Maybe it's because she's a Georgia girl, Rosamond. I
reckon that's why."
"That's no excuse -- you can't even make one up. I'm a
Georgia girl myself -- at least I used to be before I
married you and came over here to Carolina."
Will looked at Pluto, but Pluto apparently had no suggestion
worth the offer. He stared back blankly at Will.
"Rosamond, honey," he said meekly, "I felt of her and kissed
her some and then the first thing I knew about it was that I
just had to do it. I didn't mean any harm. That's just how
it was."
"If I had a baseball bat, I'd do a thing or two to you,"
Rosamond replied.
Will began to have a little more confidence in his ability
to argue with Rosamond. He was not afraid of Rosamond any
longer, and he knew he could take the hairbrush away from
her if she tried to blister him again.
"Now, listen here, Rosamond," he said. "A girl like Darling
Jill can't come around without someone getting her. She was
made that way from the start."
Rosamond made as if to take the hairbrush and blister them
both all over again, but she turned instead and ran to the
dresser near the corner where Pluto was. She jerked open
the top drawer and pulled out the little pearl-handled
thirty-two she kept there. She ran back to the bed, holding
it out in front of her.
"For God's sake, Rosamond!" Will shouted. "Rosamond, honey,
don't do that!"
Darling Jill looked up from the pillow just in time to see
the hammer go back and to hear it cock. Will sat up in bed,
hugging the pillow in front of him.
"If I blister you, you won't stay blistered, but if I shoot
you, you'll stay shot, Will Thompson."
"Honey," he begged, "if you'll put that down, I'll never do
it again. I swear to God I won't, honey. If a girl tries
to make me, I'll throw her in Horse Creek. I swear to God
I'll never do it again as long as I live, Rosamond, honey."
Rosamond pulled the trigger and the room was full of white
smoke. She had shot at Will's feet, but she had missed.
Will jumped at Rosamond, one hand out after the little
revolver. Rosamond shot it again. The bullet went between
his legs, and he was scared to death. He looked down to see
if he had been shot, but he was afraid to take the time to
look closely. He ran to the window and jumped out, landing
on his hands and chest. He was up and out of sight around
the corner of the house a second after he had struck the
ground.
The woman in the yellow company house next door ran to the
window and stuck out her head. She saw Will running naked
across the front yard and down the street as fast as his
heels would fly. After he had passed from sight, she turned
and looked at Rosamond at the window with the little pearl-
handled revolver shaking her hand.
"Is that Will Thompson?" the woman asked.
Rosamond leaned out the window, looking up the street and
down it.
"Where did he go?" Rosamond asked her.
"Down the street yonder," the woman said, unable to keep
from laughing any longer. "It's something new for Will
Thompson to get shot out of his own house, ain't it? I'll
have to tell Charlie about Will when he comes home. He'll
die laughing when he hears about it. And Will Thompson was
naked as a jay-bird, too. Ain't that something, though?"
Rosamond went back and put the revolver into the dresser
drawer and shut it. Then she sat down in a chair and cried.
Pluto did not know what to do. He did not know whether to
go after Will and try to bring him back home, or whether to
stay in the room and try to quiet Rosamond and Darling Jill.
Darling Jill had quieted down some, and she was not crying
so loudly then. But Rosamond was. Pluto leaned over and
put his hand on her arm and patted it. Rosamond threw his
hand off and cried even more hysterically. Pluto decided
then that the best thing for him to do was to do nothing for
a while. He sat down again and waited.
Presently Rosamond got up and ran to the bed where her
sister was. She threw herself upon the bed, hugging Darling
Jill and bursting into tears once more. They both lay there
consoling one another. Pluto looked own uneasily. He had
expected to see them fly at each other, pulling hair,
scratching, and calling each other names. But they were
doing nothing of the sort. They were actually hugging one
another and weeping together. Pluto could not understand
why Rosamond did not try to shoot Darling Jill, or at least
why she was not angry with her. To look at them at that
moment, Pluto could not imagine how Rosamond had acted as
she had a few minutes before. They were behaving as though
suffering a common bereavement.
When Rosamond's sobs had almost ceased, she sat up and
looked down at her sister. The red welts on Darling Jill's
buttocks still throbbed with intense pain, and she could not
lie upon them. Rosamond touched one of the welts tenderly
with the tips of her fingers as though she might be able to
soothe the hurt a little thereby.
"Lie where you are until I come back," Rosamond told her.
"I'll only be gone a moment."
She ran to the kitchen and came back with a cup of lard and
large bath towel. She sat down on the side of the bed and
dipped her fingers into the grease.
"Come here, Pluto," she said, not turning around to look at
him. "You can help me."
Pluto came over to the bed, blushing to the tips of his ears
at the sight of Darling Jill lying naked before him.
"Lift her gently, Pluto, and hold her across your lap,"
Rosamond instructed. "Now be careful. Don't irritate those
welts, whatever you do."
Pluto put his arms under Darling Jill, laying the palms of
his hands flat against her breast and thighs. He jerked his
hands from under her, his face a neck burning.
"Now what's the matter?"
"Maybe you had better lift her."
"Don't be silly, Pluto. How can I? I'm not strong."
He put his hands under her again, closing his eyes and
compressing his lips.
"Hurry, Pluto, and let me put this lard on those swollen
places before they turn blue."
Pluto lifted her and turned around. He sat down on the side
of the bed next to Rosamond with Darling Jill lying across
his knees. Rosamond began applying the lard at once. Pluto
would have watched her, but he could not take his eyes from
Darling Jill's long brown hair hanging to the floor. He
raised her a little so her hair would not touch it. She
winced once or twice when Rosamond touched her, but he did
not protest or try to get up. When the lard had been
carefully spread, Rosamond wiped her fingers on a piece of
cloth and began folding the towel until it was a long thick
bandage. Pluto looked down at Darling Jill's soft buttocks
with a sudden desire to touch them and try to soothe the
pain. Each time he looked down at her in his lap, though,
he began to blush all over again.
