Subject: Re: The Scream
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliabaader@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 30 2001 - 17:18:06 GMT
--- Will Hochman <hochman@southernct.edu> wrote:
> Celilia, as I read your post I welcomed your association with Munch's
> The Scream but made mine because of the end of the story...when the
> narrator needs to scream just after stepping off the bus and spotting
> the red tissue paper that "looked like someone's poppy-petal mask."
It's a deceptive story, isn't it? At first glance, it seems simply like
a fond remembrance of an honored hero, but the more you look at it, the
more you see the hideous truth masked just beneath the surface. In the
past, I've bridled more than once at your suggestion of Gedsudski's
cruelty, but the more I think on it, the more I believe you're right.
It's horrible what he did to those boys, and the narrator's crystalline
memory attests to its importance in his life, but it also makes me think
that Gedsudski's degree of pain was degrees and degrees and degrees
higher than you at first think. I wonder what happened after, no? Is
this a case where Salinger took a page from Hemingway's book and left
the most important part of it out, only hinting towards the disaster
that must surely follow?
Oh. The poppies, also known as the reason why I think disaster is
imminent:
Before I forget to bring this up again, I wanted to mention that I think
that the use of a poppy for the color of the mask is more than just a
terrific use of imagery (though it is that, too). I was rereading John
McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" recently when I was reminded of
another strong use of poppy imagery. For the sake of those who have not
read the poem:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
To give a little historical background/biology, the poppy seed is one
that can lay in the ground for years and years without germinating.
However, once the ground is disturbed around the poppy, it will grow.
This was a particularly disturbing occurrance to witness in WWI, after
the fields of Flanders were dug up for the trenches, a sea of red
poppies sprung up months later, a silent testament to the carnage that
had gone before.
It is for this reason that the poppy is the symbol of the American
Legion and they're always trying to get you to buy one at traffic
lights.
Anyway, it's a strong symbol, and one that is regularly used to
represent the horrors of loss in a war. As the poppy seed is also
associated with morphine -- mask the pain -- the use of the poppy-red
mask seems to take on more significance.
I wonder if it's a commentary on the over-use of the poppy? The masking
of the hideous pain that lies just underneath? And the story ends, as
you point out, in the blowing tissue paper that "looked like someone's
poppy-red mask" sort of like how "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/
Between the crosses..." (1-2).
Something to consider, anyway.
Regards,
Cecilia
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