Characters Representing Death in The Rabbit Hutch

 

Death and decay are some of the themes that seem to pervade the novel The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty. Gunty has even said that staged the world with the idea that most of the characters “already believed they were dead”. Many of the characters either have a close relationship with death or are often described in ways that make them feel disconnected. Not only is town of Vacca Vale described as first on the list of “’Top Ten Dying Cities’” (Gunty 128) but many of its residents act in unusual ways that accentuate this statement. Each of the main characters (namely Blandine and Moses) have rather overt connections with death, but even the minor characters do as well. Joan is one of the few characters whose employment is explained, and she happens to work for a company that plans funerals and writes obituaries. Even a character like the priest who presides over St. Jadwiga comments on his desire to escape from his life saying, “the collar is starting to choke me… It’s going to be hell getting free of this collar” (198). His explicit use of “hell” is particularly striking given his role as a priest and because of the other references made to mystics throughout the novel.

               More specifically in the main characters, we see this repeated theme that suggests the characters are already dead best through Blandine. She is obsessed with the idea of “exiting her body” (1 Gunty) as it comes up at the start of several chapters throughout the novel, and she is given the idea by other mystics who had experienced great pain in their deaths in the past. In addition, Blandine is described as a bizarre and alien (58), as well as having “inhuman qualities” and being “cold and faraway. Otherworldly. Astral” (102). This diction is what helps underscore Blandine’s connection to death and the afterlife. Similarly, one of the first things Blandine says in the book is directed at Joan when she asks, “do you believe in an afterlife?” (25). Blandine also compares her physical body to the entire town of Vacca Vale, which relates back to the idea of death when you consider that it was labeled a dying city. This helps show that Blandine also views herself as dying. This theme of death is accentuated by the very end of the book, when Blandine has finally “exited her body” and she speaks to Joan in the hospital and in response to Joan stating that she was awake, Blandine says, “I am… Are you?” (396). This line suggests that Blandine’s spiritual awakening (similar to those of the mystics) is a sign that she is the only one in the town that is no longer dead.

Vacca Vale and the Feeling of Isolation

 

Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch explores the lives of various people all somehow tied to Vacca Vale, Indiana. Vacca Vale appears to be a blackhole that forces the characters in the book to confront their faults and fears. In this way, many characters, such as Blandine and Hope, find themselves alone in their struggle for normalcy, creating isolation and loneliness. For example, Blandine struggles greatly with socialization, especially with her roommates, and most often is secluded in her room reading about mystics and working on what I would describe as “voodoo.” Despite all having come from the foster system and being around the same age, Blandine is unable to have conversations with Jack, Malik, and Todd and finds herself in admittedly weird and random situations. Beyond this, Blandine is borderline obsessed with stopping the renovation of Vacca Vale and goes to great lengths, like ambushing the investors dinner or planning the attack on Pinky’s apartment. While she is devoted and seems to be championing an environmental and social issue, no one else is opposed to the renovation plan. Therefore, she feels like she alone must be the one to stop the plan and save Vacca Vale. While speaking to Jack in Pinky’s apartment she states, “’We can’t leave Vacca Vale,’ she finally murmurs, eyes on the fishbowl of political pins. We’re the only ones who can save it’” (Gunty 219). It may seem that once Vacca Vale is saved Blandine will escape her loneliness, but Gunty shows that Vacca Vale will not be saved and that Blandine will never leave. This is interesting as her devotion to the town has gone unexplained and Gunty makes it clear that Blandine was a smart girl with opportunities. It seems that she may have isolated herself within Vacca Vale and now will no longer be able to escape it. On the other hand, Hope, the mother of a newborn baby, experiences a different kind of loneliness that leaves her isolated. In the beginning chapters of the novel, it is revealed that Hope is unable to look into the eyes of her baby, calling it a “morta[l] fear” and its eyes “terrifying.” Hope describes the measures she takes, such as trying to entertain the baby and dressing it in new colors, but nothing seems to shake the fear she feels. She plays with the idea of admitting this to her husband, but ultimately keeps it to herself. Due to this, Hope is alone with the fear of her baby’s eyes, which only allows it to manifest and deepen within her. If she is unable to tell her husband, the man who she has committed her life to and shares a child with, then it seems that she will not be able to tell anyone else. Both Blandine’s and Hope’s condition paints a picture that life in Vacca Vale is isolating and lonely and does not provide an optimistic outlook for them. It appears that without outside help, they will be unable to overcome their isolation.

