Conformity in Reflections in a Golden Eye

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Jeff Schneider
English 429
Bryer
April 20, 1998



Conformity in Reflections In A Golden Eye


In Carson McCullers' Reflections In A Golden Eye, conformity is a vital  theme.  How each character deals with the pressure to conform to their ``roles" is the basis of the major conflict in the story.   In an essay entitled ``Loneliness...An American Malady," McCullers writes:

To the spectator, the amateur philosopher, no motive among the complex
ricochets of our desires and rejections seems stronger or more enduring then the will of the individual to claim his identity and belong.  From infancy to death, the human being is obsessed by these dual motives...After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self.  The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us. (14, Carr)

Captain Penderton and Alison Langdon are characters that have serious problems with conformity and this ``moral isolation".  They have an individual identity and struggle with the ``separateness" McCullers refers to.  Two other characters, Major Langdon and Alison Penderton, are clearly characters that have less of a problem conforming, and with this have a weaker sense of individual identity.

The setting of the army post reflects the rigid, caged world each character faces.   There is a complete lack of individuality:  ``...for once a man enters the army he is expected only to follow the hells ahead of him" (1).   As a result of this, the post is quite monotonous: ``...the neat rows of officers' homes built one precisely like the other" (1).   Also, the physical structure of the post symbolizes the narrowness the characters face: ``...huge concrete barracks...all is designed according to a certain rigid pattern" (1).
Captain Penderton is a severely repressed character.    What he does externally does not match his internal feelings and desires.  The reason why he represses himself so much is because of the limitations of the rigid army post.  He is impotent and very uncomfortable with his gender role.  On a strict army post where masculinity is stressed, Penderton struggles with these qualities he has these deviates from the ``norm".  Eventually, Penderton's story is tragic, as he murders Private Williams.

It is clear from the initial descriptions of Penderton that he isn't comfortable with his gender role.  Despite being at the post where all officers are expected to be masculine, Penderton ``obtained within himself a delicate balance between the male and female elements, with the susceptibilities of both the sexes..." (8).  Also obvious is that Penderton has homosexual affection for Private Williams, as it is a frequent distraction.  One example of this occurs when Penderton is trying to work in his study:  ``As he sat alone at his desk this evening, unable to work, he did not question himself as to his feelings.  He thought again of the face of Private Williams" (9).  Also, later in the novel, it is revealed that ``His preoccupation with Private Williams grew in him like a disease" (95).

Captain Penderton is also impotent.  He lacks power and control.  He has the ``active powers of neither" (8) sex.  Also, he does not have control over his own actions.  This is evident when he is standing outside his house and:

...as he stood in the silent room, it seemed that the nervousness and
distress were not caused by forces within himself and others, things that
in some measure he could control- but by some menacing outward
circumstance which he could only sense from a distance.  (42)

As a result of his struggle with himself, Penderton is a very angry character.  He does nonsensical, brutal things, like shoving an innocent kitten in a mailbox:

...the Captain came upon a tiny kitten hovered in a doorway.  The kitten had found shelter and made itself warm;  when the Captain leaned down he found that it was purring...For a long time he looked into the soft, gentle little face and stroked the warm fur.  The kitten was at the age when it was first able to open wide its clear green eyes...On the corner there was a mailbox and after one quick glance around him he had opened the freezing letter slot and squeezed the kitten inside..." (10)

Penderton's discomfort with himself leads to him being a kleptomaniac:  ``Captain Penderton was inclined to be a thief.  He was continually resisting an urge to take things he saw in other people's houses" (41).  It is also appropriate that Penderton feels joy when he is on the runaway horse, as this is an escape from the rigid structure of the army post and the problems he has with his own self:

Three words were in the Captain's heart...'I am lost'...and having giving up life, the Captain suddenly began to live.  A great mad joy surged through him.  This emotion, coming as unexpectedly as the plunge of the horse when he had broken away, was one that the Captain had never experienced.  (59)

Captain Penderton's anger is especially apparent in his relationship with Private Williams.  Penderton represses his love for Private Williams, and then the feelings of affection are turned into hate:  ``He felt a rush of hatred for the solider that was as exorbitant as the joy he had experienced on runaway Firebird.  All the humiliations, the envies, and the fears of his life found vent in this great anger" (63).  This hated is passionate and eternal:  ``In his heart the Captain knew that this hatred, passionate as love, would be with him all the remaining days of his life" (63).  Eventually, Penderton's obsession leads to tragedy, as he shoots and kills Private Williams.

