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Jaroslav Kušnír's essay on 'The Hawkline Monster'
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Reconsideration of Nature, Myths and Narrative Conventions of Popular Literature in Richard Brautigan's Novel The Hawkline Monster: a Gothic Western (1976), or Gothic Novel and Western in One

by Jaroslav Kušnír?

In his book entitled Waiting for the End (1964), Leslie Fiedler? argues that

^"Not only in our literature but in our lives, we have shuttled back and forth between a romantic nature cult and a Philistine anti-nature religion: on the one hand, becoming enthusiastic advocates of nudism and the world's warmest supporters of Freudian psychology; on the other, joining movement after movement against whatever pleasures of the flesh; alcohol, meat, tobacco, drugs. In fact, we maintain these two polar attitudes not alternately but simultaneously, choosing duplicity rather than compromise; and this, indeed, is the essence of the American way" (Fiedler 1964: 140).


This results, according to Fiedler, in contradictory policies simultaneously corresponding to each attitude, one to

"... stamp out nature: chop down trees, kill off buffalo, slaughter whales, rape and ruin the wilderness, join the Christian Science Church" (Fiedler 1964: 140)

and the other to

"... disappear into Nature: preserve our primative areas, guard our natural resources, provide summer camping grounds with real live bears, strip to the buff and lie in the sun" (Fiedler 1964: 140).^
After a certain celebration of the power of nature, spirituality and imagination in his essay Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson gives rather a pessimistic vision of naure in his other essay Experience. In most of his novels, Richard Brautigan favours idealistic and romantic nature characterized above as the Rosseaueaque or Emersonian kind (Fiedler 1964: 140). It manifests itself especially in his novels A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964) or In Watermelon Sugar (1968). According to Manfred Pütz?,

^"... in Brautigan's fiction, locale and setting -— as significant materializations of the fictional counterfield in the sujet movement of pastoral identity stories -— take on decisive importance. It is here that Brautigan interconnects a wide range of topoi, motifs and codified elements from various literary traditions falling within the circumference of pastoralism" (Pütz 1979: 111).^
For most of Brautigan's protagonists, society represents danger and threat and is in opposition to nature and imagination. However, in his novel The Hawkline Monster (1974) the Gothic Western, Brautigan does not use idealized natural pastoral imagery. In this novel he employs several conventions of popular literature genres, especially the western, the Gothic novel, fantasy or even science-fiction. Gordon E. Slethaug identifies the exact sections and number of pages devoted to particular genres in this book. In his view,

^"Book 1 (59 pages) depends upon a western format, Book 2 (18 pages) upon the Gothic, and Book 3 (113) upon a combination of fantasy, science fiction, and then the detective story, concluding with a turn to realism" (Slethaug 1985: 139).^
In contrast to other Brautigan novels, in The Hawkline Monster nature and landscape represent terrifying, threatening and destructive forces, ultimately turning both into objects of parody. This paper analyzes the way Brautigan undermines the traditional symbolic meaning of nature as a positive force. At the same time, it attempts to show the way Brautigan distorts the traditional narrative conventions of popular literature (the western and the Gothic novel) in order to make a critique of some issues associated with American cultural identity (the idea of success; the American Dream; and the belief in technological progress).

In Book 1, entitled Hawaii, the landscape evokes a romantic or pastoral atmosphere. The narrator gives a description of harmony among people, nature and culture in a place generally evoking the image of a tourist paradise:

^"The man and boy and the horse were in the front yard of a big white house shaded by coconut trees. It was like a shining island in the pineapple fields. There was piano music coming from the house. It drifted lazily across the warm afternoon" (Brautigan 1976: 10).