The Dark Side of the Internet in The Rabbit Hutch

 Social media creates a community of people worldwide, but just like in the real world, some people make it an unwelcoming environment. The ability to hide behind a screen gives people the confidence to comment on things they would never say, and the idea of becoming famous one day sends people into a craze to make their name known, no matter the cost. Tess Gunty explores the everyday toxicity behind the screen in her novel The Rabbit Hutch. Through her book, Gunty adds moments to discuss further the harmful nature of being able to hide online and the thirst for fame in our society. 

The first place readers see social media in the book is at the online obituary service, Restinpeace.com, where Joan works. Her job is to remove harmful comments online trolls leave about the deceased. “ ‘You would be surprised,’ she often tells people, ‘by how cruel people can be to the dead’ ” (Gunty, 39). Gunty uses this quote to illustrate the safety people often feel about saying hurtful things online rather than in person. Her point is further emphasized by the fact that people are saying harmful things about the dead, who can not stand up for themselves. It is such a common problem that they have a job that must exist to ensure that family members and grievers going to the website for comfort do not have to read hurtful comments about their loved ones. The ability to hide behind a username is not the only harm of social media. It can be just as dangerous to want to be seen and known as your username. 

One of the characters in the book, Malik, wants to be famous and believes he will be. He happens to film his friend, Todd, stabbing their roommate, Blandine,  and his first instinct is to post it on YouTube. While Blandien is bleeding, “Malik grinned at his phone. A grin I’ve never seen before. A face you’d carve into a pumpkin” (Gunty, 377). Instead of feeling scared, he is happy about what happened. He knows it will make him famous, which excites him. In today’s culture, some people will do anything to get their name known, even if that means harming someone else, just as Malik shows. 

It is nearly impossible to avoid the online society our world has created. Even if you can circumvent the network, there is no way to escape the effect on humanity. While the harmful nature is discussed often, Gunty adds to the discussion with her book. She helps to create a picture of how dangerous social media can be for those who may not understand the harm. Gunty uses her voice to aid the conversation of the dark places behind the screen.

The Feeling of Entrapment in "The Rabbit Hutch"

 In The Rabbit Hutch, Gunty illustrates each one of her central characters as trapped in their own life. Throughout the novel, she consistently focuses on Blandine, often letting the other characters fall to the side as she examines how Blandine is trapped in her life and desperate to get free from herself. Through the examination of Blandine’s struggles, the feeling of entrapment displayed in the other characters becomes clearer and easier to understand.  

From the moment the novel begins, it is clear that Blandine is determined to free herself from her own body and life. It’s explained that, “On a hot night in Apartment C4, Blandine Watkins exits her body. She is only eighteen years old, but she has spent most of her life wishing for this to happen” (Gunty, 1). Blandine has suffered from a sordid past that has trapped her in a body she has learned to hate. Not knowing where to turn to or what she believes, she becomes determined to learn how to exit her body and escape the feelings she’s been trapped in. 

These feelings started with the lack of emotional stability throughout her childhood spent in the foster system. Blandine longed for love and support, but didn’t know where to find it until she met her music teacher, James Yager. From the beginning, the love and support James gave Blandine was tainted, but she didn’t know what it looked like to be authentically taken care of, so she continued to draw closer to him. Eventually, she learned the truth of her relationship with James. She realized that “The moment [she] felt most alive, she was nothing but a variable” (Gunty, 145).

After being failed by the only person she ever gave her trust to, Blandine becomes determined to finally free herself from the life she’s lived and body she inhabits. She abandons her relationships and pursues isolation. She begins to enthusiastically study the history of female catholic mystics, and she strives to be like them in her day to day life. She convinces herself that she is trapped in her own life and the only way to find freedom is by exiting her body.

This feeling of entrapment is displayed in an extreme way in Blandine that makes it easier to see how other characters feel trapped in their own lives too. For example, just like Blandine attempts to escape her body through the study of catholic mysticism, Moses attempts to escape his body and “disease” through covering himself in glow stick residue. Both are desperate to be freed from their past, but neither one of them knows how to do so. 

In the end, there is no character in The Rabbit Hutch that is literally or physically entrapped, but each character is figuratively and emotionally trapped. Each one has a troubled past and a present filled with troubles, and each one is desperate to free themselves from the stress of it all. 

The Role of Social Media in The Rabbit Hutch

    Social media and the role it plays in people’s everyday lives is a very important theme in the novel The Rabbit Hutch. Tess Gunty makes a lot of commentary about the negative effects of social media throughout the book. Her commentary through each character's interactions with social media perpetuates the theme that social media can be very harmful.

