English 1202
Essay 2
Place Where We Live � A Matter of Choice or Predestination?
The main character of Annie Proloux short story �The Bunchgrass Edge of the World� � Ottaline is a fascinating personality, however the analysis of her behavior also reveals important facts about the connection which human being have with the landscape in which they live. She is a young girl � recently graduated from high-school � living on a farm in the middle of prairie with her parents and grandfather. The author presents some of her family�s history; her grandfather � Old Red � built the farm which was later taken over by her father. Her younger sister and brother, leave home and move to big city. Ottaline, however, is not an �ordinary farm girl�, she helps her father in man�s works rather than tending the house. In her free time she listens to stranger�s cell-phone conversations or is immersing herself in the imaginative world of dreams or friendship with an old, abandoned tractor. The most pertaining question concerning this character is, however: why doesn�t she leave the farm despite loneliness and dreams of different life? Can the explanation be found in the fact that sometimes one�s external landscape shapes one�s internal landscape to a point when the two become inseparable?
This sort of motives might be very difficult to grasp for city habitants, used to mobility and changes � different jobs, apartments, and ways to reach their destinations. Life in the country is different; while all the cities are the same and one can quickly adjust to its minor variations, nature creates unique places, which in turn breed distinctive people. Particular landscape shapes people who are most suited to make it productive, the land and human develop a symbiosis � relationship beneficial to both. On the other hand, not everyone is suited for a hard work of farming; just like the combination of soil, sun and climate constituting �perfect place�, so does the right mixture of human features does not happen too often.
When Annie Proloux introduces Ottaline, the only thing the girl wants is different life: �She wanted to be away, wearing red sandals with cork soles, sitting in the passenger seat of a pearl-colored late model pick-up drinking from a bottle shaped like a hula girl� (622). She periodically asks her father to take her to the city so that she can find a job: all of her pleads are refused � her father is afraid that her weight would damage the car. This situation reveals two major barriers, which keep Ottaline away from breaking out of the confinements of farm life � the isolation and her weight. From the place where she lives �It is too far to anything� (624), she realizes that she wont be able to break away be herself �Someone had to come for her� (624). The second factor tying her down to the place she had not chosen her is the �physique approaching the size of a hundred gallon-tank� (621). In these terms the one aspect of Ottaline�s behavior has an interesting connotation – her attempt to lose weight: �If it kills me I am goin a walk it off� [625] � she proclaims looking at her sister�s picture. It can be interpreted as an effort to break away from the farm and current life. Being overweight undermines Ottaline�s self confidence �She was not audacious, not like her younger sister� [622]. It results in sort of �spirit immobility� which does not allow her to go and see the world outside. What is more significant though, is – as Prolux indicates – that Ottaline�s attitude changes along the developments in her life. She seems less preoccupied about her appearance when she discovers old tractor. This shift hints that Ottaline�s deep desire is not leaving the farm � by literally losing the balance holding her down, her weight � but rather contact with people, experiencing warmth of love.
The other of her bonds � isolation also affects the character in major way. �Ottaline had seen most of what there was to see around her with nothing new in sight. Brilliant events burst open not in the future but in her imagination� (624) which by the lack of boundaries represents an escape from bounded life. The monotony of the landscape, �empty ground � nothing much but weather and distance� (619) results in the void of mental and sensual experiences. Where there is nothing around, the only was is to imagine something exciting; just like Ottaline does when she is daydreaming of having conversations with an old, broken tractor; not without meaning is the fact that he has a human name � John Dreery. She answers his pleads and even persuades her father to help her fix the machine. Moreover, the tractor�s motif implies that for her imaginative world is very natural, definitely not a cause for concern; her doubts about the reality of tractor�s voice are short and not substantial. Her proclamation �It seems like somebody is makin fun a me� (627) is rather her inability to accept that someone � or in this case something � can be nice and kind to her, than her doubts about the situation.