"Help her to her feet, Pluto," Rosamond said. "Lift her up
and let her stand on her feet, Pluto."
Darling Jill stood up in front of Pluto and her sister while
the towel was being fastened securely around her. Pluto was
gazed on a point of her body that happened to be the
closest. He looked straight ahead, moving his eyes neither
to the right nor to the left. He knew Darling Jill was
looking down on him, but he could not bring himself to raise
his head and look up into her face.
He was not at all certain, but he believed she had leaned
forward towards him.
"Like me, Pluto?" Darling Jill asked, smiling.
Pluto's face trembled, his neck stung with a sudden rush of
blood, and he tried to look up and meet her eyes. It was an
exertion for him to move his head upward and backward, but
he forced himself to move it.
"I'm going to be angry if you won't say you like me now,"
she pouted.
"I'm crazy about you, Darling Jill," he said, partly choked.
"And that's a fact."
"Why do you turn red in the face and neck when you see me
like this, Pluto?"
He felt fresh blood rush in to embarrass him. He pulled at
a loose thread in the counterpane without knowing what he
was doing.
"I like it, though," he replied.
COMMENTARY
This scene cries out for commentary, and yet there is surprisingly
little reference to it in a web search of scholarly articles published
about this work. Perhaps it is given more careful treatment in
articles that are not available on-line.
This is the first scene of the book in which Caldwell uses quick,
shocking brutality to settle a score -- but it is surely not the last.
(The novel culminates in another act of family bloodshed: a
fratricidal murder.) Even though the spanking itself is the most
minor of the violent acts in the novel, it is no cakewalk to endure,
and Caldwell is making clear the connection between poverty,
desperation and violence.
Rosamond literally blisters Darling Jill's behind for the crime of
sleeping with her husband -- one assumes this is rather more extreme
than the spankings they received from their mother. It is significant
that Caldwell spends so much text surveying the damage that Rosamond's
hairbrush has wrought on her teenaged sister's bottom: we see what
she is capable of doing to a member of her own family, and by
extension, we understand that violence is part of the undercurrent of
the culture.
Rosamond's gun, fired twice at her philandering husband, foreshadows
the guns that will reappear in the novel's climax. And although Will
runs in terror from his angry wife, not bothering to grab a single
article of clothing to hide his nudity in public, nobody seems
particularly shocked that Rosamond resorts to her revolver. She says
that if she spanks her husband as she did her sister, he won't stay
spanked, but if she shoots him, his wandering days are over.
It is interesting that although Rosamond is clearly angrier at her
husband, he only gets one stroke of the hairbrush, while her sister's
naked bottom gets at least six. Part of the reason is what they are
each willing to accept: Will repositions himself in a flash after the
first painful blow to avoid the follow-ups, while Darling Jill seems
to stay in place much longer, accepting Rosamond's spanking as her due
for betraying her.
This is certainly socialized behavior -- in the South of the 1930's,
and in almost all cultures and eras for that matter, women held each
other to a higher standard. (Hence, the many spankings little girls
have gotten from their mothers for flashing their panties, while
little boys who pull up little girls' skirts are indulged by their
parents.) Darling Jill's sexual behavior is very masculine -- she
likes sex, is not shy about initiating it casually with numerous
partners, and she doesn't really care that people think of her as a
slut. But when it comes time to pay the price of her carelessness,
she remains in place and allows her sister to blister her.
Rosamond takes advantage of her compliant younger sister, venting her
anger at her husband upon her sister's tender flesh. This, too, is
socialized behavior, as women are taught to direct their anger at each
other (or inwardly, at herself) rather than to express it toward their
men, for fear of losing them. The extreme version of this is the
Irish Magdalene Sisters who were unremittingly cruel toward the
relatively innocent girls who became pregnant, rather than to the men
who manipulated them into having sex. Similarly, Rosamond avails
herself of Darling Jill's bottom to spank out her anger, and her
sister complies.
The post-punishment scene of healing and redemption is rather tender,
not to mention frankly arousing for some readers. (Sex is the other
undercurrent, besides poverty and violence, in the novel.) The image
of a naked girl being massaged and oiled by her sister can't help but
turn on some readers.
The "male gaze" is even injected directly into the scene with weak
Pluto mutely witnessing the spanking and its aftermath. He is an
active participant in Darling Jill's redemption, as she lays across
his lap (as if for another spanking) while her bottom is attended to.
As if that weren't exciting enough for him, she stands up, proud in
her nudity, and visually seduces him into having even stronger
feelings of yearning for her.
Throughout the scene, the reader's sympathy remains with Rosamond, the
wronged wife, and Pluto, the good-hearted man who wants to make an
honest woman out of Darling Jill. Perhaps it was wrong for Rosamond
to beat her young sister with a hairbrush, but Darling Jill does not
seem to bear a grudge. (Nor does Rosamond resent her sister for
sleeping with her husband, after her momentary anger has passed.) And
as weak as Rosamond and Pluto are, Will and Darling Jill come across
as being even weaker, giving in to their base desires.
Just as a parental spanking is meant to teach a girl not to give in to
these desires, Rosamond "teaches" her sister that she is risking a
great deal by being so sexually loose within the family. Later in the
book, beautiful sister-in-law Griselda will become the object of
sexual desire for two other members of the family, with devastating
results. We can only hope that Darling Jill has learned her lesson
through the relatively mild pain of a sore backside.
SOURCE
Erskine Caldwell
"God's Little Acre"
University of Georgia Press, 1933