    One of the first instances of characters in The Rabbit Hutch interacting with social media involves Joan Kowalski. Her job is entirely involved with the internet, censoring people’s comments on obituaries. While working, Joan deletes Moses’ comment on his mother's obituary, which he claims “an offense like that cannot go unpunished,” and ends up stalking Joan (Gunty 95). This interaction through social media lays the groundwork for Moses’ significance as a character in the book. We get an insight into what condition that he believes he has- the Toll. Through Joan’s perspectives, we see that Joan is not hiding herself on the internet and consequently opens herself up to be easily tracked down and followed by Moses. 

    Joan is only one of many characters in this book that has negative interactions due to the internet and social media. After Blandine drops out of high school due to her failed relationship with James, she gets a message from a former student, Zoe. The message that Zoe sends is vague but powerful. She writes to Blandine “So he got you too?” which makes Blandine rethink her entire relationship with James (Gunty 147). Although their relationship was already over and ruined, this added fuel to the fire as Blandine was led to believe that she was the only one that James chose to be involved with at her school. This affects their interactions later on in the book, where Blandine realizes that if James denies being with Zoe, he likely does the same when asked about Blandine.

    

    The last, but most terrifying, use of social media in the book is the video that Malik posts to YouTube. While Blandine is being attacked by Todd at the end of the book, Malik and Jack do not attempt to help. Rather, Malik records Blandine being assaulted and decides to post it online to boost his internet presence and help him with his path to stardom (Gunty 353). This is extremely troubling, and Gunty likely included this abuse of social media to show how dangerous the internet can be even before anything gets published. 

    Social media is a prevalent theme in this novel and shows the worst parts of it. Gunty’s inclusion of social media in the book not only makes the book scarier, it also tells the readers how dangerous it can be. Whether it is a comment being deleted, someone sending an eerie message, or posting a violating video, social media in The Rabbit Hutch tells the audience to be careful.

Good and/or Bad?

            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.

From Violent YouTube Videos to Internet Trolls: A Discussion of the Dark Side of Internet Use in "The Rabbit Hutch"

    Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is an unpredictable novel that illustrates the unique personalities found in an apartment complex in Indiana, colloquially known as The Rabbit Hutch. Despite the range of individuals that inhibit The Rabbit Hutch, nearly every resident interacts with media, the Internet, or social media. Interestingly, the characters’ media usage is exclusively portrayed in a negative light. In Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, negative portrayals of media use highlight how the Internet motivates people and media platforms to accumulate views at any cost, and how social media use significantly influences a person’s self-esteem.

    Throughout The Rabbit Hutch, Gunty critiques news outlets and social media users for producing content to maximize views. For example, while visiting Blandine in the hospital, Joan describes that the stabbing incident was “no longer front-page material, already approaching irrelevance” (392). Here, two days after Blandine was stabbed by her roommate, the local news has already found more newsworthy content for the front page. It is reasonable to assume that such an unsettling event would reside on the front page for more than two days; therefore, the short-lived nature of Blandine’s stabbing highlights how news media are more concerned with producing content that will attract views than with reporting important information. Malik’s YouTube video is another example of social media inspiring people to post content that gains views. After getting sent the link to the video of Blandine getting stabbed, Sapphire, who shared a foster family with Malik, describes, “By then the video boasts nearly 2,000 views [...] Malik always loved attention: she believes that he is capable of hurting someone for it” (356). Here, Sapphire reveals that Malik posted violent content to receive views. This frightening reality highlights an issue with social media use: people are willing to compromise their morality to achieve virtual popularity. Ultimately, social media use and news media have negative implications when content is produced for the sole purpose of attracting views.

    Another negative implication of social media and Internet use is their ability to control a user’s self-worth. For example, when introducing the residents of apartment C10, the narrator reveals that a new mother is struggling with motherhood. On the Internet, the mother reads, “You are a psychopath, the Mommy Blogs concluded. You are a threat to us all” (7). This quote illuminates the false information that circulates in social media groups across the Internet. Here, the mother is being shamed for not immediately loving motherhood. This virtual guilt-tripping highlights the judgmental side of social media, which can negatively impact a person’s self-esteem and confidence.

    Overall, negative displays of media use in The Rabbit Hutch emphasize how the Internet and social media impact a user’s self-worth, and how social media content creators and news outlets prioritize gaining views above all. Although engaging with social media and the Internet is often regarded as positive and enjoyable, through the numerous instances of Internet and social media use in The Rabbit Hutch, Gunty points out the problematic aspects of media use.

