The Day of the Locust

After seeing the terrible ending of the movie, it's hard to focus on the actual book...

Somewhat off topic, but there was a scene on the SNL X-mas special that switched a real person to an inflatable doll and as they were beating this doll, I couldn't help but think of the scene in the movie where Homer stomps on Adore. It was just as absurd.

Also, the very end of the movie looked like they went to Mexico and recycled some Day of the Dead decorations with the parade of skulls - it was strange.

One of the things that I found interesting while reading Day of the Locust was the vast differences shown by Tod's personality at times. There were many moments where he was a really gross creeper. Between his obessesion with pictures of Faye to his rapist fantasies, he was most horrifying in the way that he would have appeared to be totally normal to most of the people in his life. He was at times a genuinely nice guy and a good friend, especially to Homer.

Despite the fact that Tod had many rape fantasies throughout the book, near the end, he even helps the girl in the crowd who is being groped by another man - he recognizes that as wrong and hits the man, but doesn't seem to find anything sick in his own perversions.

Another section of the book that I thought a bit more about after our class discussion was the scene in chapter 14 where we see Earle in front of the fake Western goods store. In class we had discussed that the window display of "a large collection of torture instruments... fancy braided quirts, spurs with great spiked wheels, and double bits that looked as though they could break a horse's jaw without trouble," could be seen as foreshadowing to the violence that was to come. Realistically, none of these things are regularly used for any form of torture or pain. They are all used on horses, but not for pain, only gentle encouragement. It's more about cues, sounds and slight adjustments to the reins and leg pressure. I understand the point of West describing them as torture instruments, but I just wanted to point out that isn't really accurate.

I do wish that we could have read more of Faye's perspective. She seems to be a very troubled person who regularly uses others, but often finds herself being used and objectified, not that she seems to consider that a negative thing. Between her dancing at camp and her behavior at the party at Homer's house, I felt like she didn't really get much of an explanation, besides just being a young woman in show biz. I was left with a lot of questions about her motives and thoughts, but the story really revolved around Tod and his thoughts/motives, so I can see how hers were not really vital.