The Great Depression, or the Great Castration?

You Go, Girl: Is Rosie the daughter of the powerful women of the Depression?The readings from Conroy and Algren illustrated an interesting theme that has reappeared in almost every text we’ve come across: the theme of a loss of manhood, and, subsequently, a rise of “girl power,” or the victorious championship of the tough, hearty American woman. Since The Grapes of Wrath, women have been showing their strength at a time when literature depicts men as helpless wretches at the mercy of the failed economy, violent police, or the unmerciful weather. Ma Joad fed the family and steered them to California in The Grapes of Wrath, while Pa and the other men sat in circles, drawing lines in the dust and thinking (except for Connie, who ran away). Rose of Sharon made the ultimate sacrifice to save a piece of mankind at the end of the novel, and it was the utter essence of her womanhood (her life-giving breast milk) that brought a man back from the brink of death. “Migrant Mother” is the image that still encapsulates the strength and suffering of the Depression decades later. And even “Boxcar Bertha” articulated a strange kind of independence from the past bondage of her sex—she lived her life away from her child, traveled like a man, and seemed to live almost as an equal to her male boxcar compatriots.

Bonny Fern’s letter to Larry in Conroy’s The Disinherited ironically highlights the impotence and failure on behalf of the man through Bonny’s own description of the women’s dependence on his money. Though a superficial reading of the letter reveals simply Larry’s mother and aunt’s incredible need for him to send money, a deeper reading reveals how Bonny’s words strip Larry of the classic role of “male provider,” essentially verbally castrating him on the spot. “Dad helped her all he could,” she writes of Larry’s mother, “but we…had to borrow two hundred…which must be paid back this summer in some way.” She describes their terrible living conditions, highlighting the “adapt-to-survive” attitude present in the women of The Grapes of Wrath, and even the photos of women setting up roadside camps as captured through Dorothea Lange’s and others’ lenses. The repeated trope of “Dad tried, but…” accents the continued failings of the husband’s ability to save his wife and female dependents. Bonny even suggests where Larry could find work, ending the letter with dubious hope, noting that perhaps he can get a job “if you don’t get crushed in the stampede when they go hiring.”

Algren’s Somebody in Boots begins with a disturbingly graphic description of men eating from garbage cans, and then from a mission kitchen. Eating meals is a distinctly “civilized” aspect of modern society, and mutilating the practice as Algren does achieves a barbaric, animalistic demeanor around the destitute men. They are completely dehumanized—one bum doesn’t even have a nose, and the frightening image Algren invokes is one that doesn’t even resemble a man. The men’s discussion of digging through garbage cans for food obviously suggests dog-like behavior, and the scene of men eating in the mission does not contradict the insinuation. Their “belching,” “retching,” and “swashing” indicate a wholly uncivilized affair, a kind of rabid feeding frenzy. The men are reduced to the most barbaric state of animal existence.

Maybe this is going a bit far, but it almost seems like this theme runs a parallel with the government’s failing on behalf of America. The American people depended on the government and banks supporting them, and they failed. The American woman depended on her man to support her, and he failed. So it seems the situation calls for an overhaul of both institutions, economic and chauvinistic. This article even claims women’s jobs weren’t affected by the Depression, and women in general (already gainfully employed) remained employed. Many down-on-their-luck women depicted in our readings, like the girl in Waiting for Nothing, end up selling their bodies as a means of support. Is this degrading, or is it, possibly, a form of liberation? Their men have failed them, so they are using their gender as a means to get by. I’m not saying this is truly liberating—partly I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate—but it’s an interesting question to ponder in the face of so many powerful female depictions.