This atmosphere is, however, at odds with the function and roles of the cowboys named Greer and Cameron. Hired to kill the family acting as typical cowboy characters, they in fact refuse to spoil the idealistic natural atmosphere. In this way they become only parodic versions of their western prototypes. Nature functions here only as a background for Brautigan's parodic intentions. In addition, the cowboys are geographically, spiritually and emotionally displaced; they are far removed from the context of the western setting and characters. The narrator portrays this displacement in the following way:

"Greer and Cameron were not at home in the pineapple field. They looked out of place in Hawaii. They were both dressed in cowboy clothes, clothes that belonged to Eastern Oregon" (Brautigan 1976: 9).^
This depiction of the natural landscape is in contradiction with the landscape typical for the western genre. On the other hand, the journey of the cowboys back to the western cities of Portland, Oregon; Gompville; Brooks; Billy; Central County and Dead Hills means a return to the typical setting of the western genre. This setting involves a version of nature which is not a positive force, but rather rough and threatening. At the same time, nature creates a symbolic background for the "roughness" and cruelty of the cowboys' nature. The final destination of their journey where they are hired to kill "the indefinite monster" is near the Dead Hills, a landscape characterized as mountainous and rough: "There were thousands of hills out there: yellow and barren in the summer with lots of juniper brush in the draws and a few pine trees here and there, acting as if they had wandered away like sheep from the mountains and out into the Dead Hills and had gotten lost and had never been able to find their way back ..." (Brautigan 1976: 24).

Brautigan's depiction of nature is presented there, on the one hand, in keeping with the conventions of the western genre. On the other hand, the rough landscape is not reflected in the otherwise expected rough nature of Greer and Cameron. These characters are only parodied versions of killers, indulging in sex, alcohol and the meaninglessness counting of different objects (Cameron). The depiction of nature gradually gains a terrifying, threatening character and Gothic atmosphere that culminates in Book III. With the physical movement of the two protagonists approaching the Dead Hills and the city of Billy to which the murder hirer's (Miss Hawkline's) house and the monster are situated, the reader is gradually prepared for tension evoked by this atmosphere. The landscape shortly before the protagonists meet Miss Hawkline is without life, barren and desolate:

^"The road was very bleak, wandering like the hand-writing of a dying person over the hills. There were no houses, no barns, no fences, no signs that human life had ever made its way this far except for the road which was barely legible" (Brautigan 1976: 52).^
While Brautigan heightens tension as the protagonists (Greer, Cameron, Magic Child) approach the Dead Hills, this atmosphere is weakened on the other hand by the author's depiction of the seemingly typical western tough characters/gunfighters. These characters are hired to kill people for money, but they indulge in sensual and sexual experience with Magic Child, a double of Miss Hawkline. The cowboys become only parodic versions of the typical western characters. Narrative conventions of both the western and the Gothic novel are undermined not only in this way, but also through Brautigan's use of irony. The narrator comments on the protagonists' observation of the country in the following way: "Finally they came across something human. It was a grave. The grave was right beside the road. It was simply a pile of bleak rocks covered with vulture shit. There was a wooden cross at one end of the rocks" (Brautigan 1976: 54).

Brautigan's use of irony passes into parodic imagery expressing the banality of the typical icons of western literature and film, such as desolate graves for example. The grave standing for violence and death supported by the image of vultures becomes only a banal icon and an unimportant detail when Brautigan uses the expression "shit." Here the Gothic landscape and atmosphere are similar to those known from the traditional Gothic novels depicting castles, manor houses and mysteries. This atmosphere culminates at the end of Book II and continues to the end. The final, fatal destination of Greer, Cameron, and Magic Child—Miss Hawkline's double—at her house, is described as:

^"... a huge three-storey yellow house about a quarter of a mile away in the center of a small meadow that was the same color as the house . . . There were no fences or outbuildings or anything human or trees near the house. It just stood there alone in the center of the meadow with white stuff piled close in around it and more white stuff on the ground around it ..." (Brautigan 1976: 5).^
Brautigan gradually draws the reader's attention to the geographical and topographical imagery associated with the East (New England) and West (Oregon), the USA and Europe, culture and primitivism (nature). The Hawkline manor house is further referred to as

^"... a classic Victorian with great gables and stained glass across the tops of the windows and turrets and balconies and red brick fireplaces and a huge porch all around the house ..." (Brautigan 1976: 58).^
This Victorian setting is supported by the interior of the house referred to as "... filled with beautiful Victorian furniture and very cold" (69) ... The parlor was exquisitely furnished in an expensive and tasteful manner" (86).

