THE COMMUNITY EFFECTS
ON THE
SOUL
The Community Effects on the Soul
The texts Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler and Lives Of The Saints by Nino Ricci both demonstrate the effects the role of the community has in the lives and fates of Pearl and Christina. This essay will argue that both Pearl and Christina were influenced by the community to conform to a way of life not of their preference and that their reaction to this influence ultimately led to Christina's death and Pearl's isolation.
The Pressure of Conformity
Both Pearl and Christina live in a community where society dictates the norm of what is expected of a woman. Women should be married, as in Pearl's case and married women should behave virtuous as is expected from Christina. Pearl and Christina are both resistant in their actions from the pressures of the community, yet eventually succumb to the pressures.
Pearl is conscious of how her single status is considered inferior. Being thirty and not married is defiant but pressure to marry takes its toil. Pearl understands how the community is reacting towards her, "They had thought she would be an old maid. They'd grown tactful …insultingly tactful. Talk of others' weddings and confinements halted when Pearl stepped out on the porch" (Tyler 6) Pearl also feels that education is considered a finality to the prospect of marriage, "She felt that going to college would be an admission of defeat." (Tyler 6) Marrying Beck and leaving her community immediately because
of his career, gives the reader insight that she marries because of peer pressure rather than love. This insight is reflected by her not being happy just by being married to Beck. She appears to need the attention that marriage provides in her community. "She never even got to enjoy her new status among her girlfriends…Everything seemed so unsatisfying." (Tyler 6&7)
The stigma of single life continues to haunt Pearl. This is demonstrated when Beck leaves her. Pearl behaves as if this has never occurred. Not even her children are informed of the truth. Pearl reflects how the community had responded to her single life prior to marrying Beck, "They had been so sure no man would marry her. She could never tell them what had happened." (Tyler 11) Pearl's pretense that her husband is away on business extends a lifetime. As an adult, her son Cody recalls, "First he leaves and Mother pretends he hasn't… A thirty-five year business trip…"(Tyler 284)
In Lives Of The Saints Christina gives the illusion of not caring what the community thinks about her. But from the beginning a simple act as changing her clothes after being bitten by a snake while alone with a man provides an insight to the opposite being true. When Christina's son returns with help he notices," She had put on a new dress, a sleek flowered one…and had combed out her hair." (Ricci 11)
Comments from the community such as, "You're too proud" (Ricci 46), and "Walking around like a princess" (Ricci, p 47) illustrate that the community feels that Christina is arrogant. This is reinforced when Giuseppina, Christina's
Childhood friend tells her, ,"…You can't afford to walk around like a princess. It turns people against you." Christina becomes pregnant from a man other than her husband who is in America and Giuseppina's predications come true. The community rejects Christina, "no one stopped by anymore…and if people passed my mother sitting in the front of the house they did not look at her…"(Ricci 52) The effects of the community on Christina is demonstrated by her withdrawal. Vitto relates the changes in his mother, "My mother began more and more to keep inside…sometimes simply shut up in her room; and she and my grandfather hardly spoke.." (Ricci 52). Ultimately the pressure from the community is too much for Christina. In her own moment of desperation she succumbs to a an act of superstition as was advised by her childhood friend, "you take a chicken …drain out the blood, then cut out the heart …wash your hands in the blood…pour into the ground". Christina had found it humorous and ridiculous at the time (Ricci 54). The community effects her so profoundly that Christina eventually performs the act. Vitto provides this insight, "Now the mystery of the blood on my mother's hands explained itself, for on a wooden block in front of the chicken run lay the limp headless body of a chicken…and a pan of blood resting on the ground nearby (Ricci 114).
The community's rejection of Christina continues and it is not until Christina's behavior demonstrates a lack of defiance by attending church after a time of absence does this change. Vitto relates, "And so our home which for
months had known only a lenten silence, was once again filled with a little life and conversation…my mother's presence at church…taken perhaps as some kind of a sign…of the repentance and guilt…" (Ricci 146)
Both Christina and Pearl succumb to the pressures demanded from the community. Pearl feels the need to be married, to be socially accepted. Rather than face life without a husband after Beck leaves her, Pearl continues a life of deception to avoid the stigma of being without a husband. Christina's rejection by the community causes her to perform a superstitious act to redeem herself and to return to church. These women are similar in allowing the community to influence their lives.