Alison Langdon is a similar character to Captain Penderton.  She also struggles with her individuality against the rigid structure of the army post.  In addition, she is uncomfortable with the gender role she faces.The root of Alison's conflict is the death of baby, Catherine.  Her husband, Morris, is in such love with order and structure, he is repulsed by the dead baby and begins to have an affair with Leonora Penderton.  Alison is still in a state of depression after the death of her baby, and cannot take Morris's rejection of her sentimental feelings.

An example of when Morris rejects Alison is when they go quail hunting.  Alison does not display a masculine mentality when hunting:

...when she took the bird from the dog's mouth her face had changed.  The bird was still living, so he brained it carelessly and then gave it back to her.  She held the little warm, ruffled body that had somehow become degraded in its fall, and looked into the head's little glassy black eyes.  Then she had burst into tears.  This was the sort of thing the Major meant by `female' and `morbid'; and it did a man no good to figure it out. (29)

Clearly, Morris does not accept this emotional response from Alison;  it goes against the rigid structure of the army post.  Morris's treatment of Anacleto is another example of his rejection of Alison.  Alison is very close to the Filipino houseboy.   He does not conform to the structure of the army post;  he is emotional, individual, idealistic, and imaginative.  This is evident in his philosophy about him and Alison:  ``It was common knowledge that he thought the Lord had blundered grossly in the making of everyone except himself and Madame Alison- the sole exception to this were people behind footlights, midgets, great artists, and such-like fabulous folk" (33).  Anacleto is not masculine at all, as he dances around the house and is a painter.  Also, his future plans reflect his idealism and show why Alison sees him as an escape from the army post:  ``She and Anacleto would stay out at sea all day with their nets lowered and there would be only the cold salt air, the ocean and the sun..." (38).  Anacleto is also a very innocent character:  ``He was seventeen years old, but his sickly, clever, frightened face had the innocent expression of a child of ten" (50).   For Alison, Anacleto is like a mother to her.  He is trying to take the best care of her possible:  `Do you think if I beat your pillows you would be more comfortable?' Anacleto asked" (51). 

In response to the individuality Anacleto displays, Morris is quite disrespectful.  He wishes he could have Anacleto in his army, so he could have control over him.   Morris says to Anacleto, ``God!  You're a rare bird...What I wouldn't do if I could get you in my battalion!" (33).
Morris's refusal to accept any non-conformity from anyone makes Alison do nonsensical acts, similar to what Penderton did.  She cuts off her nipples:  ``One night they found Mrs. Langdon unconscious and she had cut off her nipples of her breasts with the garden shears" (25).  This is reflective of her lack of comfort with the gender roles she has, the nipples being symbolic of womanhood and maternity.  Alison's difficulty in dealing with her individuality in the oppressive army post setting leads to her eventually going insane.  It is obvious that the setting of the army post cages Alison, and this is the cause of her demise:  ``The feelings of being trapped...made her cry in the dark...and delusions came to her" (88).

Contrary to the repressed Alison and Captain Penderton, Leonora Penderton is not a caged character.  She represents the Freudian Id.  Rather than being conscientious, she fulfills her primal desires with little inhibitions.  For example, she is hedonistic with her drinking:  ``Mrs. Penderton was not persnickety about her liquor.  She drank down two jiggers straight and chased them with a swallow of cold water" (5).  She is sensual, and self-centered.  This is shown in walking around her house naked frequently:  ``Then deliberately she unbuttoned her breeches and stepped out of them.  In a moment she was standing naked by the hearth" (11).  Also, ``Leonora always liked sleeping ``in the raw" as she called it" (43).  Leonora also displays her hedonistic ways by having affairs:  ``She herself would probably have reckoned her affairs according to a system of her own- giving the old Colonel at Leavenworth only half a count and the young Lieutenant in Hawaii several units in her calculations" (13).  Leonora is quite a different character from Alison and Penderton.  She only reacts to her own primal desires and does not have an imagination:  ``First, she always found it a little difficult to picture a situation that did not actually take place in the room with her" (85).

Morris is nearly an identical character to Leonora.  He is having an affair with her, so he is clearly self-centered and sensual.  He does not have an imagination either, as anything that is not according to the structure of the army post (masculinity, stoicism) is not accepted by him.  Morris loves the order and conformity of the army.  This is reflected in his desire to have Anacleto in his battalion so he could take away his individuality, and the following conversation with Penderton: 
You mean , Captain Penderton said, `that any fulfillment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong and should not be allowed to bring happiness.  In short, it is better, because it is morally honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit in?'
`Why you put it exactly right', the Major said.  (99)

This is paradigmatic of the major conflict of the novel:  romantic imaginative repressed characters (Captain Penderton, Alison, and Anacleto) who experience tragedies because of sensual, self-centered, conforming characters (Morris and Leonora).