Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is full of numerous quirky
and eccentric characters. Each individual feels colored in with such weirdly unique
actions and emotions they feel oddly real. No character better embodies this
than Moses Robert Blitz. Moses struggles heavily with maternal issues that have
seemingly sent his life down a dark path and turned him into a bad person.
However, during an unplanned confession Father Tim tells him he isn’t a bad
person. Father Tim is correct in his belief that it’s absurd to call an entire
person a single thing. This belief means there is hope yet for other characters
of Vacca Vale to become better people in the near future.
Moses
Robert Blitz has instances in the book where he does both morally good and bad
things. Father Tim told him, “It would be absurd to describe a whole person as
good or bad. You’re just a series of messy, contradicting behaviors, like
everyone else” (198). Moses breaking into people’s homes to scare them is
obviously not a good thing to do. This alone however does not make him an
entirely awful person. While talking on the phone with his ex, Moses again engages
in behavior that would not be labelled as kind. He verbally abuses his ex and
thinks to himself, “He knows that if he can make her feel small enough, he can
make her do anything” (264). Based off of this alone it would be fair enough to
write of Moses as a generally awful person. However, later on in the novel he
displays some better qualities. We see this when he first meets Blandine and
calls her beautiful. This is not a catcall but instead is a genuine compliment
given to her. He isn’t trying to be creepy. Moses is also likely responsible
for saving Blandine’s life. When he appeared at the wrong door and saw Blandine
bleeding from the stab wounds he immediately jumped into help. If he had not
packed her wounds with his own belt she could’ve bled out and died. These examples
show an entire person cannot be summed up into one word because who they are
and how they act is so much more than that. To a certain extent one should even
feel more understanding and sympathetic towards Moses because of his loveless
upbringing.
Outside
of Moses, the other characters in the novel also have both potential for good
and bad. The novel is filled with many examples of other characters acting less
than admirable. Many of these characters, however, also have moments where they
truly act like a good person. Much like Moses everybody has the potential to do
good and should not feel like they are inherently bad because of certain
actions.
I believe it is also important to question who defines what is good and bad. We see in Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, various characteristics in many characters. Something we learned prior to reading the novel was that the novel was also a comment on toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity in itself, is primarily seen as something bad. However, there wasn’t a single character in The Rabbit Hutch that Gunty personified as a villain. Many times, the character was first introduced as a victim: Blandine dying when introduced in chapter 1, Joan interrogated by a weird teenager, an old lady in deathbed, a neglected man-child, a music teacher with marriage issues at home, teenage boys struggling to belong… etc. Over the course of multiple narrations, these two dimensional characteristics are better understood to create three dimensional characters. As mentioned in this blog post, Tess Gunty had narrated characters that do not portray a single good or bad. I think, as I’d mentioned earlier in this comment, however, that we question who decides for us the morals, and thus how we, the readers, know what is good or bad. For example, I will use Joan, because she is the character I believe is least remembered as having done anything “bad”. Many might disagree and argue she had done nothing wrong at all. Moreover, she likely has not, but Joan, when she heard the teenage boys attacking Heldigard (the goat) to Blandine’s protests, Joan did nothing. Factually, Joan could have done something, however she had decided to remain a bystander. To some people, being a bystander is just as bad as being the “bully”... this is something most of us have likely learned throughout grade-school. However, others may find that the bystander has no responsibility over any actions they encounter outside of their circle. Thus, the bystander role is neither good nor bad and may even be “good” as long as they internally disagree with the bully’s actions. I will stop here since the comment is getting long, but I thought this might be some food for thought. To what extent is something good or bad?
ReplyDeleteI apologize for not adding quotes around the novel's title, "The Rabbit Hutch", I'd typed this on a separate document did not realize the italicization would not stick in a comment.
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