My Soul Thee Takes
The community leads to Pearl's isolation from others as she attempts to keep her life apart from the community who has judged her. Christina is led to her death in her attempt to escape the community. Both women are victims of their community who has condemned them.
It is not until nearing the end of the text Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant that the reader understands the gravity of the community role's in
diminishing the spirit of Pearl. "….she hadn't been anyone's wife for over a third of a century; that she'd been frantic, angry, sometimes terrifying mother; and that she'd never shown the faintest interest in her community but dwelt in it like a visitor…doors tightly shut when at home. That her life had been very long indeed
but never full, stunted was more like it."(Tyler 285). This is not the same woman who was once social, happy and content with life before the community
passed judgement. Ezra brings this to light has he reads his mothers diary to her recollecting her past, "I baked a few Scottish Fancies but they wouldn't do to take to a tea…I went out behind the house,…I believe that at just this moment I am absolutely happy." (Tyler 277) It is through these diaries that glimpses of Pearl come to light. Ezra enlightened indicates, " She [Pearl] had once been a whole different person…had spent her time swinging clubs with the Junior Amazon and cutting up with the Neal boys…and taking first prize at the Autumn Recital Contest (Tyler 264). Pearl was driven into isolation, Ezra reflects, "Certainly she saw no friends; she had none. As near as he could recall, she had never had friends."(Tyler 259)
Pearl had many suitors to choose from in her youth, "Frank brought her perfumed blotters and a box of …candy…Roy couldn't seem to tear himself away…Burt Tansy took her to the comic opera…Arthur…Hugh McKinley…"(Tyler 268). Pearl had no problems attracting men but because she remained single when others considered it inappropriate, it reflected negatively on her persona. The contrast of her full and happy life before being judged by the community and then trying to hold on to the image of marriage to avoid rebuke by the community leads to her isolation. The final obsession of being married is fulfilled at death at her eulogy. The minister who never met
Pearl reads," Pearl Tull, the minister said, was a devoted wife…" (Tyler 285) She had accomplished her deceit to her end.
Christina lives in a very social village. The desperation and conflict of her own beliefs in contrast to the community leads to a nervous breakdown, "Your mother's staying in the hospital a few days." (Ricci 116). Christina manages to escape her community, only to be faced with another on the ship to America. The person she will need the most not only judges her as well but his own problems with alcoholism causes her death." It was not the first death for this physician who Christina considers, a "drunken idiot" (Ricci 212). Christina's own death is foreshadowed when the doctor recalls the complications of the last pregnant woman on board three month earlier, "The baby, unfortunately was stillborn." (Ricci 217) When Vitto is sent for his help, the doctor responds, "You're that woman's son, aren't you, the pregnant one who thinks she's a princess." (Ricci 228)
Ricci and Tyler both demonstrate the influence a community has on its' victims. Christina and Pearl were both judged. Pearl acts the part of a married woman through out her life which takes away the joy of life and of living free to love. Christina more defiant manages to escape after realizing the community is consuming her. Her escape is not complete for another community is there to judge her, one that Pearl avoided after her marriage to Beck. The person Christina will need the most on the ship has already judged her. This judgement from a doctor is ironic due to his incompetence as a physician. If he had thought
more about Christina as a person, he would have remained sober and would have had Christina monitored after giving birth. Both Pearl and Christina failed to be able to live the life they wanted. Though Pearl and Christina both left the community they lived in, Pearl chose to do so in isolation. Christina bolder than Pearl escapes the country only to die at the hands of another community in judgement of her. These two women were victims of a community who betrayed them.
Bibliography
Ricci, Nino. Lives of the Saints. Toronto: Cormorant, 2004.
Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Toronto: Random House, 1996.
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