Post
by IDreamtIWasABee » Sat Nov 06, 2010 6:53 am
When you look at the fairy tale/memory Eli tells the old woman in light of Oskar's re-living it, it's actually a little suggestive on this score.
Oskar sees Eli's mother as "his mother," meaning either that he sees Eli's mother as his own (as if he and Eli were brothers) or that he sees his own mother in place of Eli's. Either is possible, but shortly afterward, when we meet the Lord's "unfunny" little assistant and can't help but connect him to Oskar's father's drunken friend, it begins to seem as if Oskar is indeed seeing the people he knows in his life slotted into the places occupied by characters in Eli's past.
So where is Oskar's father in this story?
We know he's not the Lord, because Oskar would have seen him as such (probably accompanied by a subconscious realization that his father also threatened to castrate him in some way). And we know he's not Jonny or any of the bullies. In fact, we know he's not anyone in Oskar's life, or Oskar would have seen them. The Lord appears to be one of the only figures in the memory whom Oskar sees as he really is/was.
So...where is Oskar's father? The only other place left, the place Eli's father is: offstage.
We are told exactly one thing about Eli's dad: he is in serious debt to the Lord and must sacrifice time and work spent with his family in order to meet his feudal obligations. In the context of a short vignette where economy of words is essential (and this in a book that's quite long and had room to spare), this would only be brought to our attention because Lindquist wants to underline its relevance. Yet it seems irrelevant: it's not needed to tell the story of the lottery, since the Lord selects Eli because of his beauty, not because his family was in hoc to the Lord. The Lord would have spotted him as he sized up the "competitors" and chosen him either way. Meanwhile we don't see how Eli's father reacts to the loss of his son on the day of the lottery. His mother risks her life in the castle to save her child, but Eli's father never even shows up with his wife to bring their kid to the "competition"-despite other families bringing their children and dressing them in their finest for this special occasion. Dad would probably need to work during the day, true, but there's not much to be done in the evening, when the festivities begin. And one more oddity: why does Eli say that he wasn't good for much? Kids in early modern Europe were treated as little adults at best and tools at worst, and for someone who was 11, this would be doubly true. If Eli "wasn't good for much" when he was already almost a "man", there would have been a reason for it-especially with the head of the family toiling the Lord's lands while his family hoofed it on the farm. And we know how much Eli and his mother loved each other despite this.
Little, human Eli: unable to help the family, beloved by his mother, beautiful in a somewhat effete way, no doubt "spoiled" simply by virtue of escaping labor and receiving his mother's affections-is it any great stretch to suspect that Eli's father bargained him to the Lord in hopes of easing the burden on the rest of his family, maybe even shaving off a good deal of the debt? Especially if Eli aroused that certain jealousy so many fathers feel towards their male offspring when they either aren't "man enough" or take "too much" of their wives' attention?
Completely circumstantial evidence? Yes. Complete speculation? No.
So what does this bode for Eli's sense of himself and his gender? Before his castration, it's plausible, even likely, that Eli was...not effeminate, exactly, and probably not someone who felt he was trapped in the body of the opposite sex, but...he probably did possess many characteristics and some of the temperament associated with the female sex, and while he possessed just as many (or more) traits associated with the male sex, his culture could easily have made him feel inadequate for being a sissy, girly, a mama's boy-especially since he liked being a "mama's boy," a boy with a deep, special relationship with his mother. And when he's unable to even help his family on their struggling plot of land, that stigma would deepen into a guilt and shame that would make him wish he could be the opposite gender, if only for convenience's sake.
It isn't uncommon. In children especially, the wish to be the other gender, to enjoy the activities and privileges special to that gender, is routine, and it probably never really is extinguished even in adults who are heterosexual and comfortable being in the body they were born in. But these same people, because of culture and perhaps a bit of biology, would also feel at ease, and sometimes idly desire to be, the other gender, and even to have the body of the other sex (after all, what is sexual love but a desire to in some sense "possess" and "be" the person you love?).
Being castrated would make Eli wish to be a girl that much more, especially if he was a boy who was resented and disapproved of by his father. And I think something of the sort underlies his easy adoption of the female gender, especially since, trapped in a 12 (11?) year old body, he can be both feminine and "boyish" (playing games, playing jokes, playing make-believe wrestling games) without appearing abnormal (none of the above is really "boyish," anyway, so Eli gets to have her cake and eat it too). And if his father sent him to his death, the sense of shame, of not living up to his expectations, of being "like" him in body, would make shedding the guise of the male gender even easier.
It's not the only possibility, I know. But damn if it isn't compelling.
Ursula was played by a boy in 1961. One day, Eli.
