"What do you think of this for an idea:'The worse you exploit somebody, the worse you hate him'" (286). There seems to be a continual theme of hate and resignation in Asch's story. Both between those with agency and those without. This quote is a reflection on a landowners' poor treatment and resentment of his tenants. The story doesn't mention any reciprocated hate except "Peder said, 'if I was his tenant I'd shoot him'" (286), but he is only speaking hypothetically. Here, it seems, he who has agency also hates.
We move on to a farming family in Texarcana. This family rents land from a lawyer every year and every year the lawyer threatens them with eviction if they don't buy a mule from him. They refuse every year. Here agency seems to be shared between the lawyer and the family. The lawyer owns the land and sets the price but the family has the agency to refuse his attempted exploits and remain there. The lawyer and the family don't share in hate, however. They tend to each resign themselves to each other. The lawyer resigns his threats and the family resigns any discontent saying "we don't live here. We're just here" (288). Another man in a similar situation said "I know my place and I keep it" continuing this trend of resignation in their demographic.
When Chiver and Aragon rally a bunch of Mexican workers together to try to arrange a sugar union, an interesting interplay between hate, resignation, and agency arises. Aragon is able to successfully draw the Mexican workers' attention with a speech spoken in Spanish and so its content is unknown. When he finished, Chiver spoke. His speech ended with "once the beet plants are peering out of the ground they can't do a thing without us.... And if they don't listen... We can go at night, with hoes; five hundred hoes in the dead of night can do an awful lot of damage to a beet field" (296). After this little speech the crowd loses interest and dissipates. Chiver suggested a way for them to gain agency via hate and the result was the crowd resigning again to their plight.
The continued presence of hate, resignation and agency throughout the story seem to imply some interesting relationship between them. The poet at the end seems to sum up resignation nicely, at least, when he says "no. It would be too much like showing my insides. I guess not. Let's go in and have another beer." Here, he who has no agency also resigns. Although he still has agency over himself clearly. But that's a whole other story.
1 comment:
I actually noticed this trend as well, though I didn’t notice the extent to which it could be tied to hypothetical or empty violence. Here’s another example I noticed: “If you don’t have it on me, I’ll cut your heart out.” Though, now that I am looking through the tale again with your point in mind, I am seeing countless connections between agency and harm. Even the conversation with the ironing woman on page 287 ends centers around self-inflicted pain that serves the purpose of retaining agency for her children in the future. This connection is so prevalent throughout the story that one could almost make the point that violence seems to be a common reaction when agency is removed from people without much say-so from them. This tale explores an interesting border in this regard, because it views a people that have chosen a life with little agency out of an inability to do anything else. It is almost as if people who have agency taken from them resort to violence, people with agency avoid violence, and people who don’t have agency as a result of their own action speak of violence. It is an interesting dynamic and one that I am glad you brought to my attention. The violent nature of the tale doesn’t even end with the dialogue, though. The further I read into the notion the more I can see its effect on other aspects of the work. The environments themselves seem to have a violent air about them. It is almost as if the southern states that the protagonist is exploring are a naturally violent place/ Natural things such as dust storms (Asch, 289) and fire (Asch, 288) play just as much of a role in this as the ruined equipment, housing, vehicles, and machines. So even attempts to lighten the work load result in fatalities (Asch 299-300)… bummer. It really does a lot to emphasize the sense of helplessness that this story portrays for me. I’m not sure how far all this can be taken, but it sure seems like the sky is the limit. Thanks again for sharing!
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