Surrender Becomes Power By Kellie Storm

In Part I. of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, McCullerscharacterizes Mick Kelly in a few scenes which foreshadow her sexual trauma.One of Mick's first gestures in the novel is the famous inscription ofgraffiti on the inner walls of a house under construction. In addition to herlist on one wall of notable men--Mozart, Edison, Dick Tracy, and Mussolini,she writes on an opposite wall "a very bad word--PUSSY" and herinitials, M.K. (37). At this point, she has ambitious fantasies about beingan artist. She longs for the power to inscribe her initials, her identity, onhandkerchiefs, underwear, cars, stage curtains, and eventually, her musicalcompositions. The symbolism of rooms at the novel's outset becomesimportant again when Mick begins to write songs. As a defense against hernoisy, crowded household, she imagines herself composing in an "insideroom," the spacious dimensions of her imagination. Yet Mick Kelly,unlike her creator, who read many biographies of famous women as a child,knows of no intelligent women who are admired in her world (Carr 27). Notsurprisingly, she chooses to ignore her femaleness and identify with men. Shetells her sisters she would "'rather be a boy anyday,'"as her name, her clothing and cropped hair all testify (42). Ironically,Mick's graffiti--"PUSSY M.K."--prophesies her ignominious fatein a culture where femaleness disqualifies genius.

Surrender Becomes Power by Kellie Storm

McCullers describes Mick's physical reaction to intercourse:"It was like her head was broke off from her body and thrown away"(272). Mick's image of decapitation powerfully suggests her refusal tosurrender emotionally to what is occurring and her rejection of it, not thatshe is experiencing orgasm as one critic suggests (Spivak 17). Mick admits toHarry as they return despondently to town, "'I didn't likethat. I never will marry with any boy' "(273). Mick fears andresents the change that seems to be arbitrarily imposed on her because of anisolated sexual act: "She was a grown person now, whether she wanted tobe or not" (274). However, her feeling is not really of adulthood, forthat implies status and privilege. Rather, she is experiencing what it meansto be female and inferior in her culture.

And then when it's whirlwind black, the storm whisks the slight straw and the airborne slips away. And often in the sky looms tremendous host of waters, clouds levied from the ether roll of murky squall of swart rains, shelved heaven tumbles, and with its wet pounding washes off the wilting crop and the oxens' laborers. The gutter is filled, the gully swells with rushing and the seas seethes as estuaries heaving and the father himself in the midnight of clouds, hurls with his bulging fists, the thunder boat at whose impact the Earth's both trembles, quitters, scatter, terrors blast, all hearts to powering.

That was Professor Bushnell reading a passage from the Roman poet Virgil's Georgics, poems about farming. In these poems Virgil highlights how human beings attempt to control the natural world, but in this passage about the power of a violent storm he reminds us that there are limits to our control. And as events like extreme weather become a more frequent occurrence or viruses that originate in animal populations make the leap into humans to spark a worldwide pandemic, people in all corners of the globe are being reminded how vulnerable we can be at the hands of nature. But then there's another dimension to the human connection to nature. One of pure appreciation. 041b061a72