Social Media in the Rabbit Hutch

First of all this book was insane, enjoyable and entertaining, but most certainly insane. It’s hard to pinpoint one thing to talk about, but I think media and the internet has a severe impact on the progression of events throughout the Rabbit Hutch. 

Joan works for a company that monitors comments on online obituaries and ends up deleting Moses’ comment on his mothers obituary. Without this interaction Moses’ character wouldn’t have significance, but because he claims to not be able to let “an offense like that go unpunished” he looks her up online and “found her home address without even trying” (95-96). Not only is this creepy and stalkerish, but it provides a little background into both Joan and Moses’ characters. We see that Joan doesn’t do anything to hide her presence online because she believes herself to be insignificant enough that no one would bother to even look her up, much less show up at her house. We also get a glimpse of Moses’ toxic masculinity and the reasoning behind him being at the scene where Blandine exits her body, which was foreshadowed throughout the book.

Social media also plays a huge role in Blandine’s character. She gets a message from a past student of James after dropping out of school that says “So he got you too?” (147). This makes her feel insignificant since he’s done this before and takes away any sympathy a reader might have had towards James. Blandine also goes on a rant about how horrible social media is, stating that she is “too weak for it” (211). That social media makes you addicted and preys on your insecurities while guiding you towards capitalism. Although she is very extreme in her reasoning I think she makes a great point and we do through Joan’s online obituary comments, Moses’ blog, Hope’s mommy groups, etc. how people express their loneliness and seek approval and validation through social media.

And last but not least, probably the most disturbing use of social media in the book, is Malik recording the stabbing incident. You see the image on page 362 and the entire chapter on page 355-356 of how the video ended up on youtube. In the chapter “Viral”, Sapphire has a “hard time determining what obligations she has to the people she encounters, and what obligations they have to her” (356). This ties into the expanding circle and the idea of obligations to things we see right in front of us compared to things that are a little farther away.

I think without social media a lot of events wouldn’t have occurred. It pushes Moses to go to Joan’s house which ultimately saves Blandine, who might not have lived if Moses didn’t tie his coat belt around her waist. It emphasizes the theme of loneliness and the character’s search for validation and connection. And it ties into the ethical question asked throughout the story about obligations and the expanding circle. Social media might seem inconsequential in life yet it acts as an agent in this story and gives readers access into character’s thoughts and motivations. It also provides readers with little snippets of other small side characters and broadens the world created in the Rabbit Hutch.

Connection is Life or Death

     The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty, has a large focus on connecting. True conversation allows for connection and that connection makes everyone better.  

    Blandine has a true connection with Moses the day of her attack; without this encounter he would not have saved her life after Todd stabbed her. During their conversation at the park Blandine “can’t tell if he’s just being polite, but every second of the interaction is increasing her power” (Gunty, 302). While Blandine can not tell if the conversation is truly connected, she can tell that she is gaining something from this. While she believes that it is power over Moses that she is gaining, it is actually the connection between the two characters which is being gained. This is because the reader knows that Moses has no reason to attack Blandine and wouldn’t do so if there were nothing to gain from it. This man, while not one to go out of his way to help others that he doesn’t relate to, seen by his deleting of the email by Mr. Boddy, still rushes to Blandine’s aid as soon as he sees the harm that has come to her. The bond formed during the interaction early that day pushes him to help a stranger in need.  

    Joan and Blandine have lacked this true connection during their interaction which results in Joan not reporting or investigating the sounds coming from the apartment above hers. Joan, unlike Moses, does not form a connection with Blandine. Their conversation at the laundromat is filled with forced answers and an overall need to get away, shown when Joan “checks her phone in a clunky, theatrical gesture” to give herself an excuse to leave (32). This running away from the conversation lacks the even mild interest that Moses puts into his conversation with Blandine. The repercussions of this are made apparent after Joan hears Blandine scream and decides that “attention is what that girl wants most of all —that much was obvious at the laundromat” (351). The reader knows that this is not the case at all and Blandine was fighting to stop herself from talking. This shows the lack of connection between these two characters since Joan doesn’t know Blandine at all yet makes such bold claims about her sense of self. This ultimately could have led to the death of Blandine if not for Moses and the accidental discovery of the incident by Reggie. 