This all represents the imagery of the Gothic novel, which is further supported by Brautigan depiction of characters and events typical for this genre: an old faithful butler; a desolate house and mystery (the monster). The depiction of such setting and characters refer to European (British) tradition and its "refined culture." Fowler argues that

^"the word gothic initially conjured up visions of a medieval world, or dark passions enacted against the massive and sinister architecture of the gothic castle ... The gothic is characterized by a setting which consists of castles, monasteries, ruined houses or suitably picturesque surroundings, by characters who are, or seem to be, the quintessence of good or evil ... irrational and evil forces threaten both individual integrity and the material order of society" (Fowler 1987: 105).^
Although the Gothic "landscape" and atmosphere in Book II and further on is in keeping with the conventions of the Gothic novels (the house, the terrifying landscape and setting, "irrational and evil forces threaten both individual integrity and the material order of society"), Brautigan alters the function of both the Gothic novel and the western. The gothic writers' typical landscape of the British kind seems to be geographically, topographically, emotionally and spiritually incompatible with the American setting. In a broader sense, it is incompatible with American culture represented by Brautigan's use of the conventions of the western genre as well as of natural imagery. This natural imagery intensifies the incompatibility of the British Gothic tradition and culture within the American cultural context. The narrator says that

^"... the house ... did not belong out there in the Dead Hills ... the house belonged ... any place other than where it was now ... the house looked like a fugitive from a dream" (Brautigan 1976: 59).^
The whole Victorian Hawkline manor becomes a "melting pot" of different genre conventions, rationality and irrationality, reality and fantasy, seriousness and humour, past, present and future. The house becomes a symbol of traditionally optimistic cultural expectations and its incompatibility with reality itself. The vision of a house in an isolated area is reminiscent of John Winthrop's vision of "a city upon a hill" alluding to the idea of a cultural experiment in a new country (Willis 1981-82: 37), which is further supported by Brautigan's depiction of the mysterious and absent character of Professor Hawkline and his chemical experiments. The result of this experiment is a monster representing an evil and destroying force acting against its creator. Not only the chemical, but also the cultural experiment of the Puritans and consequently the New Englanders (symbolically represented by educated Professor Hawkline and, for example, Magic Child/Miss Hawkline who accompanies the cowboys) seems to fail in the cultural environment of America. The narrator argues about Magic Child/Miss Hawkline that "She was a member of a prominent New England family that dated back to the Mayflower. Her family had been one of the contributing lights that led to the flowering of New England society and culture" (Brautigan 1976: 56).

Brautigan symbolically shows that a rationalistic understanding of and approach to life and society can be only partly successful. It can bring some technological progress, whose result is, however, unsure, (Professor Hawkline and his product, the monster). Rationality represented by Greer and Cameron can temporarily destroy the life-threatening forces, but it cannot definitely bring happiness. Greer and Cameron, representing parodied versions of gunfighters and therefore the rationalistic approach to life, must face the irrational world of fantasy at Hawkline Manor and are unable to transcend its boundaries. The only weapon they want to use to destroy it is typical for the western characters—guns, violence and a rationalistic, however parodic, handling of the situation. The world of fantasy and imagination, as well as the symbolic, spiritual and intuitive approach to life, is strange to them:

^"What does supernatural mean?" Cameron said ... "It means out of the ordinary," Miss Cameron said.