Ottaline�s real problem is not the place where she lives but conditions in which she lives. The dominating feeling she experiences is loneliness; living on a farm where �The wind isolated them from the world� (620) with minimal contact with people other than her �unfeeling parents� (625) and menacing grandfather. She craves love and feelings as well as physical contact with others, �The raw loneliness then, the silences of the day; the longing flesh led her to press her mouth into the crook of her own hot elbow� (624). In the lack of this element in her life she gives human characteristics to inanimate object � tractor, in addition she makes this surrogate friend according to her desires. The tractor talks to her in a way that nobody did before �Sweetheart, lady-girl� [626]; Ottaline subconsciously tries to feel the void of warm feelings, which every person wants and needs. This motif can be also be considered in different terms; Ottaline like most other young women longs to be �productive�, fertile, her fixing of tractor is in a sense giving life, bringing the machine from the depths of abandonment to the world.
Ottaline�s is shaped by the place where she lives, and even though she feels imprisoned by the isolation and burdened with loneliness, Red Wall Country is the right place for her. Even though, she might not realize that she is the real daughter of prairie. The prairie is a very harsh world to live in, it is vast, empty and windy; to survive one has to work very hard, tearing the poor means of subsistence from unyielding soil. This hard environment creates equally tough people; those who posses features allowing them to survive in this difficult environment.
Ottaline�s behavior is passive, she yields to life pressures. Having to deal with her weight and loneliness she had to accept her situation at least to some degree Being always �the family embarrassment� [619], Ottaline has been taught humility. She is not fighting, she agrees to what life brings, therefore she can cope with constant problems and unpredictability of farm life. It represents a more general truth that people who live in close contact with nature develop particular features of their world view and their character; one of the most distinctive ones is their acceptance of what ever happens in their lives. Farmers work hard but the outcome of their efforts is ultimately decided by nature, which give the great harvest or it can destroy everything. In such light it is understandable why the religion has a stronger hold in the country side � God and prayer help to deal with the felling of powerlessness.
Ottaline�s life consisted of many compromises and surrenders on her part. It is important, because, prairie is not a happy world and Ottaline is used to harshness: �She had eaten from a plateful of misery since childhood, suffered avoirdupois, unfeeling parents, and the hard circumstances of the place.� (625). She is fitted for prairie because probably the most important feature of her personality is ability to adjust. For example, when she fails in the area of housework, she switches to more man�s task by helping her father; her solution to loneliness is developing almost a friendship with a tractor which is however, barely mentioned after she gets married indicating that she has now found a real relationship and closeness.
Farmer�s life is built around nature, which dictates every activity of a person; its cyclical character makes the life even more monotonous. Nature has periods when it forces people to work more than they can, but it also has periods when farmers are almost idle. The contrast of intense season and boring winter night affects people profoundly; the stagnation affects people living in close relation with nature stronger than those living in artificial time frame of cities. It is not accidental that villagers develop closer contacts with their families and neighbors � it is the need to fill the emptiness during the nature�s sleep. In the city one can always read or see a movie in a free time, but on a farm many tasks are done alone or in a small group, as a result the need for other human beings is deeper than for the urban habitants constantly surrounded by crowds. In addition, people used to have constant contact with various forms of life, expect �real� contact with other people too.
Annie Proloux�s story�s main character � Ottaline is a fascinating personality, but equally interesting is her development during the course of the story. A reader can observe how this young girl adjusts to the requirements of the place she lives. She is shaped by her environment in a way that makes her suited for the life on the prairie; however, she has to accept this fact. At the beginning of the story her only desire is to break out of the confinements of farm life, then she tries to cope with the factors which hold her down, her weight, and loneliness lack of feelings. However, she cannot leave because subconsciously she feels that because of her mental and physical features she could not be happy anywhere else. Many people tried to change themselves or fight their natural predisposition only to find that their goal � whether different place or life � is not as �perfect� as they imagined. Ultimately Ottaline gets married, and this fills the crucial void in her world; we can expect that she is on the best route to be happy. She could find life�s equilibrium because she does not fight herself, her yielding to circumstances is not failure it is entrusting life to the hidden wisdom. Happiness can be found by finding the place where the external landscape and the internal landscape are in harmony.
Work Cited
Proulx, Anne. ” The Bunchgrass Edge of the World.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and
Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. Fifth Edition. New York: McGraw, 2002. 619-634.