    These sets of people show the impact of connection, which is brought about by honest and real conversation and interaction. If a person can make this connection occur, whether through pushing for it from others or choosing to take part in it themselves, lives can be improved.  

Living in Death

    In Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, each character lives as if they are already dead, navigating life in a state of apathy. This theme weaves its way throughout the story with the characters in the book showing a kind of detachment from life yet a strong connection to their dying town of Vacca Vale. The characters align themselves with their dying town, essentially killing themselves in the process. Throughout the novel, each character desperately tries to find an identity of their own, but they are largely unsuccessful in finding one outside of the town. 

    Blandine, for instance, is the ultimate embodiment of such a predicament. She identifies with Vacca Vale to such an extent that she “suspects that if medical students sliced open her body, they would find a miniature Vacca Vale nestled inside it” (Gunty, 136). This town that Blandine says resides within her is quickly deteriorating; in fact, “[t]his year, Vacca Vale ranked first on Newsweek’s bafflingly heartless list of ‘Top Ten Dying Cities’”(108). Despite the gloominess of the town, Blandine adores it, and wants nothing more than to see it stay the way it currently is.

    Other characters in the novel also find themselves stuck in a state of emotional and spiritual death within a town that is fading away. Their lives are tightly connected to the town's decline, keeping them in a constant state of standstill. Their shared struggle to break free from the town's decay highlights the bigger issue of individuals trying to figure out who they are when their environment is on the decline. In fact, Jack says that “[i]f [he] ever got the chance to escape, [he] would fucking seize it” (181). The town's economic and social decline mirrors the residents' struggle to escape their own emotional and spiritual rut. Vacca Vale’s downfall mirrors the characters' own inability to rise above their circumstances and move away from their sense of being lifeless.

    In The Rabbit Hutch, the characters' attempts to establish their identities outside the town are met with numerous obstacles. The dying town acts as a significant barrier, making it nearly impossible for them to break free from its grip. As the characters tie themselves to the dying town of Vacca Vale, they seem resigned to a life that lacks vitality and potential. Their inability to carve out individual identities beyond the town effectively locks them into a state of living death, leaving them with little to no dreams or aspirations.

Mildred and Andrew's Relationship

The 1920’s was a period of great economic and social change which can allow us to gain insight into Mildred and Andrew's relationship primarily through Mildred's perspective Futures. 

Mildred's narrative reveals, while in the sanatorium, instead of affectionate exchanges or deep emotional connections, her and Andrew’s dialogues predominantly revolve around Andrew posing business-related questions to Mildred. This one-sided dynamic leads Mildred to confess a profound sense of solitude within their relationship, saying "It's not that I'm tired of him. I'm tired of the person I've become around him" (Diaz, 369).

This emotional exhaustion also proves to be partially due to Mildred's struggle to conform to Andrew's expectations of a model wife while simultaneously being instrumental in running his business, without receiving due credit. The 1920s was an era of transformation, where the concept of the "New Woman" was emerging. Yet, traditional gender roles still persisted, dictating that women should excel in domestic roles while men acted as breadwinners and protectors. Andrew's expectations of Mildred, while reflective of societal norms, also underscored the tension arising from the clash between these expectations and her individual aspirations. While Mildred may have been content with her philanthropic work and charities, she was a strong and powerful woman and likely was not content with being in Andrew’s shadows, and likely also knew that to him she was only a way to further elevate his image. 

While it is plausible that Andrew harbored feelings for Mildred, we must question the authenticity of his love. His occasional gestures, like giving Mildred a golden bracelet, could be interpreted as tokens of affection. However, they may have served a dual purpose, as they showcased his power and wealth, adding complexity to his motivations. This brings into question the depth of his love for her and whether he valued her as an individual or primarily as an asset.

In summary, the portrayal of Mildred and Andrew's relationship in "Trust" captures the intricacies of love during a transformative period in American history. It highlights the conflict between societal expectations, gender roles, and individual desires, inviting readers to contemplate the depth of Andrew's affection and Mildred's struggle to reconcile her role within the constraints of her time. It underscores how societal norms, gender roles, and economic factors can impact love and relationships, and it raises interesting questions about the authenticity of their connection.

Trusting the Perspectives in Diaz's "Trust"

Throughout Diaz’s novel, Trust, we see the same series of events and storyline told from multiple perspectives. As a reader, every re-telling seemed to be more believable than the one preceding it, until details started to arise that contradicted other recounts. Only after all four perspectives had been shared did I start to create an opinion on what story I believed was the most accurate: a combination of Ida’s and Mildred’s perspectives. 

