RE: The Dwarf's Song


Subject: RE: The Dwarf's Song
From: Zack Wyatt (zwyatt@stanford.edu)
Date: Fri May 25 2001 - 13:53:31 GMT


Cotter doesn't write much about "The Laughing Man" and Dwarf's Song -- only
a paragraph -- so I'll quote the selection here to save everyone the trip to
the library:

"The hideous looking Laughing Man's physical distortion belies the nobility
of his soul. He is the fictional alter ego of the Chief, John Gedsudski, who
is also homely and good-hearted. He hopes to find in Mary Hudson a "garden"
that will be the equivilent of the playing field he enjoys with the
Commanches, but when she leaves and him, the Chief destroys the heroic
Laughing Man and the boys' imaginary world. Rightly or wrongly, he
bequeaths to his team a memory of hurt and "distorted blood." Rilke's Dwarf
asks God: "Is he angry with me for my face / with its mumpish mouth?" [
Slightly different translation of grumpy/mumpish mouth ] The Laughing Man
likewise possesses "a face that featured, instead of a mouth, an enormous
oval cavity below the nose" (87), and he must subsist on eagles' blood. The
mouth of the story-teller Chief finally frightens the children into
recognizing cruel reality, the mask torn from illusion. The poem
communicates the same nightmarish, freakshow quality that pervades
Salinger's story - the same sense of alienation and longing to give and
discover love. Again, the hunger remains uncompromised: the Laughing Man
refuses to drink from the vial of blood and dies."

[From James Finn Cotter's "A Source for Seymour's Suicide: Rilke's VOICES
and Salinger's NINE STORIES" in the Winter 1989 PAPERS ON LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE, page 93]

To add my own thoughts and observations:

The Dwarf theme is pretty well hammered home in "The Laughing Man."
Gedsudski is only 5'3 or 4. He is invited to try out for the "N.Y. Giants"
and the children say that "if wishes were inches, all of us Commanches would
have had him a giant in no time." (57) Two times within 15 lines we see
Gedsudski striving to be a "Giant" (why didn't Salinger invite him to a
Yankees tryout?). And with Mary Hudson, he is struggling from his *lower*
(dwarf-like) economic class to her rich Douglaston ways.

The most confusing part of Rilke's poem is the final stanza - especially
what 'light and clear' refers to. Any help?
> Is it because he's [God] angry about my face
> with its grumpy mouth?
> In principle, its always been ready
> to be light and clear;
> but nothing ever came as close
> to it as the large dogs have.
> And dogs don't have that.

Those dog references in Rilke might help explain why Salinger changed
Laughing Boy's all black horse with a white foot into Black Wing, a wolf of
the same coloring.

        - Zack

p.s. Will: Do those other essays you mentioned only deal with APDFB or also
with "The Laughing Man"? (I'll check them out eventually for sure -- but
much sooner if they are Laughing Man interpretations that I've missed for my
paper)

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