"That's good to know," Cameron said. He did not say it in a pleasant way" (Brautigan 1976: 89).^
Although their rationalistic, commonsensical and pragmatic ways help the cowboys to destroy the monster (by pouring alcohol on it), it does not bring them happiness and makes them the parodic clichés of the Hollywood films of the 20th century. Professor Hawkins is saved, but nature, and symbolically the past, present and especially the future are still terrifying. This is expressed in the final apocalyptic situation, reminiscent of Edgar Alan Poe's? short story The Fall of the House of Usher (1839). Hawkline Manor is destroyed in an almost ritualistic way:

^"The flames roared high into the sky. They were so bright that everybody had shadows (181) ... By the light of the morning sun the house was gone and in its place was a small lake floating with burned things ..." (Brautigan 1976: 183).^
The narrator characterizes this situation as "the end of a scientific dream" (182) and continues: "It was almost like something out of Hieronymus Bosch if he had been into Western landscapes" (183). According to Lonnie Willis,

^"Brautigan reveals his theories about America's apocalyptic future, to be wrought by a national inability to distinguish between illusion and reality" (Willis 1981-2: 44).

Here nature is not a source of Emersonian inspiration known from his earlier essays, but represents a force of destruction, a symbol of failed ideals and failure of the American Dream represented by the cultural expectations associated with new land and its possibilities. The Gothic landscape turns out to consist of ordinary, plain soil of no importance at the very end of the novel. It turns into a park.

"... but being in a fairly remote area of Oregon with very poor roads, the lake never developed into a popular recreational site and doesn't get many visitors" (Brautigan 1976: 188).

According to Willis

"The Hawkline Monster investigates the failure of the American experience to harmonize expectation and reality, and it calls attention to illusions that have distorted the national vision" (Willis 1981-82: 37).

Willis goes on to argue that

"The Professor's idealism to the contrary, the novel fails to provide anything but a sense of doom for the American experiment ... the dream and the myth beckoned Americans into the big white house of illusion: the reality of America is to be revealed back in the Hawkline mansion" (Willis 1981-82: 37).^
Brautigan's novel here becomes a symbolic expression of scepticism and a negative vision of the future. With one exception -— Cameron, the typical representative of a success story -— the protagonists end tragically at the conclusion of the novel, unable to adapt to the new technological and commercial conditions of the forthcoming (20th) century. They become anachronisms and clichés belonging to Hollywood films rather than to 20th century reality. According to Pütz, in Brautigan fiction

^"... the corporate state and technocracy obviously comprise the mechanisms of urban life, the pressures of an all-pervading economic machine, a society which defines its objectives as the circuitous structure of efficient producing and affluent consuming, the degradation of everything to a commodity, and the functional utility of individual life" (Pütz 1979: 126).^
For Brautigan, nature in this novel is not idealized, it is not a source of inspiration or a place of escape known from his earlier novels (A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), Trout Fishing in America (1967), and In Watermelon Sugar (1968). While in most Brautigan novels his protagonists' imagination represents a renewed unity of nature and man (Pütz, 1979), in this novel, as Pütz argues, ... nature and divine primitivism have lost their symbolic qualities" (Pütz 1979: 128). In this novel, in line with Thoreau, Brautigan rejects the materialistic and commercial character of society, but unlike Thoreau he presents nature not as a place of escape and inspiration, but only as a cliché-like icon. At the same time, through his treatment and depiction of nature, Brautigan presents a critique of some American myths related to American cultural identity (the heroism of frontier cowboys, a retreat into nature). Through his parodic use of the conventions of popular literature (the western, the Gothic novel, the sci-fi novel), he expresses a critique of materialistic and consumerist culture. In addition to this, Brautigan criticizes the commodification of national symbols and myths thus challenging the illusory vision of national cultural identity, its history and alleged success. At the same time, Brautigan's parody of the typical American genres of popular culture expresses a critique of American cultural symbols, especially the idea of the success story and the American dream.


American Fiction: Modernism-Postmodernism, Popular Culture, and Metafiction ibidem-Verlag, 2007: 55-63



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