When we finally got Ida’s perspective, I began to get an idea of the real Bevel and who to trust in the novel. Ida is able to give us the most unfiltered view of who Bevel is. Of course, she’s writing this manuscript of Bevel for her job, but her story is the most believable because she doesn’t have anything to prove. Vanner was writing his novel to make a good story and gain reputation; Bevel wanted the manuscript written to make him look better than he was in order to counteract Vanner’s book; Ida gives us the outside perspective of who Bevel is and his motivations from a point of view that’s not Rask/Bevel. One of the biggest surprises from Ida’s perspective was the force at which Bevel tries to make Mildred into a passive figure and focus the story on only himself (which is an even bigger shock when we learn of Mildred’s influence in her perspective). When Ida provides suggestions on how to better “flesh-out” Bevel’s life or get more information about Mildred, Bevel disregards it as a “pointless exercise” and that Ida should write “decisive pages, not mush,” or that she should add a “feminine touch” (Diaz 267-268). This perspective of Bevel is driven by money and power, which he claims complete credit for, and is a mix of the first two Bevel’s that seems much more believable. 

Mildred’s perspective then is the most interesting because we discover that she is the main factor behind lots of Bevel’s success. In earlier recounts, Rask states that his ability to “fly blind during the times when the ticker was unable to keep up with the trading volume” (Diaz 149) is a pillar of his prophet-like reputation. Mildred, however, reveals that it was her who was acting as his pilot during these situations. When the ticker would fall behind, she would instruct Bevel on how to conduct the trades, making an “incalculable fortune” (Diaz 381). She even goes so far to say that “where there’s a ventriloquist, there’s a dummy” (Diz 382). It’s Mildred that was pulling the strings behind Bevel’s operation, and even while she’s in the hospital in Switzerland, we get stories of Bevel calling to ask for Mildred’s opinion and advice on what he should do. I believe her story and recollection of events because it fits with the information that Ida has found about Mildred through the documents. Their stories line up and have evidence, unlike Rask and Bevel’s. The documents that Ida finds describe Mildred’s financial statements of her charitable work being very organized and well-thought out. This would make sense because Mildred says that she was the one conducting business behind the scenes for Bevel all along. 

The difficult part about the novel, and honoring the title, is asking yourself the question: which story do I trust? Bias distorts the stories of Rask and Bevel through the first two perspectives, but Ida and Mildred’s perspectives seem clearer. Ida has nothing to prove to others, and the corroborating details from Mildred’s documents and perspective make their collective story the most trustworthy.  

Perceptions of Women in the Early 20th Century

 

Trust as a Mystery Novel

In novels like Trust, I often find myself having to actively analyze the characters to a much greater degree than other books. For most framed stories/stories with multiple perspectives, this is by design. Novels like Trust are non-linear in progression and told through different voices, all with their own motivations and perceptions of themselves and others. It ultimately lies on the reader to fit the fractured pieces of each character together, and to judge for themselves the accuracy of this virtual character living in their minds. But there exists no character in Trust in which this process provides more of a challenge than Mildred. The same confusion readers feel in regards to Mildred's identity is shared by, what I argue as, every character in the book. No one truly seems to know her and yet every character has spun their own rendition of her and proliferated such as reality. Living such a high profile life and simultaneously having her personality diminished by her husband, none in Diaz's novel can claim to have understood Mildred wholly. The way I see it, Mildred is the main character of Trust; the same way Ida is to her memoir and Rask is to "Bonds." But unlike traditional stories, the reader never "meets" Mildred, but rather various simulacra of her created by the characters. Trust, however unconventional, is a mystery novel at heart. Like the mystery novels enjoyed by Bevel’s rendition of Mildred, Trust requires that the reader not be passive while reading. The ultimate “goal” of the novel is to gain an understanding of its main character - to pick up the clues and red herrings littered throughout and to emerge with the fractured bits of Mildred’s reality intact.

