It’s difficult to know where
Grandfather stands on the things Mother, Father and Younger Brother are focused
on.
Grandfather was a professor of
Greek and Latin, which suggest a conservative personality or at the very least
that he’s not focused on the avant-garde. He also seems to be content with his
life in New Rochelle at the beginning of the book, which means he must be fine
with at least most of the ideology that society is built on. Grandfather also
seems relatively unaffected by Sarah’s death; in the passage immediately following
her funeral, he celebrates spring: “Grandfather stood in the yard and gave a
standing ovation” (196).
There are also signs that Grandfather
is more progressive. The stories Grandfather tells the Boy suggest that he has
an untraditional world view: “They were stories of transformation […]
Grandfather’s stories proposed to [the Boy] that the forms of life were
volatile and that everything else in the world could as easily be something
else.” (116). I think the idea that everything is constantly changing could
support a fairly open-minded view of the world. Also, Grandfather “had known
John Brown when he was a boy in Hudson County in the Western Reserve and would
tell you that twenty times a day if you let him” (66). John Brown is the John
Brown and Harper’s Ferry John Brown, a man who led an armed slave rebellion and
Grandfather’s pride in knowing him suggests more radical tendencies.
But Grandfather’s defining
characteristic seems to be that he is old. When we’re introduced to him, he’s
running out of energy: “On Sunday afternoon, after dinner […] Grandfather fell
asleep on the divan in the parlor” (4). When Houdini crashes his car into the
pole, Grandfather has been sleeping in the middle of the day: “Grandfather woke
with a start” (8). When father leaves for the Arctic, Grandfather plays the
role of someone who has lost his strength but not yet come to terms with it:
“Grandfather had to be restrained from lifting the bags” (12). The content of
the things Grandfather tells the Boy is a bit overwhelmed by the fact that “the
old man’s narrative would often drift from English to Latin without his being
aware of it” (116). After Grandfather breaks his hip, and he’s mostly mentioned
in conjunction with his failing health: “Grandfather […] had a registered nurse”
and a consideration for the family’s vacation is that “he should be on his
crutches or in his chair as much as possible” (224, 235).
There’s been enough information
about Grandfather to give his character an interesting base but Doctorow doesn’t
develop it. Grandfather doesn’t express his opinions or assert himself. Grandfather
is old but he’s perfectly capable of having opinions. And yet so far Doctorow hasn’t
been able to get over Grandfather’s age to develop him as a character.
At this point, I wonder what
Doctorow’s purpose was in including Grandfather in the story. He hasn’t really
done anything and don’t think he’s even a completely necessary part of a wealthy
white family. I hope his role can develop before the end of the book.
The purpose of Grandfather as a character is interesting and very confusing, as you said. Maybe a potential reason for his inclusion is as someone to compare Father with? We see father's change in attitudes and ideas shift to old-fashioned through the book, perhaps showing aging. However, other than that, I'm not really sure where I'd start with comparing the two. I hope that by the end of the novel he does something.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I hadn't even thought about Grandfather, which I guess proves your point. Doctorow has to include him for some reason, and I think Raine's idea is interesting. But it's hard to know. I hadn't caught the specifics of Grandfather's politics before. I'll be on the lookout for new Grandfather developments in the future.
ReplyDeleteWith so much to talk about with the rest of the Family (not to mention Coalhouse, Ford, Morgan, Evelyn, et al.), we completely overlooked Grandfather in class. Thank you for drawing out some of the ways that he, surprisingly, *doesn't* represent a conservative, "Victorian" worldview that is obsolete in the modern 20th century--that role mainly falls to Father. I like the point about how his interest in classical mythology aligns him with the Little Boy and his openness to flux and change--a nice postmodern blending of classical art forms and a modern context.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, some of the most memorable moments with Grandfather occur in the latter half of the book, when he suddenly becomes jaunty with the advent of spring and promptly fractures his pelvis, which initiates his decline and eventual (unheralded) death. But perhaps his implicit alignment with the "progressive-minded" Little Boy represents yet another "duplicable event" in the novel, reproducing himself in a new form.