Saunders question Feb 17:
Berriault is asking a lot of us, with this near-operatic development. A kid kills his beloved older brother on the bottom of the third page of the story. Not only that, it’s a pretty freakish, unlikely accident – the gun goes off, and it just happens to be pointing at Eugie in a way that kills him almost instantly. There’s a lot to resist there.
So: how did Berriault do it?
You might want to try to recreate your first reading experience. What resistances arose? How did Berriault assuage/deal with these? What were the charms with which she distracted you? Where was your attention, at certain critical moments? Where would you normally have resisted? Why didn’t you?
My comment:
How does Berriault do it? Do what? Get us to believe such a thing could have happened and that the story seems somehow true to life as we know it? I never would have thought otherwise. The only part where I paused a moment was What’s wrong with Arnold that he does not go for help right away?
But then I am with Arnold as his hands are strange to him, and go along with him as he awkwardly drags the tub of peas up the hill, into the kitchen, and calmly tells his family that his brother is dead. He knows its true and he knows he has to tell the truth. He has no idea why it all happened as it did but he does know he is guilty and about to be punished. The extent of his punishment however never occurs to him — won’t they see that he’s the same Arnold he has always been and not some unfeeling monster? Surely his mother will recognize that, he was ready to tell her when he stood outside her door at night. He has noticed that his mother had not spoken in the kitchen along with the other women; Arnold can sense something different in his mother. And that’s what goes through his mind, how he will “clasp her in her arms and pommel her breasts with his head, grieving with her…”
But she isn’t ready to comfort him at this point. She is still angry at him, sharp with him, telling him to go back to bed. Sounds true to me, that part. We can’t expect the mother to be ready to take care of Arnold when she is so deep in grief for her dead son. Maybe another day she will be ready. Let the mother be in shock as well, when she tells Arnold to go away, and acts as if it were a more normal time when he might have sought her at night, afraid of the dark. “Go back!” she commands, then asks “Is night when you get afraid?” As if she has no idea why he might be knocking on her door that night. I think she knows but has to hide her inability to respond to him just then, by bringing up a normal reason he might be at her door at night.
But Arnold, full of grief and repentance, does not understand. Surely his mother was sitting up in bed waiting to be told the truth about how he feels. He is shocked (“for a stricken moment stood by the rocker”) that she is not waiting to hear from him. And then everything outside appears to be still and silent. And he becomes suddenly aware of his nakedness, unpardonable. He has nakedly tried to show his feelings, is rejected, and that nakedness (vulnerability) now cannot be forgiven. So ironic in that the townspeople all berate him for appearing unfeeling. (The one part of the story that did not ring true for me was the great chorus of neighbors who are so ready to blame and deride the boy. Not a touch of sympathy for him, not even a bit.)
But Arnold has hope again the next morning when his father rebukes the sister for not passing Arnold the milk jug and then “picked up the metal pitcher and set if down at Arnold’s plate.” Relief rained over him then “at the thought his parents recognized him again.” He imagines they had realized together what he had wanted to say as he stood by the door last night. He knows his mother is seeking him out - she asks “awkwardly“ and then “humbly,” reaching out to ask what he wanted at the door last night.
Now Arnold is one not ready to soften. “I didn’t want nothing” he says flatly, and is “frightened by his answer.” Such a terrible blow he feels dealt, and such a terrifying sudden end to the story.
I want to imagine there will be another time when this family can talk about how they feel. But I’m afraid the title “The Stone Boy” does not allow such a fantasy. We have to believe, at the end, that the boy has indeed been turned to stone and that this is the way of the world, this world at this time.