Trust is composed of four parts, each a written work attributed to one of its characters. Vanner’s “Bonds” introduces Mildred as Helen Rask, the kind-hearted, music-loving wife to Benjamin Rask. Mildred, as perceived by Vanner, lived an unassuming life, married to a man she didn't care for and forced to provide her own entertainment. Bevel’s Mildred presents itself as a more promising “lead” in the mystery at hand, as she is not shadowed under the pretense of a fictional character. Ida’s memoir, however, serves to flesh Andrew Bevel out and thus brings into question the validity of Andrew’s rendition of his wife. Ida acts as the novel’s detective, being drawn to the mystery of Mildred and even finding connection in the way she’s overshadowed by the men in her life. “At first, Bonds was not just literature; it was evidence. And I was not just a reader; I was a detective” (Diaz, 245). Establishing herself as the audience surrogate in this mystery novel, readers place their trust in Ida as she reads between Bevel’s lines, snoops around the late wife’s corridors, and visits the museum’s archives many years later. Upon stealing the journal, Ida remarks “who knows Mildred better than I? Didn’t I forge her a past out of my own?” (Diaz, 357). It seems the reader will finally get their questions answered, and Ida will be there to tape the pieces together for us. 

Where most mystery novels hand the bone to the detective and reward the reader with the dazzling reveal (which the reader may or may not have put any work into), Trust abruptly ends Ida’s narrative as she begins to read Mildred’s journal. The reader, who has actively picked up the pieces of Mildred’s psyche, must read her own words for the first time and solve the mystery without the help of the detective Ida. Some may want the answers handed to them like in other detective novels but Diaz doesn’t comply, and for one simple reason: for Ida to solve the mystery of Mildred’s identity and present it to the reader is for Mildred’s truth to be warped once again by another character.

The Quiet Surrounding Power

     In Hernan Diaz’ Trust, the implications and responsibilities that accompany power and authority is held as a central idea throughout the novel. 

Authority is demonstrated as a great silencer of those who don’t have it. Ida makes the observation that “the closer one is to a source of power, the quieter it gets” (232), meaning that those in positions of authority hold faculty over those who don’t, and often use this to their greatest advantage. Individuals who don’t hold power tend to be scared into silence, and their autonomy is left at the hands of those who hold authority over them. This involuntary disposal of autonomy is presented in the quote “silence between two is always shared. But one of the two owns it and shares it with the other.”

This silencing type of authority comes in many forms. While Andrew Bevel’s authority comes from his status, accrued wealth, and investing; other characters in the book hold authority due to systemic factors like gender. Ida is often undermined by her father, who refuses to do any sort of housework and leaves her with the burden of domestic tasks (230). Benjamin Rask takes it upon himself to dictate the mental healthcare Helen receives, going so far as to ignore her wishes at one point, eventually leading to her demise. Andrew Bevel insists on including a “watered down” version of Mildred in his memoir (300). As shown by the preceding examples, these power dynamics are visible even in situations where characters should (in theory) have more equality, such as the relationship between husband and wife. It is shown throughout the novel that those who have authority will use it to their full advantage, even when they have the option not to. In this way, these power dynamics contribute to a vicious cycle of oppression, as nobody is willing to relinquish their power, and those with no power remain this way. 

While different characters in the novel search for various ways of undermining authority, this only works up to a certain point. Due to the fact that individuals in positions of authority have the ability to control those around them, this also implies that they have the means to control their own narrative. Andrew Bevel is the best example of this misuse of power, as he states “If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake.” In this way, those in positions of power not only have autonomy over those around them, but also over reality itself.

Men in Trust: Parallels between Mr. Partenza and Andrew Bevel

 The parallels between Ida Partenza’s father, Mr. Partenza and Andrew Bevel brought to light the domineering role of men created by Hernan Diaz in Trust. This conclusion was formed thanks to Ida Partenza’s tendency to see herself in the character, Helen (248), who is Vanner’s rendition of Mildred Bevel. And using the “bluster and pride” (270) borrowed from her father, she created a version of Bevel using her father.

First, before any proof of distinct parallels between the two characters are dissected, Mr. Partenza and Andrew Bevel should be judged separately with the purpose of understanding their roles in the story. Beginning with Bevel’s role in Trust, Diaz creates an apathetic and wealthy protagonist for the readers. Harold Vanner describes Bevel through Benjamin’s character as a man who from past to present had only “just one substantial difference between his former self and who he had become” (124), which seems to only paint Bevel’s character as tasteless. Alternatively, Bevel had seen in himself an identity superior to the government and common-folk as he critiques those who try to gain control of the economy, yet victimizes himself as one of those “legitimate investors” (181). Ida Partenza supports this in her account of the man who had convinced “me [her] of his superiority” (283). On the other hand, Mr. Partenza lives frugally with the “little money” he would make as a hand typesetter. His character could be juxtaposed with Bevel for being an anarchist who, unlike the self-assured financialist, was jealous of those similar to him that “achieved… prominence” (206). The differences between Bevel and Partenza couldn’t be more obvious. One was a white American financialist who had been rich since birth, the other was an Italian anarchist “caught between the country he had left and resented and the land that had taken him in without fully accepting him” (209). Nevertheless, their similarities as Diaz scripts men in Trust, couldn’t have been more prominent.

Both Bevel and Partenza embrace their opinions about their role in the world, which paint Diaz’s self-depiction of men in Trust. Ida Partenza compares Bevel’s statement that his job “is about being right”(266) to the same force of personality she faced at home with her father who believed he was “supposed to be right” (273) in their everyday interactions. Additionally, Bevel and Partenza critique the world’s compliance to a fiction: Partenza believing money is fiction and that “finance capital is the fiction of a fiction” (216) while Bevel grows angry that Vanner’s novel about his life has a  “stronger presence in the real world” (237) than the truth.

Diaz’s representation of men as conservatives in the light of women is also seen through Bevel and Partenza’s treatment of women in Trust. Ida Partenza notes that her father had “never done any household chores” (230) seen it that it is traditionally a woman’s role to do so, and although she knew he loved her mother, he’d never cleared her mother’s belonging after her death not because of his “inability to ‘let go’” (231), but because it had “never occurred to him to clean them out”. In the alternative, Andrew Bevel declares in his auto-biography that women should not be involved in the affairs of financialists. Primarily when highlighting the rise of women investors from 1.5 to 40 percent in a decade, Bevel stated, “could there have been a clearer indicator of the disaster to come” (182)? Bevel is often shadowed as a man diminishing of women and Ida Partenza remarks he had diminished his wife to be “just like the wives in the autobiographies of the Great Men” (300) and as such, “put her in her place”. Ida Partenza compares Bevel to Vanner, a writer who she believed had also put a woman “in her place”, and Diaz presented a likeness in men in his novel when he reveals Ida Partenza’s father disapproved of her secretarial position. Mr. Partenza believed that the occupation was “another knot in the millenary subjection of women to the rule of men” (210), acknowledging the imbalance between genders in the workforce, but ultimately doing the same as the other two men, putting his daughter, Ida, in her place.

History Is Written By The Victors

     In Hernan Diaz’s Trust, the old adage that history is written by the victors rings true. Those in power have the means to make their version of a story known, manipulating reality in the process. Others are left to the mercy of the writer, powerless to change this new history’s depiction of them. Andrew Bevel and Mildred Bevel are two such characters; the former ensuring that a proper history of himself has been recorded, and the latter left vulnerable to her husband’s ideas about “proper history.”

    Ida Partenza’s work with Mr. Bevel shines light on the financier’s need to control his image. He makes clear to her that he will not tolerate slander and has the means to clear his name from accusation. Disgusted with his portrayal in Harold Vanner’s Bonds, Andrew used his resources to remove the book from public access completely. He says, “‘I will buy every single copy of every print run. And pulp them all’” (287). Many could threaten such action, but Bevel has the power and money to execute his plans for censorship. He hires lawyers, amasses a stake in a publishing house, and buys all of Vanner’s books in circulation simply to ensure that his reputation is not sullied. Diaz makes clear that history is shaped by those with the means to bend it to their will, and this is exactly what Bevel did. 

    While planning his own memoir, Andrew is also careful to mold exactly the version of his wife that he sees fit for public consumption. He desires for her to be seen as the perfect housewife, content and charming but never particularly curious or influential. When Ida writes about Mildred’s interest in modern artists, Bevel immediately crosses out the information, saying “‘Keep it simple. Make her love of the arts approachable for the common reader’” (286). He of course takes away her individuality in making this choice so that she is seen only as a surface-level admirer of music. Because Mildred had long passed and lacked the power that her husband so forcefully wielded, she had no say in Bevel’s portrayal of her and could not verbally attest to its veracity. However, Andrew’s desire “to convey Mildred’s lovely softness with a bit more emphasis” causes Ida to question the wife’s true depth of character, leading her on a document search many years later (286). Within Mildred’s engagement books, Ida finds documentation of meetings and recitals with many renowned musicians that indicate a much higher degree of social influence than Andrew alluded to. Not only this, but Partenza finds news clippings of current events, suggesting an interest in politics and hunger for knowledge completely absent in Bevel’s account of his wife. Andrew was well aware that his memoir’s version of Mildred was submissive and thoroughly complimented his view of himself as a savior of the American economy. Had Mildred been alive and available for interviews during Ida’s writing process, perhaps history would have been portrayed differently.